Alfred Rawlinson

Alfred Edward John Rawlinson (called Jack; 17 July 1884 – 17 July 1960) was an eminent British scholar of divinity and an Anglican bishop. He was the second Bishop of Derby (a diocesan bishop in the Church of England) from 1936 until his retirement in 1959.

Born at Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire and educated at Dulwich College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he was ordained a deacon in 1909 and a priest in 1910. He married Mildred, oldest daughter of P. A. Ellis (sometime Vicar of St Mary-the-Virgin, Tothill Fields), and they had one son.

His academic career began as a tutor at Keble College, Oxford (1909–1913). Further academic posts at Christ Church, Oxford and Corpus followed: he was a Student (the Christ Church equivalent of a Fellow at other colleges) and Tutor at Christ Church from 1914 to 1929, and assistant chaplain and college lecturer in divinity at Corpus Christi from 1920 to 1929. He was also a university lecturer in divinity studies from 1927 to 1929.

Meanwhile, his priestly ministry included examining chaplain to John Kempthorne, Bishop of Lichfield (1913–1929) and a brief spell as priest-in-charge of St John the Evangelist, Wilton Road (Victoria, London; 1917–1918). He was appointed a Chaplain to the King (George V; 1930–1936) and departed Oxford to become Archdeacon of Auckland, a Canon Residentiary of Durham Cathedral, and examining chaplain to Hensley Henson, Bishop of Durham (all 1929–1936), before his election to the See of Derby. He was consecrated a bishop by Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, on St Matthias' day (24 February) 1936 at St Paul's Cathedral. He retired to Golders Green and died at a London hospital. His ashes were interred in Derby Cathedral at a memorial service on 17 September 1960.

Monographs

• Dogma, Fact, and Experience (1915)
• Religious Reality: A Book for Men London: Longmans, Green & Co (1918)
• Catholicism with freedom : an appeal for a new policy / being a paper read at the Anglo-Catholic congress at Birmingham on the 22nd June, 1922; and now addressed as an open letter to all members of the Church of England ...London: Longmans (1922)
• Adventures in the Near East, 1918–1922 London: Melrose. Attr. King's College London (1924)
• Authority and freedom: Bishop Paddock Lectures. 1923 London, Longmans, Green (1924)
• The New Testament Doctrine of the Christ Bampton Lectures London; New York: Longmans, Green (1926)
• Christ in the Gospels Oxford: Oxford University Press (1944)
• The Anglican Communion in Christendom London: SPCK (1960).

Contributor to

• Foundations: A Statement of Christian Belief in Terms of Modern Thought: By Seven Oxford Men. London: Macmillan (1912)
• Essays Catholic and Critical edited by E G Selwyn London: SPCK (1926)
• Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation London: Longmans (1928)
• God and the World through Christian Eyes London: Student Christian Movement Press (1933)
• The Christian Faith: Essays in explanation and defence London: Eyre & Spottiswoode (1944).