Edward Tufnell

Edward Wyndham Tufnell (3 October 1814 – 3 December 1896) was the first Bishop of Brisbane.

Tufnell was born on 3 October 1814 in Bath, Somerset and educated at Eton and Wadham College, Oxford. He was the son of a banker, John Charles Tufnell, and Uliana Ivanova Margaret Fowell, who had a total of eighteen children.

Ordained a priest in 1839, his first posts were curacies at Broadwindsor and Broad Hinton. After this he held incumbencies at Beechingstoke and Marlborough. He was then appointed to the colonial episcopate, serving from 1859 to 1874.

Front view of Riversleigh, North Quay, Brisbane, c. 1931

In Brisbane in 1863, Edward Tufnell commissioned architect Benjamin Backhouse to build the house Riversleigh on North Quay as an investment.

Tufnell returned to England in 1874. In 1882 he became the vicar of Felpham near Bognor Regis and in 1888 he paid for the school to move to a new site in Felpham Way. The school is still named after him, but moved again in 1957. The rector's vestry at St Mary's Church was erected in 1899 as a memorial to him.

Tufnell married his cousin, Laura Tufnell, who was the daughter of John Jolliffe Tufnell of Langleys, Essex. They had two children: Arthur Wyndam Tufnell, who was murdered in India while travelling on a train to Simla; and Ida Mary Uliana Mary Tufnell, who married Henry Arthur Wansborough, a priest. Laura Tufnell was the sister of Maria Tufnell, who married Edward Strutt, founder of Strutt and Parkers estate agents. Maria was lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte. Tufnell died on 3 December 1896.