Charles Sumner (bishop)

Charles Richard Sumner (22 November 1790 – 15 August 1874) was a Church of England bishop.

Charles Sumner was a brother of John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury. Their father was Robert Sumner and their mother was Hannah Bird, a first cousin of William Wilberforce.

Sumner was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge and graduated Bachelor of Arts (BA) in 1814 and Cambridge Master of Arts (MA) in 1817. After ordination he ministered for the two winters of 1814–1816 to the English congregation in Geneva. From 1816 to 1821 he was curate of Highclere, Hampshire. In 1820, George IV wished to appoint him as a canon of Windsor, but the prime minister, Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, objected; Sumner received instead a royal chaplaincy and librarianship. Other preferments quickly followed; in 1826 he was consecrated Bishop of Llandaff (at that point the Bishop of Llandaff was also Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, London) and in 1827 Bishop of Winchester. In 1869 he resigned his seat, but continued to live at the official residence in Farnham until his death on 15 August 1874.

Though Evangelical in his views he did not confine his patronage to that school.

He and his brother were members of the Canterbury Association from 27 March 1848.

Sumner published a number of charges and sermons and The Ministerial Character of Christ Practically Considered (London, 1824). He also edited and translated John Milton's De doctrina christiana, which was found in the State Paper office in 1823, and formed the text of Macaulay's famous essay on Milton.

Sumner married Jennie Fanny Barnabine Maunoir (23 February 1794 – 3 September 1849); they had four sons and three daughters.

His son, George Sumner, also a bishop, was the husband of Mary Sumner, founder of the Mothers' Union. His daughter, Emily Sarah Frances, married Robert Newman Milford (1829–1913), Rector of East Knoyle, Wiltshire (1865–1912) and a canon of Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire (1896–1912); their son, Humphrey Sumner Milford, was highly influential in early 20th century music and literature as Publisher to the University of Oxford. His second daughter, Sophia Albertina, married William Henry Ridley. His eldest daughter, Louisanna (1817–1899), married William Gibson, a priest in Chester, in 1837 and of their eleven children Arthur Gibson became a rugby union international for England, playing in the first international in 1871; Herbert William Sumner Gibson became a vice admiral in the Royal Navy; Edgar Gibson became Bishop of Gloucester; Walter Sumner Gibson became an academic reader at the Oxford University Press from 1914 and his nephew through his wife's youngest brother was the actor Laurence Olivier; and Alan George Sumner Gibson became a coadjutor bishop of Cape Town.