The two dioceses with which St. Saviour’s Church and parish have hitherto been associated are Winchester and Rochester. The former was originally one of the largest in England, extending as it did in one direction from the south of London to the Channel Islands; the latter the smallest of all, covering only a portion of the county of Kent. Various changes have been made from time to time in the area of both in attempts to equalise the duties of their Bishops, and to meet other altering conditions. Of these changes the first that concerns us was that made in August, 1877, when the parishes wholly or partly within the parliamentary divisions of East and Mid Surrey (with two exceptions) were transferred from the dioceses of Winchester and London to Rochester. The Borough of Southwark, including St. Saviour’s Church, was thus brought from the jurisdiction of the first to the last of these dioceses. In the following year the portion of Surrey included in the transfer was formed into the new Archdeaconry of Southwark; and a few months later (August, 1878) the patronage of the benefices thus transferred, and hitherto held by the Bishops of London and Winchester, was vested in the Bishop of Rochester. In 1879, in 1886, and again in 1901, the Rural Deaneries of Rochester were rearranged, thus shifting more or less the boundaries of the Southwark Archdeaconry. But the area of the Rochester Diocese was left undisturbed till 1904, when “the Southwark and Birmingham Bishoprics Act” of that year allowed the Diocese of Southwark to be formed out of it. St. Saviour’s had been popularly known as a pro-Cathedral for some years previous to 1905, when it was formally constituted the Cathedral of Southwark. The architecture of the fabric, with its long history and associations, had long pointed to this fine church for the purpose, for which it was further prepared by Sir Arthur Blomfield’s restoration, begun in 1890.

Dr. Anthony Wilson Thorold was appointed to the See of Rochester in 1877, and translated to Winchester in 1891. It was, therefore, in his time that the first diocesan changes affecting St. Saviour’s were made, and the restoration of the church was actively taken in hand. By far the most important part of this work was the rebuilding of the nave, which he had the satisfaction of seeing well advanced before his translation. Some of his predecessors had become alive to the necessity of reducing the onerous duties of the See, but it was left to him to give effect to their wishes by the creation of the Archdeaconry of Southwark, with an eye to its forming the nucleus of a separate diocese. His successor, Dr. Randall Thomas Davidson, now Archbishop of Canterbury, lent his full energies to the work thus begun, in which he was ably supported by the Suffragan Bishop of Southwark, Dr. Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs, consecrated in 1891 and promoted to the See of Worcester in 1905 in consequence of the episcopal changes brought about by the Act of Parliament just mentioned. Before Dr. Davidson’s removal to Winchester in 1895, besides supervising the restoration of Rochester Cathedral, he was able to do a good work more directly concerning the Southwark Diocese, in the erection of the Bishop’s House by Kennington Park. The funds were provided by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners from the sale of Danbury Palace, hitherto the residence of the Bishops of Rochester, but now disposed of as inaccessible and otherwise inconvenient. In place of it the new house was built in the heart of the most thickly peopled part of the diocese, within the Southwark Archdeaconry, and probably in view of its ultimately becoming the residence of the Bishop of Southwark. Dr. Davidson himself was not destined to occupy it, as it was not finished till he was on the eve of translation. On 12th November, 1895, Edward Stuart Talbot was enthroned as his successor in the See of Rochester, and at once took up his abode at Kennington, where he will continue to live at this easy centre of communication between him and his people now that he is Bishop of Southwark.

It will be seen from the accompanying map that the new diocese has been made to include the whole of the county of London south of the Thames, and the Archdeaconry of Kingston, thus reducing the area of Rochester to about half its previous size and relieving it of its most thickly crowded portion.

The population of the diocese of Rochester at the census of 1901 was 2,254,947. The population of the Southwark Diocese at the present time is roughly estimated at 2,000,000, rather more than less. It consists of 294 parishes, ministered to by 687 licensed clergy, or about one to every 3,000 people, except in South London, where the proportion is about one to every 4,000.

Bounded on the north by the Thames, on the east, south, and west by the dioceses of Canterbury, Chichester, and Winchester respectively, the space enclosed presents an irregular figure varying from some three miles in breadth, in its central portion, to about thirteen along its southern frontier, and about twenty in its widest part towards the north. Its greatest length in a straight line from London Bridge to Felbridge is about twenty-five miles. Geographically the map suggests a couple of small continents joined together by a sort of isthmus in the middle, where the breadth is narrowed by the sweeping bays, or inlets, formed by the encroaching dioceses on the right and left

By Letters Patent, dated 17th May, 1905, Dr. Edward Stuart Talbot, previously Bishop of Rochester, was appointed to the newly-founded See of Southwark. For its better organisation he lost no time in applying to the Crown for the appointment of two Suffragan Bishops, suggesting one for Woolwich, as a place of great national importance and a centre of vigorous municipal and industrial life; the other for Kingston, as representing the ancient and rural side of the diocese. By the approval of His Majesty the appointments were made in the same month, viz.: the Rev. John Cox Leeke, Hon. Canon of Rochester Cathedral and Rural Dean of Woolwich, to be Bishop Suffragan of Woolwich; and the Rev. Cecil Hook, Vicar of All Saints’, Leamington, and Hon. Canon of Worcester Cathedral, to be Bishop Suffragan of Kingston-on-Thames.

In one sense the most important difficulty to be overcome in the formation of the new diocese was the raising of the capital to provide for the endowment, a sine qua non to the Parliamentary sanction. The requisite sum was provided by voluntary contributions, great and small, throughout the undivided diocese of Rochester, and throughout the country; not the least interesting item being the “shilling fund,” promoted by the Rev. T.B. Dover, Vicar of Maiden, which resulted in an Easter offering of exactly L2,200. The capital was brought up to L109,000 by the time the new appointments were made. It is intended to provide a minimum income of L3,000 for the Bishop of Southwark, and a house for his successor in the See of Rochester, in lieu of the house at Kennington Park, transferred from the old to the new diocese. The funds of the latter have since been augmented by a grant of L25,000 from the Bishop of London, out of the compensation money (L100,000), paid by the City and South London Electric Railway Company for undermining the City Church of St. Mary Woolnoth in order to build a station. This sum of L25,000 is specially destined for church extension, and Dr. Talbot set apart L2,000 of it, directly it was granted, for that purpose in the Woolwich area.

Mr. Harry Lloyd, of Woodlands, Caterham, is acting as Hon. Treasurer to the fund which has been opened for the complete equipment of the diocese.

The Cathedral Church of St. Saviour is as yet without endowment, and depends entirely upon voluntary offerings for its expenses. These were estimated on the average at about L2,500 till last year, when the cost of maintenance amounted to L3,096, besides which about L350 was required for the College of Clergy. Attention was called to this matter by the Ven. Archdeacon Taylor during his Visitation held in the Cathedral on 25th May, 1905, when he made an earnest appeal to the church people of the diocese for their help and sympathy on behalf of the Cathedral, the Bishop and his Suffragans, and all concerned in the work.

The duties before them, in the arrangement and control of the various elements of which the diocese is composed, will obviously not be light, but ought to be extremely interesting and rewarding. They will have to deal with extremes, which may there be said to meet, in a combination of rural and urban, ancient and modern, commercial, industrial, and aristocratic life, a variety in unity such as the Catholic Church itself presents, of which the diocese may be regarded as a miniature.

“In veste varietas sit: scissura non sit.”