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Eric Gowing

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Gowing in 1977, at a meeting of the Waikumete Chapel Restoration Trust

Eric Austin Gowing (11 March 1913 - 3 June 1981) was the seventh Anglican Bishop of Auckland. His episcopate spanned a long period during the second half of the 20th century.

Born in Sydney, Australia, Gowing was educated at North Sydney High School and the universities of Sydney and Oxford,[1] before beginning his ordained ministry as a curate at St Mary's Deane Stafford.[2] After an incumbency at St Peter's Norbiton, he emigrated to New Zealand in 1950 where he was Vicar of Merivale and Archdeacon of Christchurch before his appointment to the episcopal see of Auckland in 1960; he was consecrated a bishop on 1 November 1960.[3] He was one of the last bishops to wear the traditional frock coat, hose and gaiters.[4] He served as a vice-president of the New Zealand Homosexual Law Reform Society and as a patron of the Society for Promotion of Community Standards.[5]

Gowing was the son-in-law of Thomas Sherwood Jones, a Bishop of Hulme, who in 1961 travelled from England (at the age of 89) to assist in Gowing's consecration.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Who was Who 1897-1990, London, A & C Black, 1991 ISBN 0-7136-3457-X
  2. ^ "Parish details". Archived from the original on 1 April 2008. Retrieved 30 March 2008.
  3. ^ The form and order of the consecration of the Venerable Eric Austin Gowing, Master of Arts, to be Bishop of Auckland on the Feast of All Saints, the first day of November in the year of our lord one thousand nine hundred and sixty at 10.30 in the forenoon. 1960.
  4. ^ The Times, 11 June 1981, p. 18, "Death of a former Bishop of Auckland".
  5. ^ Laurie Guy, Worlds in Collision: The Gay Debate in New Zealand, 1960-1986 (Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2002), p. 71.
Religious titles
Preceded by Bishop of Auckland, NZ
1960–1978
Succeeded by