Herbert Hensley Henson was born on 8 November 1863 in London. An Anglican bishop, the State’s rejection of a revised Book of Common Prayer moved him from a defender of the establishment to an agitator. Fellow of All Soul’s College, Oxford in 1884, he was selected as Head of Oxford House in 1887. The following year, he became Vicar of Barking, and then Canon of Westminster in 1900. Appointed Bishop of Hereford in 1918, he served as Bishop of Durham from 1920, retiring in 1939. Re-elected as Canon of Westminster by Churchill in 1940, failing eyesight forced him to resign.
Critical of British foreign policy, he did not initially support the Munich agreement. In addition to publishing sermons, he maintained diaries from 1885 until his death. Notable works include Apostolic Christianity: Notes and Inferences Mainly Based on St Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians (1898), Godly Union and Concord: Sermons Preached Mainly in Westminster Abbey in the Interest of Christian Fraternity (1902), The National Church (1908), The Church of England (1939), Retrospect of an Unimportant Life (1942), and Bishoprick Papers (1946).
