John Douse LANGLEY

LANGLEY, JOHN DOUSE (b. Ballyduff, Ireland, 12 May 1836, d. Melbourne, Vic, 8 Nov 1930). Anglican clergyman and second bishop of Bendigo.

John Douse Langley was a son of Henry Langley of Ballyduff, co. Waterford. He graduated from TCD in 1853, before leaving with his parents and their family for Australia. Nothing is known as yet of his life in Sydney before he graduated from Moore College in 1873, being ordained deacon on 8 June 1873 and priest by Bp F Barker (q.v.) later in the same year. He was incumbent of Berrima with Mittagong 1873-5; St David's, Surry Hills, Sydney, i875-81, secretary of the Church Society, 1880-3; and rector of St Phillip's Sydney, 1882-1907. While at St Phillip's he was archdeacon of Cumberland from 1895. He gained some notoriety during the depression of the early 1890s by establishing a Church Labour Home in Ultimo designed to provide simple work for the unemployed. The union movement regarded Langley's well-intentioned effort as an assault on regular wages, and despite the fact that it kept a few dozen men alive and perhaps contributed to maintaining their self-respect, it faded away.

Archdeacon Langley was elected the second bp of Bendigo, consecrated in St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne on 25 Jan 1907 and installed at All Saints' pro-cathedral, Bendigo by Abp Lowther Clarke on 30 Jan. He was seventy years old when he was consecrated, and continued in good health throughout the twelve years of his episcopate.

On becoming bishop he began to deal with the increasing population on the northern plains of his diocese brought about by closer settlement and improved irrigation. Further population increases in these areas took place with soldier resettlement after World War One. With the coming of the railway, new towns and churches sprang up. Bishop Langley met the challenge presented by these new settlements by providing additional clergy and stipendiary lay readers. He revived Perry Hall, the training centre for readers and encouraged more men to offer for ordination. He also recruited clergy from overseas, especially from Ireland.

Bp Langley was also very anxious to have an evangelical theological college in Melbourne for the training of clergy and missionary candidates. With Bp Pain of Gippsland (q.v.) and a number of leading evangelical clergy and laity, he founded Ridley College in 1910. The college was established 'on the constructive and evangelical principles of the Reformation Settlement' of the Church of England as its constitution put it. Canon Sadlier (q.v.), formerly of the diocese of Bendigo and later bp of Nelson, New Zealand, was the College's acting principal until the first principal, G E Aickin (q.v.), arrived from England. Ridley College has been an important training centre for clergy and lay people largely for the diocese of Bendigo and other Victorian dioceses, since that time.

Bp Langley strongly supported the missionary work of the church, especially that of the CMA (later CMS). He was particularly interested in the first Anglican mission to the Aborigines of Arnhem Land with the establishment of the Roper River Mission in 1908. The mission site had been chosen by Bp Gilbert White of Carpentaria and the Victorian CMA Secretary, A R Ebbs (q.v.). Two of the three founding members of the new mission, the Rev J F G Huthnance and C Sharp, also came from the diocese.

The bishop warmly endorsed the recommendations of the 1908 Lambeth Conference supporting moves for church union, especially in mission areas. He was particularly dismayed when world-wide enthusiasm for church unity suffered the severe set-back at Kikuyu in Kenya in 1913, when the CMS bishops of Mombasa and Uganda were indicted for heresy and schism by the UMCA bp of Zanzibar for proceeding with plans for federation of Anglican and non-Anglican churches in their area and for intercommunion with them.

Ministry to the men of his diocese and more active participation in the life of the church was another concern of Bp Langley. He actively supported the work of CEMS and arranged for the Rev (later Bp) J E Watts-Ditchfield from England to visit Bendigo during his Australian tour in 1912. He fully endorsed the visitor's plea to men for their full dedication to Christ, and for more members and branches of CEMS to be formed in the diocese.

Like his brother, Bp H A Langley (q.v.) he strongly opposed centralising attempts by the newly-formed Province of Victoria and the General Synod of the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania to usurp some of the powers of the dioceses. He was a strong believer in the autonomy of each diocese, considering that the basic unit of the Anglican communion throughout the world was the bishop of his diocese. He maintained that the councils of the church, such as provincial and general synods should have only such executive authority as was given them from time to time by the individual dioceses.

Bishop Langley guided the fortunes of the diocese through the four long tragic years of World War One. Together with the clergy and laity, he warmly supported the efforts of Great Britain, the members of the Empire and the Allies in their fight for freedom. In each of his presidential addresses to the annual synods from 1914 to 1918 he spoke very feelingly of the church's loyalty to the King, and agreed to resolutions passed unanimously expressing thanks for the 'intense loyalty and unparalleled support everywhere visible throughout our Empire ... believing the Empire's cause to be just and righteous'.

Bp Langley resigned from the diocese on 30 June 1919, having just celebrated his 83rd year. Under his leadership the diocese had expanded and developed as he built on the foundations laid by his brother. He was a deeply spiritual man and a convinced evangelical, and his influence continued in the diocese for many years. He retired to Melbourne where he died aged 94 years. He and his wife were buried at the Bendigo General Cemetery in a grave diagonally opposite that of his brother and his family.

Keith Cole, A History of the Diocese of Bendigo, 1902-1976 (Bendigo, 1991)

KEITH COLE