THE
P RTAL
March 2019
Page 6
Mgr Edwin Ronald Barnes
1935-2019
RIP
Mgr Andrew Burnham
E
dwin died on 6 February 2019, in the early hours of his 84 th birthday. Only a couple of days earlier,
in his blog ‘Antique Richborough’, he had written an uncharacteristically emollient piece, drawing his
final campaign to an irenic close.
Many of us got to know
him as a doughty warrior on
General Synod. He would
stand up, bark out ‘Barnes,
Oxford’ and his Synod
number, and then, as often as
not, lambast Synod or Church
for some evasion or idiocy.
Those in his care knew a
different Edwin because,
fierce as he was with those in
authority – saying memorably
in 2010 that ‘the Anglican
Church is no longer the one
holy and apostolic Church it
says it is’ – he was the gentlest
and kindest of pastors to
those who looked to him for
care.
continued to be on the side of
the downtrodden – the PCC
bullied by an archdeacon,
or the would-be ordinand
turned down by a diocese –
and amongst his successes, it
has to be said, were some lost
causes. With Jane, his wife,
at his side he would charge
hither and thither in his car,
treating the Richborough
Area as a very large parish.
He played a very full part,
even after retirement in 2001.
In 2011 he was received
into the Catholic Church and
ordained priest by Crispian
Hollis. The following year he
was made a Chaplain of His
Holiness, a Monsignor.
He had years of experience
as parish priest in Farncombe
He inaugurated – and for
and Hessle before becoming
a time ran - the Ordinariate
Principal of St Stephen’s House, Oxford, in 1987. I Group in Bournemouth, living in Lymington, and,
went there as his Vice-Principal in late 1994 but the in his early eighties, he moved to Salisbury where he
overlap was small: in 1995 George Carey made him assisted Fr Keith Robinson, Pastor of the Salisbury
the first Bishop of Richborough, the second of the Group.
Southern Provincial Episcopal Visitors. Five years
later, Bishop Edwin presented me to George Carey, for
His funeral, on 25 th February 2019, was celebrated
by the Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton, his successor as
consecration as Bishop of Ebbsfleet.
Bishop of Richborough. The service at St Osmund’s,
Educated at Plymouth College and Pembroke Salisbury, as expected, was attended by many Anglican
College, Oxford, Edwin was cleverer than he thought. clergy, and by a couple of retired Anglican bishops, as
He taught very seldom at St Stephen’s House, leaving well as by the clergy and faithful of the Ordinariate.
that to what he considered his more able academic
One could almost hear Edwin grumbling about the
colleagues, but in the pulpit he revealed himself to be a
changes the Ordinariate liturgy makes to the Prayer
polished wordsmith, creative and imaginative.
Book texts but it was all very seemly: simple plainsong
He had enormous pastoral wisdom and, as bishop, and good hymns, noble words and fine preaching.