Trevor Huddleston

Ernest Urban Trevor Huddleston (15 June 1913 – 20 April 1998) was an English Anglican bishop.

He was the Bishop of Stepney in London before becoming the second Archbishop of the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean.

He was best known for his anti-apartheid activism and his book Naught for Your Comfort.

Huddleston was the son of Ernest Huddleston and was born in Bedford, Bedfordshire, and educated at Lancing College (1927–1931), Christ Church, Oxford, and at Wells Theological College.

He had been made a deacon at Michaelmas 1936 (27 September) and ordained a priest the following Michaelmas (26 September 1937) — both times by Clifford Woodward, Bishop of Bristol, at Bristol Cathedral.

He joined an Anglican religious order, the Community of the Resurrection (CR), in 1939, taking vows in 1941, having already served for three years as a curate at St Mark's Swindon.

In September 1940 Huddleston sailed to Cape Town, and in 1943 he went to the Community of the Resurrection mission station at Rosettenville (Johannesburg, South Africa).

He was sent there to build on the work of Raymond Raynes, whose monumental efforts there, building three churches, seven schools and three nursery schools catering for over 6,000 children, had proved to be so demanding that the community summoned him back to Mirfield in order to recuperate.

Raynes was deeply concerned about who should be appointed to succeed him.

He met Huddleston who had been appointed to nurse him while he was in the infirmary.

As a result of that meeting, much to Huddleston's surprise as he had only been a member of the community for four years, Raynes was convinced that he had found his successor.

Over the course of the next 13 years in Sophiatown, Huddleston developed into a much-loved priest and respected anti-apartheid activist, earning him the nickname Makhalipile ("dauntless one").

He fought against the apartheid laws, which were increasingly systematised by the Nationalist government which was voted in by the white electorate in 1948, and in 1955 the African National Congress (ANC) bestowed the rare Isitwalandwe award of honour on him at the famous Freedom Congress in Kliptown.

He was particularly concerned about the Nationalist Government's decision to bulldoze Sophiatown and forcibly remove all its inhabitants sixteen miles further away from Johannesburg.

Despite Huddleston's efforts, these removals began on 9 February 1955 when Nelson Mandela described Huddleston as one of the leaders of the opposition to the removal.

Huddleston's community asked him to return to England in 1955 (and he left South Africa in early 1956), some say due to the controversy he was attracting in speaking out against apartheid.

However, the Superior at the time, Raymond Raynes, wrote that the decision to recall Trevor was made by Raynes himself.

In 1956 he published his seminal work, Naught for your Comfort, and began work as the master of novices at CR's Mirfield mother house in West Yorkshire for two years before becoming the prior of the order's priory in London where he remained until his appointment as a bishop.

He was consecrated a bishop on St Andrew's Day 1960 (30 November) by Leonard Beecher, Archbishop of East Africa, at St Nicholas', Ilala, Dar es Salaam, to serve as Bishop of Masasi (Tanzania), where he worked for eight years, primarily in re-organising the mission schools to be run by the newly independent government of Julius Nyerere, with whom he became a firm friend.

He became Bishop of Stepney, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of London.

Huddleston was close to O R Tambo, ANC President during the years of exile, from 1962 to 1990.

They hosted many conferences, protests and actions together, in the face of fierce opposition from both Margaret Thatcher, and the South African government and their allies.

Other notable persons who credit Huddleston with influencing their lives include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sally Motlana, (activist and vice-chair of the South African Council of Churches during the 1970s); Archbishop Khotso Makhulu and Robben Islander and later President of the Land Claims Court, Fikile Bam.

In 1974, Huddleston was questioned by the police in connection with complaints of alleged sexual abuse made by the parents of four boys who had been playing in Huddleston's office.

In his statement Huddleston said "I have never done anything to harm a child ... Neither do I consider it indecent to pat a child on the bottom or pinch him ... The boys are telling the truth but the implications of indecency are completely absurd."

The police report recommended charging him with four counts of gross indecency, but because of his high profile, the matter was referred to the director of public prosecutions, Sir Norman Skelhorn.

Skelhorn decided not to charge him after consulting Labour party figures.

Among other work, he established the African Children's Feeding Scheme (which still exists today) and raised money for the Orlando Swimming Pools – the only place black children could swim in Johannesburg until post-1994.

There are many South Africans whose lives were changed by Huddleston; one of the most famous is Hugh Masekela, for whom Huddleston provided his first trumpet as a 14-year-old pupil at St. Martin's School (Rosettenville) in South Africa.

Soon after the ‘Huddleston Jazz Band’ was formed, sparking a global career for Masekela and his fellow South African, Jonas Gwangwa.

On 14 February 1995 he wrote a lengthy letter saying any suggestion of Huddleston's criminality was outrageous and adding that he could easily gather together a dozen black friends of Huddleston's acquaintance who would testify to his innocence and integrity.

On 14 February 1995, Desmond Tutu, the then Archbishop of Cape Town wrote: "He [Huddleston] was an enormous thorn in the side of the apartheid regime and was effectively the real spokesman for the anti-apartheid movement for a considerable period. No one did more to keep apartheid on the world's agenda than he and therefore it would have been a devastating victory for the forces of evil and darkness had he been discredited", adding "How ghastly to want to besmirch such a remarkable man, so holy and so good. How utterly despicable and awful."

Bishop Gerald Ellison, the Bishop of London when Huddleston was Bishop of Stepney, also said that political enemies of Huddleston were involved.

According to some sources, the existence of the investigation and report was only uncovered as part of research for the 2004 publication of Piers McGrandle's biography (see below).

However, there was no reason for the report to be public, if the case for prosecution had been dismissed.

In his biography, Trevor Huddleston: Turbulent Priest, Piers McGrandle quotes Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Bishop Gerald Ellison dismissing the claims as a plot by the South African Bureau of State Security (B.O.S.S.) to discredit a prominent opponent of apartheid.

Tutu wrote the foreword for the McGrandle book, and Archbishop Rowan Williams the afterword.

McGrandle was a part-time chaplain to Huddleston, and wanted to introduce Huddleston to a new generation.

At a service to mark the Centenary of Huddleston's birth in June 2013, many people testified to the impact Huddleston had made on their faith and practice as Anglicans, and others, as activists.

Tutu, who as a little boy knew Huddleston and swears to his innocence, was particularly affronted by the suggestion that Huddleston was anything other than a protector of children.