Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich
Diocesan bishop in the Church of England
The Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich is the Ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in the Province of Canterbury.
The current bishop is Joanne Grenfell, since the confirmation on 5 September 2025 of her election. The Bishop's residence is the Bishop's House, Ipswich — a little to the north of the town centre.
History
Under the Suffragan Bishops Act 1534, the title Bishop of Ipswich was created in 1536, but it fell into abeyance following the first holder surrendering the office in 1538. In 1899, the title was revived with two suffragan bishops of Ipswich appointed to assist the diocesan bishop of Norwich. Through reorganisation in the Church of England, the Diocese of Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich was established by Act of Parliament in 1913 under King George V. The bishop's and the diocesan offices are located in Ipswich, while the bishop's seat is located at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in Bury St Edmunds. Since 1934, the bishops of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich have been assisted by the suffragan bishops of Dunwich in overseeing the diocese.
List of bishops
Assistant bishops
Among those who have served the diocese as assistant bishops have been:
in 1921, Cecil Wood, Rector of Witnesham and former Bishop of Melanesia, served as archbishop's commissary (i.e.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich” is diocesan bishop in the Church of England. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bishop, Edmundsbury and Ipswich, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “diocesan bishop in the Church of England” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4917983. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2025, 1534, 1536 and 1538.
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Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich primary sources, Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich archive and Bishop research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.