Edward Bickersteth (priest)
English priest, died 1850
Rev. Edward Bickersteth (19 March 1786 – 28 February 1850) was an English evangelical Anglican clergyman from the prominent Bickersteth family.
Life
Bickersteth was born at Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland, the fourth son of Henry Bickersteth, a surgeon. Bickersteth attended Kirkby Lonsdale Grammar School and practised as a solicitor at Norwich from 1812 to 1815.
Within the space of only 11 days in December 1815 he was ordained both as a deacon and priest. In January 1816 travelled to Africa to inspect and report on the work of the Church Missionary Society (CMS). He continued to travel overseas in connection with the work of the CMS throughout his life. He was the secretary of the CMS from 1824 to 1831.
On receiving the living of Watton, Hertfordshire, in 1830, he resigned his secretaryship, but continued to lecture and preach, both for the CMS and the Society for the Conversion of the Jews. He was instrumental in the merger of the Anglican Central Committee and the Continental Society in 1840 to form the Foreign Aid Society which supported evangelical Protestant ministry on the continent of Europe.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5341889. VIAF identifies the subject as 88680332. The Library of Congress control number is n85158535. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1786, 1850, 1812 and 1815.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edward Bickersteth (priest)” 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.