George Carey
Anglican bishop (1935-)
George Leonard Carey, Baron Carey of Clifton, (born 13 November 1935) is a retired Anglican bishop who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, having previously been the Bishop of Bath and Wells.
During his time as archbishop the Church of England ordained its first women priests and the debate over attitudes to homosexuality became more prominent, especially at the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops.
In June 2017, Carey resigned from his last formal role in the church after Dame Moira Gibb's independent investigation found he covered up, by failing to pass to police, six out of seven serious sex abuse allegations relating to 17- to 25-year-olds against Bishop Peter Ball a year after Carey became archbishop. The next year the UK Child Sex Abuse Report confirmed Carey had committed serious breaches of duty in wrongly discrediting credible allegations of child sex abuse within the Church and failing to accompany disciplinary action with adding to the church's own safeguarding watchlist. In February 2018 Carey was granted permission to officiate by Steven Croft, the bishop of Oxford, allowing him to preach and preside at churches in the diocese. This was revoked on 17 June 2020 after the Church found Carey could have done more to pass to police allegations of beatings by a barrister John Smyth, who drew his victims from schools and evangelical children's camps. Permission was restored to Carey by the Bishop of Oxford seven months later.
Early life
George Carey was born on 13 November 1935 in the East End of London in England. He attended Bonham Road Primary School in Dagenham, then failed his 11-plus. He then attended Bifrons Secondary Modern School in Barking before leaving at the age of 15.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “George Carey” is anglican bishop (1935-). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through George, Carey and Anglican, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “anglican bishop (1935-)” 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.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q335458. VIAF identifies the subject as 76292774. The Library of Congress control number is n78009258. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 1991, 2002 and 1998.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “George Carey”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow George Carey primary sources, George Carey archive and George research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “George Carey”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “George Carey” 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.