James Bell (bishop)
Bishop of Ripon; Bishop of Knaresborough; British Anglican bishop
James Harold Bell (born 20 November 1950) is a retired British Anglican bishop. He was the area Bishop of Ripon in the Diocese of Leeds.
Early life
Bell studied modern history at St John's College, Durham (BA 1972). Then began a 10-year residence in Oxford, where from 1972 until 1975 he studied for ordination at Wycliffe Hall, meanwhile matriculating in the University of Oxford as a member of St Peter's Hall, taking a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Theology in 1974 (having read for the Final Honour School alone) and incepting as an Oxford Master of Arts (MA Oxon) in 1978.
Ordained ministry
Upon his ordination as a deacon in 1975 he was appointed Honorary Curate of Oxford St Michael with St Martin and All Saints and the following year, having been ordained priest, he because Chaplain and Lecturer of Brasenose College until 1982. He held several pastoral posts in West London before moving to the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds in 1997. Initially Director of Mission (and an Honorary Canon of Ripon Cathedral) he was appointed suffragan Bishop of Knaresborough following the death of Frank Weston.
Bell was consecrated a bishop by David Hope, Archbishop of York, during a service at York Minster on 2 March 2004. He was installed as Bishop of Knaresborough at Ripon Cathedral on 14 March 2004.
From 2004 until the creation of the Diocese of Leeds in 2014, Bell was suffragan Bishop of Knaresborough in the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds; upon the dissolution of the Ripon diocese and the erection of the Leeds diocese, Bell became area bishop for the Ripon area.
The public source identifies “James Bell (bishop)” as bishop of Ripon; Bishop of Knaresborough; British Anglican bishop. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around James, Bell and bishop.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14948622. VIAF identifies the subject as 123586242. The Library of Congress control number is nb2011007605. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950, 1972, 1975 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “James Bell (bishop)” 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.