New Forms of Ministry
Campaigns and Celebrations
Ecumenical Steps
Social Responsibility and Community Service
The Link Dioceses – Mara, Faisalabad and Skara
Catholic and Charismatic Renewal and New Forms of Worship
The Reordering of Churches
The Cathedral
The Mirfield Centre
Changes to the Parish Structure
Parsonage Houses
Redundant Churches
The Dioceses Commission
Appendix: The Diocesan Journals
List of Illustrations
Portrait of Bishop Stephen Platten by David Poole
Halifax Minster, Chris Lord Photography
Wakefield Cathedral about 1900
The procession on 25 April 1905
The Cathedral Sanctuary, Harriet Evans
The quarry at the House of the Resurrection
Bishop Seaton in 1937 with Basque refugees
St Luke’s, Grimethorpe
Sir William Cartwright, Chairman of the County Council, and his lunch guests, 25 May 1938
Bishop Hone
Bishop McGowan
Bishop Wilson
St Paul’s, Old Town, Barnsley
Work on the new front for the Chantry Chapel on Wakefield Bridge, 1939
Emergency wards which were provided for wartime casualties at Pinderfields Hospital and remained in use for a further sixty years
In the cathedral bell chamber, Liz Preston
St Francis’s Church, Fixby
St Andrew’s after its removal from Ferry Fryston to Ferrybridge
The reordered St Thomas’s, Heptonstall, Phil White
The interior of Holy Trinity, Wakefield
Noel T. Hopkins
Holy Trinity School, Illingworth, about 1976
The House of Mercy, Horbury
Bishop Ramsbotham
Bishop’s Lodge
Bishop Treacy
Bishop James
Bishop Robinson pledging support for Wakefield City of Sanctuary
Bishop Platten, Harriet Evans
Margaret Bradnum
David Wheatley in the chapel of Holgate’s Hospital
Bishop Hope
Members of the Mothers’ Union carry banners into the football ground for the centenary celebrations, Roy Clements
Bishop McCulloch bearing the Christ our Light candle
The church in West Bretton
The Chapel provided in the Retreat House when it became St Peter’s Convent in 1989
St Peter’s, Gildersome
Ground plan of the reordered Dewsbury Minster
The Heritage Centre, Dewsbury Minster, Gillian Gaskin
The controversial extension at All Hallows, Almondbury, Brian Holding
The Treacy Hall from Cross Street, Brian Holding
George Nairn-Briggs as Dean of Wakefield conducting the wedding in Wakefield Chantry Chapel of Pat Langham and Nev Hanley, John Briggs
HM Queen Elizabeth II at Wakefield Cathedral, The Wakefield Express
St James’s, Midhope
All Souls, Haley Hill
St Mary’s Community Centre, Chequerfield
St James the Great, Castleford
Portrait
Portrait of Bishop Stephen Platten
Foreword
There has been a good tradition of both cathedrals and dioceses producing histories of their development. With those dioceses established in the past 150 years, this tradition has been less universal. Wakefield is but one good example of this. The diocese was set up in 1888 as a rather tardy response to the Industrial Revolution in this part of West and South Yorkshire, formerly part of the West Riding. Since then there have been notable developments and transformations both within the Church of England and in wider society. In these pages Kate Taylor charts this history with the twin skills of a scholarly mind and an attractive style.
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