Alison Taylor is a retired Australian

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...

in the

Anglican Church of Australia The Anglican Church of Australia, formerly known as the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania, is a Christian church in Australia and an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion. It is the second largest church in Australia after the ...

. She served as an assistant bishop of the Diocese of Brisbane (Southern Region) from April 2013 to December 2017 and was the first female bishop in the diocese. Prior to ordination ministry, Taylor worked as an urban planner in the 1980s, during which she led an Australian aid project to restore and categorise European-built heritage buildings in

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

, China. During this time, she was influenced by seeing church buildings used as factories or warehouses and realising that many locals did not have access to a church. Her work in China was interrupted by the

1989 Tiananmen Square protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

. She returned to Australia, to Melbourne, where she became Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies at Victoria University of Technology. After giving birth to her daughter, Taylor commenced theological studies in 1993 at

Trinity College Theological School Trinity College Theological School (TCTS) is an educational division of Australia's Trinity College, the oldest residential college of the University of Melbourne. It is also one of the constituent colleges of the University of Divinity. The Scho ...

. Following her studies, she served in the Diocese of Melbourne, including as vicar of St John's Camberwell and as Archdeacon of Kew. In December 2012, it was announced that Taylor would take up the position as an assistant bishop for the Southern Region of the Diocese of Brisbane, replacing Geoffrey Smith who was had become general manager of the diocese. As part of her ministry, she looked after 47 parishes stretching from the south of the Brisbane River down to

Coolangatta Coolangatta is a coastal suburb in the City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. It is the Gold Coast's southernmost suburb and it borders New South Wales. In the , Coolangatta had a population of 5,948 people. Geography Coolangatta and its ...

, and she looked after 14 schools run by the Diocese. Taylor was formally farewelled from her ministry on 2 December 2017 and was succeeded by John Roundhill. She returned to Melbourne to take up doctoral studies on the theology related to the

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission announced in November 2012 and established in 2013 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and repo ...

. Taylor is married to Trevor and has one daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Alison People educated at Trinity College (University of Melbourne) 21st-century Anglican bishops in Australia Assistant bishops in the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane Women Anglican bishops Living people Year of birth missing (living people)