The

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 ca ...

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

is an episcopal title which takes its name after the

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The title was first created for a

diocesan In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...

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 ca ...

in 1888, but it was dissolved in 2014. The Bishop of Wakefield is now an

area bishop A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Anglican Communion, a suffragan bishop is a bishop who is subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop (bishop ordinary) and so is not normally jurisdictio ...

who has oversight of an episcopal area in the Diocese of Leeds. The area Bishop of Wakefield is one of the

s of the Diocese of Leeds in the

Province of York The Province of York, or less formally the Northern Province, is one of two ecclesiastical provinces making up the Church of England and consists of 12 dioceses which cover the northern third of England and the Isle of Man. York was elevated to ...

. The Bishop of Wakefield has oversight of the archdeaconry of Pontefract, which consists of the

deaneries A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residenc ...

of Barnsley, Pontefract, and Wakefield. As well as being the area bishop for the Wakefield Episcopal Area, Robinson also provides

alternative episcopal oversight A provincial episcopal visitor (PEV), popularly known as a flying bishop, is a Church of England bishop assigned to minister to many of the clergy, laity and parishes who on grounds of theological conviction, "are unable to receive the ministry of ...

for the Diocese of Leeds as a whole, administering to those parishes in the diocese which reject the ministry of priests who are women. The area bishop's residence is Pontefract House, Wakefield. The current area Bishop of Wakefield is

Tony Robinson Sir Anthony Robinson (born 15 August 1946) is an English actor, author, broadcaster, comedian, presenter, and political activist. He played Baldrick in the BBC television series ''Blackadder'' and has presented several historical documentarie ...

, who has previously been the suffragan Bishop of Pontefract until that see was translated (renamed) to Wakefield in 2015. The Bishop of Pontefract was an episcopal title used by a

suffragan bishop A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Anglican Communion, a suffragan bishop is a bishop who is subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop (bishop ordinary) and so is not normally jurisdiction ...

of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

Dioceses of Wakefield and then of Leeds, in the

. The title took its name after the town of

Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the towns in the City of Wake ...

; the See was erected under the

Suffragans Nomination Act 1888 The Suffragan Bishops Act 1534 (26 Hen 8 c 14) is an Act of the Parliament of England that authorised the appointment of suffragan (i.e., assistant) bishops in England and Wales. The tradition of appointing suffragans named after a town in the d ...

Order in Council An Order-in-Council is a type of legislation in many countries, especially the Commonwealth realms. In the United Kingdom this legislation is formally made in the name of the monarch by and with the advice and consent of the Privy Council ('' Ki ...

dated 27 October 1930. In the Wakefield diocese, the Bishop of Pontefract was the suffragan bishop for the diocese as a whole but primarily had

for those parishes which rejected the ministry of priests who were women; Robinson now fulfils this role for the new diocese. Following the creation of the Diocese of Leeds on 20 April 2014, the see was eventually renamed to become the suffragan see for the area Bishop of Wakefield. To that end the General Synod approved a petition from the Bishop of Leeds in February 2015;Diocese of Liverpool – General Synod: February 2015 group of sessions
(Accessed 21 February 2015) that petition was approved by the

Queen-in-Council The King-in-Council or the Queen-in-Council, depending on the gender of the reigning monarch, is a constitutional term in a number of states. In a general sense, it would mean the monarch exercising executive authority, usually in the form of ap ...

on 19 March 2015 and so the see was translated to Wakefield.

continues in the same See, becoming the area Bishop of Wakefield.

List of bishops

References

External links

Crockford's Clerical Directory - Listings
{{Anglican Suffragan Bishops Wakefield area Bishops of Wakefield area Wakefield, area Bishop of Pontefract, Bishop of Anglican suffragan bishops in Wakefield Bishop of Pontefract