Thomas Carlyle Joseph Robert Hamish Deakin, known as Robert Deakin (1917–1985), was the

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

Bishop of Tewkesbury The Bishop of Tewkesbury is an episcopal title used by a suffragan bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Gloucester, in the Province of Canterbury, England. The title takes its name after the town of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, but the ...

from 1973 until his death in 1985. He was born in the village of

Parkend Parkend is a village, located at the foot of the Cannop Valley, in the Royal Forest of Dean, West Gloucestershire, England, and has a history dating back to the early 17th century. During the 19th century it was a busy industrial village with se ...

The Forest of Dean The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the Counties of England, county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangle, triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and no ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, the son of Thomas Carlyle Deakin and Harriet Herries Deakin. His grandfather and his father had both been J.P.s and, at different times, managers of Parkend Colliery. When the mine closed, in 1944, his father trained to become an Anglican priest, eventually becoming rector of St Giles in

Uley Uley is a village and civil parish in the county of Gloucestershire, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Elcombe and Shadwell and Bencombe, all to the south of the village of Uley, and the hamlet of Crawley to the north. The village is ...

and Holy Cross in

Owlpen Owlpen is a small village and civil parish in the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, England, set in a valley in the Cotswold hills. It is about east of Uley, and east of Dursley. The Owlpen valley is set around the settlement like an amphit ...

, Gloucestershire. Deakin was educated at

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and ''Wells Theological College'' before embarking on a

curacy A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' (''cura'') ''of souls'' of a parish. In this sense, "curate" means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy w ...

Stroud, Gloucestershire Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five Va ...

(during which time he married Marion Dyer), the incumbency at Holy Trinity in

Drybrook Drybrook is a village and civil parish in the Forest of Dean in west Gloucestershire, England. Location It lies in the North West edge of the Royal Forest, bordering with Herefordshire, about three miles from Cinderford, and about two miles ...

then St Mary's Charlton Kings and the

Rural Dean In the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion as well as some Lutheran denominations, a rural dean is a member of clergy who presides over a "rural deanery" (often referred to as a deanery); "ruridecanal" is the corresponding adjective. ...

ship of Cheltenham in 1949 until his elevation to

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 ...

Tewkesbury Tewkesbury ( ) is a medieval market town and civil parish in the north of Gloucestershire, England. The town has significant history in the Wars of the Roses and grew since the building of Tewkesbury Abbey. It stands at the confluence of the Riv ...

in 1973. He died on 3 August 1985 The Times, Monday, Aug 05, 1985; pg. 14; Issue 62208; col H Right Rev Robert Deakin Obituaries

Notes

1917 births Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford Bishops of Tewkesbury 1985 deaths People from Forest of Dean District {{ChurchofEngland-bishop-stub