Henry Montgomery

Who was Henry Montgomery?

Sir Henry Hutchinson Montgomery KCMG was an Anglican bishop and author in the last part of the 19th century and the very start of the 20th.

Born in 1847 at Cawnpore, India, the son of the colonial administrator Robert Montgomery, Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, he was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge. Writing on 16 March 1944, G. M. Trevelyan observed that Montgomery was one of the few people ever to have jumped up the steps of the College steps in one bound.

Ordained a deacon in 1871 and made a priest in 1872, Montgomery took curacies at Hurstpierpoint and St. Margaret's, Westminster. While at Westminster he married the Archdeacon's daughter: one of their five sons was Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. In 1879 he was appointed Vicar of St Mark's Kennington. From here he was appointed to be Bishop of Tasmania in 1889. As Bishop of Tasmania he nearly doubled the number of churches in the diocese.

In 1901 he was recalled to be Secretary of the SPG. In 1905 he was also appointed Prelate of the Order of St Michael and St George; and was raised to the rank of Knight Commander in the 1928 King's Birthday Honours.