Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs

Who was Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs?

Huyshe Wolcott Yeatman-Biggs, until 1898 known as Huyshe Wolcott Yeatman, was an influential Anglican clergyman who served as the only Suffragan Bishop of Southwark, the 105th Bishop of Worcester and, latterly, as the inaugural bishop of the restored see of Coventry in the modern era.

Yeatman was born at Manston House, Dorset, the younger son of Harry Farr Yeatman JP by his marriage to Emma, daughter and heiress of Harry Biggs, of Stockton House, Wiltshire. He was educated at Winchester College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was a Dixie Scholar, and eventually an Honorary Fellow. He was ordained in 1869 and after a curacy in Salisbury became chaplain to the bishop in 1875. That same year he married firstly Lady Barbara Legge, daughter of the 4th Earl of Dartmouth.

He was successively vicar of Netherbury and Sydenham before becoming Suffragan Bishop of Southwark in 1891, a post he was to hold for 14 years before elevation to the Bishopric of Worcester in 1905. During his years there Yeatman-Biggs forged very close links with the Episcopal church in the United States. In 1898, he inherited the estate of his brother, General Yeatman-Biggs CB, and assumed the additional name of Biggs by Royal licence.