Waite Stirling

Who was Waite Stirling?

Waite Hockin Stirling was a 19th-century missionary with the Patagonian Missionary Society and was the first Anglican Bishop of the Falkland Islands.

In the mid-19th century, the Patagonian Missionary Society suffered several tragedies, including in 1851 when Captain Allen Gardiner and his companions at Spanish Harbour on Picton Island died of starvation, and another in 1859 when a group of missionaries were massacred at Wulaia, Navarino Island. In 1854, when the work of the mission was re-established at Keppel Island in the Falkland Islands, Stirling became secretary of the mission in England. In 1861 he went to Keppel Island as the mission superintendent and from there re-established contacts with the Yaghan of Tierra del Fuego. In January 1869 he established a new mission at Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego.

Whilst in isolation in Ushuaia, as "God's Lonely Sentinel", as Stirling called himself, he was summoned to London to be consecrated on 21 December 1869 in Westminster Abbey as "Bishop of the Falkland Islands", in keeping with contemporary practice to name overseas bishoprics after one of Her Majesty's possessions. Seven consular chaplaincies in South America and several private company chaplains were placed under his jurisdiction. He spent his first few years establishing his authority over recalcitrant clergy and congregations who resented this Episcopal "upstart" and who still thought they owed allegiance to the Bishop of London, the person responsible for the supervision of overseas Colonial and Consular Chaplaincies.