Charles Minnigerode Beckwith Explained

Type:Bishop
Honorific Prefix:The Right Reverend
Charles Minnigerode Beckwith
Elected:October 8, 1902
Term:1902–1928
Retired:-->
Predecessor:Robert Woodward Barnwell
Successor:William G. McDowell
Ordination:1881
Ordained By:John W. Beckwith
Consecration:December 17, 1902
Consecrated By:Thomas Underwood Dudley
Birth Date:2 June 1851
Buried:Greenwood Cemetery (Montgomery, Alabama)
Parents:Thomas Stanley Beckwith & Agnes Ruffin
Spouse:Susan Rainsford Fairbanks (m. 1884-1885)
Lucy Cocke (m. 1888-1891)
Mary Belle Cameron (m. 1897-1928)
Children:2
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Charles Minnigerode Beckwith (June 2, 1851 – April 18, 1928) was fourth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama from 1902 till 1928.

Early life and education

Beckwith was born on June 2, 1851, in Petersburg, Virginia, son of Thomas Stanley Beckwith and Agnes Ruffin. He was educated at the University of Georgia from where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1873. He was also a member of Phi Delta Theta. After graduation, he served as assistant professor of mathematics at the University of the South between 1874 and 1876 and later served as master of Sewanee Grammar School at the University of the South from 1876 till 1879. In 1879, he enrolled at the Berkeley Divinity School in Middletown, Connecticut and graduated in 1881. He earned a Doctor of Divinity from in 1902 and a Doctor of Sacred Theology from Berkeley in 1903. [1]

Ordained ministry

He was ordained to the diaconate and priesthood in 1881 by his uncle, Bishop John W. Beckwith of Georgia. He served as rector of St. Luke's Church in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1884 to 1886. While rector he was elected Assistant Bishop of Texas but declined the appointment. Later, in 1886, he became rector of Christ Church in Houston, Texas, and in 1892 became rector of Trinity Church in Galveston, Texas, where he remained until 1902.[2]

Bishop

Beckwith was elected Bishop of Alabama on October 8, 1902, during a special council which took place in St John's Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He was then consecrated in St Paul's Church in Selma, Alabama on December 17, 1902, by Bishop Thomas Underwood Dudley of Kentucky. [3] He died in office on April 18, 1928, in Montgomery, Alabama.

Works

Notes and References

  1. Herzog, Johann Jakob. The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge: Embracing Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology and Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Biography from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Volume 2 (1908). Inventory of the Church Archives of Alabama, Volume 1, p. 23. Funk and Wagnalls Company.
  2. 1903 . The Right Reverend Charles Minnigerode Beckwith D.D. . The Scroll of Phi Delta Theta . 28. 14.
  3. Alabama Historical Records Survey (1939). Inventory of the Church Archives of Alabama, Volume 1, p. 18. Alabama Historical records survey.