Henry St John Stirling Woollcombe[1] (27 December 1869 - 1 December 1941) was the inaugural Bishop of Whitby from 1923[2] until 1939; and also of Selby. Born into a clerical family,[3] he was educated at Clifton College and Keble College, Oxford before being ordained in 1895. After a curacy in Stepney he became head of the Oxford House University Settlement in nearby Bethnal Green. A brief spell as chaplain to Cosmo Gordon Lang (Archbishop of York) was followed by a decade as the parish priest of Armley. Promotion to be the Sub Dean of Diocese of Coventry in 1922 was swiftly followed by elevation to the episcopate.[4] After 16 years at Whitby he made a sideways move to become Bishop of Selby- a post he held only for 18 months.[5] His Times obituary noted his capacity for "getting on with and getting the best out of all conditions of men.[6]