Rectors

The Rt Revd the Hon John Thomas Pelham was the Rector of St Marylebone from 1855 – 1857. John Pelham was the third son of Thomas Pelham, 2nd Earl of Chichester and his wife Lady Mary Henrietta Juliana Osborne, eldest daughter of Francis Godolphin Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds.

His older brothers were Henry Pelham, 3rd Earl of Chichester and Frederick Thomas Pelham, a Rear admiral in the Royal Navy. Pelham was educated at Westminster School and went then to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1832 and Master of Arts four years later.

In 1857, he received a Doctor of Divinity by the University of Oxford. Pelham was ordained Deacon by Charles James Blomfield, at that time Bishop of London, in 1834 and served in the parish of Eastergate, befriending Henry Edward Manning (later Henry, Cardinal Manning).

In 1837, he was appointed rector at Bergh Apton where he served until 1852, when he was transferred as curate to Christ Church, Hampstead. On 6 November 1845, Pelham married Henrietta Tatton, second daughter of Thomas William Tatton, and had by her four sons and a daughter.

His oldest child was the scholar Henry Francis Pelham. John, Sidney and Henry followed their father into the Church’s ordained ministry. After three years in Hampsteasd, Pelham became Rector of St Marylebone and in 1857 on the resignation of Samuel Hinds, and under the patronage of Lord Shaftesbury, he was consecrated the 64th Bishop of Norwich. From 1847, he served as chaplain to Queen Victoria.

Pelham objected to the Church Congress of 1865 (for reasons unknown), as well as the use of Hymns Ancient and Modern in the cathedral. He ordered the rebuilding of various parts of the cathedral, such as the Bishop’s chapel. Pelham retired as bishop in 1893 and spent the next year in Thorpe, Norfolk where he died. His impressive monument (1896, by Forsyth of London) stands in one of the transepts of Norwich Cathedral.