Joseph Hunkin (bishop)

Memorial in Truro Cathedral

Arms of Hunkin: Argent, a mascle sable over all a fess of the last^[1]

Joseph Wellington Hunkin^[2] OBE MC^[3] (25 September 1887 – 28 October 1950) was the eighth Bishop of Truro from 1935 to 1950.^[4][5]

He was born on 25 September 1887 at Truro and educated at Truro College,^[6] the Leys School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Made deacon on St Matthew's Day 1913 (21 September)^[7] and ordained priest at Michaelmas 1914 (27 September) — both times by Archibald Robertson, Bishop of Exeter, at Exeter Cathedral,^[8] he began his career with a curacy at St Andrew's, Plymouth.^[9] He was then a Chaplain in the British Armed Forces during World War I^[10] and after that Dean of Chapel at Caius (his undergraduate college). From 1927 until his ascension to the Episcopate he was Archdeacon of Coventry^[11] and an Honorary Chaplain to the King. He was consecrated a bishop by Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, at St Paul's Cathedral on Whit Tuesday 1935 (11 June).^[12] In 1938 he volunteered to be chaplain to the British Legion Volunteer Police Force.^[13]

He died on 28 October 1950.^[14] He was a strong Evangelical and noted for his pastoral work.^[15] He was the chair of a commission to produce a new English translation of the Bible from 1948 to 1950. Hunkin used as his pastoral staff a shepherd's crook of iron with a wooden shaft bound with a silver band inscribed "Un para, un bugel" (Cornish for "One flock, one shepherd") and enlisted in the Home Guard during the Second World War. A keen gardener, he was commemorated by a garden in the cathedral close and a shrub donated to every parish.^[16] He had become a Doctor of Divinity (DD).

Writings[]

Among his published works,

• Is it Reasonable to Believe? (1935) London: Hodder & Stoughton.
• From a Cornish Bishop's Garden (2001), Penzance: Alison Hodge – a collection of newspaper articles from The Guardian, (an Anglican weekly newspaper) edited and introduced by Douglas Pett.^[17]

References[]