Anglican Commemoration
First Bishop of Nova Scotia
August 12 · d. 1816
also known as Charles Inglis the First Bishop of Nova Scotia, Charles Inglis of Acadia
Charles Inglis (1734-1816) was the first Bishop of Nova Scotia (consecrated 1787) and the first Anglican bishop consecrated for a British colony—a pivotal figure in the establishment of Canadian Anglicanism and in the broader expansion of the Anglican Communion beyond the political boundaries of the British Isles. A Loyalist during the American Revolution, he remained a faithful servant of the church through the upheavals of war and imperial realignment. As bishop, he undertook the vast task of organizing a church across a sprawling colonial territory, establishing parishes, ordaining clergy, and laying the foundation for Anglican ecclesiastical life in British North America.
Traditionally, Charles Inglis is remembered in Canadian Anglican tradition as the founder of colonial Anglicanism and as a figure of steadfast devotion through revolutionary upheaval. His Loyalism, though costly, is understood within the Anglican tradition as reflecting his conviction about the proper ordering of church and state. He is venerated not as a political hero but as an ecclesiastical leader who maintained the church's continuity and integrity through a period of radical dislocation.
The tradition emphasizes Inglis's practical accomplishment: despite enormous obstacles—a scattered population, limited resources, competing religious communities, the trauma of the Loyalist refugee crisis—he established the infrastructure for a functioning Anglican diocese. He trained and ordained clergy, established parishes, secured property, and laid the foundation for the continued episcopal succession of the Canadian Anglican Church.
Inglis's significance as the first colonial bishop is understood in Anglican tradition as a watershed moment. Before his consecration, colonial churches lacked sacramental authority and remained subject to distant metropolitan bishops. After his consecration, the principle was established that the Anglican Church could establish full episcopal life in the colonies. This precedent enabled the rapid expansion of Anglicanism throughout the British Empire and shaped the development of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
In Canadian Anglican tradition specifically, Inglis is honored as one of the founding figures of Canadian Christianity. Though the numbers of Anglican communicants in early Nova Scotia were modest, Inglis's organizational work and his example of faithful leadership shaped the character of Canadian Anglicanism: serious, traditional, loyal, and focused on pastoral care and ecclesiastical order.
Charles Inglis was born in 1734 in Dublin, Ireland, in a merchant family of modest means but sound Anglican commitment. He received his education in Dublin and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied divinity and classical languages. Ordained in the Church of Ireland, he served briefly as a curate in his native Ireland before emigrating to America, where he held a parish in Dover, Delaware, and subsequently in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
When the American Revolution erupted, Inglis was a convinced Loyalist. He remained steadfast in his allegiance to the Crown, a position that made him deeply unpopular with patriotic sentiment. During the war, his parishes were disrupted, and he eventually relocated to New York, where he served in various capacities, including as a chaplain to British military forces. His Loyalism was not opportunistic; it reflected genuine theological and political convictions about the proper relationship between church and state, the authority of the Crown, and the divine ordering of society.
When the war ended and American independence was established, Inglis, like thousands of other Loyalists, faced a choice: to remain in the newly independent United States or to migrate to remaining British territories. In 1783, he relocated to Nova Scotia (Acadia), then a sparsely populated British colony struggling to accommodate tens of thousands of Loyalist refugees fleeing the United States. The population of Nova Scotia swelled from fewer than 20,000 to over 30,000 as Loyalists sought refuge and rebuilt their lives in British territory.
Inglis arrived in Halifax and was initially appointed as rector of St. Paul's Church, Halifax, the principal Anglican congregation in the colony. He quickly became a leading figure in organizing Anglican life in Nova Scotia. The colony lacked any episcopal authority; churches and clergy answered nominally to the Bishop of London but received no direct oversight or sacramental leadership. Inglis recognized the urgent need for a resident bishop and undertook to advocate for his own consecration.
In 1787, Inglis traveled to London and was consecrated as Bishop of Nova Scotia by the Archbishop of Canterbury—the first colonial bishop to be consecrated for the British Empire outside the Home Islands. This consecration was historically significant: it established the principle that the Anglican Church could establish episcopal succession in the colonies and that colonial bishops could be appointed and consecrated by the metropolitan church in England. It was a precedent that would shape the expansion of Anglicanism throughout the nineteenth century across the British Empire.
As Bishop of Nova Scotia, Inglis undertook the daunting task of establishing a church structure across a vast and sparsely populated colony. He ordained clergy, established parishes, built or adapted churches, and worked to integrate the Loyalist refugee population into existing parish structures. He engaged with both English-speaking and French-speaking populations. He attempted, not always successfully, to maintain good relations with the secular colonial government while asserting the church's need for resources and official recognition.
Inglis's episcopate lasted nearly three decades. He participated in the wider Anglican Church's debates about liturgy, discipline, and governance. He also witnessed the founding of the Episcopal Church in the neighboring United States through the consecration of Samuel Seabury (though Seabury was consecrated by the Scottish church, not by the English bishops). Inglis maintained cordial relations with American Episcopalian bishops even as he remained staunchly loyal to the Crown.
Inglis lived to see his efforts bear fruit: by his death in 1816, Nova Scotia had a functioning Anglican Church structure with multiple parishes, an ordained clergy, and the infrastructure for continued episcopal succession. He died on February 24, 1816, at the age of eighty-two, having given over three decades of his episcopate to the establishment of Anglican Christianity in British North America.
O God, our heavenly Father, you raised up your faithful servant Charles Inglis to be a Bishop and pastor in your Church and to feed your flock: Give abundantly to all pastors the gifts of your Holy Spirit, that they may minister in your household as true servants of Christ and stewards of your divine mysteries; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.