Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Wilkinson, George Howard
WILKINSON, GEORGE HOWARD (1833–1907), successively bishop of Truro and of St. Andrews, born at Durham on 12 May 1833, was eldest son of George Wilkinson, of Oswald House, Durham, by his wife Mary, youngest child of John Howard of Ripon. The father's family had long held an honourable position in Durham and Northumberland (cf. pedigree; Surtees, History and Antiquities of the County of Durham, i. 81). Educated at Durham grammar school, he went into residence at Brasenose College, Oxford, in Oct. 1851, and in November was elected to a scholarship at Oriel. He graduated B.A. with a second class in the final classical school in 1854, proceeded M.A. in 1859 and D.D. in 1883. After a year spent in travel, he was ordained deacon (1857) and priest (1858) and licensed to the curacy of St. Mary Abbots, Kensington. His fervour and industry gave him wide influence from the first. In 1859 Lady Londonderry, widow of the third marquess, presented him to the living of Seaham Harbour, co. Durham; and in 1863 the bishop of Durham, C. T. Baring [q. v.], collated him to the vicarage of Bishop Auckland. Wilkinson, although he was untouched at Oxford by the Tractarian movement, had been drawn towards it through the influence of Thomas Thellusson Carter [q. v. Suppl. II]. Difficulties followed with the bishop, who was an evangelical. Wilkinson's health suffered from the strain, and in 1867 he accepted the incumbency of St. Peter's, Great Windmill Street, London. In this poor parish he instituted open-air preaching, then a novelty. One of the earliest to take up parochial missions, he helped to organise the first general mission in London in 1869. During its progress he accepted the offer by the bishop of London, John Jackson, of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and in January 1870 began there an incumbency of rare distinction.
Active in church affairs generally, he spoke at church congresses; sought in the years of ritual trouble, 1870–80, to act as an interpreter between the bishops and the ritualists; and zealously advocated foreign missions, the day of intercession for which owed its establishment to him. In 1877 the bishop of Truro, E. W. Benson [q. v. Suppl. I], made him an examining chaplain. In 1878 he declined an invitation to be nominated suffragan bishop for London. He was select preacher at Oxford 1879–81. In 1880 he was elected a proctor in convocation, and gave evidence before the royal commission of 1881 on ecclesiastical courts. In 1882 he declined an invitation from the bishop of Durham, J. B. Lightfoot, to become canon missioner.
In 1883, on the translation of Dr. Benson to Canterbury, Wilkinson succeeded him at Truro. He was consecrated at St. Paul's on 25 April 1883. At Truro he pressed forward the building of the cathedral; saw it consecrated on 3 Nov. 1887; founded a sisterhood, the community of the Epiphany; and did much for the clergy of poorer benefices. In 1885 he declined the see of Manchester; in 1888 he took part in the Lambeth conference; and in April 1891, after nearly two years of failing health, announced his resignation. Restored by a visit to South Africa, Wilkinson was on 9 Feb. 1893 elected to succeed Charles Wordsworth [q. v.] as bishop of St. Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane, and was enthroned in St. Ninian's Cathedral, Perth, on 27 April. In 1904 the bishops of the Scottish episcopal church elected him primus. He created a bishop of St. Andrews fund for church extension; raised 14,000l. for building a chapter-house for St. Ninian's Cathedral, Perth; fostered interest in foreign missions, more especially in South Africa, which he again visited; and sought to promote closer relations between the episcopal and the presbyterian churches. He died suddenly at Edinburgh, on 11 Dec. 1907, and was buried in Brompton cemetery, London. There is a memorial (the bishop's figure by Sir George Frampton, R.A.) in St. Ninian's Cathedral. A cartoon portrait by ‘Spy’ appeared in ‘Vanity Fair’ in 1885.
Wilkinson combined deep spirituality with practical sagacity, courage in dealing with others and intense humility. He exercised his ministry through conversation as seriously as in pulpit work (cf. How's Walsham How: a Memoir, pp. 178–9). He abandoned his early evangelicalism, and his anglicanism grew more definite with years. He married on 14 July 1857 Caroline Charlotte, daughter of lieutenant-colonel Benfield Des Vœux, fourth son of Charles Des Vœux, first baronet; she died on 6 Sept. 1877; by her he had three sons and five daughters.
Wilkinson published many minor devotional works, of which the most widely circulated were: 1. ‘Instructions in the Devotional Life,’ 1871. 2. ‘Instructions in the Way of Salvation,’ 1872. 3. ‘Lent Lectures,’ 1873.
[A. J. Mason, Memoir of George Howard Wilkinson, 1909; A. C. Benson's Leaves of the Tree (character sketch of Wilkinson), 1911, and his The Life of Edward White Benson, 1899, 2 vols.; H. S. Holland, George Howard Wilkinson, 1909; Guardian, 18 Dec. 1907; Record, 8 July 1904; Daily Telegraph, 3 May 1911.]