Thomas Bell

Who was Thomas Bell?

The Very Reverend Thomas Bell, Rector of the Vale Church, Dean of Guernsey, and Canon of Winchester Cathedral was an eminent Anglican priest in the latter part of the 19th and the early part of the 20th centuries.

He was born on 5 November 1820 and educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, and subsequently at Exeter College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1840 and gained a First Class degree in Classics. He subsequently won the Denyer Prize Theological Essay in 1848, after being ordained in 1845 by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce at Christ Church, Oxford. He began his career with a curacy at Finstock, near Oxford. After this he held incumbencies at St Matthew's, City Road, in the East End of London and St Mary's, Burston, near Diss in Norfolk, and for more than 50 years he was Rector of the Church of St Michel du Valle, Guernsey. He was Vice Dean of the island from 1880 until 1892; and Dean from then until his death on 31 October 1917.