Trevor Huddleston
Ernest Urban Trevor Huddleston CR KCMG (15 June 1913 – 20 April 1998) was an English Anglican bishop. He was the Bishop of Stepney in London before becoming the second Archbishop of the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean. He was best known for his anti-apartheid activism and his book Naught for Your Comfort.
For the American stock car racing driver, see Trevor Huddleston (racing driver).Early life[edit]
Huddleston was the son of Ernest Huddleston and was born in Bedford, Bedfordshire, and educated at Lancing College (1927–1931),[1] Christ Church, Oxford, and at Wells Theological College. He joined an Anglican religious order, the Community of the Resurrection (CR), in 1939, taking vows in 1941,[2] having already served for three years as a curate at St Mark's Swindon.[2] He had been made a deacon at Michaelmas 1936 (27 September)[3] and ordained a priest the following Michaelmas (26 September 1937) — both times by Clifford Woodward, Bishop of Bristol, at Bristol Cathedral.[4]
South Africa[edit]
In September 1940 Huddleston sailed to Cape Town, and in 1943 he went to the Community of the Resurrection mission station at Rosettenville (Johannesburg, South Africa). He was sent there to build on the work of Raymond Raynes, whose monumental efforts there, building three churches, seven schools and three nursery schools catering for over 6,000 children, had proved to be so demanding that the community summoned him back to Mirfield in order to recuperate. Raynes was deeply concerned about who should be appointed to succeed him. He met Huddleston who had been appointed to nurse him while he was in the infirmary. As a result of that meeting, much to Huddleston's surprise as he had only been a member of the community for four years, Raynes was convinced that he had found his successor.[5]
Over the course of the next 13 years in Sophiatown, Huddleston developed into a much-loved priest and respected anti-apartheid activist, earning him the nickname Makhalipile ("dauntless one"). He fought against the apartheid laws, which were increasingly systematised by the Nationalist government which was voted in by the white electorate in 1948,[6] and in 1955 the African National Congress (ANC) bestowed the rare Isitwalandwe award of honour on him at the famous Freedom Congress in Kliptown.[7] He was particularly concerned about the Nationalist Government's decision to bulldoze Sophiatown and forcibly remove all its inhabitants sixteen miles further away from Johannesburg. Despite Huddleston's efforts, these removals began on 9 February 1955 when Nelson Mandela described Huddleston as one of the leaders of the opposition to the removal.[8] Among other work, he established the African Children's Feeding Scheme (which still exists today) and raised money for the Orlando Swimming Pools – the only place black children could swim in Johannesburg until post-1994.[9]
There are many South Africans whose lives were changed by Huddleston; one of the most famous is Hugh Masekela, for whom Huddleston provided his first trumpet as a 14-year-old pupil at St. Martin's School (Rosettenville) in South Africa. Soon after the ‘Huddleston Jazz Band’ was formed, sparking a global career for Masekela and his fellow South African, Jonas Gwangwa. Other notable persons who credit Huddleston with influencing their lives include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sally Motlana, (activist and vice-chair of the South African Council of Churches during the 1970s); Archbishop Khotso Makhulu and Robben Islander and later President of the Land Claims Court, Fikile Bam. Huddleston was close to O R Tambo, ANC President during the years of exile, from 1962 to 1990. They hosted many conferences, protests and actions together, in the face of fierce opposition from both Margaret Thatcher, and the South African government and their allies.
After retirement[edit]
After his retirement from episcopal office in 1983, Huddleston continued anti-apartheid work, having become president of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in 1981. He continued to campaign against the imprisonment of children in South Africa, and was able to vote as an honorary South African in the first democratic elections on 27 April 1994. He briefly returned to South Africa but found it too difficult with his diabetic condition and increasing frailty, and returned to Mirfield. In October 1994 he was involved in the establishment of the Living South Africa Memorial, the UK's memorial to all those who lost lives under political violence, at St Martin-in-the-Fields church, London, which raised funds for education in the newly democratic South Africa, and campaigned for ongoing investment in the region, under a call to action 'It takes more than a vote to get over apartheid'.
In 1994, he received honours from Tanzania (Torch of Kilimanjaro) and was awarded the Indira Gandhi Award for Peace, Disarmament and Development. In the 1998 New Year Honours he was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG).[16]
In 1994, Huddleston was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) degree from Whittier College.[17]