Mandell Creighton was a British historian and a bishop of the Church of England. A scholar of the Renaissance papacy, Creighton was the first occupant of the Dixie Chair of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge, a professorship established around the time that history was emerging as an independent academic discipline. He was also the first editor of the English Historical Review, the oldest English language academic journal in the field of history. Creighton had a second career as a cleric in the Church of England. He served as a parish priest in Embleton, Northumberland and later, successively, as a Canon Residentiary of Worcester Cathedral, the Bishop of Peterborough and the Bishop of London. His moderation and worldliness drew praise from Queen Victoria and won notice from politicians. It was widely thought at the time that Creighton would have become the Archbishop of Canterbury had his early death, at age 57, not supervened.
Creighton as Bishop of London, by Sir Hubert von Herkomer.
The Creighton family in Carlisle c. 1870 when Mandell was 26. Left to right: James, Robert, Mary Ellen (Polly), and Mandell.
Mandell Creighton, aged 15, the year he left Carlisle for Durham School
Durham Cathedral from Durham School chapel
The bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury. By custom the Bishop is also Dean of the Chapel Royal since 1723.
A certificate of ordination (with seal) given at Westminster by Richard Terrick, Bishop of London, 24 February 1770. The arms on the seal are blazoned: Per pale: 1. Gules, two swords in saltire points uppermost argent hilts and pommels or (for the office of the Bishop of London), and 2. ___ (the personal arms of Richard Terrick?), surmounted by a bishop's mitre above an escallop.