Bishop Philip has recently learned that he has family roots in our diocese, a discovery that has affirmed his sense of calling as Bishop of Winchester. He tells us the fascinating story…
“I got a letter out of the blue from a Mr James Gray who farms at Wonston Manor Farm near Winchester – he is a tenant farmer on land that he tells me has belonged to the church since Saxon times – and in this letter he mentions a Family Bible in his possession that may once have belonged to one of my ancestors.
“In the Bible there is a record of a Richard Mounstephen who died aged 93 in 1856. We worked out that therefore he must have been born in 1763 – and actually I have done quite a lot of family history research and there is indeed a Richard Mounstephen in my family tree who I had already discovered was born in 1763. And because it’s such an uncommon name we concluded it must be the same person! So in fact this Richard Mounstephen was my seven times great uncle.
“Richard Mounstephen then gave the Family Bible to his granddaughter, Mary Salter, in 1847, nine years before he died, and she was James’s great grandmother, which is how it passed down to him. But now James has very generously made a gift of this Bible to me, for which I am truly grateful.
“The whole story has warmed my heart and thoroughly affirmed my sense of calling to ministering here in Hampshire and being the Bishop of Winchester. I knew I had family roots in Devon and Cornwall, but I was born in Hampshire and came to faith at university in Southampton, so this Family Bible ties together these two strands of where my origins are in a way that I find so affirming and encouraging. And to have all this inscribed in a Family Bible as a document of both of heritage and of faith is just wonderful and I am very grateful to have it!”
