Archbishop of Canterbury Designate Is Former Chiswick Resident

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The Welby family lived in Grove Park in the 1980s

The Bishop of Durham, the Rt. Revd Justin Welby, who will become the new Archbishop of Canterbury, once lived in Chiswick with his family.

The Welbys spent about five years near Milnthorpe Road, Grove Park, in the 1980s and three of their children were born while living in Chiswick.

They moved to Chiswick from Paris, where they lived for while he was working for Elf Aquitane Oil. In 1984 Justin Welby became treasurer of the oil exploration group Enterprise Oil PLC in London and he and his wife Caroline left France for the UK.

A former neighbour of the Welby’s recalled befriending Caroline Welby at local NCT gatherings when their children were little.

“They were a lovely family and everyone who knows them is delighted with his appointment. We have all been following his career with some interest, ” she commented.

During their time in W4, they enjoyed walks in nearby Chiswick House and Gardens and along the river. A fluent French speaker and a Francophile, he also enjoys sailing.

While living in W4, he also became a congregation member and lay leader at the evangelical Anglican church of Holy Trinity in Brompton.

The Welbys had suffered a tragedy when their baby daughter Johanna was killed in a car crash in 1983, aged seven months.

After five years living in Chiswick, Justin Welby retired from his executive position and said that he sensed a calling from God to be ordained.

In 1989, after leaving Chiswick, he studied for ordination at St. John’s College, Durham and became a priest in his mid-thirties. He became Dean of Liverpool and was appointed as the Bishop of Durham in 2011.

Born in London in 1956, he was Educated at Eton, and Trinity College Cambridge, where he obtained a BA in History and Law in 1978.

As a member of the House of Lords, he has recently been sitting on the panel of the 2012 Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. His paternal grandfather was a German Jewish immigrant though he did not discover this until he was an adult. Through his mother, he is the great-nephew of a former Conservative Deputy Prime Minister, Rab Butler.

From 1989 to 1992, he studied and trained for the priesthood at Cranmer Hall and St John's College, Durham. He then worked in a number of parishes, including Coventry, before moving to Liverpool in 2007. While in Coventry he established a special day for bereaved parents with an annual service commemorating the lives of children who have died. The Welbys have five children aged 16-27, one married.

He is to be enthroned as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury on 21 March 2013 in Canterbury Cathedral.

December 10, 2012