The Times/1925/News/New Bishop of Oxford

The King has approved the appointment of the Right Reverend Thomas Banks Strong, G.B.E., M.A., D.D., Lord Bishop of Ripon, to the Bishopric of Oxford, vacant owing to the death of the Right Reverend Hubert Murray Burge, M.A., D.D.

Dr. Strong, who is 63 years of age, was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, of which he was elected a junior student in 1879. He obtained a first class in Classical Moderations in 1881 and a second class in Lit. Hum. in 1883. In 1884 he was appointed to a lectureship at his college and four years later was elected to a senior studentship, which he held up to the date of his appointment as Dean. Ordained deacon in 1885 and priest in 1880, he was examining chaplain to Bishops Lightfoot of Durham and his successor, Bishop Westcott, from 1889-1901, and Bampton Lecturer at Oxford for 1895. He was appointed Dean of Christ Church in 1901, and was examining chaplain to the Bishop of London from 1905-1907. In 1913 he became Vice-Chancellor of the University over which he was presided during the first strenuous years of the war, till 1917. On his retirement from the Vice-Chancellorship he was given the degree of D.Mus. honoris causa by Oxford University. He also holds two other honorary degrees, having been made D.D by the University of Durham in 1913, and Litt.D. by the University of Leeds in 1922. In 1918 he was created a G.B.E. In 1920 was appointed to the See of Ripon in succession to the late bishop. From 1921-23 he was select preacher to the University of Oxford.

In 1919 Dr. Strong was made a member of the Royal Commission on Oxford and Cambridge Universities, which was presided over by Lord Oxford and Asquith, (then Mr. Asquith), and in 1923 he was made one of the Statutory Commissioners for Oxford University, in which capacity he is at present acting. Dr. Strong is the author of several important theological works, among which may be mentioned "A Manual of Theology" (second edition, 1903), "Christian Ethics" (Bampton Lectures) (1896), "The Real Presence" (1900), "Historical Christianity" (1902), "Authority in the Church" (1903), and "Religion, Philosophy, and History" (1923).