Edward Bickersteth

Edward Bickersteth (26 June 1850 – 5 August 1897) was an ordained Anglican missionary, Bishop of South Tokyo and a leading figure in both the establishment of the Cambridge Mission to Delhi and in the early years of the Anglican Church in Japan. Early life and education Edward Bickersteth was born at Banningham, Norfolk into a noted Church of England ecclesiastical family; his father, Edward Henry Bickersteth, was the Bishop of Exeter from 1885 to 1900. Educated at Highgate School where he excelled in both academic studies and athletics winning an open classical scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1869. At Cambridge, as well as studying for ordination, he obtained both classical and theological degrees with honours and was elected a Fellow in 1875. In 1873, Bickersteth took up his first post as a curate at Holy Trinity, South Hampstead. Bickersteth was then appointed lecturer in Theology at his old college and in 1877 founded and led the Cambridge Mission to Delhi, an initiative in support of the North India mission and educational work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.