Alexander Chinnery-Haldane


James Robert Alexander Chinnery-Haldane was an Anglican bishop in the last decades of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century.

Early life

He was born in Hatcham, Surrey, the son of the barrister and newspaper proprietor Alexander Haldane and Emma Hardcastle. His early education was at Bury St Edmunds Grammar School, Suffolk. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge on 26 August 1861 and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws ; later graduating with a Master of Laws and Doctor of Divinity. He was admitted to the Inner Temple on 5 May 1864. He assumed the additional surname of Chinnery on 29 July 1864 just before his marriage on 23 August 1864 to Anna Elizabeth Chinnery, only daughter of the Reverend Sir Nicholas Chinnery, Baronet of Flintfield, County Cork. He changed his name again by Royal Licence on 2 September 1878 to Chinnery-Haldane.

Anglican ministry

He was made deacon in 1866 and began his Anglican ministry as a curate at Calne, Wiltshire, during which time he was ordained priest on Trinity Sunday 1867 by Walter Kerr Hamilton, Bishop of Salisbury, at Salisbury Cathedral — on that occasion his name was gazetted James Robert Alexander Hardcastle Haldane-Chinnery. He moved to Scotland where served as a curate at All Saints, Edinburgh. His next pastoral appointment was a curate at Ballachulish, with charge of Nether Lochaber. Afterwards, becoming the incumbent at Ballachulish , and Incumbent at Nether Lochaber. He also became Dean of the Diocese of Argyll and The Isles.
He was unanimously elected Bishop of Argyll and The Isles at a Synod on Cumbrae, 13 June 1883; and then consecrated a bishop at Fort William on 24 August 1883 by Robert Eden, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, with bishops Cotterill, Wilson, Jermyn, Lightfoot, and Kelly as co-consecrators. He also served as Provost of Cumbrae.
Chinnery-Haldane died in office at Alltshellach House Nether Lochaber on 16 February 1906, aged 63.