The Journal of Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta, 1845-1857

Daniel Wilson (1778-1858) was a prominent personality in the British administration of the Indian subcontinent during the mid-nineteenth century, as Anglican bishop of Calcutta from 1832 and the first metropolitan of India and Ceylon. His episcopate coincided with the final decades of the British East India Company, and his vast diocese stretched from the Khyber Pass to Singapore. Under his leadership, the position of the Church of England in India was consolidated at a formational period for the nascent Anglican Communion, with the creation of new dioceses, the wide deployment of chaplains and missionaries, and an aggressive programme of church building in a colonial landscape dominated by temples and mosques.
Wilson’s private journal covers the second half of his episcopate, beginning with a day-to-day account of his furlough in England in 1845-46, and including his frequent, lengthy journeys on visitation to far-flung mission stations. It reveals the development of his missionary strategies, his relationships with political and ecclesiastical power-brokers, his attitudes to Hinduism and Islam, and his confidence in the blessings of European civilization. The journal also sheds light upon Wilson’s evangelical piety and abhorrence of Tractarianism, as well as his attempts to discipline immoral and criminous chaplains who brought public scandal upon thechurch.

ANDREW ATHERSTONE is Tutor in History and Doctrine at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and a member of Oxford University’s Faculty of Theology and Religion.