Augustus Short arrived in Adelaide in late 1847 as the first Anglican Bishop of Adelaide; he was forty-five years old, married to Millicent, and they had five children. He was to remain in office for thirty-four years and departed for retirement to England in his eightieth year, much lauded as a distinguished colonist.

This volume (a companion to Augustus Short and the Founding of the University of Adelaide, published in 2014) explores Short’s life before arriving in South Australia – his education at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford. An outstanding scholar, Short was ordained a priest of the Church of England in 1827, and taught at Christ Church before serving eleven years in a rural parish in Northamptonshire. Many of the courageous and innovative ideas Short practised as Bishop of Adelaide had their origins in his education, and were influenced by those he studied with – Bishop Thomas Vowler Short, Bishop Charles Lloyd, Edward Bouverie Pusey and John Henry Newman, among others. Short’s first forty-five years were dominated by Christ Church, and this is equally a story of that enduring community of learning and worship as it shaped Short’s beliefs and choices in life.