Several factors made Maurice Wood an unusual bishop.
One was his pastoral experience: he became Bishop of Norwich in 1971 from the Principal’s chair at Oak Hill Theological College, but also after notable earlier ministries at St. Ebbe’s, Oxford, and St. Mary’s, Islington (and as President of the Islington Conference). Another was his notoriety as a ‘conservative evangelical’, as we were then called. The bench of English Diocesans had seen none for a generation; the anonymous preface-writer of Crockfords Clerical Directory did not welcome the novelty.
No less extraordinary was that, having begun as an evangelical, on his retirement in 1985 he still was one. Several such bishops have been chosen since; very few stay the course in the same colours.
