Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman

The Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman is a diocese in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and encompasses the area around Kimberley and Kuruman and overlaps the Northern Cape Province and North West Province of South Africa. It is presided over by the Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, currently the Rt Revd Oswald Swartz. The seat of the Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman is at St Cyprian's Cathedral, Kimberley. There have so far been 12 bishops of the See, though one of these served for two different periods of time.

Formation of the diocese

The Anglican presence on the Diamond Fields and in Kimberley’s hinterland, from the early 1870s, was at first administered from Bloemfontein, initially under Bishop Alan Becher Webb, the oldest parish here being St Mary's, Barkly West. By the early 1890s, however, there was a feeling in some quarters that the Diocese of Bloemfontein was too big and there were proposals for the formation of a separate Bishopric with its seat in Kimberley. But in the event the Bishops decided upon establishing the missionary Diocese of Mashonaland instead - an area also up until then administered from Bloemfontein.

From 1907 to 1910 motions were passed and planning and fund-raising initiatives were being conducted in earnest towards founding a new Diocese of Kimberley. These included the “Million Shillings Fund” launched by Bloemfontein’s Bishop Chandler in London on 2 February 1909. It was hoped that all would be in place so that the coming into being of the new Diocese would coincide with the establishment of Union in South Africa in 1910. However it was not before July 1911 that all was ready and a formal resolution could be proposed, as it was at a meeting in the Kimberley Town Hall, that ‘the western portion of the Diocese of Bloemfontein be constituted a new and separate Diocese with Kimberley as its Cathedral Town’ – to which Episcopal Synod, meeting in Maritzburg, gave its final consent in the form of a Mandate dated 11 October 1911. The Elective Assembly for the choosing of a Bishop for the new Diocese was held in Kimberley on 13 December 1911, at which the Very Revd Wilfrid Gore Browne, Dean of Pretoria, was the unanimous choice. Gore Browne was consecrated in Bloemfontein Cathedral on 29 June 1912. He was enthroned the following day as Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, at St Cyprian’s Cathedral.

Geographical extent

The Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman has not been constant in extent and at times less than exactly defined. Taking over the western side of the Diocese of Boemfontein (now "of the Free State"), it also included some of the sparsely populated interior extremities of the Dioceses of Cape Town and of Grahamstown. Added in 1915 was the southern half of Bechuanaland Protectorate, which remained part of "K&K" (as Kimberley and Kuruman is often called) until Botswana's independence in 1966 (interestingly this history flavoured liturgical usage there, which still resembles the style more of the South African Prayer Book than the Central African Prayer Book). The 1952 Diocesan Synod was concerned to establish the boundaries of Parishes; noting also a lack of clarity on “where is the Diocese” – “The Bishop called attention ... to the fact that certain places where at present the Diocese has Clergymen at work are not technically in the Diocese.”

Bishops

Tenure	Incumbent	Notes
1912 to 1928	Wilfrid Gore Browne	(1859-1928)
1928 to 1943	Theodore Sumner Gibson	(1885-1953)
1943 to 1951	John Hunter	(1897-1965)
1951 to 1960	John Boys	(1900-1972)
1961 to 1965	Philip William Wheeldon	(1913-1992)
1965 to 1967	Clarence Edward Crowther	(b 1929)
1968 to 1976	Philip William Wheeldon (2nd spell)	(Ibid)
1976 to 1983	Graham Charles Chadwick	(1923-2007)
1983 to 1991	George Alfred Swartz	(1928-2006)
1991 to 1996	Winston Njongonkulu Ndungane	(b 1941)
1996 to 2006	Itumeleng Baldwin Moseki	(b 1944)
2007 to present	Oswald Swartz	(b 1953-)

Notable clergy and people

Besides the Bishops of the See (above) and the Deans of Kimberley (see also the early Rectors of St Cyprian's), notable clergy and people of the diocese have included: The so-called "Big Three" pioneer missionary priests of the diocese, Canon W.H.R. Bevan of Phokwane, Archdeacon George Mervyn Lawson of Griqualand West and Canon Frederick William Peasley of Bothithong; Sister Henrietta Stockdale of the Community of St Michael and All Angels; Canon Levi Kraai, ordained by Bishop Gore-Browne in 1913; Canon J.W. Mogg, who served the diocese from 1915 to 1945; Archdeacon S.W. Wade; Archdeacon Joseph Thekiso; Fr Theophilus Naledi, afterwards Bishop of Botswana; Archdeacon Richard Stanley Cutts, afterwards Dean of Salisbury and later the Bishop of Buenos Aires; Fr Alan Butler, latterly Director of the Kuruman Moffat Mission; Canon George Pressly; Fr John William Salt O.G.S., afterwards Dean of Eshowe and Bishop of St Helena; Kimberley-born Fr Brian Marajh, consecrated as Bishop of George.

Current archdeaconries and parishes

While some of the parishes in the diocese date back to the beginnings of Anglican work on the Diamond Fields and in Kimberley’s hinterland, for example St Mary's, Barkly West and the Cathedral Parish of St Cyprian, their boundaries have not been invariable. The archdeaconry structure has been even more dynamic, responding to the needs of the day at different periods. In 2010 an experimental division between north and south was replaced when the new archdeaconries of the Molopo, the Kgalagadi and the Karoo were created.

Archdeaconry of the Karoo

• The Cathedral Church of St Cyprian the Martyr, Kimberley.
• St Alban’s, De Beers
• All Saints, Homevale
• St Barnabas, Floors
• St James, Galeshewe
• St Matthew’s, Barkly Road
• St Augustine’s, West End
• St Mary's, Barkly West - the oldest Parish Church in the Diocese
• St Mary Magdalene, Ritchie
• St Paul’s, Vergenoeg
• St Peter’s, Greenpoint
• St Francis, Roodepan
• St Thomas, De Aar
• Good Shepherd, Nonzwakazi
• St Martin’s & Annunciation, Douglas
• St Andrew’s, Douglas
• St Barnabas, Britstown
• St Andrew’s, Philipstown
• St Matthew’s, Richmond

Archdeaconry of the Molopo

• St John’s, Mafikeng
• All Saints, Montshiwa
• Resurrection, Mmabatho
• Transfiguration, Setlagole
• St Stephen’s, Vryburg
• St Peter’s, Ganyesa
• Holy Cross, Pudimong
• St Philip’s, Huhudi
• St Chad’s, Taung
• All Saints, Pampierstad
• St Mary’s, Matalong
• Hartsvaal Parish

Several of these parishes have numerous outstations

Archdeaconry of the Kgalagadi

• St Matthew’s, Oranjekruin
• All Saints, Paballelo
• St Andrew’s, Prieska
• St Anne’s, Niekerkshoop
• St Paul’s, Marydale
• St Philip’s, Boegoeberg
• St Francis, Manyeding
• St Mary-le-Bourne, Kuruman
• St Peter’s Wrenchville
• St Laurence, Danielskuil
• St Michael and All Angels, Batlharos
• St Paul’s, Mothibistad
• St John’s, Bothithong
• St Winfred, Maruping
• St Monica, Tsineng

Several of these parishes have numerous outstations

Link

The diocese has a link partnership with the Diocese of Oxford, established in 1993.Visits by the Rt Revd John Pritchard of Oxford to Kimberley and Kuruman in 2008 and 2010 and by the Rt Revd Oswald Swartz to Lambeth (and Oxford) in 2008, and by other senior clergy and people, have strengthened the link with its focus on HIV/Aids and other key projects.