Office Christianity
Archbishop of Canterbury
Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis la
Senior bishop of the Church of England
- Dated from 17 November 1558 CE
- Also called Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury
A seat,
and those
who held it.
Holders in order
Overview
From Wikipedia, quoted unmodified under CC BY-SA 4.0; the article’s history is its list of authors.
Succession in office
Who held it, in order
A sequence of office-holders, not a family genealogy.
- 18 holders
- 7 gaps
- 10 steps named in the records
What this means
Who held an office after whom. Not parentage, not discipleship, and not universally recognised — offices are contested.
Does not imply recognition by every tradition · an uncontested claim · parentage · discipleship · an explanation of why the succession happened
Holding an office after someone says nothing about being related to them or taught by them. Where a line is also a family, both are on the holders’ own pages as separate sections.
A gap is a vacancy, an interregnum or a hole in the record; an overlap is rival claims or an office held by more than one at once. The records do not say which, so neither is resolved here. A gap shorter than two years sits inside the precision of year-dated records and is not marked.
Why a succession happened is a historical argument. Where sources make one, it belongs in a reviewed connection with its citations — not in this order, and not in a predecessor field.
Recognition is never universal. Where a card names no recognising body, none is recorded — which is not the same as none.
Imported from Wikidata unless a card says otherwise. Nothing here has been read by an editor.
-
29 December 1575 CE – 6 July 1583 CE Edmund Grindal Archbishop of Canterbury -
Gap about 21 years with no holder recorded
November 1604 CE – 2 November 1610 CE Richard Bancroft British Archbishop of Canterbury -
4 March 1611 CE – 5 August 1633 CE George Abbot Archbishop of Canterbury -
6 August 1633 CE – 10 January 1645 CE William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury (1573-1645) -
Gap about 33 years with no holder recorded
27 January 1678 CE – 1 February 1690 CE William Sancroft Archbishop of Canterbury (1617-1693) -
31 May 1691 CE – 22 November 1694 CE John Tillotson Archbishop of Canterbury -
Gap about 111 years with no holder recorded
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1 February 1805 CE – 21 July 1828 CE Charles Manners-Sutton Archbishop of Canterbury; Bishop of Norwich -
Gap about 34 years with no holder recorded
20 October 1862 CE – 27 October 1868 CE Charles Longley Archbishop of Canterbury; Archbishop of York; Bishop of Durham; Bishop of Ripon (1794-1868) -
Gap about 15 years with no holder recorded
13 January 1883 CE – 11 October 1896 CE Edward Benson Archbishop of Canterbury (1829-1896) -
Gap about 7 years with no holder recorded
_(cropped).jpg/120px-His_Grace_the_Archbishop_of_Canterbury_No_1_(HS85-10-15284)_(cropped).jpg)
14 January 1903 CE – 12 November 1928 CE Randall Davidson Scottish Archbishop of Canterbury (1848-1930) -
13 November 1928 CE – 31 March 1942 CE Cosmo Gordon Lang British archbishop and clergyman (1864-1945) -
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1 April 1942 CE – 26 October 1944 CE William Temple Archbishop of Canterbury (1881-1944) -
12 January 1945 CE – 31 May 1961 CE Geoffrey Fisher Archbishop of Canterbury (1887-1972) -
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1 June 1961 CE – 15 November 1974 CE Michael Ramsey Archbishop of Canterbury (1904-1988) -
Gap about 6 years with no holder recorded
1 February 1980 CE – 31 January 1991 CE Robert Runcie Archbishop of Canterbury, 1980-1991 -
19 April 1991 CE – 31 October 2002 CE George Carey Anglican bishop (1935-) -
2 December 2002 CE – 31 December 2012 CE Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury (2002–2012) -
4 February 2013 CE – 7 January 2025 CE Justin Welby Archbishop of Canterbury from 2013 to 2025 Has references
Chronology is not a full explanation
Why one holder followed another takes evidence beyond the order of their dates.
Connections
How Archbishop of Canterbury connects
Grouped by the kind of relationship, because a successor is not a son and a shared symbol is not an influence.
Succession in office 1
What this means
Who held an office after whom. Not parentage, not discipleship, and not universally recognised — offices are contested.
Does not imply parentage · discipleship · an explanation of why the succession happened
Imported from Wikidata unless a tile says otherwise. Nothing here has been read by an editor.
Sources
Sources and evidence
Where every statement on this page comes from, and how each one stands.
1 statement on this record
- 1 Imported Taken from Wikidata as it stands. Nobody here has read it.
Only this record’s own statements. What other records say about it is counted on theirs.
Three layers, three licences
- Text
- Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted, not merged
- Pictures
- Wikimedia Commons · each file’s own terms
Review
Not yet read by an editor here. Every relationship on this page is an import.
Disagreements are kept, not resolved, and a count of sources is not a confidence score.
Keep exploring
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Its branches, councils, saints, offices and buildings — and where they stopped recognising each other.