Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Bickersteth, Edward (1850-1897)
BICKERSTETH, EDWARD (1850–1897), bishop of South Tokyo, Japan, born at Banningham rectory, Norfolk, on 26 June 1850, was the eldest son of Edward Henry Bickersteth, bishop of Exeter (from 1885 till his resignation in 1900), and Rosa (d. 2 Aug. 1873), daughter of Sir Samuel Bignold. Educated at Highgate school, he obtained in 1869 a scholarship at Pembroke College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1873 and M.A. in 1876. In 1874 he won the Scholefield and Evans prizes. He was ordained deacon in 1873 and priest in 1S74 by the bishop of London. From 1873 to 1875 he was curate of Holy Trinity, Hampstead. In 1875 he was elected to a fellowship at his college. Mainly through his exertions the Cambridge mission to Delhi was founded, and in 1877 he left England as its first head. The work grew under Ms care, and the influence of his example was felt beyond the limits of his own mission. He returned home in impaired health in 1882, and was appointed to the rectory of Framlingham, Suftblk. He had, however, resigned the living and was preparing for a return to Delhi when he was offered the bishopric in Japan. He was consecrated and sailed for his diocese in 1886. The same powers shown at Delhi were even more conspicuously displayed in the organisation of the Nippon Sei Kokwai, the native Japan church of the Anglican communion. Under the incessant work of the diocese Bickersteth's health again gave way. He came home, and, after a long illness, died on 5 Aug. 1897. Bickersteth represented a third generation of missionary zeal, but his churchmanship was more distinctively Anglican than that of Edward Bickersteth [q. v.], his grandfather. His position is well represented in his volume of lectures, 'Our Heritage in the Church,' London, 1898, 8vo.
[S. Bickersteth's Life and Letters of Bishop E. Bickersteth; Stock's History of the Church Missionary See, vol. iii.; C. M. S. Intelligencer, 1898, p. 24; Burke's Family Records, 1897.]