Name Samuel Heaslett Role Author | Died 1947 Education Durham University | |
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The Rt Rev Samuel Heaslett (1875-1947) was an Anglican bishop.
He was born in Belfast in 1875 and educated at Durham University where he obtained a First Class degree in Theology. Ordained in 1900 he began his overseas mission career in the service of the Anglican Church in Japan as a Tutor at Osaka Divinity School after which he was a Missionary in Tokushima then a Professor at Tokyo Central Theological College before elevation to the Episcopate as the 4th Bishop of South Tokyo a post he held until he was arrested and imprisoned by the Japanese wartime authorities shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Concurrent with his role as Bishop of South Tokyo, Heaslett also served as the Presiding Bishop of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai from 1933 to 1940.
Deported from Japan after four months, Heaslett returned to England to become an Assistant Bishop within the Diocese of Sheffield.
Heaslett, along with Bishop Charles S. Reifsnider of the US Episcopal Church, returned briefly to Japan in May and June 1946 as a part of a mission sent by Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher to show support for the Nippon Sei Ko Kai in its efforts to renew and rebuild at the end of the Second World War.
Heaslett died on 16 October 1947.