A clergyman from 1990 to 1995 during a transitional chapter for Bermuda’s Anglican Church brought a stoic compassion to the role that was shaped by his childhood experiences in the Second World War.

The Right Reverend William “Bill” Down, the ninth Anglican Bishop of Bermuda, had an occasionally rocky tenure on the island, with church disputes that boiled over into the media.

Bishop Down saw it as a time of positive progress that included the appointment of the island’s first Black Bermudian Archdeacon, Ewen Ratteray, who was elected the first Bermudian Anglican Bishop in 1996.

It began in 1989 when the Archbishop of Canterbury asked Bishop Down to head the church in Bermuda after local procedures for selecting a bishop failed to produce a decisive result.

During his time in Bermuda, Bishop Down set in motion revisions that would ensure a decisive result in the future.

Bishop Down was consecrated on January 25, 1990, coming to the island on March 1 that year, and enthroned on March 25 — succeeding Christopher Luxmoore in the role.

It followed his leadership of a worldwide organisation for almost three decades.

Bishop Down’s work with the Missions to Seamen, which was recognised at the 1988 Lambeth Conference as the Anglican Church's official outreach to mariners, had begun in 1963 ‒ leaving him with a lifelong fondness for seafaring terminology.

The Right Reverend Nicholas Dill, the Anglican Bishop of Bermuda, said Bishop Down oversaw several major church projects during his five-year term, including a massive fundraiser for the Anglican Cathedral to get a new roof, and changes to the church’s constitution that paved the way for the election of Bishop Ratteray.

His blessings included the North Rock beacon and the island’s new ferries.

Bishop Dill added: “He was the first to grant permission to officiate to visiting women priests.

“He sought to promote Bermudians for the ordained ministry and oversaw the selection and discernment that led to Carl Williams and me going forward for training.

“George Leon Burt, the island’s first Bermudian buildings superintendent, was also sent to the Mission to Seafarers in New York, returning as a lay reader and working in that capacity.”

Bishop Dill called Bishop Down “a practical theologian with strong administrative skills and a great sense of humour”.

“He was famous for rhyming graces for any and every occasion, and eventually they were published in a book, The Bishop’s Bill of Fare: A Gracious Companion, with a foreword written by Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal.

“He loved everything to do with the sea from his time at the Mission to Seafarers and thrived in his time in Bermuda with Sally, his wife, and their family. Often seen on the golf course — I am told as a fundraiser he would bless golf balls, if pressed.

“His connection to the island continued after his retirement, when he became an assistant bishop in Leicester Diocese. He helped me to find a diocese that would support and help me to find a training parish after my theological education.

“Though small in stature, he has a strong voice and a joyful presence about him which made him much loved and respected.”

Unafraid to ruffle feathers within the church, Bishop Down came under fire from his own senior clergy over his choice of Archdeacon Ratteray, with complaints over the lack of consultation with senior priests.

Bishop Down grew up in England, in a village three miles from Aldershot, the home of the British Army. He was 5 when the Second World War broke out.

He recalled: “One of my earliest memories of school is of being given a gas mask, which I had to take to school every day.

“Another is of the air-raid shelters, with which nearly every home in our district was equipped. Another is of the grim faces of my parents in the early days of the war, before my father became a flying officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.”

During the 1940 Battle of Britain, the fighting got close enough for Bishop Down to watch a German plane spiral to the ground ablaze.

Bishop Down said that in the aftermath “I learnt to forgive and forget.”

He attended Cambridge University, was ordained into the ministry of the Anglican Church when he was 25, and served as a curate in Salisbury for four years.

In 1971, his work with the Missions to Seamen took him to Australia, where he had responsibility for all the ports along the western coast spanning about 4,500 miles.

Three years later, he was brought back to London to become general secretary of the missions, a post he held for 14 years.

His Bermuda tenure coincided with the hundredth anniversary of the Anglican Cathedral and an ambitious restoration of the Hamilton landmark, as well as Princess Margaret’s visit in 1990.

Bishop Down’s nautical past lingered in his choice of words.

When he stepped down as bishop and returned to England in 1995, he told the Mid-Ocean News: “I think in any ongoing thing like the church — to use seafaring terms — one captain relieves another.”

The Right Reverend William Down, the island’s ninth Anglican Bishop, was born on July 15, 1934. He died in January 2025, aged 90