GIBSON, EDGAR CHARLES SUMNER: Bishop of Gloucester; b. at Southampton Jan. 23, i848. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford (B-A., 1870), and Wells Theological College (1871 72), and was ordained priest in 1872. He was chaplain of Wells Theological College 1871 74, vice-principal of the same institution and curate of Dinder 1874-76, lecturer at Leeds Clergy School 1876-80, principal of Wells Theological College 1880-95, and vicar and rural dean of Leeds 1895-1905. In 1905 he was consecrated bishop of Gloucester: He was also prebendary of Wells Cathedral 1880-1905, lecturer on pastoral theology at Cambridge 189394, select preacher at Oxford 189395, examining chaplain to the bishop of Bath and Wells 1894-1904, honorary chaplain to Queen Victoria 1901, chaplain in ordinary to King Edward VII. 1901-05, Warburton Lecturer of Lincoln's Inn 1903, and a member of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline and commissary to the bishops of North China and $han-tong 1904. In theology he is a liberal Highchurchman. He has written Northumbrian Saints (London, 1884); Commentary on St. James in The Pulpit Commentary (1886); Self-Discipline (1894); The Thirty-Nine Articles Explained (2 vols., 1896-1897); Commentary on the Book of Job (1898;) John Howard (1901); old Messages from the Old Testament (1904). He also translated the works of Casnaams for the Nicene and Post-Nicene Library (Edinburgh, 1894) and edited George Herbert's Temple (London, 1899).

GIBSON, EDMUND: Bishop of London; b. at Bampton (24 m. as.e. of Csrliale), Westmoreland, Der-, 1669; d. at Bath Sept. 6, 1748. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford (B.A., 1891; M.A., 1694), where be was given a fellowship. His early interest in Anglo-Saxon and British antiquities led to a friendship with Archbishop Tenisoa, who made him his domestic chaplain and got him the librarianship at Lambeth. Through Tenison's influence Gibson became lecturer at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, rector of Stisted in Essex (1700), and rector of Lambeth (1703). He sided with Tenison in the controversy between the two houses of convocation and within three years publiabed ten tracts in support of the upper louse. He became archdeacon of Surrey in 1710, bishop of

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Lincoln in 1716, and bishop of London in 1723. For years he was the intimate friend and chief adviser of Sir Robert Walpole in ecclesiastical matters. His crusade against court masquerades and his opposition to Walpole's Quakers' Relief Bill cost him the appointment to the archbishopric of Can terbury in 1737. Ten years later the arcLbishopric was offered him, but he declined on account of age and infirmity. Besides tracts, sermons, and pas toral letters, some of which were directed against deists, freethinkers, and Methodists, his principal publications were, Synodus Anglicani, or the Con stitution and Proceedings of an English Convocation (London, 1702: ed. E. Cardwell, Oxford, 1854), which now forms the text-book for all proceedings in convocation; Codex juris ecclesiastici Anglicani; or the Statutes, Constitutions, Canons, Rubrics, and Articles of the Church of England (2 vols., 1713), a monument of research and still the highest au thority on church law; and A Preservative against Popery (3 vols., 1734; ed. J. Cumming, 18 vols., 1848-49; Supplement, 8 vols., 1849), a collection of treatises on the subject by various eminent English divines.

Bibliography: Some Account of . . . Dr. B. Gibson, London, 1749 (by R. Smalbroke7); W. Co", Memoirs of Horatio Lord Walpole, vol. ii.. London, 1808; A. b. Wood, Atheno Oxoniensea, ed. P. Bliss, iv. 540, London, 1820 DNB, xxi. 274-275; J. H. Overton and F. Reltn, The English Church, . . . 1714-1800, pp. 99-120 et passim, London, 1906.