The Bishop of Sheffield writes:
IT SPEAKS volumes for the mutual affection between diocesan bishop and diocese that so many attended the vigil at Guildford Cathedral on Monday 23 February, just over a week before Bishop Andrew Watson died. Andrew was at heart a pastor: he loved his people; they knew it and loved him in return.
Andrew’s untimely death has come as a distressing shock to his family and friends, to the diocese of Guildford, and to the Church of England generally. Yet, in his final weeks, Andrew has modelled for us all what it means to die as a follower of the Lord Jesus. His two last pastoral letters to the diocese were communications of great radiance. The first, issued on 10 February, disclosed the initial diagnosis that his pancreatic cancer was inoperable. The second, issued on 19 February, informed the diocese that he had delegated his responsibilities to the Bishop of Dorking, after being told by his consultant that in all likelihood he had less than a month to live. So it proved.
Andrew died peacefully at Willow Grange on Tuesday 3 March, surrounded by members of his family. In that second letter to the diocese, he had written: “I don’t fear the prospect of dying and find to my relief that my faith in the ‘resurrection of the body and the life everlasting’ has only grown stronger in the past few weeks.”
In his life, Andrew exemplified what is best in an Evangelical Christian faith. He liked to say he was defined by the noun “Christian”, not the adjective “Evangelical”. Yet he identified wholly and gladly with the Evangelical tradition: with its personal commitment to Jesus as Lord and Saviour; its love for holy scripture as a means of grace; and its strongly missionary impulse to see others come to faith and trust in God.
Andrew inhabited this tradition with inspiring authenticity. He was utterly himself in every situation and with remarkable consistency over time: as a husband, father and grandfather, brother and son; as a friend and a colleague; in ordained ministry as a curate, a vicar, and a bishop; in the diocese of Guildford and in the national Church. The courage with which he acknowledged himself to be a victim of abuse and the grace with which expressed his commitment to the inherited teaching of the Church in relation to marriage and human sexuality were both the fruit of this faith.
Neither Andrew’s preaching nor his several books achieved in his lifetime the recognition that they deserve, outside the Lutheran Churches of Scandinavia and the Church of Nigeria, where he was much in demand. A skilful expositor of the Bible, he seldom delivered a poor sermon. He was also a skilful musician: his accompaniment of worship on the piano and his choral compositions were things of great beauty. It is expected that his setting of George Herbert’s poem “Love bade me welcome” will be sung at his funeral, as it was at his installation as Bishop of Guildford in 2015.
Andrew held that post for more than ten years and was previously Bishop of Aston for seven. He was the Vicar of St Stephen’s, Twickenham, from 1996 to 2008, and while there, a pioneer of the potential of church-plants and -grafts to revitalise parishes. Before that, he served as Vicar of St John’s and St Peter’s, Notting Hill, and as assistant curate of Ipsley, in Redditch, having been ordained deacon and priest in the diocese of Worcester in 1987 and 1988. He was earlier educated at Winchester College and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Pre-pandemic, Andrew ably facilitated a nationwide vocations “Big Conversation”, which issued in a marked uplift in the number of those training for the ordained ministry. More recently, equally ably, he steered the complex Governance Measure through the synodical process. He was introduced to the House of Lords in 2022.
Andrew has died at the age of 64, in his prime and with much to live for. We mourn with his wife, Beverly, his children ,Hannah, Sam, Joe, and Lydia, their partners and children, and with the whole Watson family. Yet we do so acknowledging that Andrew had fully embraced his call to glory and the timing of it. He died in faith and hope and love.
Andrew belonged to a “cell group” of Ridley Hall contemporaries. In his final communication to them, he wrote: “May the Lord continue to bless and strengthen you and give you his joy in all the years that lie ahead. I look forward to giving you a great welcome when you come to join me.”
