Neville Gorton

Neville Vincent Gorton (1 March 1888 – 30 November 1955) was the 4th bishop of the restored see of Coventry in the modern era.

Gorton was born on 1 March 1888, the son of Anglican Rev. Canon C. V. Gorton, and educated at Marlborough College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was an exhibitioner and Aubrey Moore student. Gorton was a career school-master who after taking holy orders spent 20 years at Sedbergh School, during which time he married Ethel Ingledew Daggett, with whom he had two sons (including the production designer Assheton Gorton ) and one daughter rising to the rank of housemaster. He was then appointed head of Blundell's School where he was to remain until the call to face the challenges of a severely bombed diocese.

A passionate advocate of Christian Unity, Gorton's vision was for a “People’s cathedral”. Gorton himself was a curious mixture of conventional (he passionately opposed the remarriage of divorced people in church) and lateral thinker – his wide experience with boys gave him a very realistic view of “sin”. A master of the short, pithy sermon, he was a much admired churchman. He died in office on 30 November 1955 aged 67.

Sir Basil Spence, the architect of the new Coventry Cathedral, considered Gorton to be a saint, writing "I have never met such a 'good' man, and one who had no sense of possessiveness whatsoever; he desired nothing except the things of the spirit."