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Anthony John Carr Bishop of the Order of St. Leonard & Bishop of Wroxall Abbey 2010 – 2020

Rt Rev Dr Anthony Carr who was born to Albert and Winifred Carr (Lloyd) on 11th October 1932, has had two professions he perused. He first qualified as a State Registered Nurse at Selly Oak Hospital in 1954 having been previously a ward orderly. And in his sixties became an ordained minister.

At Selly Oak Hospital he became a staff nurse and unusually for a man at that time, a charge nurse. In 1955 he married Alice May Smith and together they had five children.

He undertook District Nurse training in the City of Birmingham in 1960 obtaining the then-new National Certificate in District Nursing having number 4 on his certificate and also qualifying as a Queen’s Nurse. (Queens Institute of District Nursing). In 1963 he became Assistant Matron in charge of and commissioned a new hospital of 150 beds in Rednal, Birmingham named the Joseph Sheldon Hospital. There he established the first children’s nursery in the NHS for the staff’s children.

Anthony became one of the first elected male nurses to join the Council of the Royal College of Nursing in 1963 serving at different periods coving the next sixteen years.

After a couple of years working for the Royal College of Nursing in the Midlands, he took the Principal’s position of the William Rathbone Staff College in Liverpool. Having radically altered the direction of that college into higher, middle management training for the NHS he became in 1970 the Chief Nursing Officer of the Central Wirral Group of hospitals on the Wirral, Cheshire.

In 1972 he took over three previously separate health authority group of hospitals as the Chief Nursing Officer of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals which included seventeen hospitals and nursing and midwifery training schools which totalled 1350 student and pupil nurses in general and mental training. In addition, 80 pupil midwives and Sick Children’s Nursing education was provided. Later, a large post-graduate department was created by housing twelve specialist nationally approved courses. In 1974 the community nursing, midwifery and health visiting services together with the school nursing service were transferred from the local authority control to the health authority under the management of the chief nursing officer.

In 1976 the Freeman Hospital of 810 beds was commissioned and added to the group while some smaller hospitals were closed. In the previous year, he was appointed chairman of a working party set up by the Assessors for District Nursing Training, a Department of Health organisation which controlled district nurse education covering the UK. The report published in 1976 had widespread publicity and radically altered the status, education and training of the district nurse. In the following year his Working Party produced a similar report on the Education and Training of the Enrolled Nurse. Anthony was to take the lead in many of the district nursing organisations including holding positions in the following. President, District Nursing Association 1976-1984 President, Practical Work Teachers Association 1978-1984 Department of Health Nominee, Panel of Assessors for District Nursing 1979-1984 (Deputy Chairman of Education Committee 1982-1984) Member, Council of Queen's Nursing Institute 1977-1984 For all this work for district nursing he was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in 1984. Later he became Founder Chairman, Regional, Area and District Nursing Officers Group Rcn 1977-1981. Elected Member, English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting 1983-1984 Appointed Member, Joint Committee on District Nursing, United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting 1983-1984

In October 1983 he had a severe heart attack so that by the end of 1984 he was forced to retire from his position in Newcastle.

After recovery, Anthony became a nursing consultant and worked for the Royal College of Midwives, Cow and Gate and several other clients. He had previously been actively involved in medical writing having published over 120 papers of various kinds, a copy of which can still be read at his web site at ajcarr.org. During this time, he was to hold the position of Consulting Editor Nursing Focus 1978-1983 and was an Editorial Advisory Board Member Nursing Mirror, 1976-1982.

In 1985 he was appointed by the Department of Health to sit on a four-person working party to study all aspects of community nursing in England with Julia Cumberlege (later Baroness) as chair. Their report Neighbourhood Nursing was published in 1986.

In 1987 Anthony moved to Solihull in the West Midlands to work with his younger brother who was senior pastor of the Renewal Christian Centre in Solihull. He became pastor of pastoral care in 1990 while training for the ordained ministry which was finalised in 1995. In the same year, he commenced theological study with Regents Theological College in Nantwich obtaining a Manchester University degree of Bachelor of Theology. He served for four years on the Elim Church Executive Presbytery before becoming an accredited minister of the Free Methodist Church.

In 2001 Anthony was appointed to a previously redundant parish church in the grounds of Wroxall Abbey Estate in Warwick. The church was renamed from the Church of St. Leonard to Wrens Chapel in honour of the owner of the estate in the 1700’s, Sir Christopher Wren the architect. Several of the Wren family are buried in the church graveyard. The church had a second name, The Abbey Church of St. Leonard.

In 2006 he submitted a 194,000-word thesis to the Logos Graduate School in the USA and obtained the degrees of Master of Religious Arts and later Doctor of Sacred Literature. In 2009, four ministers attached to the Abbey church were re-ordained into an Anglican style Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches. The Church became Wrens Cathedral later that year when David Carr was ordained Bishop and later Archbishop of the UK. At the same time, Anthony was appointed as Arch-presbyter and Canon to the Ordinary. The religious Order of St. Leonard was established which is now recognised by the Churches Together organisation. In 2010 Anthony was ordained Bishop of Wroxall when his brother was appointed Archbishop in the Communion. In 2017, after some years of study, Anthony received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the Masters International University of Theology.

Anthony retired from the ministry in June 2019 at the age of 86 years.