Bishop Walter Baddeley DSO & bar, MC & bar, DD.

Walter Baddeley, of whom the British and American press coined the phrase ‘the fighting Bishop’, was probably the most famous and distinguished man to be born in Portslade.

Walter was born above his father’s grocery shop at 55 North Street on the 22 March 1894. Walter was educated at Portslade, Brighton and Oxford University and was a Sunday School teacher at St Andrew’s Church Portslade .

In the First World War he served with the Royal Sussex and the East Surrey regiments as a Major and an acting Lieutenant-Colonel. He was a military hero and survived the trenches in France. He was awarded the M.C. and bar, the D.S.O and bar and was four times mentioned in despatches.

After the War he entered Theological College to train as a priest in the Church of England. He served as a curate and priest in the north of England. Many years later in 1932 he was appointed Bishop of Melanesia in the Pacific. He was in the Solomon Islands when the Japanese invaded in 1942 and hid in the jungle with many of the islanders. The Americans recognized the sterling work he carried out under Japanese occupation. He was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom with Palm for the medical care of the wounded and the rescuing of American servicemen from the Japanese.

In 1954 Walter H Baddeley was appointed Bishop of Blackburn. The Right Revd Walter Hubert Baddeley, DSO., MC., DD., Bishop of Blackburn died in 1960.

For more information, see :- Bishop Walter Baddeley

(researched by D. Sharp)