Justin Welby: Archbishop’s faith ‘a safety net’ as he jostled with self-hatred
Mr Welby’s downfall was prompted by events that took place before he reached high office.
During his 11 years as Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has presided over royal weddings and funerals while also trying to keep a divided Anglican Communion together.
But it was a scandal which began before his time as the head of the Church of England which led to his downfall.
A review into the “prolific, brutal and horrific” abuse committed by John Smyth concluded that Mr Welby had not done enough to formally alert authorities about it, meaning the barrister never faced justice for his decades-long crimes.
It concluded this was “not the same” as suspecting Smyth had committed “severe abuses”, and that it was “not possible to establish” whether Mr Welby knew of the severity of the abuses in the UK prior to 2013.
It was four months after his installation in March 2013 to the highest role in the church that Mr Welby “became aware of the abuse alleged against John Smyth”, the review said.
The review bluntly stated that Smyth “could and should” have been formally reported to authorities in the UK and South Africa that year by Mr Welby.
After initially refusing to resign following the publication of the critical report, Mr Welby faced days of pressure to go – with abuse victims as well as a bishop describing his position as untenable.
It was five days later that Mr Welby issued a statement to say he took “personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024” and announced he would quit.
Before being ordained in 1992, Mr Welby had an 11-year career in the oil industry.
He was installed as Archbishop of Canterbury in a service at Canterbury Cathedral in March 2013.
He sits in the House of Lords and has been outspoken on political issues including child poverty, condemning the “cruel” two-child benefit policy, and assisted dying, the legalisation of which he has warned could lead to a “slippery slope”.
Mr Welby also strongly criticised the previous Conservative government’s scheme to send asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats to Rwanda, which he warned was “leading the nation down a damaging path”.
A short time later he gave a speech hinting at his own experiences of being trolled online, speaking of the downsides of social media and hitting out at society’s “absolutely appalling” attitude to forgiveness in an apparent reference to cancel culture.
On that occasion, Mr Welby said: “All of us know, I know especially at the moment, I’m not going to go into that one, I’m not going to go into debates in Parliament – but we know at the moment what it is to be trolled, to be threatened.”
Faith has acted as a “safety net” for the church leader, who has spoken of his personal experiences with depression which had led him to experience feelings of “self-hatred, self-contempt, real, vicious sense of dislike of oneself”.
Using a Winnie-the-Pooh analogy, he said antidepressants “restore me to Eeyore status from something much worse”.
In 2016, Mr Welby revealed that his biological father was the late Sir Anthony Montague Browne, Sir Winston Churchill’s last private secretary.
This had come as “a complete surprise” through DNA evidence, he said at the time, having believed his father was Gavin Welby, the man who raised him.
His mother, Lady Williams of Elvel, described the revelation as “an almost unbelievable shock”, but added she recalls going to bed with Sir Anthony “fuelled by a large amount of alcohol on both sides”.
In a statement at the time Mr Welby said: “I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.”
Gavin Welby died “as a result of the alcohol and smoking” in 1977, when the archbishop was 21, while Lady Williams died aged 93 in July 2023.
In October 2024, he revealed one of his ancestors owned slaves at a plantation in Jamaica.
He said a recent trip to the country “has helped me to confront the legacies of enslavement in the Caribbean”.
Mr Welby said his great-great-great-grandfather Sir James Fergusson, an ancestor of his biological father Sir Anthony, was an owner of enslaved people at the Rozelle Plantation in St Thomas, Jamaica.
He has also spoken lovingly of his own family, paying tribute to his “exceptionally precious” daughter Ellie, who is neurodiverse.
In his role as church leader, Mr Welby has been front and centre on major state occasions, not least the coronation of the King in 2023.
He had, in September the previous year, officiated at the late Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral service, telling mourners at Westminster Abbey the monarch had touched “a multitude of lives” and was a “joyful” figure for many.
Mr Welby also officiated at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018 and has christened some of the royal children over the years.
In May 2023, just days after the King’s coronation, Mr Welby was convicted of speeding.
He was ordered to pay £510 in total for exceeding a 20mph limit in the Kennington borough of Lambeth on October 2 2022. He admitted the offence online, was fined £300 and ordered to pay a £120 victim surcharge and £90 in costs.
Following a vote in 2023 in favour of the move, an organisation representing some Anglican churches questioned his fitness to lead.
The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches criticised the passing of the motion, while others have consistently argued the church has not gone far enough and should allow same-sex marriage.
Mr Welby spoke a number of times during a lengthy Synod debate on the matter, and recognised there is “very painful” disagreement on the issue within the church.
