Paul de Labilliere

Paul Fulcrand Delacour de Labillière (22 January 1879 – 28 April 1946) was the second Bishop of Knaresborough from 1934 to 1937; and, subsequently, Dean of Westminster.[1]

Career

Born on 22 January 1879 into a legal family (his father was a Barrister of the Middle Temple)[1] he was educated at Harrow[2] and Merton College, Oxford (where he was later elected an Honorary Fellow, in 1945).[1]

After ordination in 1903 he served as a curate in Liverpool and Plymouth before his appointment as Chaplain to the Bishop of Durham and then missionary work in South Africa.[1] In South Africa he met and married Ester Morkel, they had a son and a daughter.[3]

He was successively Clerical Superintendent of the Liverpool Scripture Readers, Chaplain of Wadham College, Oxford,[4] Lecturer at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and Vicar of Christ Church, High Harrogate before a 4-year stint as Suffragan Bishop of Knaresborough and Archdeacon of Leeds.[5]

A quiet[6] but effective priest, his final professional appointment was as Dean of Westminster.[7] De Labillière had profound experiences of both World Wars. In the Great War he had earned a Mention in Despatches when he served as a chaplain from 1916 to 1919, from December 1917 in Egypt.[8] In the Second World War, when he was Dean of Westminster, a German bomb in 1941 destroyed part of the Abbey and the Deanery. The King’s Secretary, Tommy Lascelles, noted in his diary for 24 November, 1942, ‘The Dean of Westminster lunched with me .... I like him, and have always admired him for his unruffled fortitude the day after the Germans blew his beautiful deanery and all his possessions into dust and ashes during one of the worst Blitz-nights.[9]De Labillière was sufficiently well-regarded to be a candidate for Archbishop of Canterbury when Cosmo Lang retired in 1942. De Labillière was recognised as a scholar and preacher but ‘lacks weight’[10]William Temple was appointed.

De Labilliere is also remembered for a last minute change in the Abbey's Armistice Day service in 1938 after Kristallnacht when he included a prayer for the Jewish people 'in their trouble.' [11]

The Deanery was destroyed in the 1941 Blitz[12] and it is said the King and Queen offered him alternative accommodation at Buckingham Palace but he found a new place to live close to the Abbey.

Dean de Labillière died of a brain haemorrhage on 28 April 1946.[1]

References

1. Levens, R.G.C., ed. (1964). Merton College Register 1900-1964. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 353.
2. “Who was Who” 1897-1990 London, A & C Black, 1991 ISBN 0-7136-3457-X
3. Simpson, Geoff (2015-01-30). The History of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association: Commemorating the Few. ISBN 9781473852310.
4. A period interrupted with wartime service as a chaplain to the forces (during which he was mentioned in despatches)
5. The Times, Thursday, Nov 22, 1905; pg. 14; Issue 38184; col A Ecclesiastical Intelligence
6. He listed his recreation in Who's Who as "silence"
7. The Times, Thursday, Nov 18, 1937; pg. 14; Issue 47845; col F The Deanery Of Westminster Appointment Of Bishop Of Knaresborough
8. The Times obituary,29.4.1946
9. Lascelles Diaries,edit Duff Hart-Davis
10. TNA PREM5/276
11. Mazzenga, M. (2009-07-20). American Religious Responses to Kristallnacht. ISBN 9780230623309.
12. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12905480