Waite Stirling

Waite Hockin Stirling (1829 to 19 November 1923) was a 19th-century missionary with the Patagonian Missionary Society (later known as the South American Missionary Society) and was the first Anglican Bishop of the Falkland Islands.

In the mid-19th century, the Patagonian Missionary Society suffered several major losses and setbacks in the project for the Yaghan people at Tierra del Fuego archipelago. In 1851 Captain Allen Gardiner and his companions at Spanish Harbour on Picton Island died of starvation. In 1859 the Yahgan massacred a group of missionaries at Wulaia, Navarino Island.

In 1854, the Society re-established its missionary base at Keppel Island in the Falkland Islands; Stirling became secretary of the mission in England. In 1861 he went to Keppel Island as the mission superintendent. From there, he re-established contacts with the Yaghan of Tierra del Fuego. In January 1869 he served as a lone missionary at Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego.

Whilst serving at Ushuaia as "God's Lonely Sentinel", as Stirling called himself, he was summoned to London to be consecrated on 21 December 1869 in Westminster Abbey as "Bishop of the Falkland Islands." It was contemporary practice to name overseas bishoprics after one of Her Majesty's possessions. Seven consular chaplaincies in South America and several private company chaplains were placed under Stirling's jurisdiction. He spent his first few years establishing his authority over recalcitrant clergy and congregations. They resented this Episcopal "upstart" and thought they still owed allegiance to the Bishop of London, previously responsible for the supervision of overseas Colonial and Consular Chaplaincies.

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