Charles Perry

Charles Perry (17 February 1807 – 2 December 1891) was an English Australian, who served as the first Anglican Bishop of Melbourne and was a university administrator. Early life Perry was born in Hackney, Middlesex, the third son of John Perry, sheriff of Essex and shipbuilder, and his second wife, Mary, daughter of George Green. The Perrys and the Greens were deeply involved with Blackwall Yard, one of the largest private shipyards in the world. George Green was a noted philanthropist, underwriting the architecturally significant Trinity Independent Chapel and its associated "minister's house, sailors' home, schools, and almshouses" and has a school named after him. Charles was educated at private schools at Clapham Common and Hackney, then for four years at Harrow, where he played in the school cricket eleven. Perry was a contemporary of Charles Wordsworth, nephew of the poet, and Henry Edward Manning; all three young men became bishops, albeit in different churches. At Harrow, due to some youthful folly, the headmaster asked Perry's mother to remove him and send him to private tutors. In 1824 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. (1828) as senior wrangler, first Smith's prizeman and 7th in the first class of the classical tripos. Christopher Wordsworth, father of his friend, was Master of Trinity from 1820 to 1841. Perry was elected a fellow of Trinity College in 1829, was awarded and M.A. in 1831 and began reading for the bar, but his health broke down, and in 1832 he returned to Trinity College as assistant-tutor and later tutor. Clerical career and to Australia While at Cambridge Perry was ordained deacon on 16 June 1833 and a priest on 26 November 1836 by the bishop of Ely. On 14 October 1841, Perry married Frances (Fanny) Cooper who he met while a curate at Newtown, Cambridge. Perry purchased the Advowson of the living of Barnwell, vested the patronage in trustees and secured the erection of two churches. Of one of these, St Paul's, Perry became the first vicar in 1842.