The third Bishop of Nova Scotia, John Inglis, was the son of its first bishop, Charles Inglis. John Inglis was born in New York 9 Dec 1777. He studied at King’s College, Windsor, NS, established by his father in 1789 and entered the ministry in 1802.
He worked with his father and took charge of diocesan church affairs for the last 10 years of his ailing father’s life. When his father died in 1816 John Inglis had anticipated becoming bishop but instead Robert Stanser was appointed and John Inglis was made Rector of St Paul’s, Halifax, Bishop Stanser’s old church. With Bishop Stanser becoming ill and returning to England, John Inglis again supervised the diocese. After 7 years Bishop Stanser resigned and John Inglis finally became Bishop of Nova Scotia in 1825.
During his episcopate Newfoundland became a separate diocese in 1839 and New Brunswick a separate diocese in 1845.
Bishop Inglis’s preoccupations were maintenance of the privileges of the established church; opposition to evangelical tendencies within his own denomination which produced serious divisions, especially in Halifax; and fund raising for the church in a period of declining British grants and increasing colonial hostility to his exclusivist aims. An effective and a relentless publicist for Anglican rights, he none the less found himself out of step within the liberal climate of the reform era resulting in his minimal achievements.
He died in London, England in 27 Oct 1850