Helen-Ann Macleod Hartley (néeFrancis; born 28 May 1973) is a British Anglican diocesean bishop, Lord Spiritual, and academic. Since 2023, she has served as the 13th Bishop of Newcastle in the Church of England.[1][2] She previously served as Bishop of Waikato in New Zealand from 2014 to 2017, and area Bishop of Ripon in the Diocese of Leeds from 2018 to 2023. She was the first woman to have trained as a priest in the Church of England to join the episcopate,[3] and the third woman to become a bishop of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia.[4] At the times of her appointments to Leeds and Newcastle she was respectively the youngest bishop and youngest diocesan bishop in the Church of England. She has repeatedly criticised senior bishops on matters related to safeguarding and power dynamics.
In November 2011, Hartley was selected to become Dean of Tikanga Pakeha, i.e. European heritage, students at St John's College, Auckland in New Zealand. The college is co-deputised by three deans who represent the three main peoples of New Zealand: Pakeha, Maori and Polynesians.[12][17] She originally went to St John's College in 2010 to research for a book, Making Sense of the Bible, before moving to New Zealand to take up the appointment of Dean in early 2012.[12][18]
In October 2022, it was announced that Hartley would take up the post of Bishop of Newcastle in early 2023, succeeding Christine Hardman, who retired in November 2021.[22][23] On 28 November 2022, she was elected by the College of Canons of Newcastle Cathedral.[24] The confirmation of her election — by which she legally took up the See of Newcastle — took place on 3 February 2023 at York Minster.[25] On 22 April 2023, the service of inauguration was held at Newcastle Cathedral.[26] She became the youngest Diocesean bishop in the Church of England.[27]
In November 2023, Hartley became one of the co-lead bishops for the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process involving the introduction of "Prayers of Love and Faith" along with Martyn Snow, Bishop of Leicester.[31] Hartley stepped down from this role in February 2024 after what she called "serious concerns" over the appointment for 6 months of Reverend Dr Thomas Woolford as interim theological adviser to the House of Bishops; she said that Woolford's appointment was having "a critically negative impact on the work Bishop Martyn and [she] were seeking, in good faith, to do" and that being co-lead bishop for the LLF process was "now undermining [her] capacity to fulfil my primary calling, to lead and care for the people and places of the diocese of Newcastle".[32][33] Woolford had in 2019 written an article for the conservative Church Society organisation in which he criticised the potential for the LLF process to lead to the blessing of same-sex unions,[34] with said article beginning to be circulated on social media following his appointment as interim theological adviser. He had asked for the article to be taken down.[33]
In May 2023, Hartley suspended honorary assistant bishop Lord Sentamu's permission to officiate in Newcastle Diocese because his statement about a review that found that he had failed to act on a disclosure of abuse when he had been Archbishop of York was "inconsistent with the tone and culture I expect around safeguarding in Newcastle".[35]
In November 2024, Hartley alleged that she had "experienced as coercive language" text from ArchbishopsJustin Welby and Stephen Cottrell, in a letter requesting her to reinstate Lord Sentamu's permission to officiate. Hartley criticised the letter for reflecting a lack of awareness of power dynamics within the Church. The letter was sent on 31 October 2024, shortly before the Makin review was released, which highlighted ongoing issues in the Church’s approach to safeguarding. Hartley said publishing the letter was essential to expose these systemic problems.[36]
Following publication of the Makin review, she was the only bishop to call publicly for Welby's resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury.[37]
In the Church Times, Andrew Brown wrote that he had "never seen a more overt campaign for the job of Archbishop of Canterbury than that of the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley", describing a long interview she had given to The Times promoting herself. He wrote: "[I]f Dr Hartley were a football manager, we'd say that she'd lost the robing room."[38] Writing in The Independent, Peter Stanford also appeared to see her as a likely candidate for the post, saying: "If anyone can still save the Church of England and fill that void in leadership, it is surely her."[39]
Personal life
In 2003, Helen-Ann Francis married Myles Hartley,[6] a musician and church organist.[9]
After the Sycamore Gap tree felling incident, Hartley said she had taken her husband to be there on his first visit to England, visited when she spent a few days running around Hadrian's Wall shortly before becoming the Bishop of Newcastle in 2023, and said of felling the 150 year old tree: "It's that level of disrespect for nature, and for something that's been there for centuries."[40]
^ abcd"New dean for St John's College". Taonga News. Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. 9 November 2011. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
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