Bishop Samuel Balagadde Sekadde
He was the third indigenous Bishop of Namirembe Diocese and served for 15 years and ended his Episcopal ministry on March 08th, 2009. He completed the Centenary house which houses the Diocesan Offices. During his time he we saw God working and his love expressed in our diocese.
The Rt. Rev. Misaeri Kauma
He was the second indigenous Bishop of Namirembe Diocese. A humorous, spiritual, and caring man.
Bishop Kauma was a teacher and principal in various secondary schools and colleges in Uganda, was a man whose Christian reputation and faith in the saving power of Jesus Christ was larger than his size.
He was a man whose faith in the saving power of Jesus Christ was the faith that worked in the most desperate of times.
In 1973, after doing work among refugees for three years, he was appointed principal of Bishop Tucker Theological College in Mukono. He served in that position for only two years, and then became assistant bishop to the Right Reverend Dunstan Nsubuga in 1975. It took him ten years to attain the full title of Bishop of Namirembe. After his consecration in 1985, Misaeri vowed to never consecrate an assistant bishop unless it had been agreed that the assistant would become full bishop.
God blessed Misaeri’s ten year bishopric. During that time, from 1985 to 1994, Uganda turned into a peaceful nation. The fire of salvation penetrated his whole body and changed him completely. He began to preach Christ with vigor, and he did so until he died in 1997.
He greatly contributed to the fight against HIV and AIDS in Uganda. Out of personal experience, he called upon the church and the country to be aware of the scourge and also composed the HIV prayer.
The Rt. Rev. Dustan Kasi Nsubuga
He was the first indigenous Bishop of Namirembe Diocese and a man for all seasons who gave an outstanding service and leadership to the church in Uganda and to the Anglican Communion at large.
He was born in the 1916 and brought up in the rich tradition of the missionary schools. At the age of 16, he knew Christ as his personal Saviour and redeemer. After school, he worked as a catechist for many years. He finally was ordained priest in 1944. In 1966, after almost twenty years, he was consecrated Bishop of Namirembe and served till 1985.
His call to the ministry led him to Virginia Theological Seminary at Alexandria where he was a special student of the seminary during 1957-59 and while serving at Makerere Parish, he was chosen by Bishop Leslie brown to replace him at Namirembe.
The Rt. Rev Leslie Wilfred Brown
Leslie Wilfred Brown was born on the 10th June 1912 and died on 27th December 1999.
Brown was educated at Enfield Grammar School before studying for ordination at the London College of Divinity.
After a curacy at St. James, Milton, Portsmouth he went out to the diocese of Travancore and Cochin on the Malabar Coast of India in January 1938, working there for the Church Missionary Society, and eventually becoming Principal of the Kerala United Theological Seminary.
In 1952 he accepted the post of Bishop of Uganda, despite having doubts because of his support for indigenization. He served as the first Bishop of Uganda from 1953 to 1960 (whose headquarters were at Namirembe, hence Bishop of Namirembe Diocese), bridging the period of Ugandan independence, then as the first Archbishop of the Province of Uganda, from 1960 to 1966 , when he returned back to England. There, he became first an assistant bishop in the diocese of Oxford, then Bishop of St. Edmunds bury and Ipswich in 1966.
The Rt. Rev Simon Cyril Edgar Stuart
He was the Bishop of Uganda from 1936 to 1953 before returning to England to be Assistant Bishop of Worcester. Born on 27th November 1892, he was educated at Repton and St. John’s College, Cambridge. After World War I service with the North Staffordshire Regiment, he was ordained in 1920 and began his career with a curacy at St. Mary’s, Hornsey Rise. Following this he was Chaplain and Lecturer at Ridley Hall, Cambridge before a long period of service in Africa. From 1925 he was Chaplain and Librarian of Achimota College and then a CMS Missionary in Uganda. After two years as an Assistant Bishop he was elevated to the full Episcopate in 1936. In 1952 he returned to England as Rector of St. Andrew’s, Worcester and four years later he was appointed a Resident Canon of Worcester Cathedral. He died on 23rd August 1982.
The Rt. Rev. Alfred Tucker
Alfred Robert Tucker was born in 1849. He was the Bishop of Uganda from 1897 to 1911 at, the time of inception of the diocese.
In 1879, Tucker became a mature student at Oxford University. This was unusual for an evangelical ordinand of his time, as by far the greater proportion of evangelical students went to Cambridge. In 1882, he was ordained curate in Bristol, then at St. Nichola’s Church, Durham before being sent out in 1890 by the Church Missionary Society to become the third bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa.
In 1897, the Diocese of Eastern Equatorial Africa was divided into two, and Tucker chose to be the bishop of Ugandan diocese, whose headquarters were at Namirembe.
The Church Missionary Society’s mission in Uganda had started with a Christian congregation of the Church of England. Tucker was determined to organize the burgeoning congregation into an African Anglican Church, independent of the Church of England and yet an integral part of the Anglican Communion. During his error of service, Tucker among the many works achieved the following;
- His drew up the constitution of the African Anglican Church. He did this because he strongly believed that the Ugandan Christians and Missionaries should have equal status in the African Anglican Church in Uganda. In October 1898, Tucker presented a draft of his constitution, which included the principles of integration and representation to the CMS missionaries, who only accepted it 1907, nine years later, when they finally agreed to hold a representative synod every year.
- Tucker’s other achievement was in the area of formal education. In 1897, Tucker decided to reorganize the education system in his Diocese and gave C. W. Hattersley the responsibility of building a system of primary schools throughout his diocese.
- Tucker also played a great role in the introduction of scientific medicine in Uganda. He quickly realized that Ugandans were in very poor health because traditional medicine could not deal effectively with the kind of diseases plaguing them. To hasten the advent of scientific medicine in Uganda, Tucker invited Dr. Albert Cook and Nursing Sister Katherine Timpson to the country. They arrived in early February of 1897 in Mengo, where they were both assigned to work. On the 22nd February 1897, medical work began, with KabakaMwanga as one of the first patients. With Tucker’s strong encouragement, Dr. Cook began to treat Africans with modern medicine which was soon made available all over Uganda.
- In addition to the spiritual, educational and medical services Tucker made business ventures an integral part of the mission of the church in Uganda. This was a revolutionary idea during Tucker’s time, as other CMS missionaries never considered this a part of the church’s mission.
- Everywhere Tucker visited, he encouraged Ugandans to grow trees and make bricks and tiles. His crusade to create business ventures came at a time when the Protectorate Government in 1904 decided to control the natural forests. In response to Tucker’s campaign, all the mission stations planted eucalyptus trees. To this day eucalyptus trees and other trees typically grow around mission stations and along the roads leading up to these mission stations. At that time, eucalyptus trees were new in Uganda but their economic importance soon became obvious because the wood, as a building material, is resistant to decay. The bricks, tiles, and blocks that were made and used by many mission stations and the African population replaced traditional building materials of mud, wattle, reeds, and grass.
- Tucker was also concerned that Africans have adequate sources of revenue. He therefore encouraged them to grow cash crops such as coffee and cotton, previously introduced in Uganda by the Protectorate Government. He died in 1914.