, Archbishop of New Zealand; Helen-Ann Hartley;
Eleanor Sanderson, Bishop of Hull;
Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York In September 2013, at the age of 40, Hartley was elected to become the seventh
Bishop of Waikato in the
Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. She was the first woman who had trained and served as a priest in the Church of England to become a bishop: She was duly invested (i.e. legally took the See of Ripon) and
installed at
Ripon Cathedral on 4 February 2018. She was the youngest bishop in the Church of England. 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. On 28 November 2022, she was
elected by the College of Canons of
Newcastle Cathedral. The
confirmation of her election — by which she legally took up the See of Newcastle — took place on 3 February 2023 at
York Minster. On 22 April 2023, the service of inauguration was held at
Newcastle Cathedral. She became the youngest Diocesean bishop in the Church of England. On 21 September 2023, Hartley was admitted to the
House of Lords as a
Lord Spiritual. She was introduced to the House on 26 October 2023, and made her
maiden speech on 14 November 2023 during a debate of the
King's Speech. 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. 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". 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, 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. In November 2024, Hartley alleged that she had "experienced as coercive language" text from
Archbishops
Justin 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. Following publication of the Makin review, she was the only bishop to call publicly for Welby's resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury. 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." 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." ==Personal life==