Allan Webb

The Right Reverend Allan Becher Webb
Bishop of Bloemfontein Bishop of Grahamstown
Church	Anglican
Province	Southern Africa
Diocese	Bloemfontein and Grahamstown

Allan Becher Webb (also spelled "Alan"; 1839 – 1907) was the second Bishop of Bloemfontein, afterward Bishop of Grahamstown and, later, Dean of Salisbury.

Webb was born in 1839 in Calcutta and was baptised on 17 November 1839 in India. He was educated at Rugby School and subsequently at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, becoming a fellow and tutor at University College. From 1864 to 1867 he was vice principal at Cuddesdon Theological College. He married the sister of George Hugh Bourne, the hymn-writer, who served as his chaplain (1879 – 1898).

Webb's first posting was as rector of Avon Dassett.

On St. Andrew's Day (30 November) 1870 Webb responded to an appeal from Bishop Robert Gray of Cape Town to accept the Bishopric of Bloemfontein in the interior of South Africa. He was consecrated at Inverness Cathedral in Scotland and sailed for the Cape on 25 April 1871, arriving in Cape Town on 28 July.

One of Webb's first tasks was to oversee the planting of the Anglican Church on the Diamond Fields in the west of the Diocese of Bloemfontein. From this foundation would eventually spring (in 1911) the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman. Other major works included the establishment of the Community of St Michael and All Angels, a nursing order based in Bloemfontein and Kimberley, where Sister pioneered aspects of nursing and provided for the first state registration of nurses in the world. Under Webb the Brotherhood of St Augustine of Hippo grew in strength at Modderpoort in the eastern Free State.