Leonard Wilson

John Leonard Wilson KCMG (23 November 1897 – 22 July 1970) was an Anglican bishop. He was Bishop of Singapore from 1941 to 1949 during the time of Japanese occupation and subsequently Dean of Manchester and Bishop of Birmingham.

Wilson was born in Gateshead, County Durham and educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne, St John's School, Leatherhead, Knutsford Training School,The Queen's College, Oxford (shortened degree, Bachelor of Arts in theology 1922) and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.

In 1930 Wilson married Mary Phillips. They had a daughter and four sons.

After serving as Dean of Hong Kong, Wilson became Bishop of Singapore in 1941.

At the time of the fall of Singapore in February 1942, Wilson, assisted by the Reverend Reginald Keith Sorby Adams of Saint Andrew's School, Singapore and John Hayter, ministered unstintingly to the people of Singapore. Subsequently they were able to continue their ministry for a year, thanks mainly to the help of a Christian Japanese officer Andrew Ogawa. However the growing popularity of the cathedral and the use of English was regarded by the Japanese authorities as a threat and in 1943 they were interned in Changi prison.

The discovery of some notes by Wilson about T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) raised suspicions of plans to stir up the local population to revolt. In the prison they worked hard to maintain morale. Wilson was then one of 57 civilians who were tortured by the Japanese authorities in the "Double Tenth Incident", so-called because it started with a raid on the Changi internment facility on 10 October 1943. The Japanese were seeking evidence that the internees had assisted in Operation Jaywick, in which Australian and British commandos operating from Australia sank several Japanese warships in Singapore's Keppel Harbour on 26 September 1943. Wilson was one of those who gave evidence of the nature of the torture to the investigation commission set up by the authorities of the Sime Road Internment Camp following the Japanese surrender in August 1945. By the end of the war he had made several conversions to Christianity, including some of the Japanese captors.

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