Justin Welby

Justin Portal Welby GCVO (born 6 January 1956) is a retired Anglican bishop who served as the 105th archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England from 2013 to 2025.

After an 11-year career in the oil industry, Welby trained for ordination at St John's College, Durham. He served in a number of parish churches before becoming dean of Liverpool in 2007 and bishop of Durham in 2011, serving in the latter role for just over a year before succeeding Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury in February 2013.

As archbishop, Welby officiated at a number of notable events, including the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the state funeral of Elizabeth II, and the coronation of Charles III and Camilla. His tenure coincided with the ordination of the Church of England's first female bishop and the blessings for same-sex unions. Welby's theology is seen as representing the "open evangelical" tradition within Anglicanism. He has said that the Benedictine and Franciscan orders in the Anglican churches, along with Catholic social teaching, have influenced his spiritual formation.

Welby resigned as archbishop in January 2025, following the publication of a report into the Church of England's handling of allegations of abuse committed by the barrister John Smyth that criticised Welby's failure to investigate the allegations.

Justin Portal Welby was born on 6 January 1956 at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith, London, almost nine months after the marriage of his mother Jane Gillian Portal (1929–2023), to Gavin Bramhall James Welby (1910–1977).

Welby's mother, Jane, was Sir Winston Churchill's personal secretary from December 1949 until her marriage to Gavin Welby in April 1955. Shortly before her marriage she had a brief relationship with Churchill's private secretary, Anthony Montague Browne (1923–2013). For 60 years Welby believed that Gavin Welby was his biological father until a paternity test in 2016 showed that he was Browne's son.

Gavin Welby (born Bernard Gavin Weiler in Ruislip, Middlesex) was the son of Bernard Weiler, a German-Jewish immigrant and importer of luxury items who changed the family name to Welby during the First World War. He stood for Parliament as a Conservative candidate in the 1951 and 1955 general elections.

Welby has described his early childhood as "messy". Gavin and Jane Welby, who were both alcoholics, divorced in 1959 when he was three years old, and he was placed in Gavin's custody. In 1960, Gavin became engaged to the actress Vanessa Redgrave. Vanessa's mother, Rachel Kempson, described him as "a real horror" and "a pretty rotten piece of work", and expressed relief when Vanessa called the engagement off. She was more complimentary about the young Justin, writing, "[Gavin's] child is angelic. We all loved him." Gavin died in 1977 of alcohol-related causes.