George Herbert Kinsolving

The Right Reverend George Herbert Kinsolving
Bishop of Texas
Church	Episcopal Church
Diocese	Texas
Elected	May 19, 1892
In office	1893–1928
Predecessor	Alexander Gregg
Successor	Clinton S. Quin
Previous post(s)	Coadjutor Bishop of Texas (1892–1893)
Orders
Ordination	1875 by William Rollinson Whittingham
Consecration	October 12, 1892 by Richard Hooker Wilmer
Personal details
Born	(1849-04-28)April 28, 1849 Bedford County, Virginia, United States
Died	October 23, 1928(1928-10-23) (aged 79) Austin, Texas, United States
Buried	All Saints Church, Austin, Texas
Nationality	American
Denomination	Anglican
Parents	Ovid Americus Kinsolving & Julia Heiskell Krauth
Spouse	Grace Jaggar ​ ​ (m. 1879; died 1925)​
Children	1

George Herbert Kinsolving (April 28, 1849 – October 23, 1928) was an American religious leader who was the second bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, serving from 1893 to 1928.

Kinsolving was born on April 28, 1849, in Bedford County, Virginia. He came from a family of clergymen. His father, the Reverend Otis Americus Kinsolving (1822–1894), minister at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Middleburg, Virginia became an avid Confederate, especially supporting Mosby's Rangers although G.H. Kinsolving's brother joined the Richmond Howitzers light artillery. The family of his father's second wife likewise supported the Confederacy (her father Asa Rogers became a local militia general), and after her death from complications of childbirth, Rev. Otis Kinsolving was imprisoned for treason by occupying Union forces. The child whose birth led to that death, Lucien Lee Kinsolving (1862–1929), later became the first missionary bishop of Brazil, and G.H. Kinsolving preached the sermon at the consecration ceremony attended by twelve bishops. His other half-brother by his father's second wife, Rev. Arthur Barksdale Kinsolving (1861–1961), also became known as an author and historian in Maryland. His half-brother by his father's third wife, Rev. Wythe Leigh Kinsolving, served Episcopal churches in the South and New York City. Whereas his father's family were prominent Episcopalians, his mother's family, the Krauths, were devout Lutherans.^[1]

Kinsolving was a student at the University of Virginia between 1868 and 1870, after which he taught a year in a boys' school near Baltimore. He later studied at the Virginia Theological Seminary from where he graduated in 1874. In 1892 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Sacred Theology by Griswold College in Davenport, Iowa, and a Doctor of Divinity in 1893 by the University of the South.^[2]

He was the ordained deacon on June 26, 1874, by Bishop John Johns of Virginia and then priest in 1875 by Bishop William Rollinson Whittingham of Maryland. He initially served as assistant at Christ Church in Baltimore between 1874 and 1875, and then rector of St Mark's Church, Baltimore from 1875 until 1878. In 1878, he became rector of St John's Church in Cincinnati, while in 1881 he transferred to the Church of the Epiphany in Philadelphia where he remain until 1892. He married Grace Jaggar on October 8, 1879, and they had one child.^[3][4]

On May 19, 1892, Kinsolving was elected Coadjutor Bishop of Texas, and was consecrated on October 12, 1892, at the Church of the Epiphany by Bishop Richard Hooker Wilmer of Alabama. He succeeded as diocesan bishop on July 11, 1893, and remained in office until his death in 1928. While bishop in Texas, he oversaw the establishment of All Saints' Episcopal Church by the campus of the University of Texas at Austin; his crypt is beneath the church's altar.^[5]

Sources

• Arthur Barksdale Kinsolving, Texas George: The Life of George Herbert Kinsolving (Milwaukee: Morehouse, 1932).

Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Herbert Kinsolving.

• Biography from Texas State Historical Association
• Bibliographic directory from Project Canterbury
• A Guide to the George Herbert Kinsolving Papers, 1899–1929
• George Herbert Kinsolving at Find a Grave