John Speechly
Anglican bishop
Died when: 61 years 70 days (734 months)Star Sign: Scorpio
John Martindale Speechly was the first Bishop of Travancore and Cochin.Speechly was born on 13 November 1836 in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, the son of Thomas Kelfull Speechly and Sarah, née Bellars.
He was educated at Oundle School and St John's College, Cambridge and ordained in 1860 to a curacy in Peterborough.In 1862 he went to India as a Church Missionary Society missionary, and was stationed at Kunnamkulam until 1863 when he became Principal of the Cambridge Nicholson Institute (diocesan College), Cottayam (Kottayam) a post he held until 1869, and again from 1873 to 1876.
He was curate of Hatford, Berkshire 1871–2, of , Cambridge 1876–7, and of Horringer, Suffolk 1878.When the See of Travancore and Cochin was erected under the Jerusalem Bishopric Act in 1879, Speechly was consecrated a bishop, by Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, on 25 July at St Paul's Cathedral; he returned to Kottayam on 27 January 1880 and served as the first Bishop of Travancore and Cochin.
After returning to England in 1888–1889, he was unable to return to India and resigned his See; he was later Bishop Commissary Diocese of Truro from 1889 to 1891 in the absence of the bishop, George Howard Wilkinson; then Vicar of Faversham from 1892 until his death on 22 January 1898.
He is buried at Whittlesey Cemetery.
