Justin Welby’s meteoric rise – and the abuse scandal that will become his legacy
The Archbishop of Canterbury has quit his role after the Church of England was criticised for covering up the abuse of young boys. It marks a dramatic end to a career that started as an oil executive before he was ordained in 1992, write Zoe Beaty and Tara Cobham
“As I step down, I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse,” Justin Welby wrote in his resignation letter. For his critics, it was too little, too late. Mounting pressure forced Welby’s decision to quit his prestigious role of Archbishop of Canterbury on Tuesday after a damning independent review found he “could and should” have reported decades-long abuse of men and young boys by a serial abuser associated with the Church of England.
Welby said the days since the report was published have renewed his “long-felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England. For nearly 12 years I have struggled to introduce improvements,” Welby wrote. “It is for others to judge what has been done.”
John Smyth, a former friend of Welby’s, physically, sexually and psychologically abused as many as 130 boys and young men at Christian summer camps in England and Africa over five decades. Welby claims that he had “no idea or suspicion” of the allegations prior to 2013 – however, the Makin Report made it clear that it was unlikely he would have no knowledge of the concerns over Smyth in the 1980s.
Had he reported the abuse to authorities immediately, more than a decade ago, he could have been brought to justice much sooner, the report concluded. Smyth died in 2018, aged 75, in Cape Town, while under investigation by Hampshire Police.
Welby was first ordained as a deacon in 1992 after finding himself “unable to get away from a sense of God calling,” he said in 2012, one year before he was made Archbishop. After being educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied history and law, he worked in the oil industry for 11 years.
It wasn’t until 1989 that Welby gave up his six-figure salary to take a theology degree at St John’s College, Durham and train to be an Anglican priest – an unorthodox start to a career in the Church, to say the least. His dissertation – titled “Can companies sin?” – took a particular interest in business ethics.
What followed was a somewhat meteoric rise to the Church’s top job. Welby spent just ten years as a parish priest, a few years as the Dean of Liverpool and, later, the Bishop of Durham before he was enthroned as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013. He was a relatively popular appointment in a notoriously divisive institute: Welby’s personable, open nature was a plus. He often spoke of his “messy” earlier life, and depressions that manifested as a “self-hatred, self-contempt, real, vicious sense of dislike of oneself”, he once admitted.
Welby grew up with alcoholic parents – his father, Gavin Welby died “as a result of the alcohol and smoking” in 1977, when Mr Welby was 21 – a “messy” early life, as he put it. In 2016, Mr Welby revealed that his biological father was the late Sir Anthony Montague Browne – Sir Winston Churchill’s last private secretary. It came as “a complete surprise” through DNA evidence, he said at the time.
His mother, Lady Williams of Elvel, who died last year aged 93, described the revelation as “an almost unbelievable shock”, but added she recalls going to bed with Sir Anthony “fuelled by a large amount of alcohol on both sides”.His most recent family revelation – in October 2024 – was that one of his ancestors owned slaves at a plantation in Jamaica.
Welby’s great, great, great grandfather Sir James Fergusson – an ancestor of his biological father Sir Anthony – was an owner of enslaved people at the Rozelle Plantation in St Thomas, Jamaica. A trip to the country helped Welby “confront the legacies of enslavement in the Caribbean”, he said.
Many believed Welby’s background in business gave him solid credentials to navigate the complicated politics of the Church. During his tenure he was outspoken in the House of Lords on political issues including child poverty – condemning the “cruel” two-child benefit policy – and assisted dying, the legalisation of which he has warned could lead to a “slippery slope”.
He also strongly criticised the previous Conservative government’s scheme to send asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats to Rwanda, which he warned was “leading the nation down a damaging path”.
Within the church, Welby had to deal with what he called “very painful” division over the issue of same-sex blessings. Following a vote in 2023 in favour of the move, the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) questioned his fitness to lead and criticised the passing of the motion, while others have consistently argued the church has not gone far enough and should allow same-sex marriage.
Over the years his appointment has endured, state events like the funeral of the late Queen Elizabeth II, which Welby officiated, and his role in anointing and crowning Charles, will be remembered. He also officiated the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018 and christened some of the royal children over the years.
But it’s this latest scandal – the Makin Report – that will now be his legacy.
In what has proved to be his final challenge as archbishop, Mr Welby’s position was described as untenable after the Makin review, published last week.
In the wake of the report, a petition calling for Mr Welby’s resignation by some members of the General Synod – the church’s parliament – gathered more than 5,000 signatures, while a senior bishop issued a public statement describing the church as being “in danger of losing complete credibility” on safeguarding.
“I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honoured to serve,” wrote Welby.