The Church In Mourning As Bishop Andrew’s Death Is Announced

Published on: 4 Mar, 2026
Updated on: 4 Mar, 2026

The Bishop at his home. “We have lost a dear friend,” said the Dean of Guildford

The Bishop of Guildford, the Right Rev’d Andrew Watson, has died less than a month after revealing he had terminal cancer.

Bishop Andrew announced in February that was in the care of a hospice team after a diagnosis of inoperable pancreatic cancer.

He said his oncologist had told him that his tumour was particularly aggressive and hard to manage, and chemotherapy was likely to do more harm than good.

A Statement issue this week by the Very Reverend Bob Cooper, Dean of Guildford, and the Chapter of Guildford Cathedral, said:

“It is with profound sadness, and with hearts full of gratitude to God for an extraordinary life, that the Dean and Chapter of Guildford Cathedral announce the death of Bishop Andrew. We have lost a shepherd, a servant, and a dear friend — and the loss is felt deeply by all who had the privilege of knowing him.

“Bishop Andrew was, above all else, a man of the Gospel. His faith was not an abstraction or a profession — it was the living, breathing centre of everything he did and everything he was. To be in his company was to encounter something of the grace he so freely proclaimed. In his preaching, in his pastoral care, and in the quiet moments of prayer that shaped his days, he bore witness to a God who loves without condition and calls us to do the same.”

The Bishop, who was 64, had been married for 40 years to Beverley with four children.

On announcing his diagnosis last month, Bishop Andrew said he had signed a deed of delegation handing responsibility for the diocese to the Bishop of Dorking, the Rt Rev’d Paul Davies.

In a letter to the diocese he wrote: “I don’t fear the prospect of dying and find to my relief that my faith in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting has only grown stronger over the past few weeks.”

He said he considered himself deeply blessed to have been born into a loving family, to have been “joyfully married” for 40 years and raised four remarkable children, and to have had such a fulfilling ministry in the Church of England.

Bishop Andrew was born in Bicester, Oxfordshire, and educated at Winchester College. He went on to study Law at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he sang in the chapel choir.

He was ordained deacon in 1987 at Redditch and priest the following year. His first positions were curacies in the Diocese of Worcester and in Notting Hill.

Bishop Andrew was Vicar of St Stephen’s, East Twickenham, from 1996-2008 and then appointed Bishop of Aston in the Birmingham Diocese.

It was on February 28, 2015, that he was inaugurated as Bishop of Guildford.

He was introduced into the House of Lords in 2022.

The Dean’s statement continued:

“As a Bishop, he carried the weight of his office with remarkable grace. He led not by command but by example —ensuring that the voice of the Church spoke not of itself, but of Christ. In the exercise of his episcopal ministry, he was generous to a fault, giving of his time and wisdom with an open hand and an open heart.

“And yet, it is perhaps as a friend that many of us will feel his absence most keenly. In meeting with him, whether in matters of great consequence or in simple, unhurried conversation, one never felt like an item on a list. His interest was genuine, his counsel was wise, and his presence was a gift freely given.

“We give thanks to God for Bishop Andrew’s life and ministry, for the laughter he brought, for the faith he kindled, and for the countless ways in which he served others before himself.”