Cosmo Gordon Lang

Cosmo Gordon Lang 1864-1945, English churchman, archbishop of York (1908-28), archbishop of Canterbury (1928-42), b. Aberdeen, Scotland. From 1901 to 1908, while suffragan bishop of Stepney, London, and canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, he attempted to improve slum conditions and attracted wide attention. He was an acknowledged leader in the House of Lords and supported in Parliament the proposed revision (1928) of the Book of Common Prayer. With Stanley Baldwin he was instrumental in securing the abdication of Edward VIII, and he crowned George VI as king in 1937. Shortly after his resignation as archbishop in 1942, Lang was created Baron Lang of Lambeth.

Lang, Cosmo Gordon (1864–1945). Archbishop of Canterbury. Lang was a native of Scotland. After a short ministry at the university church in Oxford, he became (1896) vicar of Portsea. At the age of only 37 he was nominated as suffragan bishop of Stepney, and then promoted (1908) to be archbishop of York. Here he proved a contrast to the more conservative, cautious, and diplomatic Randall Davidson, his fellow‐Scot who was archbishop of Canterbury. Lang succeeded Davidson at Canterbury in 1928, but his work as primate was overshadowed by criticism for his part in the abdication crisis of 1936. He resigned in 1942.

Lang, Cosmo Gordon (1864–1945), Abp. of York (1908–28) and then of Canterbury (1928–42). A committed ecumenist, he was chairman of the Reunion committee of the Lambeth Conference of 1920 which issued the influential ‘Appeal to All Christian People’, he invited Old Catholics to attend the Lambeth Conference of 1930, and he visited the Oecumenical Patriarch in the Phanar in 1939. He played an important part in connection with the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936.