Rt Rev Dr Penelope (Penny) Jamieson
Former linguistics lecturer the Rt Rev Dr Penelope (Penny) Jamieson honoured by Victoria as one of this year’s Distinguished Alumni
Penny Jamieson (PhD, 1976) was the first woman in the world to be ordained a diocesan bishop of the Anglican Church.
After completing an Honours degree at Edinburgh University, she moved to New Zealand where she lectured in linguistics at Victoria University. Her doctoral thesis on the experiences of young Tokelauan children learning English as their second language, was written while she held a J.R. McKenzie Fellowship with the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Penny’s supervisor was Emeritus Professor Graeme Kennedy.
She worked with the then Inner City Ministry, helping to establish a home tutor programme to teach English to refugees and immigrants, mainly women, who were unable to attend language classes.
During this time, she developed a vocation, completed a Bachelor of Divinity extramurally from Otago University and was ordained into the priesthood in 1983. She served as a curate at St James’ Anglican Church in Lower Hutt and Vicar of Karori West with Makara in the Wellington Diocese before being ordained a bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin. She contributed widely, in writing and speech, to debate within the Anglican Communion about the ordination of women to the Episcopate.
Penny retired in 2004 and returned to Lower Hutt. She has published an account of those years, Living at the Edge: Sacrament and Solidarity in Leadership, which explores her experiences as a woman in a powerful position within a patriarchal institution.
In the 2004 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Penny became a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the community.