eorge Wyndham Hamilton Knight-Bruce, first Bishop of Mashonaland, was born in Devonshire in 1852. He was educated at Eton and Oxford where he took Holy Orders in 1876. Knight-Bruce became successively curate of Bibury in Gloucester, curate of Wendron in Cornwall and vicar of St. George’s, Everton. For some time he worked in the east end slums of London until he accepted the Bishopric of the almost bankrupt see of Bloemfontein, in which office he was consecrated in 1886.

ishop Knight-Bruce was determined to extend the work of the diocese in the north; he obtained a grant of £500 from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and in 1888 undertook an adventurous journey by wagon and on foot through Matabeleland and Mashonaland to the Zambezi. He was probably the first priest to visit Rhodesia after the expulsion of the Portuguese. In the course of this journey, during which he examined the prospects of establishing mission stations in Mashonaland, Knight-Bruce kept a diary which has been published in the Oppenheimer Series under the title of Gold and the Gospel in Mashonaland.

fter the occupation of Mashonaland by the Pioneers, Knight-Bruce was offered the newly-created see of Mashonaland. The Bishop journeyed extensively through his diocese, selecting sites for mission work, suffering severely from malaria yet doing outstanding work in conditions of great hardship. At the end of 1891 Bishop Knight-Bruce returned to England to raise money for his proposed missionary work. On his return he established St. Augustine’s Mission near Umtali and recruited three nurses to open a hospital there.

n 1893 the Bishop accompanied Dr. Jameson’s expedition to Bulawayo during the Matabele War, and his courage while caring for the wounded of both sides won universal admiration. A portion of his diary pubished in Memories of Mashonaland vividly describes the Column's occupation of Bulawayo. The Bishop held a church sevice on the day following his arrival.

fter sufiering severely from blackwater fever the Bishop was obliged to return to England; he accepted a post of assistant to the Bishop of Exeter and died, worn out by his exertions, in 1896 at the early age of 44.