Charles Branch

{{Short description|Antiguan and Barbudan bishop and priest}}

Charles James Branch (7 October 1834{{snd}}31 August 1896) was an Anglican priest:The Times, Wednesday, Jul 26, 1882; pg. 12; Issue 30569; col F most notably Bishop of Antigua from 1885 until his death.

He was born in Barbados on 7 October 1834 and educated at Codrington College there. He was appointed curate of St. Simon's, Barbados, in 1857; rector of St. Andrew's, Grenada, in 1864; rector of St John's, Saint Croix, Virgin Islands in 1866; and Archdeacon of Antigua, in 1879. He was consecrated bishop coadjutor of Antigua, in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, on 25 July 1882{{cite Men of the Time|name=Branch, Charles James|page=162}} by Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury.{{Church Times | title = Church News (col. 3) | archive = 1882_07_28_516 | issue = 1018 | date = 28 July 1882 | page = 516 | accessed = 26 May 2019 }} He automatically succeeded to the diocesan See of Antigua on Walrond Jackson's death, 25 November 1895; but died himself within the year{{Church Times | title = Antigua (col. 4) | archive = 1896_10_23_427 | issue = 1761 | date = 23 October 1896 | page = 427 | accessed = 26 May 2019 }} — at St Kitts on 31 August 1896.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tYl-aMr0l_QC&pg=PA159|title=More Monumental Inscriptions: Tombstones of the British West Indies|isbn=9780893704223|last1=Brown|first1=Lena Boyd|last2=Oliver|first2=Vere Langford|date=January 1993|publisher=Wildside Press LLC }}

His son, Samuel Edward, was also Archdeacon of the island.‘BRANCH, Samuel Edmund’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2016; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014; online edn, April 2014 [http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U206546, accessed 21 Oct 2017]