Joost de Blank

De Blank was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on 14 November 1908, he became a British subject as a child in 1921.{{London Gazette |issue=32344 |date=3 June 1921 |page=4452 }} He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, King's College London, and Queens' College, Cambridge.

He was ordained after a period of study at Ridley Hall, Cambridge in 1932{{cite book|author=Oxford University Press|title=Crockford's Clerical Directory: A Reference Book of the Clergy of the Provinces of Canterbury and York and of Other Anglican Provinces and Dioceses|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lg3CbwAACAAJ|year=1976|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-200008-8}} and began his career as a curate in Bath. De Blank held incumbencies at Forest Gate and Greenhill, Harrow. During World War II he was an army chaplain.{{London Gazette |issue=34886|date=28 June 1940 |page=4008|supp=y}}

In 1952 he was appointed the Bishop of Stepney in the Diocese of London{{London Gazette |issue=39597|date=15 July 1952 |page=3816}} and continued in this post until he was translated to Cape Town. During this bishopric, de Blank, visited Ruth Ellis in prison just before she was hanged, for the murder of David Blakeley in 1955, when she told him, "It is quite clear to me that I was not the person who shot him. When I saw myself with the revolver I knew I was another person." These comments were quoted in a London evening paper of the time, The Star.

He succeeded Geoffrey Clayton as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1957. In South Africa, he refused to preach in any church not open to blacks as well as whites. He opposed clause 29 of Natives Law Amendment Bill, which gave the civil authorities powers to exclude non-whites from Anglican churches.

In 1960 De Blank called on the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) to repudiate apartheid, and in the same year criticised the South African jubilee celebrations: "This is no time for rejoicing, but for shame". He suffered a stroke which caused him to resign from Cape Town in 1963 and return to Britain. There he was appointed a residentiary canon of Westminster Abbey, {{London Gazette |issue=43228|date=24 January 1964 |page=744}} where he was buried after his death in Westminster on 1 January 1968.{{cite book|author=Richard Jenkyns|title=Westminster Abbey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S9ha1hrIUuMC&pg=PA74|year=2011|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-06197-2|pages=74–}}

• Appointed a sub-prelate of the Venerable Order of Saint John in 1952.{{London Gazette |issue=40073|date=12 January 1954 |page=305}}
• Appointed canon of Westminster Abbey in 1964.

• The Reverend Joost de Blank (1932–1952)
• The Right Reverend Joost de Blank (1952–1957 & 1963–1968)
• The Most Reverend Joost de Blank (1957–1963)

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book|last=De Blank|first=Joost |title=Inter-race relationships|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dycRAQAAIAAJ|year=1964|publisher=Council of Christians and Jews|display-authors=0}}
• {{cite book|last=De Blank|first=Joost |title=Uncomfortable words|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wEYRAQAAIAAJ|year=1958|publisher=Longmans, Green|display-authors=0}}
• {{cite book|last=de Blank|first=Joost |title=Out of Africa. (Lectures, Sermons and Addresses Delivered by Bishop Joost de Blank when Archbishop of Cape Town.).|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N0w-MwEACAAJ|year=1964|location=London|display-authors=0}}

{{refend}}

{{notelist|1}}

{{reflist|2}}

{{refbegin|2}}

• {{cite book|last= Peart-Binns|first=John Stuart|title=Archbishop Joost de Blank: Scourge of Apartheid|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TGYcAAAAMAAJ|year=1987|publisher=Muller, Blond & White|isbn=978-0-584-11130-9}}
• {{cite book|last=De Blank|first=Bartha |title=Joost de Blank: A Personal Memoir|url=https://archive.org/details/joostdeblankpers0000debl|url-access=registration|year=1977|publisher=Boydell Press|isbn=978-0-85115-082-6}}
• {{cite book|last=Allen|first=John |title=Rabble-Rouser for Peace: The Authorized Biography of Desmond Tutu|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IIxMu_US0ssC&pg=PA80|date=2006|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0-7432-9866-7}}
• {{cite book|last=De Gruchy|first=John W. |title=The Church Struggle in South Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O07oRYB03CgC&pg=PA62|year=2005|publisher=Fortress Press|isbn=978-0-8006-3755-2}}
• {{cite book|last=Paine|first=Victor C. |title=The Confrontation Between the Archbishop of Cape Town, Joost de Blank, and the South African Government on Racial Policies, (1957-1963)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KcKoYgEACAAJ|year=1978|publisher=University of Cape Town}}
• {{Cite journal

|title = Joost de Blank: a farewell interview

|author = Anon

|journal = The New African

|date = 18 January 1964

|access-date = 16 September 2014

|url = http://www.disa.ukzn.ac.za/newafrican/content/joost-de-blank-farewell-interview

|volume = 3

|issue = 1

|pages = 22–23

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150621232304/http://www.disa.ukzn.ac.za/newafrican/content/joost-de-blank-farewell-interview

|archive-date = 21 June 2015

}}

{{refend}}

• [https://borthcat.york.ac.uk/index.php/de Archive of Joost de Blank, archbishop of Cape Town] held at the [https://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/ Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York]

{{Archival records

| title = Archive of Joost de Blank, archbishop of Cape Town

| location = Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York

| description_URL = https://borthcat.york.ac.uk/index.php/de

}}

• [http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/joost-de-blank Commemoration at Westminster Abbey]

{{S-start}}

{{S-rel|en}}

{{S-bef|before=Robert Moberly}}

{{S-ttl|title=Bishop of Stepney|years=1952–1957}}

{{S-aft|after=Evered Lunt}}

{{S-rel|sa}}

{{S-bef|before=Geoffrey Clayton}}

{{S-ttl|title=Archbishop of Cape Town|years=1957–1963}}

{{S-aft|after=Robert Selby Taylor}}

{{S-end}}

{{Bishops of Stepney}}

{{Archbishops of Capetown}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:de Blank, Joost}}

Category:1908 births

Category:1968 deaths

Blank, Joost de

Category:South African people of Dutch descent

Category:Alumni of King's College London

Category:Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge

Category:20th-century Anglican archbishops

Category:Anglican archbishops of Cape Town

Category:Bishops of Stepney

Category:Canons of Westminster

Category:People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood

Category:People from Cape Town

Category:20th-century Church of England bishops

Category:Sub-Prelates of the Venerable Order of Saint John

Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey