Henry Phillpotts was Bishop of Exeter for nearly forty years. By December 1839, he had been almost ten years our bishop. He was famously unpopular in this city but also in the country These are the opening paragraphs of an article reprinted in The Western Times (28th December1839) and first published in a contemporary number of The Atlas, "a paper," so wrote The Western Times, "noted for the respectability and calmness of its tone. and with a bias far from being ultra liberal":
"HENRY PHILLPOTTS, Bishop of Exeter, is the most unprincipled public man of his age.
"We say this in sober seriousness, and with unaffected reluctance, for we yield to none in respect to the bench of which he forms so unworthy a member. Our Bishops are generally men of mere scholastic acquirements and of mediocre intellect, but of staid temperament and of unquestionable respectability of public conduct,- PHILLPOTTS is but a third rate scholar, and although his intellect is good, he has neither staidness of temperament, nor respectability of public conduct."
The Western Times,like the newspaper, The Jupiter, in Trollope's "Warden" (1855), was busy having fun exposing the 'hypocrisy' &c. of the Anglican Church. The Tories and the Church on the other hand found little to complain about concerning the long reign of Henry of Exeter.
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