William Pinkney was fifth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.
Background
He was born in Annapolis, Maryland and attended Saint John"s College, Annapolis, from which he graduated at age 17. Instead, influenced by his mother, a devout Methodist, in 1831 he entered Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey to study for the ministry.
Education
He studied law under his uncle, Severus Pinkney, and was admitted to the bar, but never practiced.
Career
Financial and family circumstances forced his withdrawal two years later, and Pinkney became a tutor to the family of John Neville Steele, a devout Episcopalian in Dorchester County, Maryland. He decided to apply for holy orders with that denomination. Maryland"s bishop, the Right Reverend William Murray Stone ordained Pinkney to the diaconate on April 12, 1835, and to the priesthood the following year.
Review
Pinkney was initially assigned to Somerset and Coventry parishes on the Eastern Shore, but his health soon failed. During his leadership of those parishes, which lasted until 1857, Review Pinkney secured the rebuilding of both churches.
Saint Matthew"s congregation moved to a larger Gothic-style frame building in Bladensburg, Maryland in 1844, which was consecrated in 1856.
After getting both congregations onto solid footings and declining a call from the Church of the Epiphany (Washington, District of Columbia), Review Pinkney finally decided to move into Washington, District of Columbia and serve as rector of the Church of the Ascension.
During the American Civil War, bishop William Rollinson Whittingham, who had convinced Review Pinkney to accept the Ascension position just before the war, reprimanded the southern-sympathizing priest for failing to say prayers for President Lincoln, and instituted ecclesiastical proceedings against him (which failed).
Review Pinkney served at Ascension 13 years, and after the war ended also served as assistant to Rt.Rev.
Whittingham, whose Northern sympathies had caused considerable unpopularity. In 1870, the Diocese of Maryland held its convention in the Church of the Epiphany in Washington, District of Columbia and Pinkney was elected as suffragan to the ailing Rt.Rev. Whittingham. Presiding Bishop Benjamin Bosworth Smith was his principal consecrator on October 6, 1870, assisted by bishops John Johns of Virginia and Thomas Atkinson of North Carolina.
Rt.Rev.
Pinkney administered the diocese during Whittingham"s extended convalescence before succeeding his mentor upon his death in 1879. Bishop Pinkney died in office on July 10, 1883. The Maryland diocesan convention the following year elected William Paret his successor.