Welby's mother, Jane Portal, was the daughter of Iris Butler (1905–2002), a journalist and historian whose brother, Rab Butler, was a Conservative politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Welby describes his stepfather as being supportive of him. Williams was the nephew of Elizabeth Laura Gurney, a member of the Gurney family of Norwich who were prominent Quakers and social reformers. Welby's mother stopped drinking in 1968, and in 1975 married Charles Williams, a business executive and first-class cricketer who was made a life peer in 1985. Gavin Welby died in 1977 of alcohol-related causes.

In 1960 Gavin Welby was engaged to the actress Vanessa Redgrave, who called the engagement off after her mother Lady Redgrave wrote to Vanessa's father, Sir Michael Redgrave, that Gavin Welby was 'a real horror . They divorced in 1959, when Justin was three years old, and he was placed in Gavin Welby's custody. Welby describes his early childhood as 'messy': Gavin and Jane Welby were both alcoholics. Gavin Welby stood for Parliament in the 19 general elections as a Conservative candidate.

Gavin Welby, born Bernard Gavin Weiler in Ruislip, Middlesex was the son of Bernard Weiler, a German-Jewish immigrant and importer of luxury items who changed the family name to Welby shortly after the First World War broke out. Welby believed that Gavin Welby was his biological father until paternity testing in 2016 showed that he was Browne's son. Shortly before her marriage she had a brief relationship with the private secretary to Churchill, Sir Anthony Montague Browne (1923–2013). Jane had served as a personal secretary to Sir Winston Churchill from December 1949 until her marriage to Gavin Welby in April 1955. Justin Portal Welby was born in Hammersmith, London, England, on 6 January 1956, almost nine months after the marriage of his mother, Jane Gillian Portal (born 1929), to Gavin Bramhall James Welby (1910–1977). Problems playing this file? See media help. Having worked in business before his ordination, some of his publications explore the relationship between finance and religion and, as a member of the House of Lords, he sat on the panel of the 2012 Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. Welby's theology is reported as representing the 'open evangelical' tradition within Anglicanism. After several parochial appointments, he became Dean of Liverpool in 2007 and Bishop of Durham in 2011. Later in life, he studied for ordination at St John's College, Durham. Welby was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge where he read history and law. Ex officio, he is the Primate of All England and the symbolic head primus inter pares of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Welby was previously the vicar of Southam, Warwickshire, and later Bishop of Durham, serving for just over a year. Justin Portal Welby (born 6 January 1956) is a British bishop who has served as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury since 2013.

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