Dahlia

The Rt Rev Barry Rogerson, who as Bishop of Bristol ordained the first Church of England woman priest in 1994, said this when he named the dahlia officially:

‘As a horticulturist my Father would have enjoyed this occasion, though his speciality was carnations. Bryn Bowles of West Harptree Nursery has propagated this beautiful new dahlia, and in accordance with the wishes of listeners to the BBC Sunday Programme it is named after Florence Li Tim-Oi to mark the centenary of her birth. Florence Li Tim-Oi, was the first woman in the Anglican Communion to be ordained. In the dark days of the Second World War, when the Anglican Church in Macau was without a priest, she was ordained by Bishop R O Hall.

For many in the long pilgrimage towards the ordination of women as priests in the Church of England, she was a light at the end of a tunnel. After her death, the Li Tim-Oi Foundation was created to support women in the Two-Thirds World, who with few resources make significant and profound change for good in their communities. Folliott Sandford Pierpoint, who died when Florence was ten, wrote the hymn ‘For the beauty of the earth’ in which you will find these lines: ‘For each perfect gift of thine, to our race so freely given, graces human and divine, flowers of earth and buds of heaven.’ Which sums up this event, the beauty of this flower which is a remembrance of the beauty of jual papan tulis, Florence’s life, and those who have followed in her footsteps – the buds of heaven.”