Alexander Neil Bethune, Anglican clergyman and bishop, was born on 28 August 1800 at Williamstown, Upper Canada, and died on 3 February 1879 at Toronto, Ontario. He studied under John Strachan at the Cornwall Grammar School from 1810 to 1812 and as a student in divinity supported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel from 1819 to 1823. He was made a deacon by Bishop Jacob Mountain on 24 August 1823 and priest on 26 September 1824. He served at The Forty (Grimsby) and Twelve Mile Creek (St. Catharines) until 1827 when he was appointed rector at Cobourg. He married Jane Eliza Crooks and they had ten children. Bethune was the first editor, in 1837, of the "Church," published at Cobourg. In 1839, when the Diocese of Toronto was created and John Strachan was appointed its first bishop, Strachan made Bethune one of his chaplains. After being asked by Strachan to help draw up a plan for training divinity students, Bethune was appointed professor of theology of the Diocesan Theological Institution, which opened in Cobourg in 1842. It ceased to exist in 1852 when its students became the first class of Trinity College, established in Toronto in that year. In 1866 Bethune was elected coadjutor to Strachan, taking the title of Bishop of Niagara; he was consecrated on 25 January 1867. Bethune travelled to England in 1867 for the first Lambeth Conference, and returned to Toronto in time for Strachan's funeral on 5 November. Bethune succeeded Strachan on 1 November 1867 as Bishop of Toronto.