<P> The first woman to become a bishop in the Anglican Communion was Barbara Harris, who was ordained suffragan bishop of Massachusetts in the United States in February 1989 . As of August 2017, 24 women have since been elected to the episcopate across the church . The election in December 2009 and consecration on 15 May 2010 of Mary Glasspool, who is openly gay and lives with her partner of 20 years, as a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles attracted attention owing to the continued controversy over gay bishops in Anglicanism . </P> <P> The Episcopal Church in the United States also elected the first woman to become a primate (or senior bishop of a national church), Katharine Jefferts Schori, who was elected as 26th Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church at the 2006 General Convention for a nine - year term (2006 - 2015). </P> <P> The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia first ordained women as priests in 1977 and was the first Anglican province to elect a woman as a diocesan bishop when, in 1989, Penny Jamieson was elected Bishop of Dunedin . She retired in 2004 . In 2008 the Diocese of Christchurch elected Victoria Matthews, former Bishop of Edmonton in the Anglican Church of Canada, as 8th Bishop of Christchurch . In 2013, Helen - Ann Hartley became the first woman ordained in the Church of England to become a bishop when she was elected as Bishop of Waikato and joint diocesan bishop in the Diocese of Waikato and Taranaki . </P> <P> Following the first ordinations of women as priests in 1976, the first woman to become a bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada was Victoria Matthews . She was elected suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Toronto on 19 November 1993 and was ordained to the episcopate on 12 February 1994 . She later was the first woman to become a diocesan bishop in Canada when she was elected as Bishop of Edmonton in 1997, an office she held until 2007 when she resigned . She was subsequently elected Bishop of Christchurch in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia in 2008 . </P>

When did the church of england allow female bishops