Cosmo Gordon Lang - Retirement and Death

Retirement and Death

Throughout the summer of 1941 Lang considered retirement. His main concern was that a Lambeth Conference – "perhaps the most fateful Lambeth Conference ever held" – would need to be called soon after the war. Lang felt that he would be too old to lead it and that he should make way for a younger man, preferably William Temple. On 27 November he informed the prime minister, Winston Churchill, of his decision to retire on 31 March 1942. His last official act in office, on 28 March, was the confirmation of Princess Elizabeth.

On his retirement Lang was raised to the peerage as Baron Lang of Lambeth in the County of Surrey. He was thus able to remain in the House of Lords, where he attended regularly and contributed to debates. He worried about money, despite a pension of £1,500 per year (approximately £52,000 as of 2012), a large rent-free house at Kew, and some generous cash gifts from well-wishers. In 1943 he spoke in the House of Lords in support of the Beveridge Report on social insurance, and on 9 February 1944 he reiterated his earlier opposition to obliteration bombing. In October 1944 Lang was greatly distressed by the sudden death of William Temple, his successor at Canterbury, writing: "I don't like to think of the loss to the Church and Nation ... But 'God knows and God reigns'."

On 5 December 1945 Lang was due to speak in a Lords debate on conditions in Central Europe. On his way to Kew Gardens station to catch the London train, he collapsed and was taken to hospital, but was found to be dead on arrival. A post-mortem attributed the death to heart failure. In paying tribute the following day, Lord Addison said that Lang was "not only a great cleric but a great man ... we have lost in him a Father in God." His body was cremated and the ashes taken to the Chapel of St Stephen Martyr in Canterbury Cathedral. The probate value of Lang's estate was £29,541 (approximately £945,000 as of 2012).