Archbishop Sarah Mullally and King Charles III | Source: Getty Images

The First Woman to Lead the Church of England Formally Installed at Ceremony Before 2,000 Guests – 10 Exclusive Photos

Mar 26, 2026

05:13 A.M.

A centuries-old institution made room for a first on Wednesday, and Canterbury Cathedral has never quite looked like this before. The pictures at the end of this article say the rest.

For close to 15 centuries, every Archbishop of Canterbury has been a man. However, on Wednesday, that changed, as Dame Sarah Mullally, 63, was formally installed as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury on 25 March 2026 — becoming the first woman in history to lead the Church of England.

More than 2,000 people filled Canterbury Cathedral for the occasion, among them William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales, and the Prime Minister, alongside faith leaders, healthcare workers, and local schoolchildren.

The service opened at the Great West Door, where Mullally knocked and sought admission. It was the schoolchildren who opened the door to let her in. Inside, a mandate sent by King Charles III formally instructing the Church to install Mullally as archbishop was read aloud.

Near the close of the service, she was enthroned in St. Augustine's Chair, an ancient marble seat dating to the early 13th century, and delivered her inaugural sermon. The Very Rev. Dr. David Monteith, dean of Canterbury Cathedral, had said it best beforehand: "Today matters."

Before ordination, Mullally had spent years in the National Health Service, progressing from cancer nurse to director of nursing at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, before becoming chief nursing officer for England in 1999.

She was ordained in 2001, later describing her decision to leave her government post as "the biggest decision I have ever made."

As Archbishop of Canterbury, she now leads some 85 million Anglicans worldwide — her name the newest, and the first woman's, carved into the cathedral stone.

A decade before she made history as Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally — then Bishop of Crediton — stood outside Canterbury Cathedral on 22 July 2015 alongside the then-Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the newly consecrated Rachel Treweek, the first woman appointed to lead a Church of England diocese.

Dame Sarah Mullally photographed in The Corona Chapel at Canterbury Cathedral on 3 October 2025, shortly after the announcement of her appointment as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury. Behind her, the chapel's ancient stained glass windows have looked down on 105 archbishops before her — all of them men.

Just days before she legally took up her role on 28 January 2026, Mullally joined King Charles III for Sunday service at St Peter's Church on the Sandringham Estate, where she preached the sermon — a quietly personal moment between the new Archbishop of Canterbury designate and the monarch whose mandate would later be read aloud at her installation ceremony.

Mullally at St Paul's Cathedral on 28 January 2026, the day she was formally confirmed as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury — the very building where, 25 years earlier, she had taken her first steps as an ordained priest, and where her 87-mile pilgrimage to Canterbury would later begin.

Her gold robes catching the morning air as she strode through the Palace Gate on 25 March 2026, Mullally arrived at Canterbury Cathedral to begin the ceremony that would formally install her as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury — one of more than 2,000 guests already inside were William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales, and more.

Draped in gold and kneeling on the floor of Canterbury Cathedral on 25 March 2026, Mullally renewed her vows before the Dean of Canterbury, the Very Rev. Dr. David Monteith, and Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell — a moment of quiet submission that, within minutes, gave way to her enthronement as the most senior cleric in the Church of England.

A sea of red and white robes lined the nave of Canterbury Cathedral as Mullally stood at its heart on 25 March 2026, the ancient space filled with clergy from across the Anglican Communion gathered to witness a moment the Church had never seen in nearly 15 hundred years of history.

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Robed in gold and clutching her pastoral staff, Mullally stood in St. Augustine's Chair — a seat that has held 105 archbishops before her, none of them a woman — as Dean Monteith took her hand during the enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral on 25 March 2026, the congregation packed in behind her as far as the eye could see.

Seated in St. Augustine's Chair at the moment her enthronement was complete, Mullally's expression said everything the ceremony had spent two hours building toward — the broad, unguarded smile of a former NHS nurse who had just become the spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide.

Hands resting calmly in her lap, Mullally sat in the ancient marble seat of St. Augustine's Chair on 25 March 2026 — the first woman in nearly fifteen hundred years of history to occupy it — as the clergy gathered around her broke into applause, the sound of it rising through the full length of Canterbury Cathedral.