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Originally and chiefly Canadian-English, the expression cradle Anglican designates one who is born into the Anglican Church—i.e., an Anglican ‘from the cradle’.
—Cf. also the expression cradle Catholic.
The expression cradle Anglican occurs, for example, in the following from an interview of the Canadian scholar Barrie Wilson, who had just published How Jesus Became Christian—interview by Michael Valpy, published in The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) of Saturday 15th March 2008 [page F3, column 1]:
Mr. Wilson is professor emeritus of philosophy and religious studies at Toronto’s York University. His academic specialty is early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism. He was a cradle Anglican but converted to Judaism because of what he saw as the distortions of Jesus by the apostle Paul.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the expression cradle Anglican that I have found:
1-: From a self-portrait of the Canadian playwright, short-story writer and novelist David Watmough (1926-2017), published in The Sun (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) of Friday 12th July 1985 [page 5, column 6]:
I attend mass at my parish church at an evil hour on Sunday mornings because I am a cradle Anglican and can still enjoy a bonus to the worshipping of God by doing it in the sublime language of the 17th century English—until that is filched from us by the liturgical populists. I know I am a dodo—but this is supposed to be honest, isn’t it?
2-: From an article by Harvey Shepherd about the Anglican parish of St. James the Apostle, in Montreal, published in The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) of Saturday 2nd January 1993 [page H8, column 2]:
There are somewhat less than 300 entries—households—on the parish roll, perhaps representing around 500 people.
These include a varied group from the downtown Montreal area, but also quite a few “cradle Anglicans” with long connections to the parish.
3-: From an interview of the Calgary feminist and social activist Norma Farquharson, by Gordon Legge, Herald religion editor, published in the Calgary Herald (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) of Saturday 29th May 1993 [page A2, column 1]:
A “cradle Anglican”, she says her faith is an itch she has to scratch. Her faith is not so much about reading the Bible as following the example of Jesus Christ, whom she regards as both a feminist and a social activist.
4-: From a letter to the Editor, by one Deirdre Laidlaw, published in The Sunday Star (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) of Sunday 19th November 1995 [page F2, column 5]:
Until a year ago, I was an Anglican, and, as a minister’s wife, I was deeply involved in the day-to-day workings of the church. I was a “cradle Anglican,” as were my parents before me, and their parents before them. My children were baptised into the Anglican church.
But when I visited my family last February, I realized that, for a variety of reasons, not one of us still attends the Anglican church. My own reason is that I have a disabled son, who is not welcome in the Anglican church. Now, we are all ex-Anglicans.
5-: From an interview of Canon John Rowlands, the new Vicar of Whitchurch, in Wales, published in the South Wales Echo (Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales) of Saturday 14th December 1996 [page 57, column 2]:
“I was brought up in a very devout Christian family. My father was head of Church Primary School at St Clears and my mother was a cradle Anglican.”
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