In 1897 he became chaplain to the Bishop of Mashonaland, William Thomas Gaul, and to the Railway Mission, in what is now the Church of the Province of Central Africa, and during the Anglo-Boer War was chaplain to the Southern Rhodesian contingent, being awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal, with two clasps. In 1901 he took up an appointment in Basutoland (Lesotho), then part of the Diocese of Bloemfontein, as principal of St Mary's Training College, Thlotse Heights. In 1904 he became Director of the Government Industrial School, Maseru. He served as a Canon of Bloemfontein Cathedral between 1912 and 1920.
When the missionary Diocese of Damaraland was formed in 1924, he was chosen to be its first bishop, and consecrated as such in St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town on Quinquagesima Sunday, 2 March 1924 by the Archbishop of Cape Town, assisted by the Bishops of George, Bloemfontein, and St. John's, Kaffraria, as well as the Coadjutor Bishop of Cape Town, and Bishop Gaul.
During his episcopate St George's Cathedral in Windhoek was built.
He died in Sea Point, Cape Town, on 8 April 1933.
Fogarty was "described as 'a man of fine physique, more than average good looks and a forceful preacher'. He was friendly and simple-hearted, yet of a forceful character, and often laboured single-handed in remote districts to further the work of the Church" (Boucher).[1]
Notes
^M Boucher, "Fogarty, Nelson Wellesley" in Dictionary of South African Biography (vol. IV) (1981), p. 159.