Suffragan (Lat., 'assistant'), in England a coadjutor-bishop appointed to assist a bishop in the administration of some part of his see: such bishops cannot succeed to the see in which they have been suffragans. The name also, and originally, belongs to all bishops in a province, as expressing their relation of subordination to the metropolitan.
Suffragan
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 9: Bound to Swansea, p. 784
Source scan(s): p. 0803