1867 was a momentous year for Kelly. His ministry had proven a success, and Feild named Kelly his assistant bishop. Charles Thomas Longley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, performed the ceremony of consecration on 16 August. Kelly, thirty-five years old, received his Doctor of Divinity degree from Cambridge University, and attended the first Pan-Anglican conference of British, colonial and foreign bishops conference in Lambeth. The conference had been lobbied for by, among others, the Canadian synod, but much of the agenda focused on the controversy over John William Colenso, a missionary to the Zulu. Eleven advisory resolutions regarding colonial district administration were nevertheless passed.