David Edwards (priest)

The Very Reverend

David Edwards

OBE
The Very Reverend ; David Edwards; OBE
Provost of Southwark
Church	Church of England
Diocese	Diocese of Southwark
Other post(s)	Dean of Norwich (1978–83); Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey (1974–78); Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons (1972–78); Dean of King's College, Cambridge (1966–70);
Orders
Ordination	1954 (deacon) ; 1955 (priest)
Personal details
Born	David Lawrence Edwards; 20 January 1929; Cairo, Egypt
Died	25 April 2018 (aged 89); Winchester, England
Residence	Anglicanism
Education	King's School, Canterbury
Alma mater	Magdalen College, Oxford ; Westcott House, Cambridge

Last updated February 11, 2023

David Lawrence Edwards OBE (20 January 1929 – 25 April 2018) was an Anglican priest, scholar and church historian. He served as the Dean of Norwich, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sub-Dean at Westminster Abbey and Provost of Southwark, and was a prolific author.^[1]

Education

Edwards was born in Cairo, where his father was an inspector of schools. He was educated at The King's School, Canterbury, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took a BA in 1952 and MA in 1956.^[2]

Academic career and ministry

Edwards was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, for a seven-year period from 1952 to 1959. He spent the academic year of 1953–54 studying at Westcott House, Cambridge, and was ordained deacon in 1954. He served as a tutor at Westcott House (1954–55) and he was ordained priest in 1955.

In 1955 Edwards began his ordained ministry as an assistant curate at St John's, Hampstead, and also began his work with the Student Christian Movement as its secretary, remaining in both positions until 1958.

Edwards was assistant curate of St Martin-in-the-Fields (1958–66), editor for the Student Christian Movement Press (1959–66) and General Secretary of the Student Christian Movement (1965–66).

From 1966 until 1970, Edwards was the Dean of King's College, Cambridge. He was also a Six Preacher of Canterbury Cathedral (1969–76).

Edwards was a canon of Westminster Abbey and the rector of St Margaret's, Westminster (1970–78). He was additionally Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons (1972–78) and Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey (1974–78). He was Chairman of the Churches' Council on Gambling (1970–78) and of Christian Aid (1971–78). He was the Dean of Norwich from 1978 to 1983 and the Provost of Southwark from 1983 to 1994.

Edwards was for many years the principal reviewer and leader writer for the Church Times.^[3]

Edwards retired to Winchester, becoming an honorary chaplain at Winchester Cathedral in 1995. He died on 25 April 2018.

Honours

In 1990 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, conferred upon Edwards the Lambeth degree of Doctor of Divinity. He wore the academic dress of his former headmaster, Fred Shirley, (who had himself been a Doctor of Divinity) and of whom Edwards wrote a biography, F. J. Shirley: An Extraordinary Headmaster (1969).

Also in 1990, he was appointed an honorary fellow of the South Bank Polytechnic (later South Bank University and now called London South Bank University).

In the 1995 New Year Honours, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him an Officer of the Order of the British Empire "for services to the Church of England."^[4]

Writings

Edwards wrote more than 60 books, including:

Christian England (London: Collins, 1981–84; Fount, 1982–85)
- vol. 1: Its story to the Reformation
- vol. 2: From the Reformation to the 18th century
- vol. 3: From the 18th century to the First World War

The most recent include:

Roger Bowen with David L. Edwards et al, A guide to preaching (SPCK International Study Guide 38, London : SPCK, 2005)
Poets and God: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Herbert, Milton, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake (London: Darton Longman & Todd, 2005)
What Anglicans believe in the twenty-first century (London: Continuum, 2000, new expanded edn 2002, updated edn 2004)
The Church that could be (London: SPCK, 2002)
After death?: past beliefs and real possibilities (London: Continuum, 1999, new edn 2001)
A concise history of English Christianity: from Roman Britain to the present day (London: Fount, 1998)
The great Christian centuries to come (Durham: St Mary's College, University of Durham, 1998)
Christianity: the first two thousand years (London: Cassell, 1997)
What is Catholicism? An Anglican responds to the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church (London: Mowbray, 1994)

Related Research Articles

Richard Douglas Harries, Baron Harries of Pentregarth, is a retired bishop of the Church of England and former British Army officer. He was the Bishop of Oxford from 1987 to 2006. From 2008 until 2012 he was the Gresham Professor of Divinity.

Herbert Edward Ryle was an English Old Testament scholar and Anglican bishop, successively serving as the Bishop of Exeter, the Bishop of Winchester and the Dean of Westminster.

David Staffurth Stancliffe is a retired Church of England bishop. He was Provost of Portsmouth Cathedral from 1982 to 1993, and the Bishop of Salisbury from 1993 to 2010. He is the third generation of his family to serve the ordained ministry.

Douglas Geoffrey Rowell was an Anglican bishop, who served as Bishop of Basingstoke and then as the third Bishop in Europe until his retirement on 8 November 2013. Following his retirement he ministered as an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Chichester and in the Diocese of Portsmouth. He died in the early morning of Trinity Sunday, 11 June 2017.

Stephen George Platten, FSA is a retired Anglican bishop. He was the last diocesan Bishop of Wakefield in the Church of England. He was consecrated in this role on 19 July 2003 and immediately prior to that was Dean of Norwich from 1995. He was installed at Wakefield Cathedral on 19 July 2003.

Westcott House is an Anglican theological college based on Jesus Lane in the centre of the university city of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Its main activity is training people for ordained ministry in the Church of England and other Anglican churches. Westcott House is a founding member of the Cambridge Theological Federation. The college is considered by many to be Liberal Catholic in its tradition, but it accepts ordinands from a range of traditions in the Church of England.

Mark David Oakley is a British Church of England priest. He is Dean of St John's College, Cambridge, and a former residentiary canon of St Paul's Cathedral (London).

Eric Waldram Kemp was a Church of England bishop. He was the Bishop of Chichester from 1974 to 2001. He was one of the leading Anglo-Catholics of his generation and one of the most influential figures in the Church of England in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Alan Campbell Don was a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, editor of the Scottish Episcopal Church's 1929 Scottish Prayer Book, chaplain and secretary to Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, from 1931 to 1941, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons from 1936 to 1946 and Dean of Westminster from 1946 to 1959.

Edward Sydney Woods was an Anglican bishop, the second Bishop of Croydon from 1930 until 1937 and, from then until his death, the 94th Bishop of Lichfield.

Paul Frederick Bradshaw, FRHistS is a British Anglican priest, theologian, historian of liturgy, and academic. In addition to parish ministry, he taught at Chichester Theological College and Ripon College Cuddesdon. From 1985 to 2013, he was Professor of Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame in the United States.

David John Atkinson is the former Bishop of Thetford.

Frederick Dudley Vaughan Narborough was an eminent Anglican bishop in the mid-twentieth century.

Trevor Randall Beeson was Dean of Winchester in the last two decades of the 20th century. He is also an ecclesiastical obituarist.

Hubert Murray Burge was an Anglican clergyman, headmaster of Winchester College, Bishop of Southwark, and Bishop of Oxford.

Graham Kings is an English Church of England bishop, theologian and poet. In retirement in Cambridge, having served as Bishop of Sherborne and then Mission Theologian in the Anglican Communion, he is an Honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Ely and Research Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, which he founded in 1996. His latest books are: Nourishing Connections , Nourishing Mission: Theological Settings , Exchange of Gifts: The Vision of Simon Barrington-Ward , edited with Ian Randall.

Ronald Claud Dudley Jasper CBE was a British Anglican priest who was Dean of York between 1975 and 1984.

Peter Bradford Rouch is a British Anglican priest who was Archdeacon of Bournemouth between 2011 and 2020. Since May 2021, he has been CEO of the Church Army.

Bertram Keir Cunningham,, also known as B. K. Cunningham, was a British Anglican priest and academic. From 1919 to 1943, he was Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge, a Church of England theological college.

David Handley Hutt is a British Anglican priest. He was Archdeacon of Westminster from 1999 to 2005.

References

Edwards, Very Rev. David Lawrence, Who's Who 2018, December 2017

↑ "Gifted clergyman who served the Church by writing dozens of books interpreting its message". Church News Ireland. 1 May 2018.
↑ Biography of David L. Edwards Retrieved 24 December 2010
↑ "Obituary: The Very Revd Dr David L. Edwards".
↑ "No. 53893". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 1994. p. 11.

Church of England titles
Preceded by Thomas Nevill	Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons 1972–1978	Succeeded by John Baker

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] "Gifted clergyman who served the Church by writing dozens of books interpreting its message". Church News Ireland. 1 May 2018.

[bookrags-2] Biography of David L. Edwards Retrieved 24 December 2010

[3] "Obituary: The Very Revd Dr David L. Edwards".

[4] "No. 53893". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 1994. p. 11.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

v t e Deans of Norwich
Early modern	William Castleton John Salisbury John Christopherson John Boxall John Harpsfield John Salisbury George Gardiner Thomas Dove John Jegon George Montgomery Edmund Suckling John Hassal John Crofts Herbert Astley John Sharp Henry Fairfax Humphrey Prideaux Thomas Cole Robert Butts John Baron Thomas Bullock Edward Townshend Philip Lloyd
Late modern	Joseph Turner George Pellew Meyrick Goulburn William Lefroy Henry Wakefield Henry Beeching John Willink David Cranage Herbert St Barbe Holland Norman Hook Alan Webster David Edwards Paul Burbridge Stephen Platten Graham Smith Jane Hedges Andrew Braddock

v t e Provosts and Deans of Southwark
Provosts	John Haldane Frederick Narborough Cuthbert Bardsley Hugh Ashdown George Reindorp Ernest Southcott Harold Frankham David Edwards Colin Slee (became Dean)
Deans	Colin Slee (previously Provost) Andrew Nunn

Authority control
General	ISNI 1 VIAF 1 WorldCat
National libraries	France (data) Germany Israel United States Czech Republic Korea Netherlands Poland
Other	Social Networks and Archival Context SUDOC (France) 1