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| Ruth Etchells obituary | Ruth Etchells obituary |
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| Ruth Etchells, who has died aged 81, was one of the most influential women in the Church of England, "the best female bishop we never had" and from 1987 until 1996 a leading member of the Crown Appointments Commission, nominating Anglican bishops and archbishops. | Ruth Etchells, who has died aged 81, was one of the most influential women in the Church of England, "the best female bishop we never had" and from 1987 until 1996 a leading member of the Crown Appointments Commission, nominating Anglican bishops and archbishops. |
| In 1979, her appointment as principal of St John's College, Durham, which contains within it Cranmer Hall, an Anglican ordination training college, caused controversy, in both the university and the Church of England. Ruth as a lay woman, and an English specialist, challenged the preconceptions of the ecclesiastical, exclusively male, Anglican theological training hierarchy. The college required modernisation both in terms of academic rigour and physical development. Ruth transformed St John's into a place of genuine creative exchange between university college and theological college, between church and world, and between theology and other disciplines. | In 1979, her appointment as principal of St John's College, Durham, which contains within it Cranmer Hall, an Anglican ordination training college, caused controversy, in both the university and the Church of England. Ruth as a lay woman, and an English specialist, challenged the preconceptions of the ecclesiastical, exclusively male, Anglican theological training hierarchy. The college required modernisation both in terms of academic rigour and physical development. Ruth transformed St John's into a place of genuine creative exchange between university college and theological college, between church and world, and between theology and other disciplines. |
| She had a rare compassion, intensity and visionary quality, balanced by self-deprecating wit; and a depth of intuition which caused her to become the spiritual director of members of senior Anglican clergy, after her appointment in 1983 as the first lay female chaplain to an archbishop of Canterbury, accompanying Robert Runcie and his team on the first British Council of Churches visit to China. | She had a rare compassion, intensity and visionary quality, balanced by self-deprecating wit; and a depth of intuition which caused her to become the spiritual director of members of senior Anglican clergy, after her appointment in 1983 as the first lay female chaplain to an archbishop of Canterbury, accompanying Robert Runcie and his team on the first British Council of Churches visit to China. |
| Ruth was born in London, and adopted by a Congregational minister, Walter Etchells, and his wife Ada, who took her to live in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. Ruth's vitality and brilliant gifts were evident at Merchant Taylors' school for girls, Crosby, Liverpool, and in her own undergraduate and postgraduate work at Liverpool University, where she read English, living at home. Walter and Ada were reluctant to allow her to live in the city. Her first post was as head of English at Aigburth Vale high school, where she put on ambitious plays and organised a school trip to Oberammergau, the Bavarian town famous for its Passion play. | Ruth was born in London, and adopted by a Congregational minister, Walter Etchells, and his wife Ada, who took her to live in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. Ruth's vitality and brilliant gifts were evident at Merchant Taylors' school for girls, Crosby, Liverpool, and in her own undergraduate and postgraduate work at Liverpool University, where she read English, living at home. Walter and Ada were reluctant to allow her to live in the city. Her first post was as head of English at Aigburth Vale high school, where she put on ambitious plays and organised a school trip to Oberammergau, the Bavarian town famous for its Passion play. |
| Her search for a way to provide for her parents after her father suffered a devastating stroke took her to Chester College (now University) as a lecturer in English in 1963, and later, after his death, to Durham University in 1968. Her first appointment in Durham was as resident tutor, later vice-principal, of a new woman's college, Trevelyan College. Ruth's mother lived in Trevelyan with her, a small, increasingly deaf old lady who spoke of the Lancashire cotton mills of her girlhood and the working-class ministry of Ruth's father. | Her search for a way to provide for her parents after her father suffered a devastating stroke took her to Chester College (now University) as a lecturer in English in 1963, and later, after his death, to Durham University in 1968. Her first appointment in Durham was as resident tutor, later vice-principal, of a new woman's college, Trevelyan College. Ruth's mother lived in Trevelyan with her, a small, increasingly deaf old lady who spoke of the Lancashire cotton mills of her girlhood and the working-class ministry of Ruth's father. |
| As a result of Ruth's challenging yet sympathetic interview technique, numbers of able women took up places there, including the writer Minette Walters and politician Mo Mowlam. Mo painted her study bedroom walls and ceiling black, the colour of the moment, and Ruth stood up for her against the bursar's wrath. One student remembers Ruth as the "great flame in our Trevelyan lives". | As a result of Ruth's challenging yet sympathetic interview technique, numbers of able women took up places there, including the writer Minette Walters and politician Mo Mowlam. Mo painted her study bedroom walls and ceiling black, the colour of the moment, and Ruth stood up for her against the bursar's wrath. One student remembers Ruth as the "great flame in our Trevelyan lives". |
| Her college appointment was shared with the university school of English, where she was appointed senior lecturer in 1973. Her lectures on modern drama fearlessly and illuminatingly expounded the dark, even brutal, world of Edward Bond, John Osborne and Harold Pinter. Her off-piste lecture on William Golding, probing the concept of sin, was unforgettable when there was virtually nothing in print on Golding, much less his theological preoccupations. | Her college appointment was shared with the university school of English, where she was appointed senior lecturer in 1973. Her lectures on modern drama fearlessly and illuminatingly expounded the dark, even brutal, world of Edward Bond, John Osborne and Harold Pinter. Her off-piste lecture on William Golding, probing the concept of sin, was unforgettable when there was virtually nothing in print on Golding, much less his theological preoccupations. |
| As the demands of her national role within the church grew, Ruth gradually relinquished her teaching in the English department, retaining only the master's module on literature and theology she had pioneered, and which continues to run. Its preoccupations follow that of her most influential book Unafraid to Be (1969). She was increasingly invited to speak, write and teach in the UK and abroad (notably at the Inuit St Luke's Theological College of Baffin Island, Canada). | As the demands of her national role within the church grew, Ruth gradually relinquished her teaching in the English department, retaining only the master's module on literature and theology she had pioneered, and which continues to run. Its preoccupations follow that of her most influential book Unafraid to Be (1969). She was increasingly invited to speak, write and teach in the UK and abroad (notably at the Inuit St Luke's Theological College of Baffin Island, Canada). |
| Her wit, the love she gave her students and ordinands – "my lambs" – while challenging them to the utmost of their ability, and her personal generosity, made her deeply loved by great numbers of people, and she influenced many to stay and work in the north-east. Her deepest instinct was to fight, with great courage, the marginalisation in western intellectual and public life of Christianity as its deepest literary and spiritual source. | Her wit, the love she gave her students and ordinands – "my lambs" – while challenging them to the utmost of their ability, and her personal generosity, made her deeply loved by great numbers of people, and she influenced many to stay and work in the north-east. Her deepest instinct was to fight, with great courage, the marginalisation in western intellectual and public life of Christianity as its deepest literary and spiritual source. |
| She was wonderful company, adored a series of characterful dogs and drove, faintly unreliably, convertible cars, the last purchased when she was 78. She wrote 10 books, four of which were books of prayers. | She was wonderful company, adored a series of characterful dogs and drove, faintly unreliably, convertible cars, the last purchased when she was 78. She wrote 10 books, four of which were books of prayers. |
| • Dorothea Ruth Etchells, scholar of English and university administrator, born 17 April 1931; died 8 August 2012 | • Dorothea Ruth Etchells, scholar of English and university administrator, born 17 April 1931; died 8 August 2012 |
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