The Revd John Chater (1951)

The Reverend John Chater (25/10/1929-20/03/2022) was educated at Bradfield College. After completing his military service, he went to Queens’ in 1951 to read Theology & Religious Studies.

Having trained for the ministry at Ridley Hall, he was ordained a priest in the Church of England at Wells Cathedral in September 1957. For seventeen years he worked at Bath Abbey, St Anne’s Bermondsey, was the first Anglican Chaplain at the new University of York and Vicar of Heslington and at St Peter’s Lawrence Weston in Bristol. After a crisis of faith, he left the Church’s ministry in 1973 and became deputy bursar at Bristol University, having turned down the offer of teaching theology as this was too close to what his previous work had been. He expected never to return to the Church but seven years later he went back. He returned firstly as Rector of Wraxall in Somerset, then as Dean of Battle and finally Rector of St Marylebone, (all three were Crown appointments), before retiring in 1996.

John also wrote a book called Not a Word from God – The Trouble with Religion in which after a lifetime’s exploration he concluded that all religions, and indeed all gods, are creations of the human mind. This was followed up by My Life in a Dog Collar in 2014.

When not engaged in pastoral work, John was a brilliant gardener – he designed the garden in the newly built vicarage in Heslington and readily gave advice to anyone who asked his opinion on horticultural matters. He was also an enthusiastic and talented amateur actor, having first played Ophelia in Bradfield before his voice broke. In the early 1970’s he joined the Bristol Arts Centre in Kings Square and was cast in various roles, notably Pastor Manders in Ibsen’s Ghosts and later acted in several productions at Lewes Little Theatre when he and Elizabeth lived in Hove. They were co-founders of a weekly spoken-word poetry group called Poetry for Pleasure, which still has a large following 20 years after it began at the Cornerstone Community Centre.

John married Elizabeth Devonshire Jones in Bath in 1957 and they had four children: Mary, Hugh, Sarah and Virginia.

After Elizabeth died, he married Jane Fovargue in 2012.