[3][4] His father was a solicitor, and a cousin of Tubby Clayton, founder of Toc H; his mother was the daughter of the artist and illustrator, William James Affleck Shepherd (1866–1946).

After National Service as a second lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment,[6] he then went to study history at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1947, and started to play first-class cricket.

He made his Test debut against West Indies in August 1950, having scored heavily for Cambridge against the tourists earlier that summer.

Sheppard was a favourite with the Old Guard at Lord's, who had wanted him to captain the tour of Australia in 1954–55 instead of the Yorkshire professional Hutton, but this came to naught.

In 1956 he was recalled to play Australia and made 113 in the Fourth Test at Old Trafford, where Jim Laker famously took 19 wickets and England won by an innings.

His many friends at Lord's wanted him to captain the Fourth and Fifth Tests against Pakistan in 1962, but Sheppard had not played serious cricket for years.

[15] One couple in Australia asked Mrs Sheppard if the Reverend could christen their baby, but she advised them not to as he was bound to drop it.

Sheppard was converted to evangelical Christianity whilst at Cambridge, influenced by Donald Grey Barnhouse, and trained for the ministry at Ridley Hall, Cambridge from 1953 to 1955, where he attended the lectures of Owen Chadwick and Maurice Wiles, and was much impressed by a visiting lecturer, Donald Soper.

He was an active broadcaster and campaigner, especially on the subjects of poverty and social reform in the inner cities, and opposition to apartheid and the tour to England by the South African cricket team scheduled to take place in 1970.

Sheppard worked closely with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Derek Worlock, on these issues, and was often an outspoken critic of Margaret Thatcher's government.

In 1985 he was appointed as a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Urban Priority Areas, culminating in the publishing of the controversial report "Faith in the City".

He was national president of Family Service Units from 1987 and chaired the religious advisory committee for the BBC and IBA from 1989 to 1993.

[23] The official biography of Bishop Sheppard by Andrew Bradstock of the University of Winchester,[24] entitled Batting for the Poor, was published by SPCK on 21 November 2019.