[3] Though his father was a company secretary, three uncles and an aunt had taken holy orders.
Made a deacon at Michaelmas 1954 (19 September), by Robert Hay, Bishop of Buckingham, at High Wycombe parish church,[5] and ordained priest in 1955, he began his ministry with curacies at All Saint's Cuddesdon and St Anselm's Hatch End, after which he was a fellow and lecturer at Corpus Christi College, Oxford until 1973.
From then until his ordination to the episcopate he was a residential canon at Westminster Abbey and also for some years chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons.
[4] He was consecrated a bishop on 2 February 1982, by Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, at Westminster Abbey.
[8] In retirement he continued to serve as an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Winchester.