HARRIES OF PENTREGARTH, Rt Rev & Rt Hon Baron 1936-2026
Richard R
Obit in the Times of 30 April 2026:
E X T R A C T
The Right Rev Lord Harries of Pentregarth
Leading liberal bishop who championed gay rights while serving as the ‘moral conscience’ of the Lords and on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, dies aged 89
… Harries’ liberal views alienated many on the evangelical wing of the church and were probably one of the main reasons he was not chosen to succeed his friend and mentor Robert Runcie as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1991, having been one of the favourites for the role. Neither did he become Bishop of London nor Archbishop of York. His fate instead was to act as the church’s “ranking clever liberal”. “He was the man who must find the best secular opinion on any controversial subject and remould it in Christian form,” said a profile in The Sunday Telegraph in 1997.
An enthusiastic advocate of women priests, he was one of the first bishops to appoint one after the General Synod approved female ordination in 1992. He was also one of the first prominent members of the Church of England to publicly support Prince Charles’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. However, he was never “dyed in the wool” and also upset the left wing of the church, who dubbed him “Bomber Harries” after he declared his support for Britain having a nuclear deterrent….
… In recent years, no Anglican bishop contributed more to the House of Lords than Harries, who, following his retirement as Bishop of Oxford in 2006, was made a life peer. A powerful communicator, he wrote and spoke on a wide range of issues in national life, medical ethics, housing and ethical investment. Controversy was never far away.
Richard Douglas Harries was born in 1936 at Eltham, south London, to Brigadier William Harries and Greta, née Bathurst Brown. His early years were spent in many places (including a period in America) as his father moved around. Finally, he went to Wellington College, and his father expected him to go into the army. He went to Sandhurst and served for three years in Germany as a lieutenant in the Signal Corps. …
… In 1958, Harries left the army and went up to Selwyn College, Cambridge. He was intending to study mechanical sciences, but changed his mind and read the theology tripos, having been influenced by the theologian Professor Donald MacKinnon…
…In the Lords, he was a regular speaker in debates and served on various committees, especially the Royal Commission on House of Lords reform, at which he made a case for the continuing representation of religious leaders…
He met his wife Josephine, née Bottomley, at Cambridge and they married in 1963. She became a paediatrician and survives him along with their son, Mark, a consultant medical oncologist, and their daughter, Clare, a special needs educational assistant and former psychology academic. They retired to Barnes, southwest London, where he helped out at the parish church and was an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Southwark….
The Right Rev Lord Harries of Pentregarth was born on June 2, 1936. He died after a short illness on April 29, 2026, aged 89
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/the-right-rev-lord-harries-of-pentregarth-pr7jhb3vg
Tim
He was an academic and priest who served as Bishop of Oxford from 1987-2006 and sat in the House of Lords as a Lord Spiritual from 1993-2006. He was created a Life Peer as Baron Harries of Pentregarth, of Ceinewydd in the County of Dyfed, on 30 June 2006.
