Former Bishop of Brechin

Born: October 24, 1939;

Died: October 8, 2018

THE Right Reverend Neville Chamberlain, who has died aged 78, was Scottish Episcopalian Bishop of Brechin from 1997 until 2005, based in Dundee, where he won a reputation for supporting the poor and the homeless as well as campaigning for nuclear disarmament.

He had previously served from 1982-97 as rector of St John's Episcopal Church on Princes Street, Edinburgh, where he established the Scottish Peace and Justice Centre and the One World fair-trade shop. He ran the Edinburgh marathon twice to raise money for new stonework and stained glass windows for St John’s and his popularity and straight-talking won him regular TV and radio slots including Late Call and Thought for the Day.

He was a hard-working minister, ready to visit individual members of his flock when they were in difficulty. He even slept rough on the streets of Edinburgh to show solidarity with the homeless.

But his career was not without controversy. He famously encouraged temporary murals to be painted outside St John’s, each reflecting or commenting on the political or social issues of the day. One showed a naked woman on a cross alongside a black immigrant; another, at the time of the mad cow disease crisis, portrayed a cow on a cross. Needless to say, many of his Edinburgh parishioners were shocked. It did not help when the Rt Rev Chamberlain compared the culling of cows to the Holocaust.

The Rt Rev Chamberlain counted South African Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, as well as the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, among his friends, and was always a campaigner for Middle East peace. He quit the Labour party after 40 years in 2001 in protest against the Blair government’s reluctance to speak out against Israeli attacks on Palestinians.

When he was a young man based in a parish in Maryland in the U.S. in the 1960s, he marched alongside black civil rights leaders including the Reverend Jesse Jackson and the then pastor but later politician and diplomat Dr Andrew Young, closest confidant of Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Born in Salford, Greater Manchester, on October 24, 1939, the early death of his older brother had a profound effect on the young Neville. Although he was a useful footballer and athlete at Salford Grammar School, the tragedy would push him towards a career and life as a man of the cloth. He graduated in theology from the University of Nottingham and later in public administration from the University of Oxford before training for the ministry at Ripon Hall near Oxford (now known as Ripon College Cuddesdon, the largest ministry training institution of the Church of England). He was ordained as a minister in 1964, the same year he married Diana Hammill Brabban. She joined him during his posting to a Maryland parish in the late ‘60s.

Back in the UK, the Rt Rev Chamberlain held many church or church-related posts before he came to Scotland. He served as vicar of St Michael's church in Hall Green, Birmingham; as a probation officer in Grimsby; as head of social responsibility in the diocese of Lincoln; as canon of Lincoln Cathedral; and as a chaplain in Lincoln Prison where he set up a halfway house for freed convicts, hostels for victims of domestic abuse and a palliative care hospice for terminally ill patients.

It was in 1982 that he moved to Edinburgh as rector of St John’s where he remained for 15 years before being appointed Bishop of Brechin in 1997. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brechin, dating back to the 12th century, was one of Scotland’s 13 pre-Reformation dioceses. After the Reformation, it became part of the Church of Scotland and later the breakaway Scottish Episcopal Church.

Again, as Bishop, the Rt Rev Chamberlain’s tenure was not without controversy. In 1998, he appointed the Reverend Miriam Byrne, a twice-married former nun and feminist, as provost of St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Dundee, the traditional mother church of the diocese of Brechin. That made her Scotland’s most senior female cleric. She modernised the traditional service, replacing the 17th century Prayer Book with a modern liturgy and introduced what became known as “happy-clappy” worship.

The Rt Rev Chamberlain at first supported the Rev Byrne. But the heat in the vestry became too much, not least after the Rev Byrne was found to have bought a pricey Aga cooker on her church expense account. The Rt Rev Chamberlain and the Rev Byrne locked horns. The Bishop tried to oust the Rev Byrne but she refused to go, even rejecting an £85,000 pay-off which she described as a “bribe.”

Enter South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner for his efforts to end apartheid. The Rt Rev Chamberlain had admired Tutu’s work towards reconciliation in South Africa. If he could do that, perhaps he could end a little Scottish church dispute.

In February 2000, Rt Rev Chamberlain called Tutu who immediately invited the two “warring” parties – Chamberlain and Byrne – to Atlanta, Georgia, where he was teaching. The two Dundee clerics flew there on separate flights. After 48 hours with Tutu, Chamberlain and Byrne reconciled and returned to Scotland on the same flight. All former claims, court orders and charges were cast aside in the interests of their diocese.

Recalling that time with Archbishop Tutu, the Rt Rev Chamberlain said: “I was going through a bad patch at work, which was fuelled by avid media interest, and I was not prepared for the effect that that combination would have on my life: the lack of self-confidence, fear of the telephone and sleepless nights. I had read Desmond Tutu’s book There is no|Future Without Forgiveness. The book moved me deeply and I knew that there was only one person in the world who could help me with my difficulties—Desmond Tutu.

“He was recovering from testicular cancer, but was prepared to give three days of his life to assist me and an adversary with our problems. Such counsel from a Nobel peace prize winner seems simple, especially for someone with a name such as mine — Neville Chamberlain — which encapsulates the paradox of war and peace.”

On retirement as bishop in 2005, the Rt Rev Chamberlain lived in Edinburgh until he was appointed master of Hugh Sexey's Hospital at Bruton, Somerset, which cares for the elderly. His wife died in 2009 and he is survived by three sons and a daughter.

PHIL DAVISON