My father, Tony Crowe, who has died aged 87, was a brave, radical and controversial priest who was ahead of his time. He championed the ordination of women and gay marriage in the Church of England. He was a longstanding supporter of the Palestinian cause, and a regular letter-writer to the Guardian. He was sincere and wholehearted, but also took pleasure in rubbing the establishment up the wrong way and in the subsequent publicity.
Tony was born in Bristol, the middle of three boys, to Murray Crowe, a bank clerk, and Joan (nee Ehlers), a homemaker. He first felt his calling as a schoolboy at Clifton college, Bristol, influenced by Mervyn Stockwood’s social ministry in the city’s poorer districts.
He studied theology at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating in 1957, and then trained as a priest at at Westcott House, Cambridge. He was the first deacon ordained in the new Coventry Cathedral in 1959. His first curacy was in Stockingford, a mining village near Nuneaton. There he met Ailsa Wood, a local health visitor. They married in 1962.
Tony’s distinctive ministry took shape when they moved to London, in the late 1960s to St John’s, Clapham, and then in 1974 when he became rector at St Luke’s, Charlton. There he fostered a remarkable inclusive church community. As early as 1978, Tony “married” a same-sex couple at St Luke’s. It was a service of blessing, but was covered by the tabloid press as a “gay wedding”. His stance on homosexuality prompted protests by evangelical groups during services, a physical assault, and almost certainly affected his church career progression.
Tony also took practical action on the ordination of women. He mentored Liz Canham, who travelled to the US in 1981 for ordination in the Episcopal Church. Three weeks later she was back at the Charlton rectory celebrating Eucharist in front of cameras from BBC Newsnight. Tony gave compassionate mentoring to women training for ordination in the late 1980s and 1990s, supporting those knocked back by hostility and ingrained sexism.
Ours was a happy multi-racial family of six children; two of us were adopted and one fostered. Family life in the vicarage was a very public experience as a wide cast of people came for dinner or to stay. Ailsa strongly supported Tony’s values and provided the emotional stability that enabled him to do what he did. Theirs was a shared social ministry.
Tony and Ailsa left Charlton in 1994, moving to Whitstable, in Kent. Tony became a part-time prison chaplain at Swaleside and Emley. They enjoyed retirement, especially year-round sea swimming, and walking the dogs.
Ailsa died in 2020. Tony is survived by their children, Justin, Dominic, Lucy, Kate and me, and by 13 grandchildren and two great-granddaughters. Another daughter, Rachel, died in 2009.
