Rev'd Richard Harrison

Chaplain, TPR, History, PSHEE, Classics

Teaching and Pastoral

I was ordained in the Diocese of Oxford. A new priest usually serves a curacy of three years to learn from the wisdom and experience of the incumbent. After just two, I was asked to take on a second curacy as Assistant School Chaplain at Merchant Taylors’ School in Northwood and so ‘the die was cast’, as we read in Asterix. After three years, I was appointed Senior Chaplain at Ardingly College and then Uppingham School and finally Lancing College, where I was for 13 years until 2022.

The experience of being a priest in such communities is remarkable; leading worship, informing pastoral care and teaching in a number of departments. All this goes together: inspiring and motivating young people to achieve their best in the context of contemplating the love of God and finding strength in that love to love themselves and others. This is the Great Commandment: ‘to love God and your neighbour as you love yourself’. It is also great fun, certainly compared to being a parish priest of 11 parishes in West Oxfordshire as I was from 2002-2004!

My core teaching subjects are History and Religious Studies, building on my degrees at Lincoln College, Oxford and at Leeds University Theology Department, preparing for the priesthood at Mirfield. I allowed these two disciplines to inform each other while studying for an Oxford D.Phil., taking advantage of a two-year scholarship in Germany, researching relations between England and Germany in the early Seventeenth Century, seeking greater understanding of the role of religion in the Thirty Years’ War.

Although ordination prevented me submitting the thesis, living and studying abroad later encouraged me to serve the English community in Lugano, Switzerland. Most recently read novels, both brilliantly inspired by Shakespeare: ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell and ‘Fools and Mortals’ by Bernard Cornwell.