John Davey

John Davey was born five years before the outbreak of WWII and his earliest memory is of being evacuated from London at the age of four to St Ives, Huntingdonshire, where he was billeted with the spinster daughter of a non-conformist minister. John was educated at a Roman Catholic boarding school, but finally found his religious home in Anglicanism.

At the age of seventeen he returned to London. During his City days as a junior executive, he became a Special Constable attached to Bow Street Police Station.

Having felt a calling since his early teens, the priesthood beckoned, and in 1966 he started training at theological college. As part of his pastoral training, John made regular visits to Ford Open Prison, and, as a curate in Eastbourne, trained as a voluntary probation officer. His final full-time ministerial post was as Chaplain and Director of Studies at the National Police Staff College, Bramshill, a training establishment for senior police officers.

During forty years of full-time ministry, John served as a pastor and mentor to people from all walks of life, and was, for a time, Chaplain and Minor Canon of St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

In retirement, John lived in Nottingham with his wife Mary. He died in January 2019.