John Shelley Nurser (26 May 1929 – 16 November 2020) was a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

priest who was an eminent theologian.

Early life

Nurser was born in 1929 in Far Cotton, Northamptonshire, to Arthur Nurser, a joiner, and his wife Florence (née Shelley), a milliner. In his childhood the family moved to

Rugeley Rugeley ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Cannock Chase District in Staffordshire, England. It lies on the north-eastern edge of Cannock Chase next to the River Trent; it is situated north of Lichfield, south-east of Stafford, nort ...

, Staffordshire, and Nurser went to Rugeley Grammar School. From there he went to

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...

, gaining a double first in history.

Career

He spent his

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The l ...

(1950–53) at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich as an Instructor Lieutenant in History and English. He then returned to Peterhouse to undertake research on Lord Acton. Nurser was a

Commonwealth Fund Fellow The Harkness Fellowship (previously known as the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship) is a program run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. This fellowship was established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several coun ...

at Harvard Divinity School (1956–57), studying under the philosopher-theologian

Paul Tillich Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher, religious socialist, and Lutheran Protestant theologian who is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologi ...

. Awarded a PhD in 1958, he spent a year at Wells Theological College, and was ordained deacon in 1958, and priest in 1959.''Crockford's Clerical Directory'', 1973-74, 85th Edition, p 708. He served his title at St Peter's, Tankerseley (1958–61). Nurser returned to Cambridge to become Dean of Trinity Hall (1961–68), and then became the first Warden of the new St Mark's Institute of Theology in

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

, Australia (1968–74). After a short period as Rector of St Andrew's,

Freckenham Freckenham is a small rural village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in East Anglia, in the country of England. Geographically, it is relatively flat and has the River Kennet, a tributary of the River Lark locally know ...

(of which the patron is Peterhouse) and All Saints,

Worlington Worlington may refer to: * Worlington, Devon, village in Devon, England. * Worlington, Suffolk, village in Suffolk, England See also *East Worlington, village in Devon, England *West Worlington West Worlington is a small village and former civi ...

in Suffolk (1974–76), he was then appointed Canon Chancellor at

Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Minster, or the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln and sometimes St Mary's Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, is a Grade I listed cathedral and is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Constructio ...

and head of Lincoln Theological College. He left Lincoln in 1992, in the aftermath of the debacle of the Chapter's ruinously expensive exhibition of its

Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...

Expo 88 World Expo 88, also known as Expo 88, was a specialised Expo held in Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia, during a six-month period between Saturday, 30 April 1988 and Sunday, 30 October 1988, inclusive. The theme of the Expo wa ...

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, Queensland. His last incumbency was as Priest-in-Charge of St Mary's,

Shudy Camps Shudy Camps is a village in the south-east corner of Cambridgeshire, England, near the border of Essex and Suffolk, and is part of the Hundreds of Cambridgeshire, Chilford Hundred. In 2001, according to the census, the population was 310, increa ...

with All Saints,

Castle Camps Castle Camps was a Norman Castle located in what is now the civil parish of Castle Camps, Cambridgeshire. Owners Castle Camps was originally a Saxon manor, belonging to Wulfwin, a Thane of King Edward the Confessor. After the Norman invasion, W ...

in Cambridgeshire (1992–95), following which he retired to his mother's childhood home of

Sudbury Sudbury may refer to: Places Australia * Sudbury Reef, Queensland Canada * Greater Sudbury, Ontario (official name; the city continues to be known simply as Sudbury for most purposes) ** Sudbury (electoral district), one of the city's federal e ...

. He was awarded the Albert C. Outler Prize by the American Society of Church History in 2005 for his study of the Christian origins of the

United Nations Charter The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...

on human rights.Nurser, John, ''For All Peoples and All Nations: Christian Churches and Human Rights'', (2005: WCC Publications), .

Personal life

Nurser married Elizabeth Kimber in 1956. There were four children. He died in 2020, aged 91.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nurser, John Shelley 1929 births Harkness Fellows Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Alumni of Wells Theological College 20th-century English Anglican priests 2020 deaths