Douglas Russell Feaver

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Douglas Russell Feaver was a bishop in the Church of England.

Eric Abbott, a notably wise and generous Dean of Westminster, described Feaver as "the rudest man in the Church of England". There was ample evidence to support this verdict. "Women members of the General Synod," Feaver once declared, "have seething bosoms but nothing above." During a Confirmation service he asked some boy candidates, "Do you know the sort of girl you would like to marry?" Then, pointing his crozier in the direction of three elderly women candidates, he added: "Mind you, there's not much of a choice here tonight." After the wedding of one of his junior clergy he announced: "I prefer funerals."

This caustic sense of humour disguised a shy man of complex personality. After a brilliant career at Oxford, Feaver never fully matured, and quite failed to realise how hurtful his flippant comments could be. One explanation is that as a young wartime RAF chaplain serving in Egypt he had become critically ill and heard his grave being dug outside the hospital ward in which he was lying.

Feaver belonged to an era in the life of the Church of England that was fading by the time he became a bishop. His spirituality was founded on the Authorised Version, which he described as "the one memorable version of the Bible", and on the Book of Common Prayer. Those drawn to the Alternative Service Book should, he advised "Taste it and spit it out." When celebrating Holy Communion in re-ordered sanctuaries, he would order the altar to be returned to its traditional place against the East wall. He was a fine preacher with a ringing alliterative style which produced many memorable sermons, often based on arresting texts. "Sermons are seldom seedless," he told his clergy, and he stressed also the importance of careful preparation of Bible readings in church. He once ordered a curate struggling with a difficult Lesson at a crowded service to "come down and stop that rubbish".

In spite of his foibles and irascibility, Feaver had many admirers in his diocese. When he retired, the vice-chairman of the Diocesan Synod said: "He has been his own man. How refreshing to have had a leader who never worried about being liked."

Douglas Russell Feaver was born at Bristol on 22 May 1914. He went to Bristol Grammar School, then became a scholar of Keble College, Oxford, where he carried all before him, taking Firsts in Modern History and Theology, and winning the coveted Liddon Studentship.

Scorning the suggestion of an academic career, he went to Wells Theological College to prepare for Holy Orders and in 1938 became a curate of St Albans Abbey. The high standard of cathedral worship suited him, for he had been brought up at St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, and thereafter was a stickler for disciplined church services. Four happy years at St Albans ended when he volunteered for the wartime RAF. He served on a number of stations at home and overseas. But on his demobilisation St Albans reclaimed him and he returned to become, at the early age of 32, Canon and Sub-Dean. The Abbey, with its large, intelligent congregation, provided just the right sphere for his preaching, and those who could not cope with his personality had other members of the Chapter to whom they could turn for pastoral consolation.

During the next 12 years he became more widely known in the Church and had gained considerable influence as chief book reviewer for the Church Times. He was an editor's dream contributor; his high intellectual capacity enabled him to get to the heart of a big book quickly; his lucid, elegant prose of exact length required no correction; and he never failed to meet a deadline. Feaver's rudeness and lack of easy social graces - he was rarely willing to shake hands - stood in the way of his appointment to an expected Deanery and, for some years, seemed even more of a problem when bishoprics were discussed.

But when Feaver's time at St Albans was up in 1958, Bishop Frank Russell Barry of Southwell, who appreciated his intellect, appointed him Vicar of St Mary's, the ancient parish church of Nottingham. With this went an Honorary Canonry of Southwell Minster and the responsibilities of Rural Dean of Nottingham. This proved to be a success - up to a point. Nottingham soon became aware of its new Vicar, and the services at St Mary's attracted many who valued traditional Anglicanism at its best. Always an autocrat, Feaver never hesitated to rig Church Council meetings and it was a brave, or foolish parishioner who opposed him. A long sequence of courageous curates were given a first-class training, and Feaver was a good pastor to those who needed him. He served as governor of Nottingham Bluecoat School and was chairman of a boys' probation hostel; but he was not the kind of priest to become involved in a wide range of community activity.

Relations with the liberal Bishop Barry eventually became strained and there was a never-to-be-forgotten Diocesan Conference at which Feaver stood to speak and the bishop, who was very deaf, inquired of a neighbour on the platform: "Is that Feaver speaking?" On being told it was, he ostentatiously switched of his antiquated hearing aid and said in a loud voice: "Tell me when he's finished." Feaver was no lover of conferences and synods. Of the General Synod, on which he served from 1970 to 1972, and when compulsorily during his 12 years as bishop, he said: "I wonder when I am sitting there why church people should be asked for money to pay to keep this cuckoo growing." At the end of the 1978 Lambeth Conference he told his diocese: "Nothing much came of it, but then nothing much was put in."

He deplored most of the proposals for change in the life of the Church, ranging from the modification of patronage to the ordination of women, insisting that "newness consists in renewal, not in novelty, and experiment must go hand in hand with experience."

Fever's appointment to the bishopric of Peterborough in 1972 came as a surprise, not least to himself. At his first Diocesan Synod he announced: "I have no intention of moving again; the undertakers can be my next removers and the Church Commissioners can pay." The tall, stooping figure of Fever, crowned by a fine head of silver hear, suggested a distinguished bishop and scholar, and certainly he cared for the Church of England. He was sensible to lead their parishes without overmuch episcopal interference. Those who knew him best admired him most, and he was an entertaining raconteur with a gift for mimicry. His first wife Katherine, who was the daughter of the Rev. W.T. Stubbs, an Anglican clergyman, died in 1987. The next year he married Miss Clare Harvey, a family friend and recently retired head mistress of a girls' school, who survives him. He is also survived by a son and two daughters of his first marriage.