Spr 1966 - 1970
We have been notified of the sad death of Reverend Peter Jackson who, after suffering a pulmonary embolism, passed away on 30th August 2022, aged 69. He is survived by his husband Joseph and two children, Eliot and Anneli. Our thoughts and best wishes are with them.
Joseph writes:
Peter studied at St Peter’s Oxford and then St Stephen’s Oxford. He has served as a parish priest in Malvern, Washington DC, London and Nice. For the larger part of his career, he worked in independent schools: first as Chaplain at Aldenham; then as Chaplain and Head of Religious Studies at Harrow School. He wrote numerous text books, lectured at Westminster Oxford and at King’s London, and was founding chairperson of REACT, the UK charity for children with life-limiting disease.
For your interest, here is a link to an obituray from a Monaco-based reporter: https://goodnewsmonaco.com/2022/09/10/father-peter-jackson
If you would like to have your memories of Peter posted on this webpage, please feel free to email them to TWS@wycliffe.co.uk
At Wycliffe:
President of The Literary Society
Vice-President of The Music Society
Secretary of Music Club
Member of Clio, Science Club, Choral Society and Orchestra
Memories from OWs:
Peter and I met when we joined ‘S’ Form in September 1966. We quickly became good friends and remained so through our time at Wycliffe. We were in the same classes for many subjects, particularly English and History for A Levels and our Oxbridge Entry term in September 1970, being taught by the inspirational teachers Barry Sutton and Peter Duprees.
Although close friends, we had some different interests – Peter wasn’t interested in Scouting and I wasn’t particularly interested in Music, although somehow Peter volunteered me to join him in the Percussion section of the School Orchestra, despite being tone deaf and no sense of timing; I was terrified that I would get the timing wrong when I had to clash the cymbals in ‘God save the Queen’ so Peter agreed to give me a nudge at just the right time! I have a picture of the Orchestra with us standing next to each other
By the age of sixteen, Peter was a competent organist and often played the Chapel organ. This interest provided us with a convenient hiding place in the organ pipes for our copy of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book which was banned by the school at that time, especially by Peter’s formidable Housemaster, Noel Johnson!
We both lived in South Wales and stayed at each others’ homes on a number of occasions in the school holidays. His parents were good hosts.
Peter and I went up to Oxford in October 1971 , together with Paul Bowen and Chris Sunderland (for the record, Nigel Ready and Michael Foster went up to Cambridge- all from the 1966 ‘S’ Form – apologies for anyone omitted). We were in different colleges and reading different subjects but saw each other in the first year. As often happens at university, our paths diverged for no apparent reason so, sadly, the last time we saw each other was in 1972.
From the published obituaries, it is clear that Peter had an interesting and rewarding career, far more so, I’m sure, than he would have had if he had continued in Law, as I did!
My thoughts are with his family.
– Richard Fisher (SH 1966 – 1970)
