In 1991, George Carey was appointed as the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury, and the first to have been a member of Oak Hill. Between 1966 and 1970, he was a full-time lecturer at the College, having served the College as a part-time lecturer since 1963 during his curacy at St Mary’s, Islington. He lectured in the areas of New Testament, Greek, and theology.
During his time, he wrote in a balanced way about the growing charismatic movement, and shone in the College football team such that the students appointed him, although a lecturer, as an honorary member of the Junior Common Room, the precursor to today’s Student Common Room.
Subsequently, he served as Vicar of St. Nicholas’ Church, Durham, followed by serving as principal of Trinity College Bristol between 1982 and 1987, before serving as Bishop of Bath and Wells from 1987 until 1991. In 2002, while serving as Archbishop of Canterbury, he wrote the Foreword for the most recently published history of the College, Witness to the Word: A History of Oak Hill College 1932-2000, written by Rudolph Heinze and David Wheaton.
It was in his capacity as Archbishop of Canterbury that Carey came to College and opened the newly built Academic Centre, on 23 September 2000, and preached the sermon in Chapel that day.
In more recent years, Carey’s time as Archbishop has come under scrutiny. In particular, he has been criticized for how he handled various safeguarding concerns, relating to offences committed by the late Peter Ball, one-time Bishop of Lewes and later of Gloucester, David Tudor, a Church of England Priest, and the late John Smyth, a barrister linked with Iwerne and other ministries to young people. During the public debate on their offences and how the Church responded to them, Carey’s role has been contested and debated. What is not in doubt is the suffering and trauma experienced by many, both directly and indirectly, in these dreadful deeds.
We as a College are not immune or removed from these events. We have taken time to consider how best to mark both our history and our place within the complex and varied church cultures which we serve. As part of this process, between 2022 and 2025, the plaque was covered by a noticeboard while we sought to decide how to respond to these unfolding events. Following consultations with the College community in 2025, we took the decision to uncover the plaque and provide this text to accompany it. In so doing, we hope to acknowledge some of the complexities surrounding memorialising people and times, complexities which we know will face many of our students in their own churches, present and future.
Also, we want to acknowledge the pain and suffering which people have suffered and continue to suffer, and the ongoing challenges and opportunities to address these realities. While no singular response can convey the totality of people’s views on how these abuses are recognised and addressed, we hope this kind of contextual explaining and acknowledging will help sustain constructive conversations about our churches, and our roles as leaders and ministers of the gospel, in seeking to nurture and preserve good practices of care, justice and safeguarding for all.