Rowan Douglas Williams

In July, 1981, he married a writer and theologian Jane Williams with whom he has two children, a daughter named Rhiannon and a son named Pip. Following her husband’s retirement, she is entitled to the title of Lady Williams of Oystermouth.

He was born to Aneurin Williams and Delphine nee Morris who were Presbyterians converted into Anglicans. At the age of 2, he contracted a rare form of meningitis which left him with a limp and permanent deafness in his left ear.

In 1953, his family moved to Cardiff and he began his formal education at Lamorna, a fee-paying primary school, before the family returned to Swansea in 1960 where he attended Dynevor Grammar School for eight years.

Later, he enrolled at University of Cambridge to study Theology at Christ’s College. Thereafter, he went to Wadham College, University of Oxford, where he received his doctorate of Philosophy in 1975.

After receiving his doctorate, he lectured at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, for two years. In 1977, he returned to his alma mater, Cambridge to teach theology at Westcott House, having been ordained deacon in Ely Cathedral. In the year 1978, he was made the priest there.

In 1980, he served as curate at St. George’s Chesterton. After three years, he was appointed as a lecturer in divinity in Cambridge University, and the following year he became dean and chaplain of Clare College. In 1986, he was appointed to the Lady Margaret professorship of divinity at Oxford University and Canon of Christ Church.

In 1989, he was awarded the degree of doctor of divinity and became a fellow of the British Academy the following year.

In 1991, he was elected as the bishop of Monmouth, a diocese on the Welsh borders, and was consecrated the following year. He served there as a bishop for seven consecutive years.

In 1999, he was elected as Archbishop of Wales, one of the 38 primates of the Anglican Communion, after the retirement of Archbishop Alwyn Rice Jones.

He has written a number of important and influential books including, ‘The wound of knowledge’ (1979), ‘Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter gospel’ (1982), ‘Eucharistic sacrifice: The roots of a metaphor’ (1982), ‘Peacemaking theology’ (1984), ‘Teresa of Avila’ (1991), ‘Christ on trial’ (2000), ‘The poems of Rowan Williams’ (2002), ‘Anglican identities’ (2004), ‘Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another’ (2007) etc.

In 1985, being a member of the left-wing Anglo-Catholic Jubilee group, he collaborated with father Kenneth Leech in several publications including the anthology of essays to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Assize Sermon entitled ‘Essays: Catholic and Radical’ in 1983.