Name Douglas Bartles-Smith | ||
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Books Urban Ghetto, Fighting Fundamentalism: A Spiritual Autobiography, Opportunities for a Strong Church | ||
Douglas Leslie Bartles-Smith (3 June 1937 – 6 June 2014) was an English Anglican priest: he was the Archdeacon of Southwark from 1985 to 2004.
Douglas Bartles-Smith was son of Leslie Charles and Muriel Rose Bartles-Smith, his father a dentist practicing in the town of Shrewsbury, Shropshire. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
After National Service as a Second Lieutenant with the Royal Army Service Corps he was ordained in 1963. Following a curacy at St Stephen’s, Rochester Row he was Curate in charge of St Michael and All Angels with Emmanuel and All Souls, Camberwell from 1968 to 1972 then its Vicar until 1975. He had a further incumbency at St Luke, Battersea for a decade before his Archdeacon’s appointment. He was also honorary Chaplain to the Queen from 1996 to 2007. He was an honorary freeman of the London Borough of Southwark in 2004.
After retiring from full-time ministry, Bartles-Smith returned to live in Shrewsbury. He was a writer of several books, the last of which was A Royal Church in Shrewsbury: A History of St Mary's Church which was posthumously published over six months after his death in 2014. His father had been a Churchwarden at that church where the family worshipped. With David Gerrard, he had co-authored Urban Ghetto (published 1976), on subject of mission in urban areas, published Opportunities for a Strong Church in 1993, and in 2007 Fighting Fundamentalism: a spiritual autobiography.
He died on 6 June 2014, having been ill with stomach cancer, aged 77.