Reilly 261.

Canon Roy Porter, who died on December 31 aged 85, was Professor of Theology at Exeter University from 1962 to 1986 and for all but one of those years was also head of the Theology department.

Porter was one of the last of the scholar-theologians who combined academic work with deep involvement in the life of the Church. He also related his own subject — the Old Testament — to other fields of study, including folklore; he was president of the Folklore Society from 1976 to 1979.

As a churchman he was a devout Anglo-Catholic traditionalist and, having been elected as a proctor in the Canterbury Convocation in 1964, became a prominent member of the General Synod from its inception in 1970 until 1990.

During these years Porter used his learning and incisive wit to challenge most liberalising tendencies and to fight fierce rearguard actions against what he regarded as wrong-headed proposals for Church unity, liturgical reform and, especially, the ordination of women to the priesthood. He and the redoubtable Margaret Hewitt, an Exeter sociologist, made a formidable combination in the Synod debates.

Despite his strong convictions, however, Porter did not shun the company of those with whom he disagreed; and it was a tribute to his fair-mindedness that he was appointed to the panel of chairmen of the General Synod in 1984. He had by this time spent nine years on the Advisory Council for the Ministry as chairman of its publications committee and as a member of its candidates' committee, where he insisted on the importance of maintaining high standards for future clergy.

At Exeter, Porter was the first occupant of a newly-created chair of Theology, and from small beginnings built up his department to become substantial and distinguished. During the 1960s there was a plentiful supply of students who were preparing for the priesthood, and when this began to dry up in the next decade he attracted others who were preparing to be schoolteachers.

The substantial endowments of St Luke's College of Education, which became part of the university, ensured the survival of the chair of Theology whenever financial pressures threatened. He was Dean of Arts from 1967 to 1971 and also had visiting teaching posts in the United States.

Joshua Roy Porter was born at Macclesfield, Cheshire, on May 7 1921. He attended the local King's School and went on to Merton College, Oxford, where he took Firsts in Modern History and Theology. He then prepared for Holy Orders at St Stephen's House, Oxford, and in 1945 became a curate at what was then the Church of England's largest and most famous parish, St Mary's, Portsea.

After only three years there, however, Porter was enticed away by Bishop George Bell of Chichester, who made him his domestic chaplain.

Porter formed a deep admiration and affection for Bell during the next two years; but when, in 1949, the opportunity came to be fellow, chaplain and lecturer at Oriel College, Oxford, it was obvious that this demanded priority. None the less, he continued to serve Bell as an honorary chaplain for a year and as an examining chaplain for several more.

Porter spent 13 years at Oriel, and besides his scholarly teaching of the Old Testament had wide enough additional interests to become an effective tutor to those studying other aspects of theology. He also wrote his first Old Testament study, Moses and Monarchy, published soon after he left Oxford for Exeter in 1962. He was made a canon of Chichester Cathedral three years later.

Many more books followed, some of which broke new ground — particularly The Extended Family in the Old Testament (1967) and Folklore in the Old Testament (1981). He was also interested in the place of animals in folklore, which led to a book on the subject in 1981, and the place in it of ghosts, which led to a contribution to another book in the same year.

A solid commentary on Leviticus, which occupied him for several years, had appeared in 1976, and he demonstrated his versatility with volumes on The Non-juring Bishops (1973) and Synodical Government in the Church of England (1990). His high Tory sympathies found expression in a contribution to Christianity and Conservatism (1990).

His most successful publishing ventures, however, were The Illustrated Guide to the Bible; The Lost Bible: forgotten scriptures revealed; and The New Illustrated Companion to the Bible — all written during his retirement years.

Roy Porter was president of the Society of Old Testament Study in 1983, vice-president of the Prayer Book Society (1987-96) and a fellow of the Ancient Monuments Society.

He was unmarried, and spent his retirement mainly in London; he also had a house at Longbridge Deverill, in Wiltshire.
-- from Roy Porter's obituary in The Telegraph