The Revd Eric Bray: 1936-2024 

Baptist minister who was a deep, inquiring and restless thinker, and whose integrity was demonstrated in his dedicated and unshowy pastoral work 

Eric Lesley Bray was born in Armley in Leeds in 1936 to Lesley Bray and Mary Craven. Four year later to be joined by his younger sister Rosemary.

Also part of the Bray household was the widowed Grandmother Craven who used to take young Eric to church where he would enjoy the singing. A charismatic minister at the local church, Reverend Hamilton, was a further influence - pulling Eric into church services and activities. By then Eric was also contributing musically by playing the harmonium.

Eric’s academic abilities took him from the chimneys of Armley to the spires of Oxford via first passing the eleven plus which gained him access to West Leeds High School, then Rawdon Baptist College and finally Regent's Park College at Oxford.

Eric’s first church was Lawrence Saunders Road Baptist Church in Coventry in the 1960s when Coventry represented modernity with its futuristic shopping centre, its cutting edge theatre and its new cathedral where Eric attended the opening.

It was a time of new beginnings. Eric married Brenda Waddington in 1960 (they had known each other since infant school in Armley) and their first son, Jonathan, was born four years later.

After Coventry there was Zion Chapel Mirfield (where Elizabeth was born). Then there was Trinity Church Rawdon (where Abigail was born). And finally Union Chapel in Fallowfield, Manchester - where Eric was minster for 18 years. Prayers have been said for him at all four churches.

Eric was a deep, inquiring and restless thinker - particularly about the big questions of life. He was also a great respecter of the non conformist tradition. And a man of conscience, complete integrity and ambitions for what a church could be.

This came through in his preaching. He was never one for the glib or the unconsidered. He likened his sermons to art galleries where people could look around and take as they pleased from the spaciousness of the ideas he brought to them. He invited his churches to take the tougher but more fulfilling route up the mountain - and to stop along the way to reflect on what they saw.

It came through in his dedicated and unshowy pastoral work and support for the members of the church at their times of greatest happiness and at their times of greatest need.

And it came through in the way he reimagined what his churches could be - from a new church hall at Rawdon, to nurture and sustain church and community life, to helping to make Union Chapel Manchester a hub for a very wide range of adult education courses and activities.

He made things happen but at the same time it was never about him. It was as he saw it about connections and fellowship.

And there was more too - chaplaincies at prisons and at hospitals as well as teaching at higher education colleges and at schools.

Eric enjoyed many happy years of retirement which were put to good use. Eric and Brenda travelled widely in the UK - including to places where they went in their earlier years together like Guernsey (where they honeymooned) and much loved St Ives. They also travelled widely in France and the Mediterranean countries.

Eric also explored new activities like drawing and painting, as well as more familiar preoccupations like singing in choirs and getting out into nature (including walking the Transpennine trail from Hornsea to Southport). And there was their cottage in Gargrave where so many happy summer days were spent, either together or with the wider family. Their cozy retreat with its garden leading to the banks of the River Aire.

As the years passed there were the challenges of cancer. First for Eric and then later for Brenda, the latter’s challenges exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.

A move to Derby to be nearer to daughter, Abigail and family was not only practical but made them part of the extended household and brought them closer to the expanding lives of their beloved grandchildren, Martha, Esther and Theo.

At his leaving service from his last church - Union Chapel Manchester - he quoted one of his favourite poets, R S Thomas

They left no books
Memorial to their lonely thought
In grey parishes; rather they wrote
On men’s hearts and in the minds
Of young children sublime words
Too soon forgotten. God in his time,
Or out of time, will correct this.

It’s a beautiful poem

But Eric will not be, in the words of the poem, too soon forgotten.

Living such a long life unfortunately means you have outlived many relatives, friends and associates so Eric’s family have been touched by how many people have expressed their sadness and appreciation for Eric. From those close to him through to neighbours at Gargrave and Derby who have cherished his cheery waves and chats more than his family knew.

As a man he will be remembered with gratitude and affection by those whose lives he touched.

And his best qualities are reflected in the lives of his churches, his friends and his family.


Jonathan Bray