ABSTRACT
In 1970, having resigned from The City Temple, after rejecting the proposed United Reformed Church, and living in the rectory at Greensted, near Ongar, in Essex, where her husband was the incumbent, Elsie was seeking a pastorate. In 1971, she found one at Hutton, near Brentwood, in London’s outer suburban green belt, nearer her home than her previous post. In wartime Liverpool she had learned to be a minister, at Friern Barnet she had stamped her own character, authority and interests on her church, in a time of rebuilding the community, and at middle class Richmond-uponThames she had successfully combined the role of pastor, Anglican parson’s wife and BBC broadcaster, while working in partnership with a colleague in the ministry. In addition, in the years after the Second World War, she had overcome the objections to her serving as a woman chaplain in the RAF. At The City Temple she had experienced the distinctive demands of a unique City centre church and congregation, while working with a number of part-time and full-time junior and senior colleagues.
