Correspondents write:
THE Ven. Kenneth Unwin, former Archdeacon of Pontefract, who died on 27 December, at the age of 94, in Skipton, devoted his working life to parish ministry in industrial Yorkshire.
Ken was educated at Chesterfield Grammar School and, while at school, was a member of the Boys’ Brigade and a church server. He graduated from St Edmund Hall, Oxford, before going on to theological college at Ely.
He was ordained into the diocese of Ripon and served his title in Leeds from 1951 to 1955, before becoming Curate-in-Charge of St John’s, Neville’s Cross, Durham, until 1959. He served three incumbencies at St John the Baptist, Dodworth (1959-69), St John the Baptist, Royston (1969-73), and St John’s, Wakefield (1973-82).
He was a Proctor in Convocation on the General Synod from 1972 to 1982, served as a rural dean in Wakefield diocese from 1980 to 1989, and was an Hon. Canon of Wakefield Cathedral from 1980 to 1992. He was appointed Archdeacon of Pontefract in 1982 and continued in that post until his retirement in 1992.
It was while working as a curate in Leeds that he met his wife, Beryl, with whom he went on to have four daughters and a son, besides fostering several children. At the time of his death, he had 17 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, and two more great-grandchildren due imminently.
Family and nurturing future generations were central to his ministry, and he was a dedicated mentor to his curates and their young families. He served as a school governor and as a member of the local education committee. He led youth-group retreats, welcomed refugee families from Ugandan Asia in the 1970s, supported young women in custody in the Approved School in Wakefield, and invited children from Northern Ireland to stay with families in Yorkshire at the height of the troubles.
The family home always offered warmth and sanctuary whether to itinerant homeless people, to parishioners experiencing personal crisis, bereavement, or loneliness, or to international police officers from as far afield as Fiji and the Solomon Islands who found themselves transplanted to the grey, cold northern English city to undertake training at the Bishopgarth Police Training College.
In 1989, he led a party from Wakefield diocese to Tanzania, in East Africa, to establish a twinning relationship with the diocese of Mara with his colleague, Bill Jones, who was subsequently seconded there by the then Bishop of Wakefield, Dr David Hope. Ken was involved in setting up a school and health centre in a village on the edge of the Serengeti — a link with Wakefield churches which is still active more than 30 years later.
After spending his working life experiencing the joys and hardships of northern mining communities, he chose to spend his retirement in the rural idyll of Skipton in North Yorkshire, where he and Beryl were active members of the community and church life, enjoying hill walks and the tranquillity of the Yorkshire Dales.
