DEREK PATTINSON was secretary-general of the General Synod of the Church of England from 1972 to 1990. During those years he was seen by many as the most influential and powerful layman in the Church.

He was at the forefront of the negotiations with the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, in obtaining for the Church a decisive say in the appointment of bishops and played a leading part in the passage of the legislation that transferred to the synod the powers of Parliament to approve forms of worship for the Church of England.

In his 20 years at the synod he saw controversial reports produced such as The Church and the Bomb and Faith in the City. It was Pattinson who invited Canon Gareth Bennett to write the Crockford’s preface that was highly critical of Archbishop Runcie. The outcry that followed its publication led to Bennett’s suicide. Pattinson remained troubled by this for many years after the event.

William Derek Pattinson was born in Whitehaven, Cumbria, in 1930, the only child of Thomas William Pattinson, an Inland Revenue tax inspector, and of Elizabeth Pattinson, a schoolmistress with a forceful personality, who had a great influence on her son.

Pattinson was educated at the local grammar school and Queen’s, Oxford, where he won the Stanhope Historical Essay Prize in 1951. He entered the Home Civil Service and, like his father, served in the Inland Revenue Department at Somerset House, London, from 1952 until 1968, with two spells in the Treasury from 1962 to 1965 and from 1968 to 1970.

In 1954, soon after coming down from Oxford, Pattinson and a number of other Anglican graduates approached the Warden of Liddon House (attached to the Grosvenor Chapel) to provide hospitality for the William Temple Association catering for young professional people working in London and living mainly in flats and bedsitters. They needed a place where they could meet, learn more about their Christian faith and use their intellectual skills in the service of the Church.

It was largely as a result of Pattinson’s enthusiasm and commitment that the William Temple Association became a national network. Pattinson served as its chairman for a time and also chaired the governors of Liddon House.

It was in this capacity that he came to the notice of the Archbishop of Canterbury and in 1966 he was invited to become a member of the Archbishops’ Commission on Church and State chaired by Dr Owen Chadwick. He was one of the more radical members of the commission, pushing in particular for the reform of the way in which bishops were appointed.

At this time it had been decided that the old Church Assembly should be replaced by a general synod. Sir John Guillum Scott, secretary to the Church Assembly, was to be the secretary-general of the new body but, with retirement coming in 1972, the decision was taken to appoint an associate secretary-general who would then succeed Sir John. Pattinson was persuaded to apply for the post and secured the position.

He immediately turned his energies into creating a high profile for the synod, holding briefing sessions for journalists in his office, where the wine flowed freely. His non-attributable remarks about forthcoming business in the General Synod and about its members meant that the media obtained good copy and the synod received good coverage.

After the professionalism of the Civil Service, Pattinson found himself the leader of a small group of staff expected to service an astonishingly wide range of committees and working parties as well as the synod itself. He also acted as confidant to archbishops and adviser on almost every facet of church life at national level.

His unremitting hard work and diligence meant that his ubiquitity at virtually every church occasion attracted criticism; some elected members thought he might manipulate key committees. He was robust in the face of such criticism, drawing on his Civil Service training to provide the Church with as effective and professional an administration as the scant resources would permit. If some thought him too powerful there were many (not least his opposite numbers in the British Council of Churches) who knew the extent of the demands made upon him and were admiring and grateful.

During Pattinson’s time at the synod there were great changes in the Church of England — the admission of non-Anglicans to Holy Communion, the passing of the Worship and Doctrine Measure, which gave the synod power to authorise services alternative to the Book of Common Prayer, the establishment of the Crown Appointments Commission for submitting names to the prime minister when a see became vacant, the Alternative Service Book 1980 and the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, which gave the two Churches agreed statements on various aspects of the Faith and led to closer ties than had been seen since the Reformation.

Pattinson also had to witness the failure of the union scheme with the Methodist Church (1972) and of Towards Visible Unity, a union scheme with a number of reformed Churches (1982).

But the worst moment for him during his time as secretary-general was the Crockford affair. In 1986 Pattinson, on behalf of the Central Board of Finance, and Jim Shelley, secretary of the Church Commissioners (joint proprietors of Crockford’s Clerical Directory), invited Canon Gareth Bennett, Fellow of New College, Oxford, to write the anonymous preface to the next edition to be published in 1987.

Pattinson was the prime mover in the choice of author, having found the 1985 preface, written by a liberal cleric, “very dull”. By comparison the Bennett preface was far from dull with a trenchant criticism of the Archbishop of Canterbury for failure to appoint Anglo-Catholics to deaneries and bishoprics.

Journalists were amazed that an official publication of the Church could be so critical of its leader and immediately clamoured to discover the name of the author. Pattinson advised Bennett to deny authorship but, in the days that followed, his name continued to be the first mentioned by the media. The pressure was too much for Bennett and he committed suicide. Pattinson weathered the storm but was ready for retirement in 1990. He was knighted in that year.

Pattinson was a gregarious individual who enjoyed his City links. He was parish clerk of St Luke’s Old Street and a member of the Parish Clerks’ Company, being master in 1986-87. He was a liveryman of the Woolmen’s Company and a Freemason. He was chairman of the English Friends of the Anglican Centre in Rome and a governor of various schools.

After retirement from the synod Pattinson’s vocation to the priesthood developed quickly. This was a cause of concern to some of his friends who knew him as a person who had championed the laity of the Church by his lay vocation in the synod. The result was that some friends disapproved actively of his vocation. The matter was complicated by the fact that Pattinson was older than the usual age for candidates for the non-stipendiary ministry. However, the vocation was tested and he went forward for ordination, being ordained by Graham Leonard, then Bishop of London.

The vocation proved to be very fruitful and his sense of joy and developing humility in the service of the people of God in the parish of St Gabriel, Pimlico, demonstrated the rightness of his sense of calling. Although liturgically somewhat less of a perfectionist than his incumbent, Father David Skeoch, might have wished, he proved to be an excellent preacher and a much-loved pastor, especially in the ministry of sick communions and home visits. His love for God, which had always animated his life, found its natural expression in his love for the congregation.

He is survived by his partner, Barnaby Miln.

The Rev Sir Derek Pattinson, secretary-general of the General Synod of the Church of England, 1972-90, was born on March 31, 1930. He died on October 10, 2006, aged 76.