The death of Canon Rodney Hunter has deprived the Anglican Church in Central Africa of one of its most senior and distinguished priests. He went to Africa before the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa was merged into the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

As the decades passed, he seemed ever more clearly to personify the high standard of theological integrity, personal holiness and pastoral devotion for which the Universities’ Mission had been rightly acclaimed.

Rodney Squire Hunter was born on in 1933 in Sale, Cheshire, the younger son of Dr Reginald Hunter and his wife, Mary. While at Leighton Park School, Reading, Rodney Hunter became attracted to the Church of England and was given dispensation to attend Anglican worship instead of the Quaker Meeting at the school.

He served as a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards while doing his National Service from 1951 to 1953.

While stationed in London he attended All Saints’, at Ennismore Gardens (which has since become the Russian Orthodox Cathedral), and under the influence of Father Amphlett Micklewright, the vicar, adopted the firm Anglo-Catholic theological position from which he never thereafter wavered.

Three years at Exeter College, Oxford, where he read theology, followed, and from there he prepared for ordination at the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, in West Yorkshire. Hunter was ordained deacon in 1958 and priest in 1959, serving in the East London parish of St Edmund, Forest Gate. His academic prowess soon led to appointment as priest librarian of Pusey House, Oxford, 1961-65, which he combined with the chaplaincy of Wadham College during the wardenship of Sir Maurice Bowra.

Hunter devoted the rest of his life to serving the Church in Central Africa. His main work was academic, first as chaplain and lecturer at the Anglican seminary in Lusaka. After the break-up of the Central African Federation, he became lecturer and chaplain to Anglican students at the Catholic-Anglican seminary at Kachaberi. A period as dean of Likoma, the island cathedral on Lake Malawi, followed. Three previous priests had died mysteriously and there was suspicion of witchcraft. The bishop needed someone of authority and integrity to sort things out, and Hunter was the obvious choice.

A period as rector of St Peter’s Church, Lilongwe, led to his final appointment: lecturer at the Anglican Theological College in Zomba, which had become a constituent of the university there. He also taught classics.

On retirement in 2001 Hunter moved to a house in the hospital compound at Nkotakota, where he rejoiced in having, for the first time, an electric socket from which to run a refrigerator.

He played an active part in the life and the pastoral work of the cathedral. But retirement coincided with a prolonged period of dissension in the Diocese of Lake Malawi. This not only caused him great sadness and stress, but at times put him in physical danger. A criminal case, following an attack on him by a group of people in July, was in process at the time of his death. Notwithstanding these problems, he remained steadfast and lived frugally.

Hunter had surgery for cancer five years ago but became ill again in October. Full postmortem results are yet to be released, but a police spokesperson has stated that he may have died of food poisoning. Police inquiries are still continuing in connection with his death.

To observers of the history of the Anglican Church in Central Africa, Hunter’s death will seem to bring to conclusion an era of devotion and achievement by the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa.

Canon Rodney Hunter, priest, missionary and teacher, was born on April 5, 1933. He died on November 11, 2006, aged 73