The Revd David Woodwards

Village and Suburb: The Growth of Diocesan Identity in the Counties of East Anglia 1837 - 1970

The research concerns the way in which the Church of England dioceses in East Anglia developed a sense of identity as discrete units of ecclesiastical life following the great reforms of the 1830s and 1840s, and how this identity evolved over the next century ; of how new dioceses were formed and developed as a result of increases in population and how church and community culture changed from being deeply rural to overwhelmingly suburban in character.

David is a retired priest of the Church of England. After serving as a tutor and chaplain at a Teacher Training College in Nigeria he obtained his M Th in Church History at Kings College in 1973 and spent the remainder of his active ministry as a parish priest and Rural Dean in rural Suffolk. His interests over many years have concerned the way in which rural society and the rural Church and its ministry have adapted to change. He was the founder and Director of the Suffolk Centre for Rural Ministry in the late 1970s, a co founder of the Rural Theology Association in 1980, a Bishop's Examining Chaplain, an Hon Canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral and Diocesan Advisor for the Archbishops Commission on Rural Areas in 1990.