Dr John Biggs C.Chem FRSC: 1933-2024 

John Biggs was one of the leading Baptist and Free Church lay people of the latter part of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st century

He was educated in Leicester and at Downing College, Cambridge. Brought up in the Churches of Christ, at Cambridge he joined the Baptist Student Federation and participated, serving as national President in the academic year 1955- 1956 and he participated in Baptist Church life at St. Andrews Street.

Completing his doctorate at Cambridge in the field of Chemistry, he secured a post at the University of Hull and moved there, joining the Cottingham Road Baptist Church in 1960. He met his wife, Brenda, in the university and they married in 1965. Brenda and John were a formidable team in the life of Cottingham Road and, then, beyond in the life of the Yorkshire Baptist Association, the Baptist Union and John, later, in the life of the Free Churches Group within Churches Together in England.

John, as well as lecturing in chemistry, took a great interest in the various student Christian societies and chaired the University Religious Affairs Committee. For many years he was responsible for organising academic events in the University -graduations and the like. He was a man of order and precision, ideally suited to such a role. He never attained a Professorship in the University, perhaps because he always wanted to devote a reasonable proportion of his time to Baptist church affairs. In that sense, he was a remarkably gifted layperson who took his Christian discipleship and his church responsibilities very seriously.

John, whose upbringing had been in the Churches of Christ (a baptistic denomination, now part of the URC) and Brenda, who had been a Congregationalist, served the local church in many ways and, alongside this, John became a representative to the East Riding District of the Yorkshire Baptist Association (YBA) and later a member of the YBA Council.

He was involved in the Baptist Men’s Movement serving as President from 1995-1998.

John served on various Committees of the YBA during his time in Hull, most notably serving as Chair of the Commission of Christian Witness at a time when a new General Superintendent was proposing an Association-wide programme of evangelism, which some had questions about. John’s skill as a chair and as someone seeking consensus in Christian life were a great help in steering the discussions through troubled waters.

John preached round the churches of the Association and was highly regarded by the churches, leading to him being nominated, and elected, President of the Yorkshire Association for the year 1973-1974.

John became one of the YBA representatives on the Baptist Union Council (1978-2013), where, again, he played a prominent part. He chaired the Home Mission Working Group, responsible for raising the mission fund of the Union and was a member of the Scholarships Committee. For some years he wrote a regular feature for the denominational newspaper, The Baptist Times, on science and religion.

He took a great interest in environmental concerns and was a member of the Environmental Network of the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland (1990 – 2007), then serving on the Steering and Advisory Committee of the Environmental Network which advised on Eco Congregations (1999-2004). He served as a Governor of the Northern Baptist College from 1989 – 2000.

In 1989 John was called to be President of the Union. This was an important year for the Union as it had to decide whether to join the new ecumenical instruments which would include the Roman Catholic Church and some black-majority churches. There was much discussion in the denomination. John argued for the Baptist Union to join, but was scrupulously fair in chairing debates on the topic and it fell to John to chair the debate and vote at the Annual Assembly, which he did with aplomb. The Assembly voting decisively to become part of the new Churches Together groupings.

When the European Baptist Federation was gifted the Baptist Seminary in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, by the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, John was appointed a foundation trustee representing British Baptists and chaired the Finance Committee and Relocation Committee of the International Baptist Theological Seminary, being a principal leader in moving the seminary from Switzerland to Prague, Czech Republic (1989-1994).

John represented the Baptist Union in the Free Churches Group of Churches Together in England and served as Moderator of the group. His place, as a leading Free Church layperson, brought him into contact with Royalty, attending no less than four Buckingham Palace Garden Parties and a “dine and sleep” at Windsor Castle with the late Queen.

On retiring from the University John and Brenda moved to their beloved Lake District and his ecumenical sympathies were demonstrated in his engagement with ecumenical life in Cumbria. He was a member of the Environmental Group of Churches Together in Cumbria, Chair of the Ambleside Parish Centre (2012-2020), was a member of Ambleside Baptist Church. Here, the ministers, Andrew and Kathy Dodd, valued the support of John and Brenda in their attempts to develop a truly baptistic church community.

When that church withdrew from the Baptist Union, returning to its Brethren roots, he became a Methodist Local Preacher in the South Lakes Circuit, where the Methodist Superintendent Minister, the Revd Grace Cauldwell, had a Baptist upbringing and parentage rooted in Yorkshire. Grace presided, fittingly, at John’s funeral.

John was noted for his habit of wearing a bow tie, though at the Golden Wedding anniversary of John and Brenda in 2015, whilst all other males present wore a bow tie in honour of John, he did not!

John, and Brenda, who predeceased him, had no children, but rejoiced in their nephews and their families and hosted many people in their Lakeland home from their Baptist roots in Hull, Yorkshire and beyond.

John Biggs was a man of great gifts whom it was a pleasure to know and share events with. He was a man of precision and could always be relied upon to do things correctly and in good order. The Yorkshire Baptist Association, the Baptist Union and the Free Church Group of Churches Together in England all owe him an immense debt of gratitude, as do local Christian communities in Hull and Ambleside.

We do not come across such people often. Willing to set aside ambition and career to faithfully serve the Church of Jesus Christ as true disciples.



Keith G Jones, February, 2025