Monday, July 28, 2008

Andrew C. Ross (1931-2008)

With sadness I report the death (on Saturday, 26th July) of my colleague Andrew Ross, who was Senior Lecturer in Ecclesiastical History and "retired" in 1998. From the New College notice:
Andrew was appointed in 1966 as the first Lecturer in history of missions in
the UK. He was a popular and very effective lecturer and public speaker,
his graduation address in the summer of his retirement surely one of the
most inspiring and memorable for many years. He also served as Dean of the
Faculty of Divinity and Principal of New College 1978-84, and Associate Director
of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World 1986-98.

An ordained minister in the Church of Scotland, prior to his University
appointment, he was a minister of the Church of Central Africa,
Presbyterian, from September 1958 to May 1965 in Nyasaland/Malawi, forced to
leave Malawi in 1965 on account of his support for the democratic resistance
movement opposed to the oppressive regime of Hastings Banda (first President
of the independent Malawi).

He was a respected scholar, with four books and numerous articles and
contributions to books and reference works, and was a major factor in
helping to shape the development of an approach to the teaching of the
history of Christianity that takes account of its world-wide dimensions and
diversity.
This only hints at Andy's remarkable personality. He was an endless fund of stories, cared deeply about individual students, and revelled in his continuing church connections between Scotland and Malawi. He will indeed be missed.