A VICAR and former teacher has died at the age of 94.

The Rev John Stanton was ordained in the early 1950s after studying chemistry at University College, Oxford.

He combined his role as a priest with that of a teacher until being appointed headteacher at an independent school in Devon, where he stayed for more than 10 years.

He returned to Oxford on his retirement as a teacher in 1983 but continued to follow his religious calling.

Travelling around the Oxford Diocese he filled in at churches which were temporarily without a priest, and was also secretary to the Diocesan Board of Patronage, which puts people forward for clergy posts.

Mr Stanton was born on August 29, 1918, and went to school in Rochester in Kent before coming up to Oxford for the first time as a student.

His studies were interrupted by the Second World War when he joined the Royal Artillery and served in the Middle East and India.

It was in Algiers that he met his future wife, Helen Bowden, who was working for the Foreign Office at the time.

They married in 1957 in the chapel of University College and they remained together until her death in 1998. After completing his degree, he became a teacher in Kent but it was then that he decided to join the clergy and he returned to Oxford, this time at Wycliffe Hall, to train as a vicar.

Originally he combined his role of teacher and school chaplain, until he became headteacher of Blundell’s School in Devon in 1959.

After leaving teaching, he was vicar of St Leonard’s in Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire from 1973 to1983.

It was at this point that Mr Stanton, who was also a keen painter, returned to Oxford to retire.

He died on March 14 and is survived by three children, Anthony, Kate and Gill, and 10 grandchildren.

Mr Stanton’s funeral took place on Thursday, March 28, at St Andrew’s Church in Headington.