Lancaster councillor and priest who ‘broke the mould’ passes away aged 80

At 34, Stuart Mews became the city’s first Liberal councillor in the modern era and later, and unusually, a Church of England priest as well as a Methodist local preacher.

Already a doctor of philosophy from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he was entitled to be called Coun the Rev Dr Mews.

With a talent for capturing headlines, he was a ground-breaking politician, a thought-provoking vicar and a brilliant historian.

Stuart moved to Lancaster in 1968, in the early years of the university, as a lecturer in religious studies and later set up a new department.

Within 10 years of arriving, he became Liberal councillor for Caton, aided by a youthful team of leaflet deliverers – his four sons.

He became chairman of the board of Lancaster City Transport buses and was well-known for declaring how to renovate or innovate and change Lancaster for the better.

At the end of his 15 years as a councillor in 1993, he was made an honorary alderman but was never made mayor.

Having already become a Methodist preacher, he trained for the Anglican ministry, was ordained in 1987 and served at Caton and as an honorary curate at Lancaster Priory.

He left Lancaster University in 1992 for Cheltenham and Gloucester College and was involved in the project to turn the college into Gloucestershire University, working alongside Dame Janet Trotter, the founding Vice-Chancellor and former Vice-Principal of St Martin’s College in Lancaster.

For his last seven years of church ministry from 2007 to 2014, Stuart was Rector of Grantchester in Cambridgeshire.

A grocer’s son born in 1944, he was the first pupil of Burnley Grammar School to study at Cambridge University.

In 1999 he was elected president of the Ecclesiastical History Society, known as the most prestigious post for religious historians in the UK.

Stuart leaves his four sons, Aidan, James, Richard and Benjamin, and seven grandchildren.

He died in Northampton on August 29 and the funeral took place on Friday October 4 at Wesley Methodist Church, Cambridge.

Donations in his memory were given to the Ecclesiastical History Society and the Multiple Sclerosis Society – a disease that affected him for 40 years.