Archdeacons

In the Diocese of Sheffield there are two Archdeacons. Richard Blackburn is the Archdeacon of Sheffield and Rotherham and Bob Fitzharris is the Archdeacon of Doncaster.

Archdeacon: Richard Blackburn

Before ordination, Richard read Theology at St. John’s College Durham and then worked for the National Westminster Bank until going to Westcott House Cambridge in 1981. While at the bank, he captained the Nat West Rowing Club. Richard served his title in Stepney and after a period as Priest in Charge of Isleworth, became Vicar of Mosborough in the Diocese of Sheffield from 1992-1999. He served as Area Dean of Attercliffe from 1996-1999 and was made an honorary Canon of Sheffield Cathedral in 1998. In 1999 he was made Archdeacon of Sheffield and a Residentiary Canon of Sheffield Cathedral. In 2000 he became a Dignitary in Convocation. As well as looking after a very busy Archdeaconry, Richard is a Member of the Archbishops’ Council Finance Committee and a director of the Church of England Pensions Board. He is also a senior selector for ABM and a member of the Churches Regional commission for Yorkshire and Humberside. He has many other responsibilities, too numerous to mention here.

Richard is married to Helen, an ordained, full-time Chaplain in the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust. They have 4 Children, 2 at University and 2 at school.

Archdeacon: Bob Fitzharris

Bob read Dentistry at Sheffield University and spent 16 years in General Dental Practice, combining it with part-time work in the Teaching Hospitals in Sheffield with a particular interest in child growth and development. In 1987 he went to Lincoln Theological College and then served his title in Dinnington in the Sheffield Diocese. In 1992 he became Vicar of Bentley, just north of Doncaster and in 1995 became Rural Dean of Adwick-le-Street, a post he held until 2001. In 1998 he was made an honorary Canon of Sheffield Cathedral and he became Archdeacon in 2001. While at Bentley, Bob founded a capacity-building charity and launched a company to recycle wood and return people to full-time employment after having been unemployed for many years.

Like Richard, alongside many other duties, Bob is the European Link Officer for the Diocese and Chairs the ecumenical venture called Together for Regeneration, which is looking at sustainable regeneration in some of the most deprived areas of the Diocese. He is Chairman of the Doncaster Cancer Detection Trust and is a member of the Sheffield University Research Ethics Committee.

Bob is married to Lesley, a dentist in NHS general practice. They have 3 adult daughters.

The archdeacons are very fortunate in that they work out of a suite of rooms in the Diocesan Office where they share a PA, Susan Atkinson. It is Susan’s voice that you will normally hear if you telephone the office. If you do contact her you will always be assured of a friendly response.

The Dean

The Dean: Peter Bradley

Peter is Irish. He was born in 1964, and was brought up in Belfast. He came to university in England, and has worked here ever since. Peter was ordained in 1988. From 1990 to 1995, he was Chaplain of Gonville and Caius College in the University of Cambridge, and he has served in three parishes in the south of England.

Peter has been the Dean of Sheffield since 2003. He is the youngest dean of an English cathedral for some four hundred years, but Peter says that he feels quite grown up now. He chairs the board of a regional charity working with rough sleepers and drug users, and is leading a major regeneration project in Sheffield, working with the EU and regional funding bodies. He was recently awarded a Fellowship at the College of Preachers in National Cathedral in Washington DC.

Peter’s academic interests include psychotherapeutic approaches to religion, systems theory, and theology. He has acted as a mentor to people taking up strategic leadership positions in the Church and other voluntary organizations, and has also worked with the Windsor Leadership Trust. In his spare time, Peter enjoys the cinema and painting, and he pretends to be interested in Rugby League so that the congregation won’t beat him up.

The word dean comes from the Latin for sergeant, and Peter’s ministry is to be a sort of sergeant of the diocese! He holds three main roles. He is the senior priest of the Diocese, and works closely with the Bishops to support them in their ministries of oversight, for example, by sharing in clergy reviews. The Bishops share with the Dean their mission to organizations that fall outside the parish system, and our responsibilities as the Established Church. As a consequence, Peter spends much of his time developing new relationships with business and community leaders, in pastoral care and evangelism. Finally, he is the senior priest at the Bishop’s Church, the Cathedral, and he leads the team of clergy and lay people who share in the mission of the Cathedral ‘to know, love and serve our Lord Jesus Christ, and so become true witnesses to God’s kingdom, and a place for all people’.