Geoffrey George Whitefield  1963 – 1981

Succeeded Rev Ronald Elgin Lark in 1955 until Nov 1981.

The Reverend Whitefield was born 1927 in Clapham his father being a bank clerk. Later the family moved to Edgeware. He was educated at Christ’s College Finchley. After serving as a 2^nd lieutenant in the Education Corps he studied for a degree at Emanuel College Cambridge, while there he played cricket and football representing his college and university. Leaving university, he studied for a teaching diploma, marrying his wife Betty Irene Burden around this time. Geoffrey then taught at schools in Chesham and Brockenhurst. He went on to train as lay reader in the Church of England being ordained in 1959. His first position was as a Curate at St. Mary’s Bury St. Edmunds. In 1963 he was inaugurated as vicar of Stowupland later also becoming Rural Dean of Stowmarket. In 1981 he became vicar of Lidgate, Ousden and Cowlinge in the west of the county retiring in August 1989 doing to ill health, he the moved with Betty to Bardwell. Geoffrey died in April 1991 and is buried at Bardwell. Betty was a talented amateur artist, she later remarried to the Reverend Owen Swan and died in 2022 at Norton.