Sir Timothy Hoare dedicated his life to strengthening the foundations of the Church of England, and to helping its evangelical constituency to respond to changing times. He served ten years on its General Assembly then 30 years more on its successor, the General Synod, contributing advice and counsel — always thoughtful, never strident — which came to be much respected and admired.
As one of the Church’s leading laymen, he firmly believed the established status of the Church meant that it should contribute wholeheartedly to the life of the nation, and he was a lifelong representative of its evangelical wing.
Timothy Edward Charles Hoare was born in 1934 in Bangkok where his father, Sir Edward Hoare, 7th baronet, worked for the Anglo-Borneo Company. Many of his ancestral Anglo-Irish family, which originally settled in Co Wexford, were bankers. One was Comptroller of the Royal Mint at the Tower of London and Oliver Cromwell’s banker; another founded Ireland’s first bank in Cork. His kinsman, Richard Hoare, founded the most famous and last remaining bank in the family which thrives as Messrs C Hoare & Co in Fleet Street.
Hoare was sent to Radley where he shared a study with another keen cricketer, Ted Dexter, the future England captain, under whom he played in the First XI. He also played cricket for the Royal Greenjackets during his National Service. Turned down by Balliol, he joked that he then gained a place to read history at Worcester College on the strength of its cricket XI needing a leg-spinner.
Hoare became a committed Christian at Oxford, influenced in particular by Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and also by the evangelical Intercollegiate Christian Union. On leaving Oxford he briefly considered a political career but decided instead to join Richard Bowdler in establishing Pathfinders, a new Church of England youth ministry. For the next six years he travelled up and down the country speaking to churches and setting up summer youth camps.
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In the mid-1960s he joined the staff of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, to help the new rector, Dick Lucas, in pioneering a lunchtime ministry to bring the gospel to those working in the City. Over the past 36 years this has provided clear biblical teaching and Christian fellowship for thousands of office workers. He also developed an interest and expertise in personnel management, going on to take a degree in manpower studies at Birkbeck College, London. With a friend, he then launched a consultancy, Career Plan, in 1970 whose main focus over the past 30 years has been to help to recruit senior leadership for the business world, Hoare specialising in the Christian voluntary sector. In this sphere and also in helping individuals with vocational guidance his skills were much in demand, and he decided to divide his time equally between the consultancy and his work for the Church.
He was elected to the Church Assembly in 1960 and to his surprise was asked to serve as the youngest member of the important Chadwick Commission on Church and State, which helped to develop his strong and reasoned support for the constitutional position of the established Church. This reflected a wider concern for what he believed to be the vital influence of the Church and Christian individuals on the life of the nation. He was inspired by the influence of 18th and 19th-century evangelicals in bringing to bear the transforming power of the gospel on national life and was delighted when asked to serve as chairman of the National Club in 1997-2006.
In 1971 he began a 15-year involvement on the Advisory Council for the Church’s Ministry (ACCM). From 1987 to 1992 he was a member of the Crown Appointments Commission responsible for the choice of diocesan bishops, and in 1988 he was recruited to a senior church appointments review. He was a member of the General Synod’s standing committee, 1981-98, and in 1984 was asked to chair a group on the law of marriage as it affected the Church’s discipline. The group’s report, An Honourable Estate, was published four years later. He was treasurer and vice-chairman of the London Diocesan Fund, 1993-2005, a key role when the Church’s finances were undergoing difficult changes.
In synod and in the many committees he served on Hoare rarely spoke. When he did, it was only after careful weighing of different positions and in the light of his considerable knowledge of church structures and the laity and clergy.
When he succeeded his father in 1969 he acquired half the papers of his ancestor, William Pitt the Elder, which he immediately opened to the public by depositing them on loan with the Public Record Office (now part of the National Archives). In later years his love of history was rekindled by reading of Pitt the Younger’s great friendship with two of his heroes, William Wilberforce and John Newton.
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He was involved in a voluntary capacity with many Christian groups and charities. These included the South American Missionary Society, and trusteeship of the Inter-Continental Church Society, Daily Prayer Union Trust, World Vision UK, A Rocha UK, Kingham Hill Trust, the Rebecca Hussey Trust, the Proclamation Trust and the Great St Helen’s Trust.
He sat on the councils of St John’s College, Durham, and Oakhill Theological College, and was a governor of Canford School, Dorset, for 40 years. Hoare was a fellow of the Linnean Society and of the London Zoological Society.
At the age of 62 he received a diagnosis of prostate cancer. He was proud to serve as vice-president of Prostate UK which helps to fund research into the disease.
He is survived by his wife, Felicity, and his son (who succeeds to the baronetcy) and twin daughters
Sir Timothy Hoare, 8th Bt, OBE, business consultant and leading lay Christian, was born on November 11, 1934. He died on January 18, 2008, aged 73