The Revd John Hamilton, Vicar of Holy Trinity Church Cookridge, has died after a long illness.
Fr John, who was 59, had been vicar of Holy Trinity for 22 years.
After training for the ministry at Edinburgh Theological College, he served his first curacy at Whitkirk, Leeds with Canon Michael Hunter (now retired Rector of Grimbsy), who says, “John was a very gifted and faithful Anglo-Catholic priest. He was diligent in his pastoral work - he loved his congregation to bits, and the people of Cookridge loved him.
“He had a touch of endearing eccentricity about him and he was a very precise, immaculate and disciplined man. He’d done a spell with the Territorial Army which had fascinated him.
"He had been chair of the Deaf Institute in Leeds - a role that highlighted his inventiveness as he developed a way of turning text messages into audio messages.
“He was very loyal to his vocation, and it meant the world to him when, 25 years after ordination, he renewed his priestly vows.
“He was also devoted to his family – his wife Caroline, daughters Catherine and Jennifer, and grandson Archie - and it is immensely sad that we should lose him at a young age.”