Honours

Julian is our honorary minister; a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA); a companion of the Guild of St George; a member of the Bar Human Rights Committee and Avocats Sans Frontières; and the only Unitarian nonconformist (protestant outside the Church of England) to have preached to the 1662 Society at their annual commemoration at Cole Abbey Presbyterian Church (Free Church of Scotland) in the City of London of the ejection of puritan clerics from the Church of England, which led to the founding of the first independent and presbyterian congregations in England; Unitarianism arising in the latter as well as within a much smaller number of general baptist congregations.

Distinguished Venues

Julian has celebrated marriages in the chapels of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (Anglican); King’s College London (Anglican); and Dalhousie Castle (in the company of Charlotte Church) (nominally Church of Scotland), near Edinburgh.

Julian has also conducted special services and or regular worship at the following venues: The Chapel, Harris Manchester College, Oxford; Fountain Court, The Middle Temple, London (nominally Anglican); Unitarian Headquarters, Essex Hall, London; Rosslyn Hill Chapel, Hampstead, London; Newington Green Chapel, London; The Old Chapel & Nightingale Centre, Great Hucklow, Derbyshire; The Upper Chapel, City Centre, Sheffield; Underbank Chapel, Overlooking Loxley Valley, Sheffield; and Fulwood Old Chapel, Overlooking Mayfield Valley, Sheffield.

Ministerial Formation

As a young Unitarian, Julian attended a pre-university further education top-up and ministry foundation year at the Unitarians’ historic Manchester College, Oxford (HMCO) with the support of a major award from the Sheffield Grammar School Exhibition Fund.

After HMCO, Julian went to the LSE to read law under Joe Jacob and was simultaneously appointed on a part-time lay leadership basis to the ministry at Brixton Unitarians in succession to his principal and ministry tutor at HMCO, Rev Tony Cross, who had been minister with oversight there and continued as Julian’s mentor for several years thereafter.

Julian went on to gain: the LLB (Hons), London; PGDLP (Bar), Inns of Court School of Law; a pupillage at 1 Gray’s Inn Square, London, under Alan Johnson; the utter barrister’s degree, Lincoln’s Inn; the bar practising certificate, Bar Council / Bar Standards Board; and the position of honorary minister at Brixton Unitarians after 10 years’ service.

Mid-career at the Bar and still at Brixton Unitarians, Julian returned to college part-time to read theology and ministry ecumenically and in a way that drew on the main roots of Unitarianism. He studied for the diploma (DBTS) and advanced diploma (ADBTS) in biblical and theological studies with the Baptist’s at Regent’s Park College, Oxford (General Baptist heritage and long association with Manchester College, Oxford); for the certificate in independent ministry (CICM) at the Free Church of Scotland’s Edinburgh Theological Seminary (Free Christian, English Presbyterian and Scottish university education heritage); and at the ICUU’s / Protestant Theological Institute’s international church leadership Summer school at the John Sigismund Academy, Cluj-Napoca / Kolozsvár) Transylvania (international, but mostly East European and particularly Hungarian heritage).

Julian has a special interest in the following subjects, which he has studied formally by way of short and not so short courses: British folklore (Mark Norman, Folklore Society); archaeology & antiquarianism (Fay Stevens, Oxford); supernatural literature (Jenny Bavidge, Cambridge); and the history of witchcraft, magic and the occult (Thomas Waters, Imperial).