Hewlett Johnson

Hewlett Johnson (25 January 1874 – 22 October 1966) was an English Anglican priest of the Church of England and a Christian communist and Marxist-Leninist activist and author. He was Dean of Manchester and later Dean of Canterbury, where he acquired his nickname "The Red Dean of Canterbury" for his unyielding support towards Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union and its allies.

Early life

Johnson was born in Kersal as the third son of Charles Johnson, a wire manufacturer, and his wife Rosa, daughter of the Reverend Alfred Hewlett. He was educated at The King's School, Macclesfield and graduated from Owens College, Manchester, in 1894 with a Bachelor of Sciences degree in civil engineering and the geological prize.

He worked from 1895 to 1898 at the railway carriage works in Openshaw, Manchester, where two workmates introduced him to socialism, and he became an associate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. After deciding to do mission work for the Church Mission Society, he entered Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, in 1900 and later attended Wadham College, Oxford, where he gained a second in theology in 1904. The society rejected him because of his increasingly radical theological views, so he concentrated on training for priesthood and was ordained that same year.

He became curate in 1905 and in 1908 a vicar of St Margaret's Altrincham. He and his first wife organised holiday camps for poor children and a hospital for returning World War I wounded soldiers in the town. His unconventional views on the war caused him to be refused employment as an army chaplain on active service but he officiated at a prisoner-of-war camp in his parish.