Proud day for women priests

There were rumours that potential demonstrators may be sitting in the congregation.

And when the Bishop of Lichfield asked whether anyone objected to the women before him being ordained as priests, the atmosphere was tense, to say the least.

"It was a bit like at a wedding, and we were all wondering whether anybody would say anything," said Rev Preb Pippa Thorneycroft, who was one of the first 51 women to be ordained at Lichfield Cathedral 20 years ago.

The day marked the end of years of campaigning by Mrs Thorneycroft, who lives in Albrighton, near Wolverhampton.

As the Diocesan advisor for women, she was also responsible for taking care of the other prospective priests during the service.

But the 70-year-old says apart from the brief tense moment when the Bishop asked if there were any objections, she felt strangely calm about the whole thing.

"There was a part of me very excited about being part of history, but there was part of me feeling responsible for the other 50 women who were being ordained," she said.

At the time, her husband John was the Diocesan Registrar, and it was he who handed his wife her letters of order after being accepted as a priest.

She already had six years' experience as a deacon when she was finally ordained into the priesthood.

Mrs Thorneycroft began her ministry as a curate in Albrighton, before being appointed priest-in-charge at Shareshill, between Cannock and Wolverhampton, in 1996.

She later served as minister for the parish of Tettenhall Wood, which included Christ Church and The Church of the Good Shepherd in Castlecroft, and for 13 years she combined her parish work with the post of chaplain to the Queen.

Not that it was always easy in the early days.

"Repeatedly people said at baptisms and funerals 'if I had known it was a woman taking the service I would not have come'," she says.

And it wasn't just the men who objected.

"At my church, at Shareshill, it was mostly the women," she says.

"I've heard about it coming from the men at other churches, but at mine it was the women.

"Many left, but most later returned. Some of them later said they had changed their minds, and they became friends, but there was one woman though who just left and never came back."

Also ordained at the same time was Rose Hudson-Wilkin, who went on to become one of the country's most high-profile churchwomen. The former vicar of the Church of the Good Shepherd and St John in West Bromwich is now best known as chaplain to House of Commons Speaker John Bercow.

She is also a chaplain to the Queen, is priest vicar at Westminster Abbey, and is hotly tipped to become one of Britain's first female bishops.

Mrs Thorneycroft is now retired from full-time ministry, although she is at the moment working as interim team rector in Central Telford Parish.

Despite being born into Wolverhampton's prominent Mander family – which dominated civic life in Wolverhampton for nearly two centuries – Mrs Thorneycroft said until she became involved in the campaign, she had never considered herself a political type.

"I'm not a very political animal, really, it was the first time in my life I had become politically involved with something," she says. "We were pioneering, pushing doors and boundaries all the time, and facing setbacks from people who were intransigent or even rude.

"It was a heady time and I did have to get involved in frontline stuff, but now I have been able to get away from all the politics.

"In the end, if you do a good job, people do change their minds."

She recalls the vote which paved the way for the ordination of women at Church House, Westminster, in 1992.

"We were in the overflow in the Methodist Central Hall," she says.

"It was nail-biting, as a series of excellent speeches on both sides of the argument increased the tension.

"It was so close, no-one could work out if the vote had been passed. It was, by two votes. The place erupted."

Not that she supported the methods of all campaigners.

"Some of the women were very strident about it, and I didn't have much time for all that," she says.

"I felt the best approach was to be as good as we could possibly be, and then people would appreciate us for what we did."

The anniversary of the ordination of women priests will be marked by a Thanksgiving Service at Lichfield Cathedral on May 17.

Celebrations to mark the anniversary have also been held in London, where hundreds of women priests and supporters marched from Westminster Abbey to St Paul's Cathedral.

Every woman ordained in 1994 was invited and all dioceses in England were expected to be represented.

Speaking at the ceremony, the Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin said: "We were told we must be quiet then.

"We were told not to celebrate, but today I am going to celebrate."

Twenty years on, Mrs Thorneycroft believes the women who changed the face of an ancient institution have largely achieved what they set out to do.

"I think we have mostly cracked it," she says. "Women bishops will happen at some stage, and it will become normal, as it did years ago when women became doctors."