A priest fit for many contexts.  

Fr Eric Hampson: 1925 (Durban, South Africa) – 2023 (Sydney, Australia) 

Fr Eric Hampson spent his life ministering in many places, each quite different from the others. The one common thread was that he felt called to ministry in each of them, and was prepared to go and serve Christ. His life began in Durban in South Africa, and from there he travelled to many parts of the globe ministering for our Lord. 

His time with ABM began as a missionary in Southeast Asia where he was the Chaplain to Vietnam and Cambodia. He wrote about this in his memoir, One Male Missionary:

I had never felt any personal commitment to SE Asia, but at this particular juncture the Australian Board of Missions was looking for a new Chaplain to Vietnam and Cambodia. They needed someone who was (a) single, as in 1974 the situation was not conducive to a settled home life and (b) mature, so that contacts with Ambassadors and such like would be relaxed and easy, and (c) mad, to go to such a situation fraught with impending doom. I seemed to fit the bill and was immediately available, and left for England to be vetted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a person to be associated with the Embassies in Saigon and Phnom Penh.  

Far from Indochina, his life began in South Africa. He was a chorister at St Thomas’ in Durban as a boy and then saw service during World War II in North Africa. It was at this time that he felt a call to the priesthood. After hostilities ended, he took a degree at the University of South Africa and a Licentiate in Theology from St Paul’s Theological College, Grahamstown, and was ordained. He spent three years on the staff of St Saviour’s Cathedral in Pietermaritzburg in the Diocese of Natal. The desire to travel became increasingly stronger, and so he was granted leave from his diocese. Accompanied by his second-hand motorbike, Blitzkrieg, he left South Africa by ship for Egypt. After seeing the sights both ancient and modern, he went on to Cyprus and was soon working wherever needed under the supervision of an English archdeacon. His Royal Enfield motorbike gave him the mobility to get to wherever work called, as well as allowing him to get around on his days off. In his memoir, One Male Migrant, he writes: 

Apart from work, I also had a day off each week, and with my little goatskin bag filled with bread, olives and cheese, I would take the bike for an assault on the mountain range that was crowned with Crusader castles.  

After travel through Palestine, Turkey, and Greece, he arrived in England. He was invited to join the staff of Holy Cross, Greenford, in the Diocese of London and spent a fruitful time there from 1954 to 1958.  

As a student, Fr Eric had been a member of the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. The fellowship was established after the Russian Revolution as a way for young English Christians to meet Russian Orthodox Christians who had fled the Soviet Union as well as other Orthodox believers. Its ecumenical work continues today. He took up the position as Secretary for the Fellowship in 1958. There at St Basil’s House he would meet people from all around the Orthodox world, both from the Eastern tradition (Greek, Russian, etc) and the Oriental one (Copts, Armenians etc) and Anglicans from across the globe.  

The Spirit was calling Fr Eric from the Anglo-Orthodox world he inhabited in London to Australia. He had known about the Bush Brotherhood in North Queensland and felt the call to join it. He arrived in our country as a ‘Ten-Pound Pom’ and caught a train to Townsville. From there he was posted to Richmond and Julia Creek, two small towns over six hours away from Townsville. Here he ministered to the people of the outback, serving prospectors, graziers, drovers and their families. His introduction to ABM occurred during this time: he saw the then new film of the consecration of the first indigenous bishop in Papua New Guinea, the Rt Rev George Ambo. 

The next quarter of a century saw Fr Eric in various roles: Archdeacon of the West and Rector of Mount Isa, the Chaplain to Vietnam and Cambodia, Rector of St Augustine’s, Kilburn, in London and Rector of Branxton, Greta and Lochinvar in Newcastle (NSW) Diocese.

Fr Eric became a field officer for the then Australian Board of Missions in 1982. In One Male Migrant he notes,  

It was a slightly critical comment on the window display of the Australian Board of Missions in Sydney that led to the invitation to join the New South Wales State Office as Field Officer. I thought that growing older and anticipating retirement in the country was not a good idea and the move to Sydney would stimulate me into avenues of ministry and intellectual endeavour and the missionary impulse, i.e. the desire to communicate the faith was obviously a top layer of one’s vocation. 

His job involved working around Sydney and travelling out to parishes all around New South Wales. He had to build up a good relationship with the dioceses and the clergy, mission secretaries and congregations. He writes,  

It also meant some appreciation of the often lonely lives of clergy wives, who, with the wives of school teachers, police etc, were the ‘transient’ members of a community, yet often the ones who helped to energise the community with a sort of social cross fertilisation. 

Fr Eric was often away from Sydney working. Country trips meant being away for ten days to a fortnight each time so that he could be in parishes for two Sundays. He would be billeted in rectories, which would have been similar to his previous life travelling from homestead to homestead in the bush. His job was to plant seeds of information that might blossom later. When he was working in the office, much of his time was spent preparing profiles of where Australian Anglicans were working overseas. He also spent considerable time providing hospitality, particularly to clergy and their families who would pass through Sydney from, for example, the Solomon Islands on the way to study programs in Northern America or Britain. He also hosted students who were studying at St John’s College, Morpeth, who had come to Australia from Palestine. This was because Lebanon was not a safe option for study during the Civil War. Fr Eric retired in retired in 1985. Of it he wrote, Retirement comes so suddenly, it’s like bumping into a brick wall and leaves one slightly dizzy’. Of course, he wasn’t quietly retired for long. He took up locum positions in Anglican chaplaincies in Portugal, Tangiers, Sicily and Madeira. He wrote about them in another memoir, Locum Tenacity. 

On Thursday 1 June, 2017, following the Associates’ Annual General Meeting, the Rt Rev Garry Weatherill, the then Chair of the ABM Board, presented the Coaldrake Award to Fr Eric. This was an acknowledgement of his contribution over many years to ABM. This was the first time Coaldrake Awards were presented, and Fr Eric, alongside Moya Holle, were the first two recipients. 

Before the Covid pandemic, Fr Eric would often come into the ABM office to talk to the staff, bring us some cakes or biscuits, and offer a word or two of encouragement. His quiet presence will be much missed. 

We are inflamed with ecstasy if we but hear that there is light eternal yonder, 

that there is Paradise, in which every soul of the righteous rejoices. 

Let us all, also, enter into Christ, that we may all cry aloud to God: 

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

– Ikos 23 at the burial of a priest, from the Orthodox Liturgy 

Fr Eric’s Requiem Eucharist will be held at Christ Church St Lawrence on Thursday 13 April at 10:30am.