Tribute to The Very Revd Hugh Dickinson

6 August 2025

by James Woodward

Hugh Dickinson

It is with regret and gratitude that we announce the death of The Very Revd Hugh Dickinson who died last Wednesday, July 30th. Hugh was Dean of Salisbury Cathedral from 1986 until his retirement in 1996. Through his leadership and vision, governors and trustees founded Sarum College in 1995, a year after the closure of Salisbury & Wells Theological College.

I first met Hugh on Saturday 26th September 2015 at a gathering to mark twenty years of Sarum College. Warm, undefended, grounded and fun are the adjectives that most come to my mind.

I was about to start my work as Principal. I remember his advice and was always glad to hear from him. In the early days when he was in Salisbury, he popped in, always keen to know what I was reading.

Hugh with James in September 2015

Hugh kept in touch with us and was a constant encourager of the work here and believed passionately about an open and intelligent thinking about what made us human. He was a deeply serious man who held his reading, theology and learning lightly. We enjoyed receiving his own thoughts and reflections and Christine Nielsen-Craig worked with Hugh to make them available on our website over the years.

Hugh was a seeker after truth free from the conventions and restrictions of orthodoxy. His concerns were always looking outwards and inviting his reader to reflect seriously on the world around us and the complexities of human nature, He had an extraordinary skill of going into the heart of the matter – this paragraph from an article published in May 2020 (In the Spirit) stands the test of time in 2025 as we consider our world. In writing about dissonance he comments,

The third and most troubling cognitive dissonance, which is like a rat gnawing at the root of all religious faith, is the perennial “Why” – the agonising horror of so many human lives, not only the colossal waste through earth-shaking natural disasters, which have killed millions of men women and children, but on top of all that, the endemic cruelty and violence of the human race. The 20th century has been called “The Century of Slaughter”. More than six million people were exterminated in the Shoah.  Many more died in Russia and China. As civilisation has progressed, more and more sophisticated weapons of destruction have been invented. This cognitive dissonance ….. seems irresistible, and most persistent.

Hugh had sufficient humanity to be able to stand back and not to be taken in by institutions especially the Church! He understood how vain we human beings can be and become especially when we collude with the contradictions of place and power. In reflecting on the life of Salisbury Cathedral he often quoted his wife Jean’s wisdom – some of it rather near to the bone to repeat here. He gifted me with his (now) oft-quoted phrase about Bishops: “I have never known a priest who has become a Bishop for whom it hasn’t ruined”. This was not misplaced or a high-handed judgement but rather a deep belief that our religion should make us better human beings. He was also passionate about a theology which could hold its own in the academy and public life.

We commend him to God and prayer for his family especially Ben and Tess his children. At Sarum we have much to be grateful for Hugh and his legacy.

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The Revd Canon Professor James Woodward is Principal of Sarum College. View his bio

Hugh’s contributions to the Sarum College website

The Silences of God (March 2020)
Plagues (April 2020)
Cognitive Dissonance (In the Spirit, May 2020) 
The Shroud Over the Nations (February 2021)
Mechanisms of Salvation (April 2022)
The End of All Things (August 2022)
What is a Person? (October 2022)
Kings and Mystics (December 2023)