Patronage at St. Catherine's, Mile Cross
St. Catherine's Church was founded under the auspices of the Dame Violet Wills Trust and as such has private patrons selected to ensure the continuation of the evangelical ethos of that trust. Each is appointed to bring special expertise to the process of selection either through local knowledge or knowledge of likely candidates for the incumbency, or both.
The current patrons are:
The Rev. Canon Gordon Bridger, who before becoming Principal of Oak Hill Theological College was Rector of Holy Trinity Church in Norwich for many years.
The Rev. Hugh Palmer who, after serving as curate at Holy Trinity became the “Bishop's chaplain for “ Mission and Training ” under Bishop Maurice Wood. Since that time he has been on the staff of St. Helen's Church, Bishopgate followed by Christchurch, Fulwood (Sheffield) and for the last 11 years has been Rector of All Soul's Church, Langham Place.
The Rev. Kenneth Habershon, who has been secretary to the Patronage Trust and has long associations with CPAS. For some years, Kenneth was Secretary of both the Church Patronage Trust and the Peache Trust; both are evangelical patronage trusts.
Dr Peter English, has lived in Norwich for almost 60 years and throughout this time has had various associations with St. Catherine's church, being a patron since 1981. He was chairman of the East Anglian committee for Mission England responsible for bringing Dr Billy Graham to Norwich and Ipswich, and was elected to General Synod in 1985 serving for two terms.