Peter Knight

He was Bishop of Ely from 1977 to 1989, having previously been Suffragan Bishop of Dorchester and before that Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge.

He and his twin sister were born in Leeds, the children of a postmaster and a primary school teacher.They were brought up in Beeston and he gained scholarships to both Leeds Grammar School, and to The Queen's College, Oxford in 1938.

At the outbreak of the Second World, he joined the Royal Navy serving as a lieutenant in the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. Returning to Oxford in 1945, he was awarded a First in Literae Humaniores.

During the war, he was billeted with Bishop George Bell, at Chichester, who became a great influence on him and who was the main subject of his only book on Anglicanism, Rediscovering the Middle Way, published in 1988.

A man of liberal outlook, his thinking was also influenced by the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran theologian who was executed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, while his friendship with W H Auden at Christ Church, Oxford, and latterly with Geoffrey Hill, at Cambridge, were examples of his great interest in the arts.

From 1947, he taught Classics at King's School, Peterborough, then moved to Merchant Taylors'. Three years later he felt drawn to the priesthood and spent a year at Westcott House before his ordination in St Albans Abbey in 1954. He continued to teach at Merchant Taylors' until 1956, when he left to become a curate at Hemel Hempstead.

Two years later, he became Fellow, Dean and Lecturer at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and in 1962 he was appointed Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge. He became Suffragan Bishop of Dorchester in 1972 and was translated to Ely in 1977 staying until retirement 12 years later.

During his time in Oxford, he was made an honorary fellow of Corpus Christi and The Queen's colleges, and for more than 20 years he was a governor of St Edward's School, Oxford.

In the wider Church, he was a member of the bench of bishops, and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, often turned to him for advice and support. He was also chairman of the Hospital Chaplaincies Council from 1982 to 1986, a period of rapid expansion in the provision and training of hospital chaplains.

In retirement, he was an honorary assistant bishop in Oxford diocese before returning to Cambridge in 1995. He was also chairman of the British section of the International Bonhoeffer Society until 1996.