The next Archdeacon of Wrexham will be the Revd Shirley Griffiths, Vicar of Abergele and St George, the Bishop of St Asaph has announced. She will also be the Rector of Llandegla.
Mrs Griffiths has been Vicar of Abergele since 2002, taking responsibility for St George in 2008. She was ordained deacon in 1982, serving as curate in Dyserth, Trelawnyd and Cwm. She later became Diocesan Education Officer, a post which she then combined with that of Minor Canon of St Asaph Cathedral. Mrs Griffiths left Wales in 1995 when she went to be R.E. Adviser for the Ripon Diocese and priest-in-charge of a parish, at a time when women in Wales were not able to be ordained priest. Before ordination, Mrs Griffiths taught in Holywell for nine years.
Making this announcement on Palm Sunday, 28 March, Bishop Gregory said, “Shirley is an experienced and wise parish priest, who has all the skills for which I look in an Archdeacon, and I am in no doubt whatsoever that she will be an excellent successor to the eminent ministry that Malcolm Squires has exercised as Archdeacon of Wrexham over the last nine years.”
Mrs Griffiths (62) said, “I was quite amazed when Bishop Gregory asked me; it was last thing I was expecting when he invited me to see him. I’m looking forward to the new challenge – but will be very sad to leave Abergele and St George, where my husband and I have developed many friendships and have felt ourselves to be very much part of the community.”
The Archdeacon of Wrexham has responsibility, under the Bishop, for a third of the diocese, from the industrial area of Deeside down to the rural area around Bala. Archdeacons have a particular concern for church buildings and Mrs Griffiths has appropriate experience for this, having inherited a restoration project from her predecessor in Abergele and overseen the plans for the rebuilding of St David’s, Pensarn, which will be a new community space, due to open later this year.
The Church in Wales has one other female Archdeacon, the Ven Peggy Jackson, Archdeacon of Llandaff, but Mrs Griffiths is the first Welsh woman to be made Archdeacon.
The Revd Shirley Griffiths was brought up in Llanasa and Trelawnyd, the daughter of a farmer. Her husband, Robin, was a farm bailiff and now works for Jones Peckover in St Asaph. Their daughter, Anna, works at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, and will be married in Abergele in April; their son, James, works for a coach company in Northallerton. Mrs Griffiths lists horse-riding, music, floral art and needlework as her interests.
The parish of Abergele produced several Archdeacons in the nineteenth century, including an Archdeacon of Singapore and an Archdeacon of Zanzibar. Mrs Griffiths feels she has more in common with the Venerable David Evans, Archdeacon of St Asaph from 1897-1910 who, as Vicar of Abergele (1897-1910), restored St Michael’s, built St David’s Church, Pensarn and a large church hall for the parish.
