THE Revd Henry Blandford Baker, universally known as Ben, who died on 25 August, aged 78, was the great-grandson of Charles Baker, who went out to New Zealand as a CMS missionary in 1828.

Ben was born in Gisborne in 1926, and educated at the University of New Zealand, gaining a BA in 1949, and an MA in 1950. From there he proceeded to the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, where he was priested in 1954.

After curacies in New Mills, Derbyshire, and home again in Gisborne, he returned to England to follow a call to the religious life. Here he entered the Community of the Servants of the Will of God, at Crawley Down, under Fr Robert Gofton-Salmond’s care. As Fr Robert grew older, Ben was appointed Father Superior in 1965.

After a year, he found the tensions of authority too much, and he left CSWG to undertake a secular job. This was the age of the worker-priests, with experiments in combining the two sides. He married Eve, and worked in the building trade. But eventually he found his position intellectually unsatisfying, and felt that his theological training was being wasted.

Eventually, he returned to the Anglican ministry, and was appointed as Rector of Beckington, near Bath. He retired in 1992, and went to live in Wales, which he loved, near Brecon. In his contemplative retirement, he worked on his translation from the Latin of the Vitae Patrum, which is almost complete.