My friend Richard Wheeler, who has died aged 77, was an Anglican priest and social reformer who believed the church had a duty to support and represent disadvantaged people. He worked in Brixton in south London in the 1970s, in the midst of tensions between black young people and the police, and became a race adviser to the British Council of Churches.
Richard was born and brought up in Eltham, south London, the son of Charles Wheeler, chauffeur to the chief executive of London Underground, and his wife, Emily (nee Strawson), a homemaker. He attended Haberdashers’ Aske’s grammar school, New Cross, and trained for the priesthood at King’s College London, graduating with a BD in 1972.
