Payne, Ernest Alexander

Author

b Hackney, NE London 1902, d Camden, N London 1980. King’s Coll, London; Regents Park Coll, London; Mansfield Coll Oxford. Ordained to the Baptist ministry, he served at Bugbrooke Baptist Ch nr Northampton from 1928–32. He worked with the Baptist Missionary Soc for the next 8 years, leading its youth work and then as Editorial Secretary. He became Senior Tutor at Regent’s Park College (by then at Oxford) in 1940, and a university lecturer in comparative religion. From 1951 to 1967 he was General Sec of the Baptist Union, serving during that time as Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council (1958–59). In 1968 he became President of the World Council of Churches. He was a leading Baptist administrator and historian, among his many books being The Fellowship of Believers, The Free Church Tradition in the Life of England, and The First Generation (1936), which was a biographical sketch of 20 early leaders of the BMS. With others, he also assisted in the compilation of The Baptist Hymn Book Companion (1962, revised 1967). No.559.