Eric James (clergyman)

Eric Arthur James FKC AKC (14 April 1925 – 1 May 2012) was an Anglican clergyman, Chaplain Extraordinary to HM the Queen and for many years a regular participant in the "Thought for the Day" feature of BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He was associated with St Albans Cathedral for some years.

James was born in Essex. He left Dagenham County High School in Dagenham, Essex, at fourteen, when the Second World War broke out, and worked for seven years at a riverside wharf on the Thames where the Globe Theatre now stands. After the war, he was accepted as a student by King's College London, where he studied Theology, gaining an MA and BD.

After he was ordained he became Assistant Curate of St Stephen with St John, Westminster, from 1951-5.

He was Chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1955-9, and thereby became associated with some of the best known clerics of his generation: , John Robinson (author of the bestseller Honest to God), Robert Runcie and Trevor Huddleston. He was Select Preacher from 1959-60 to the University of Cambridge.