Our priest in charge

Our Priest in Charge is Rev Tom Birch, who was previously curate at St Nicholas in Gosforth. Father Tom and his family joined us on 18 September and shares his ministry with St Oswin, Wylam.

Tom grew up in central Scotland and initially read Economics at the University of Glasgow and Ecological Economics at the University of Edinburgh.
Before training at Cuddesdon Theological College He was a climate change and development economist for the International Institute for Environment and Development, a job that took him to Southern and Eastern Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean. Should you wish to know more about the effects and politics of climate change from Tobago to Tanzania and Namibia to Nepal he will be more than happy to talk about it! He is married to Jessica and they met in South Africa on Jessica’s gap yearI. As a daughter of a Church of England clergyman Jessica has some idea of what she is letting herself in for. Jessica trained as a paediatric nurse in Birmingham. They have 3 children, Harriet, Geoffrey and Benjamin.