My former colleague Gordon McGregor, who has died aged 86, was for 10 years from 1970 the principal of Bishop Otter College of Education (now part of the University of Chichester), in West Sussex, then for 15 years until his retirement in 1995 the principal of the College of Ripon and York St John (now York St John University).
He was widely admired as a leader inspired by Christian values and social principles, yet was both modest and optimistic. He believed passionately that “if Christianity is not political, it’s not Christianity” and in York it was obvious to everyone that he and the archbishop, John Habgood, the chair of governors, enjoyed a mutual regard.
The son of Mary (nee O’Brien) and William McGregor, Gordon was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, into a Catholic family of modest means and was educated in Catholic schools until he won a scholarship to Bristol University, graduating in 1953 with a degree in English.
He gave up his strictly Catholic faith during his national service in the RAF, but discovered teaching, first at Worcester College for the Blind (now New College Worcester), then in Uganda at King’s College school, Budo, and as a lecturer at Makerere University in Uganda, and finally as professor of education at the University of Zambia. After 10 years in Africa he returned to spend the rest of his career in Britain.
From 1980, as head of Ripon and York St John, where I was his vice-principal, Gordon enlivened many a dull meeting with spontaneous and apt quotations, generously tolerated others’ weaknesses but quickly recognised their achievements. His decision to hold the college’s degree congregations in York Minster was bold and appropriate, for in one ceremony it demonstrated the college’s Christian and academic identity.
On his retirement, Leeds University, of which Ripon and York St John was then a constituent college, honoured him with the title emeritus professor of education; in 1996 he was offered a CBE. He declined it on the grounds that the honours system was incompatible with his belief in social equality.
Gordon wrote 12 books on education, received four honorary doctorates, held two visiting professorships and undertook several British Council, Unesco and Foreign and Commonwealth Office commissions.
He is survived by his wife, Jean Lewis, whom he married in 1957, and their three daughters, Clare, Helen and Fiona.
