Ann Loades

Ann Lomas Loades, ( Glover; 21 September 1938 – 6 December 2022) was a British theologian and academic, who specialised in Christian feminism.

Early life and education Loades was born on 21 September 1938 in Stockport, Cheshire, England. She was raised by her mother who was a nurse, after her father abandoned the family. She was educated at boarding schools from the age of three, first a Bowdon Preparatory School for Girls in Cheshire and then at Hulme Grammar School for Girls in Oldham. She was head girl of her senior school.

She studied theology at Durham University from 1957 to 1960. The main focus of the course was to prepare candidates for ordination in the Church of England, but her tutor, Professor Alec Whitehouse, also introduced her to philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion which would become the focus of her career. She was promoted to senior lecturer in 1981 and to reader in 1990.

Loades was also editor of the Theology journal from 1991 to 1997.

Personal life and death In 1965, Ann Glover married David Loades, a historian and academic at Durham University. They did not have any children, and their marriage ended in divorce in 1981. She died at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, Scotland on 6 December 2022, aged 84. In 2008, a Festschrift was published in her honour titled "Exchanges of Grace: Essays in Honour of Ann Loades".

Selected works