LADY Penelope Nairne, who passed away aged 87, was a campaigner for the ordination of women in the Church of England and the founder and president of family charity Home-Start Oxford.

She was married to Sir Patrick Nairne, a respected former civil servant and master of St Catherine’s College, who died in June 2013.

Between 1983 and 1987 Lady Penelope was chairman of the advisory council of BBC Radio Oxford and after that worked for the Diocese of Oxford.

She trained lay people in leadership, pastoral care and listening skills and designed and led courses at parishes.

During the 1980s, she also became interested in the Movement for Ordination of Women and chaired the local branch, campaigning for women priests and bishops.

For many years from 1984, she was on the council of Wycliffe Hall theological college and from 1993 she was a tutor for Westminster College in pastoral studies and Christian ethics.

Bishop of Dorchester, the Rt Rev Colin Fletcher, said she was “a person of deep and thoughtful faith, committed to her Lord, passionate about the life of the church in all its diversity” and “a great enabler, encourager and example” .

Penelope Chauncy Bridges was born May 11, 1927, in Nainital, India.

She had one younger sister, Johanna, and her father Lt-Col Robert Francis Bridges was a doctor in the Indian Army.

During her teenage years she grew up in Charlbury Road, North Oxford, and spent many afternoons at Dame’s Delight, the swimming pool in the River Cherwell, with future Lord Mayor of Oxford Ann Spoke Simonds.

She won a scholarship to read English at Lady Margaret Hall and while there met Patrick Nairne.

He was one of the cohort of men who had returned to their studies after fighting in the Second World War and they married in 1948.

At first they lived in Hammersmith and Surrey, before moving back to Oxford in 1981 when Sir Patrick became master of St Catherine’s College.

By the time Lady Penelope was 34, the couple had six children, Katharine, Fiona, Alexander, James, Andrew and Margaret.

In addition to becoming a Mother’s Union speaker, she was an organiser for the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service, now the Royal Voluntary Service, and became a licensed lay reader of the Church of England in 1978.

It followed four years of academic and practical training and, after initially being part of parish church at Oxshott, Surrey, Lady Penelope became a member of staff at St Michael’s Church, in New Marston, in the 1980s. There she started and co-edited the parish magazine, set up a youth group, and was involved in pastoral care.

Among her achievements was becoming the first chair of Oxford Home-Start, having previously been a trustee of the Home-Start Consultancy.

Home-Start trains volunteers to support families with young children, a purpose Lady Penelope passionately supported.

In 1988 she and her husband moved to Chilson, near Charlbury.

Lady Penelope joined the ministry team of St Mary’s Charlbury and over the years wrote hundreds of sermons, becoming well known for the quality of her preaching.

Her book “When I Needed a Neighbour – Enabling Pastoral Care in the Local Church”, published in 1998, is still widely used across the Church of England.

Lady Penelope died peacefully in Witney Community Hospital on December 23, 2014, following a stroke. A funeral took place at Oxford Crematorium on January 9.

She is survived by her sister, her six children and 12 grandchildren.