Biography and Personal

John Martin Hull was born on April 22nd 1935 in Corryong, a town in north-eastern Victoria, Australia.  He was the second of four children; two girls and two boys.  His father, John Eaglesfield Hull, was a Methodist minister.  (See biographical note).  His mother, Madge Enid Hull (née Huttley), was a school teacher.  (Read the fascinating Beenak Story, an account of her experience as a newly qualified teacher in the Australian outback in the 1920's, which she wrote in the 1960's for her family.  Rediscovered in 2006, it is now on the website in full.)  John wrote at length about his parents and the way in which his Christian faith started from theirs and subsequently developed, in an article called The Shadow of My Parents.

As was normal for Methodist ministers, the family moved every three or four years, spending time in various country towns in Victoria and Tasmania.  John's secondary education was at Bendigo High School in the former gold mining town of Bendigo, and then at Melbourne Boys High School.  He studied for a general arts degree in the University of Melbourne from 1953 to 1955, trained as a secondary school teacher in 1956, and then taught for nearly three years in Caulfield Grammar School, Melbourne.  While he was teaching he studied part-time for a postgraduate B Ed in the philosophy and psychology of education.

Melbourne Boys High School	Fitzwilliam College Cambridge

He studied theology in the University of Cambridge, England, from 1959 to 1962, where he was a member of Fitzwilliam College and the Congregational theological seminary Cheshunt College, since amalgamated with Westminster College.

John Hull resumed his work as a school teacher in 1962, becoming Head of the Religious Education Department in Selhurst Grammar School, Croydon, south London.  In 1966 he moved to Birmingham to work in Westhill College of Education (now incorporated into the University of Birmingham) as a Lecturer in Divinity, where he trained religious education teachers.  In 1968 he was appointed Lecturer in Religious Education at the University of Birmingham School of Education, being promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1978, to Reader in 1986, and in 1989 becoming the first Professor of Religious Education in a United Kingdom university.  In addition he became Dean of the then Faculty of Education and Continuing Studies in 1990, and held this post for three and a half years.

On leaving the University of Birmingham, John Hull was granted the title of Emeritus Professor of Religious Education on 1st October 2002.  On 1st September 2004 he was appointed Honorary Professor of Practical Theology in the Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham.  He said of this: "I am delighted to have this opportunity for new work in this fine institution, and since my own roots are in all three of the churches represented in Queen's, namely, the Methodist, United Reformed, and Anglican traditions, I feel as if I have come home".  (To see the Press Release issued by the Foundation, use the link on the Home page of this website.)

At the Queen's Foundation he works with candidates for the Christian ministry, rather than with future religious education school teachers.  He is teaching courses on the theology of mission, and on the church in the modern world.

Other Involvements

Hull is the General Secretary of the International Seminar for Religious Education and Values, which he founded with the American religious educator, the late Dr. John Peatling, in 1977.  ISREV is a group of over 100 religious education research scholars from around 25 countries, which meets every other year.

From 1971 to 1996 Hull was Editor of the British Journal of Religious Education, and has twice been President of the National Christian Education Council, which was previously the British Sunday School Union (founded 1802) and which in 2002 was incorporated into the new educational charity Christian Education.

He is or has been a Patron of several charities, and a Director of others - see Support for Charities.  He is active in support of several other organisations, including Christian Aid, the Jubilee Debt Campaign, and Church Action on Poverty.   He is a member of the Labour Party.

Personal Matters

John Hull developed cataract in both eyes when he was a boy of thirteen, and was blind for several months.  The restoration of sight was however followed by a series of retinal detachments, which after several operations led to blindness in 1980.  He has had no light sensation since 1983.  He married for the second time in 1979, his first marriage having ended in divorce.  His wife Marilyn is Head Teacher of the Ley Hill Junior and Infant School in Northfield, Birmingham.   They have four children, and John has an older daughter from his first marriage.

John Hull is now an active lay person in the Church of England, worshipping at All Saints, the parish church of King's Heath, a suburb of Birmingham.  In 2003 he became Chair of the Social Justice Committee of this local church.  He is also a non-serving elder of the United Reformed Church, and retains close links with Methodism.   All five of his children have been educated wholly or partly in Catholic schools.

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