David Abbott BRITTEN

BRITTEN, DAVID ABBOTT (b. 24 Feb 1912; d. 6 Jan 1993). Medical practitioner and author.

Son of a highly regarded Anglican family, David Britten studied medicine at Sydney University after passing through The Kings School Parramatta. Befriended by Paul White (q.v.) in connection with athletics training he was led into a radical experience of Christian conversion and immersed himself in the evangelistic activities then characteristic of the Evangelical Union.

After graduating he m. Joy Hercus, daughter of notable Baptist missionaries who had served in India, and sister of John Hercus (q.v.). Being physically unfit for military service because of poor eyesight he joined his uncle's medical practice in Wollongong. There, in connection with St Michael's Anglican church he took up an active and effective evangelistic role. It was a strategic time in this crowded boom city of steel, driven by the war. The evangelical tradition he helped establish has endured, with an extraordinary flow of recruits into full-time Christian ministries.

After a brief time in a Melbourne practice, Britten, enthused by a visit to Perth for a boys' camp, accepted a position at the Repatriation General Hospital, Hollywood WA and gave enthusiastic leadership in the then fledgling WA Crusader movement. Converts from that work are now in major positions of leadership in Australian evangelicalism.

Britten was notably musical and literate, with a boyish unconventionality which always made him attractive to young people. He had an overwhelming courtesy which never failed to mollify those upset when his various adventures came unstuck. Indeed his fallibility as a Christian was one of the secrets of his successful evangelism—being a Christian was an adventure, being a fumbling youth was never a disqualification and failure need not be final. It produced inventive and venturesome converts. 'The Western Australian Christian community owes more than can be measured to the love and life of this outstanding crusader for Christ.' (Thanksgiving service sheet)

He wrote schoolboy Christian fiction: The making of Stephen Hall is really a biography of his own early years. These books are still being translated and published, even in such esoteric languages as Finnish.

Geoff Britten, 'Thanks for the memory dad’ (Northbridge WA, 1992); S Piggin et al, Treasure in Earthen Vessels (Wollongong, 1984); Obituaries by Prof Brian Hill & Archdeacon Peter Corney held by CSAC

SELECT WRITINGS:

The making of Stephen Hall (1953);

The Ranford Series, jointly by D A Britten and P H H White: The Ranford Mystery Miler, (1960); Ructions at Ranford (London UK, 1961); Ranford goes fishing(London UK, 1962); Ranford in Flames (London UK, 1965)

LEN ABBOTT