 In the last two posts he also served as Rural Dean of Ecclesfield and Archdeacon of Doncaster, and in 1967 he married Susan Hinman, with whom he had one son and three daughters.From 1979 to 1982 he served as Archdeacon of Doncaster (working closely with the bishop Stewart Cross) and chairman of that diocese's Youth Committee, arranging a youth pilgrimage to Iona.He was elevated to the Episcopate as Bishop Suffragan of Lancaster in 1985, again under Cross (appointed Bishop of Blackburn from 1982).