William Hugh Clifford Frend FSA FRSE FRHistS FBA (11 January 1916 – 1 August 2005) was an English ecclesiastical historian, archaeologist, and Anglican priest.

Academic career

• Haileybury College (scholar)
• Keble College, Oxford (scholar, BA first class in modern history 1937, MA 1951, DPhil with thesis on Donatists 1940, DD 1966)
• Craven Scholarship to study in Berlin (with Hans Lietzmann) and North Africa
• Research fellowship at University of Nottingham
• Associate Director, Egypt Exploration Society, Q'asr Ibrim, Nubia 1963–64
• Bye Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (BD 1964)
• Fellow and university lecturer in divinity. During this time Charles III, then reading archaeology and anthropology at Trinity, was one of his students.
• Professor of Ecclesiastical History, and Dean of the Faculty of Divinity, in the University of Glasgow 1969–84 (Emeritus 1984–2005)
• Chairman, Association of University Teachers 1976–78
• Frend once stood for local government as Liberal Party candidate in Cambridge
• In the 1980s he worked at Carthage with a team from the University of Michigan
• In retirement was again elected Bye Fellow of Caius and in his last years wrote a new book about the early life of Augustine

Military career

• Assistant Principal, War Office 1940
• Seconded to Cabinet Office and served on Committees for Allied Supplies and the Free French
• Liaison officer, Psychological Warfare Branch, Tunis
• Service in Austria for 18 months
• Italy
• Commissioned officer, Queen's Royal Regiment 1947–67

Ministry

Frend inclined towards the low church tradition. He was a sometimes reluctant liberal who cautiously supported the ordination of women but criticised Bishop David Jenkins of Durham over his non-traditional ideas about Christmas. He was considered a good and humble pastor and an enlightening, if theologically unconventional, preacher.

• Reader 1956–82
• Ordained deacon in the Scottish Episcopal Church 1982
• Non stipendiary minister, Aberfoyle 1982–84
• Ordained priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church 1983
• Priest-in-charge, Barnwell with Thurning and Luddington 1984–90
• Permission to officiate in the Diocese of Ely 1990–2005
• Until his death, he continued to take two services every month

Public recognition

• Złoty Krzyż Zasługi z Mieczami (Gold Cross of Merit with Swords), Government of the Polish Republic in Exile
• Territorial Efficiency Decoration 1959
• Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London 1952
• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society 1954
• President of the Ecclesiastical History Society (1971–72)^[1]
• D.D. honoris causa, University of Edinburgh 1974
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1979
• Fellow of the British Academy 1983
• He set up and financed the Frend Medal, awarded by the Society of Antiquaries for archaeology, history and topography of the early Christian Church.^[2] Recipients include Harold McCarter Taylor and Charles Thomas (1981),^[3] Philip Rahtz (2003), Günter P. Gehring (2000)^[4] Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle (1986),^[5] Nancy Gauthier (2002),^[6] and Samuel Turner 2004.^[7]

Family

Frend was married to Mary Grace (née Crook; 1951–2002). They had one son, Simon, and one daughter, Sally. His father was a priest of high church persuasion.

Major works

• The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa (1951)
• Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (1965)
• The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (1972)
• The Rise of Christianity (1984)

Works and publications

• The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa, 1951
• Early Church, 1964
• Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church, 1965
• Saints & Sinners in the Early Church: Differing & Conflicting Traditions in the First Six Centuries, 1970
• The Rise of the Monophysite Movement, 1972
• Religion, Popular and Unpopular in the Early Christian Centuries, 1976
• Town and Country in the Early Christian Centuries, 1980
• The Rise of Christianity, 1984
• Archaeology and History in the Study of Early Christianity, 1988
• The Archaeology of Early Christianity: A History, 1996
• Orthodoxy, Paganism and Dissent in the Early Christian Centuries, 2002
• From Dogma to History: How Our Understanding of the Early Church Developed, 2003

Works co-authored with J. Stevenson

• A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church to AD 337
  J. Stevenson (Editor of the 1957 First Edition), William H. C. Frend (Co-Revisor for the 1987 Second Edition)
• Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church, AD 337–461
  J. Stevenson (Editor of the 1966 First Edition), William H. C. Frend (Co-Revisor for the 1989 Second Edition)