A WORCESTERSHIRE deaconess influential in the drive to allow women to be ordained in the Church of England has died.

Dr Diana McClatchey, who was believed to be 83, passed away at St Michael's Hospice, in Hereford, after battling cancer.

Dr McClatchey was a founding member and the Moderator for the Movement for the Ordination of Women, which pushed the Church of England's ruling body, the General Synod, to vote for women priests.

She and others ensured that the debate was never off the Synod agenda and was delighted when in 1994 the vote went through.

Dr McClatchey gained an MA at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, in 1944 and then a DPhil in history in 1949.

She became a deaconess in 1971 and moved to Worcester Diocese in 1974 when her husband, Harry, who died two years ago, became Rector of Hartlebury.

She served as deaconess in Wilden from 1980 to 1985 before retiring to Malvern where she continued an active ministry, especially at the Court House Home and at St Matthias Church in Malvern Link.

The Bishop of Worcester, the Rt Revd Dr Peter Selby, expressed his thankfulness for Deaconess Diana McClatchey's life.

"It is not only our ordained women who know of their debt to her for her tireless work, but all of us in the Church who have come to know the blessings of the vision of a collaborative and fully shared ministry of women and men for which she struggled.

Diana McClatchey's funeral will be at St Matthias Church, Malvern Link, tomorrow at 2pm.