By Mike Pryce

JOHN Renney, who has died at the age of 90, was the chief legal adviser to the former Hereford and Worcester County Council when in the late 1980s it successfully took on a major teachers’ union over the validity of a half-day strike.

The council was the only local authority in the country to challenge the National Association of School Masters/Union of Women Teachers action and this led to a day in the High Court in London that ended in victory for HWCC and the award of £50,000 costs.

Mr Renney was county secretary and solicitor to the council, which had been created in 1974 by a union of the county councils of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. He continued in the role until retirement in 1995. The fractious body was dissolved three years later and the two independent councils restored.

Worcester News:

MUCH-RESPECTED: John Renney

Alec Mackie, press officer of HWCC at the time, said: “John Renney was a thoroughly professional lawyer, much respected by his colleagues. He believed the teachers had failed to correctly notify the council of their impending strike and he was proved quite right. It was an unusual experience for all of us in the High Court.”

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The driver of the action, who acted on Mr Renney’s legal advice, was Dr David Muffett, the  controversial chairman of the council’s education committee, a colourful character with a booming voice who had been a former colonial administrator in Africa.

He seldom ducked a confrontation and when accused of being “anti-teacher” responded: “I am not anti-teacher, Buster. I am pro-kids.”

“John Renney wasn’t anti-teacher either,” Mr Mackie added. “He was just looking at the situation from a purely legal point of view.”

As well as being a high achieving lawyer, rising to the top of his career tree,  Mr Renney was also a highly accomplished organist and musician who became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, while holding down a number of illustrious church organ posts as well as his day job.

He was born in Sunderland into a talented musical family: his mother was a professional violinist and his father an amateur cellist and he learnt to play the piano as a child. After boarding school, where he began playing the organ, Mr Renney  got a place to read law at King’s College in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, then a division of Durham University, which awarded him a First Class Honours degree.

Following National Service he worked in his father’s law firm in Sunderland before joining the legal department of Durham County Council; he also took up organ studies with Conrad Eden, then organist and choir master at Durham Cathedral.

After a few years, Mr Renney gained promotion and moved to the local authority at Leicester before joining the legal team at Herefordshire County Council, where initially he was also organist at St Peter’s church, before later becoming organist and choirmaster at Ledbury Parish church.

With the formation of Hereford and Worcester County Council in 1974, Mr Renney was appointed county secretary and solicitor and clerk to the Police Authority. The Renneys then relocated to Malvern, where his wife Margaret was teaching, and have lived there ever since.

This gave him the opportunity for regular lessons with Donald Hunt, the organist at Worcester Cathedral, and in 1991 Mr Renney became organist at St Andrew’s Methodist Church in Worcester, playing there regularly until about five years ago.

His son David said: “For many years, age seemed not to limit him. He went swimming and played tennis into his mid 80s. 

“He continued to be an outstanding organist, and I do not remember anyone being a better accompanist of hymns.”

Of late, John Renney had suffered from Parkinson’s disease.

He leaves a wife, two sons, David and Paul, a daughter, Joyce, and families, including seven grandchildren. His funeral service was held in Worcester Cathedral.