John Collins (priest)
John Collins (1905-1982) was an Anglican clergyman who was active in several radical political movements in the United Kingdom.
Educated at Cranbrook School, Kent and at the University of Cambridge, he served as a chaplain in the Royal Air Force during World War II and was radicalised by the experience. In 1946 he founded the organization Christian Action to work for reconciliation with Germany. He was appointed as a Canon to St Paul's Cathedral, London, in 1948, an office he held for 33 years. Shortly afterwards he became disturbed by the newly developing apartheid system in South Africa. In 1956 he committed Christian Action to raising funds for the defence of anti-apartheid activists accused of treason in South Africa, and this gave rise to the Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa.
In 1951 he was one of the four founders of the charity War on Want, which fights global poverty.
Canon Collins was strongly opposed to the spread of nuclear weapons, and was one of many on the left in Britain who believed that it was unnecessary and wrong for Britain to own such weapons. He was one of the founders of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958.
The Canon Collins Educational Trust for Southern Africa (CCETSA) is a charity founded in 1981. It was set up Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, and Canon Collins was its first Chairman. In the days of apartheid, it provided money to help South African and Namibian refugee students gain the higher education in the United Kingdom and in independent African states. It now provides scholarships for students within South Africa and in other African countries.