Dennis Porter was born in 1930 in Tottenham to a mother who became an Adventist in 1899 at thirteen. The baby Dennis was dedicated in the Holloway church, and according to his sixteen-year-old sister, he bawled throughout the ceremony. His parents later moved to Edmonton, and his mother took him to the church there. He was eventually baptised at sixteen and, at twenty-one, began lay preaching in churches other than his own, a 'career' that was to last for sixty years.
In 1965, he became the first lay preacher to give the Sunday address at the Newbold College Graduation service, which he did five times until 2000. This was partly because several times between 1953 and 1973, he had helped temporarily at the College by teaching History, a subject in which he had two degrees from London University. On one of these occasions, he met the new Preceptress, Vera Lauderdale, who had been a missionary in Kenya for nine years and had reluctantly accepted the post at Newbold for one year before a projected return to Africa. She did not return to Africa because, in August 1962, she became Mrs Porter. There ensued a happy marriage of forty-eight years, although the last four of these were darkened by Vera's Alzheimer's disease, during which time Dennis cared for her at their four-hundred-year-old cottage in Appleton, a village near Oxford. They had moved there in 1968 because Dennis had secured a post in the Department of Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University ten years before. He took early retirement in 1988 and catalogued manuscripts in several college libraries at Oxford for a further eleven years before finally retiring at 68.
Long before Dennis met Vera, he had been engaged to a young Adventist lady named Lynda Mudford. Things had not worked out largely because when her father decided to keep the Sabbath, he had lost his job. The family had been persuaded to emigrate to New Zealand, where Lynda later married a local man. They later moved to Australia.
Her husband and Vera died within four weeks of each other in 2010, and later that year, Dennis visited Australia, met her after 52 years apart, and a year later, they were married. He was 80, and she was 78. Her poor health prevented her from travelling, so what one of his friends called "this quintessential English gentleman" migrated to Queensland, where he continued living with his new wife until her death in 2023. He never became an Australian citizen because he jokingly predicted that that might mean he must support Australia in the Ashes!
Dennis was fond of quoting a famous statement by President Kennedy with a change of one word: "Ask not what your church can do for you; ask what you can do for your church." Although never a full-time Adventist worker, he exemplified this, including securing the building of the present Oxford Adventist church.
In later years, Dennis was a victim of dementia and moved to a care home in Australia, where he passed away. His funeral took place in Australia, but there will be a memorial service for him on 19 October 2024 at 1:00 pm. The memorial will be held on Zoom using the following link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87157443173?pwd=S1kreEJuVnNYYVVRc1hPbW1VVlBHUT09
Meeting ID: 871 5744 3173
Passcode: 958255
He lived a busy life, much of it devoted to church work. He now sleeps in peace until his Master returns.