A CHURCH of England clergyman who quit full-time preaching and became one of Swindon's first social development officers, has died in Oxford after a long illness. He was 78.

The Rev Andrew Hake came to the town in 1970 after more than ten years in Nairobi as industrial adviser to the National Christian Council of Kenya.

He spent the next 15 years fostering the council's role in caring for its neediest citizens and putting Swindon on the map as a borough with a thriving voluntary sector.

He was particularly critical of the Thatcher government for imposing cutbacks on local authorities that forced them in the 1980s to reduce financial support for volunteer-led groups.

He was instrumental in the establishment a chain of family centres that were manned and administered by local volunteers and run by the council.

"This town's voluntary sector was a model, and that was due in no small way to Andrew Hake," said Jenni Manners, who runs Swindon Women's Refuge.

"At a time when many people would have preferred to sweep such things as domestic violence under the carpet and still refused to acknowledge that it happened, Andrew gave us support and encouraged the borough to provide the grant aid we needed."

During 1986, his final year in the job, 50 local voluntary bodies shared council grants worth a total of nearly a quarter of a million pounds.

At a ceremony to mark his retirement the borough's community development section was described as "a beacon for and an example to the rest of the country".

Local authorities from all over the country sent officers to Swindon to study the development of the town's social and welfare groups.

With at least 4,000 people on the waiting list for council houses he regularly preached the importance of decent homes and criticised Government housing policy, which gave tenants the right to buy, but banned councils from using the money raised to pay for new building.

David Wright, former leader of Thamesdown Voluntary Service Council who is now in Nepal, described him as an inspirational leader who argued in support of people whose voices stood little chance of being heard.

He warned that the problems of an expanding town, where in 1986 32,000 people lived on or below the poverty line, should not be expected to vanish overnight.

Mr Hake seldom wore a dog collar or used the title "the Rev". He and his wife Jean frequently threw open their home, a converted chapel in South Street, for meetings of voluntary groups. They moved to Oxford after his retirement, and a memorial service will be held there at a date and place yet to be decided.

Mr Hake also leaves two daughters, Elizabeth and Clare, a son Guy and six grandchildren.