Arnold Dauncey was born on 8 September 1885 at Lower Darwen, Lancashire. He was the eldest son of the Reverend Albert Augustus Dauncey (1860-1926) and his wife Emma. At that time Albert was a Congregational minister and later moved to the Church of England in 1894. Arnold Dauncey's two brothers, Stephen and Kingsley, also became Anglican clergymen.
He was employed as a 'Computer' in the Magnetic and Meteorological Department at the Royal Greenwich Observatory from 1904 to 1907; and matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1908. He graduated with a BA degree, third class in History Tripos, at Cambridge in 1911. He then attended Clergy Training School in Cambridge and was ordained Deacon on 22 December 1912.
Between 1912 and 1915 he was curate at St Mary's, Plumstead. He was ordained to the Priesthood on 21 December 1913. He then became curate at the Church of the Ascension, Blackheath, from 1915 to 1917; and then curate at Haslemere, Surrey, between 1917 and 1918. In mid-1918 he left England to go abroad to work for the YMCA and was given temporary leave from his curacy in Haslemere.
Following a period working for the YMCA in Salonica, Arnold Dauncey returned to England in March 1920. On 15 April 1920 he married Maud Penney at St Bartholomew's, Haslemere. Later that year he was appointed by the YMCA to be their General Secretary in Kingston, Jamaica. After a 14-month spell in the West Indies, the couple returned to England and Arnold left YMCA service. Between 1921 and 1924 he was curate at St Martin's, Epsom.
The couple's child, Roger Martyn, was born in Epsom in June 1923; and then between 1924 and 1932 Arnold was Rector of Rous Lench, near Alcester, in the Diocese of Worcester. He was then Rector of Headless Cross, near Redditch, Worcestershire, from 1932 to 1951; and subsequently Vicar of St Barnabas, Rainbow Hill, Worcester, from 1951 to 1955.
Arnold retired, aged 70, in 1955. He and Maud moved to Guildford where he died on 18 December 1967, aged 82. Maud died in Guildford five years' later, in December 1972.
Sources: Papers of Reverend Arnold Dauncey; and information supplied by the depositor.
