Fonds F2039 - Francis Wright Beare Fonds

Francis Wright Beare, educator and clergyman, was born 16 August 1902 in Toronto, Ontario and died in Toronto on 20 May 1986. The son of George and Ellen (Orr) Beare of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Beare was educated at Harbord and Oakwood Collegiate Institutes in Toronto. He received his BA in 1925 from University College, University of Toronto, with the Gold Medal in Classics. He studied at the Universities of Paris and Chicago. From 1931 to 1933 he studied (chiefly papyrology) as a foreign member of the Institute Francais d’Archéologie Orientale in Cairo. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1945.

He studied theology at Knox College, University of Toronto, and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1929. From 1929 to 1931 he was Assistant Minister, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church,Toronto. He became an Anglican priest in 1947; from 1955 to 1965 he was Honorary Assistant, Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto.

In 1946 Beare became Professor of New Testament Studies at Trinity College, a position he held until his retirement in 1968. In 1980 he received his DD (honoris causa) from the College. He published extensively, including monographs on The Epistle to the Philippians (1959), The Earliest Records of Jesus (1962) and The Gospel According to Matthew (1981).

Professor Beare married Marion Gurd in 1932; after her death he married Marianne Pleus in 1973.