Life

Farrer was born 1 October 1904, the only son of the three children of Augustine and
Evangeline Farrer, in Hampstead, London, England.[13] His father was a Baptist minister
and Farrer was brought up in that faith.[14] He went to St Paul's School in London
where [citation needed] he gained a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford.[2] Encouraged by his
father to value scholarship,[citation needed] he nevertheless found the divisions within the
Baptist church dispiriting,[15] and while at Oxford he became an Anglican.[16] Finding his
spiritual home at St Barnabas Church in Oxford, his theology and his spirituality became
profoundly Anglo-Catholic, although centred on the Book of Common Prayer. After
gaining a first in greats,[citation needed] he went up to Cuddesdon Theological College where he
trained alongside the future Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey.[17]