Some of the values held by Prime Minister Theresa May have their origins in a Mirfield-based theological college.

Her father, the Rev Hubert Brasier, who Mrs May thanks for giving her “Christian kindness”, trained at the Community of the Resurrection in Stocks Bank Road.

Mrs May and her father were very close and he provided her with the basis of her politics, morals and outlook on the world.

It was largely through her father’s work that Theresa decided, aged 12, that she wanted to be a politician. He and his wife Zaidee would talk about current local affairs over meals with their only child, and Mrs May said that “arguing and discussing with my father” as a youngster led her into politics.

“You didn’t think about yourself — the emphasis was on others,” Mrs May has said.

The father she adored died in a tragic accident when she was just 25. On October 12, 1981, the 64-year-old vicar set off in his Morris Marina to give an Evensong service just outside Oxford when he was involved in a collision with a Range Rover.

Theresa May's father Hubert Braiser (third left on the front row) pictured with fellow students at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield where he trained as a priest.

The tragedy was devastating for Theresa, who has spoken fondly about the times she spent with her father, including listening to cricket Test matches together.

She has told how Mr Brasier was strict about her political canvassing for the Conservative Party because he didn’t want to be accused of being biased.

So she made sure it was done discreetly, out of sight, by phone in the Conservative Party offices.

In 2012 she said: “You don’t think about it at the time, but there are certain responsibilities that come with being the vicar’s daughter. You’re supposed to behave in a particular way.”

She also recalled how he was a popular source of advice to parishioners who often visited the vicarage unannounced, limiting Rev Hubert’s family time. She remembers “a father who couldn’t always be there when you wanted him to be”, adding: “I recall once being in the kitchen and looking up the path to the back door where a whole group, a family, had come to complain about an issue in the church — just knocked on the door and expected to see the vicar.”

Theresa May, prime minister of the United Kingdom

Months after losing her father, Mrs May was dealt another devastating blow when her mother, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, died aged just 54.

But her Christian faith has helped her through and she has said: “It is part of me. It is part of who I am and therefore how I approach things.”

Mrs May remains a committed Christian and attends church in her constituency in Maidenhead, Berkshire, every Sunday.

Father George Guiver, superior of the Community of the Resurrection, said Rev Brasier was at the Mirfield college from 1940 to 1942. Previously, he was a student from 1937 when he was aged 20 at a hostel the college had in Leeds. He graduated with a BA in theology.

Mr Brasier became a deacon in 1942 and was ordained priest at Southwark Cathedral in 1943. He was curate of St Andrew’s Catford from 1942, then of St Luke’s Reigate from 1948. In 1953, he became chaplain of All Saints’ Hospital in Eastbourne, where Mrs May was born.

He became vicar of Enstone in 1959 and finally of St Mary the Virgin, Wheatley, to the east of Oxford, from 1970.

Theresa May's father Hubert Braiser (seventh from the left on the second row) pictured with fellow students at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield where he trained as a priest.

Famous faces linked to the college

• Apartheid fighter and world-famous cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu visited the College of the Resurrection in 2009 to consecrate a foundation stone for a new monastery at the College of the Resurrection.

• Mirfield-born actor Patrick Stewart first performed at the Quarry Theatre, a now-abandoned amphitheatre at the college.

• Decades earlier, Labour Party founder Keir Hardy and suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst spoke about socialism and votes for women respectively at the amphitheatre.

• Leading anti-apartheid campaigner Trevor Huddleston studied at the college. A former father of the college, was Bishop of Stepney in London before becoming the second Archbishop of the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean.

• Richard Coles – former member of The Communards pop duo, recent Celebrity MasterChef contestant and Church of England priest – trained at the Mirfield college.