Students Sitting on Bench in Carmarthen

Swansea Chaplaincy

Who Are We?

Swansea’s campus has the lovely Rev’d Sam Aldred, UWTSD’s first chaplain for the Swansea Campus. 

Rev’d Sam Aldred

Rev’d Sam Aldred works full-time at St Mary’s Church in the city centre but is available to meet at the university every Monday and can be reached by email here swanseachaplain@uwtsd.ac.uk.  

Rev’d Sam Aldred is a minister in the Anglican tradition of the Christian faith but hopes to be a point of contact for everyone at UWTSD regardless of their faith, or lack of it. If you see him (usually identified by the collar!) Then please say hello. 

  • A chaplain is someone to talk to about life’s big questions. Why are we here? Is there a God? What is love? What do Christians believe? Where do we go when we die? These are questions that we cannot ignore.

    A chaplain is a point of reference for community projects. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting the afflicted: the chaplain can help direct you to good works going on in the city.

    A chaplain is a listening ear. Stress with work, relationship breakdown, addiction, illness, death. Sometimes we just need to talk, and that is a big part of the chaplain’s job.

    A chaplain is a worship leader. I can direct you to churches, and throughout the year will be leading services at the university that are open to everybody. 

  • Sam was born in 1987 and raised in the West Midlands. Despite an atheist upbringing he came to faith in his teenage years and was baptised whilst an undergraduate at Keble College, Oxford, in 2007.

    Sam had a few jobs before seeking ordination. He was a perfume salesman in Kazakhstan, a marketeer in London, and a teacher of Russian history at Brighton College. In 2014 he returned to Oxford to read for an MPhil in Ecclesiastical History. During these two years, he lived and worked as Sacristan of Pusey House, an Anglo-Catholic student chaplaincy at the heart of Oxford. In 2016 he went to St Stephen’s House in Oxford for three years of theological training, emerging in June 2019. He was ordained in Brecon Cathedral on the 29th and began his ministry at St Mary’s.

    Sam is a keen walker, sea swimmer, and ephemerist. He was married to Helen in 2016 and (at the time of writing) they are expecting their first child.