The Revd Percy Gray, vicar of St Crispin’s Church in Southwark Park Road for four decades, has died at the age of 86.

A prominent local Tory activist, he was president of the Bermondsey & Old Southwark Conservative Association.

In his latter years he stood for election as Conservative candidate in Riverside Ward in 2006 and in Rotherhithe Ward in 2010.

Ordained in 1956, he was inducted as vicar of St Crispin’s Bermondsey on the day the rebuilt post-war church was dedicated in 1959. When he retired in 1999 the church was closed and the building is now a nursery.

In the early 1960s he was locked in a bitter dispute with the left-leaning Bishop of Southwark Mervyn Stockwood who refused to visit St Crispin’s parish. The row was reported by newspapers as far afield as Sydney, Australia.

Known as the ‘parachuting parson’, Mr Gray took an active part in the life of the Territorial Army unit to which he was chaplain.

In 1971 he jumped from London Bridge – then under reconstruction – to demonstrate a new shock-absorber safety line made by a factory to which he also served as chaplain. In 1985 he ran the London Marathon.

As part of the Campaign to Restore Capital Punishment he lobbied MPs at Westminster in 1970 to bring back hanging. His unscheduled clash with Methodist minister Lord Soper was broadcast to the nation on ITN’s News at Ten.

In 1990 his role as a governor of Bacon’s College resulted in High Court action by the Inner London Education Authority and Southwark Council in a bid to prevent the school becoming a city technology college (CTC).

A supporter of Sunday trading, Mr Gray received cheers for his speech at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton in 1992.

In the 1994 New Year’s Honours list he received the MBE for political and public service.

In retirement he enrolled as a student at Southwark College to pick up new IT skills.

It wasn’t until 2012 that he stepped down as the local organiser of the Royal British Legion’s poppy appeal in Bermondsey and Rotherhithe.