Price, Walter Watts (1869-1942)

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Primitive Methodist Magazine 1921

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Primitive Methodist Magazine 1921

Early years

Walter was born in 1869 at Birmingham, Warwickshire to parents James John Harrison Price and Ann Watts. His grandfather, James Watts, was a local preacher for fifty years in the Brierley Hill circuit.

Walter was converted under the ministry of Rev Joseph Odell. He became a local preacher at the age of eighteen.

Ministry

Walter served as District Building Committee Secretary and District Temperance Secretary.

His obituary records that Walter’s preaching was original and arresting and always deeply spiritual. His pulpit utterances were strong and forceful and his intense longing for the salvation of souls, and his prayerful preparation for every service often resulted in conversions. With a strong personality and a robust faith, he had real administrative ability.

Family

Walter married Rose Gilbert  (1869-1949) on 24 September 1895 at Tideswell, Derbyshire. Census returns identify four of five children.

• Ethel Irene (b1896)
• Gilbert Watts (1903-1995) – an insurance branch manager (1949)
• Norman Lloyd (1906-1945)
• James Priestley (1907-1968) – a dental surgeon (1949)

Walter died on 6 March 1942 at Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1891 Nottingham IV
• 1892 Surrey Chapel
• 1893 Derby III
• 1894 Manchester
• 1895 Oldham II
• 1900 Wolverhampton
• 1902 Seaham Harb
• 1907 Lichfield
• 1910 W Bromwich II
• 1914 Pontypool
• 1918 Ebbw Vale
• 1924 Bath
• 1928 Bristol II
• 1933 Bristol II (S)

References

Primitive Methodist Magazine 1921/634

Methodist Minutes 1942/148

W Leary, Directory of Primitive Methodist Ministers and their Circuits, 1990

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers