Bayliffe, John Brunskill (1868 - 1950)

Primitive Methodist Magazine 1917

Transcription of Obituary in Minutes of Methodist Conference

Born at Appleby in 1868. His grandfather on the maternal side and his father were Methodist pioneers in Westmorland. The evidence of pardoning love was given unto him very clearly when he was eleven years of age, and he had no doubt as to his acceptance by God.

He had an early conviction that God required his whole life and that he was called to be an evangelist. He sought Christian perfection and a life of perfect love. Nothing was allowed to stand in the way of the fulfilment of God’s will. His whole life was consecrated to the task of offering Christ to the people.

For eight years he served at the Star Hall, Manchester, built by Mr. Frank Crossley—industrialist and philanthropist—who said of him, ‘ Mr, Bayliffe is the only man I have known who grows more modest as he becomes more successful’.

The Primitive Methodist Conference appointed him a connexional evangelist, and he went up and down the country proclaiming the glorious gospel of the saving grace of God, and had the joy of leading hundreds of people to the Saviour.

He had something that gripped: a fund of humour that won a smile, a pathos that brought a tear, a passionate sincerity that made men listen, an experience that was attractive. When it was realized that his work was true to the genius of Methodism, he was ordained in 1917 a minister in full connexion, and the four circuits in which he travelled were greatly blessed by his ministrations.

He retained his enthusiasm for Christ and humanity to the end.

He died on 12th July 1950, in the eighty-third year of his age and the thirty-third year of his ministry. His faith was honoured by God, and his heart was warmed by the love of others.

©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 1950

Family

John was born in 1868 at Appleby, Westmorland, to parents Isaac, a railway porter (1871) and Margaret. He was baptised on 25 February 1868 at Brough, Westmorland.

The 1891 and 1901 census returns describe John as an evangelist, and in 1911 he is described as a lay missioner.

John married Elizabeth Wilson (1873-1950) in the summer of 1897 in the East Ward Registration District, Westmorland. Census returns identify two children.

Isaac Wilson (1907-1992) – a building inspector (1950)
Idaline (1910-2002) – married George Dixon Rochester, a physicist, in 1938

John died on 12 July 1950 at Tynemouth, Northumberland.

Circuits

Connex Evangelist
1917 Bristol V
1922 Hexham
1928 North Shields
1933 Jarrow
1936 North Shields (Sup)

References

Primitive Methodist Magazine1917/39

Methodist Minutes1950/157

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers

Note: George D Rochester was Professor of Physics at Durham University when I (Geoff Dickinson) went to Durham to study physics in 1969. He was known for having co-discovered, with Sir Clifford Charles Butler, a sub-atomic particle called the kaon. George and Ida were regular worshippers at Elvet Methodist Church in Durham.