Schofield, William (1888-1979)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

WILLIAM SCHOFIELD: bom at Hindley, near Wigan, on the 21st May 1888, growing up in the coal mining community there. He began work in the mine with his father, who was killed at work beside him. He trained for the Primitive Methodist ministry at Hartley College and then served in the following circuits: Sheerness, Kennington, Wickhambrook and Newmarket, Stoke Newington, Salisbury, Bedford (II and Caldwell Street), London (Bayswater), Luton and Dunstable (Victoria Street). 

He was an able administrator and a much loved pastor and exercised a particularly effective ministry amongst men. In retirement he lived at Redditch, then at Cullompton and latterly at “Alexandra House”, the Dovercourt Branch of the Methodist Homes for the Aged, where with the staff he cared for his wife Alice, until she died. In his own short last illness he was cared for by his daughter-in-law and the staff of the Home. 

He is remembered with gratitude and affection both by members of the churches he served and by his former colleagues as a genial, gracious and humble man of God. He loved the Lord, had a lively mind, was well read, was keenly interested in cricket and the music of brass bands and cared for the people around him. Even in advanced years, despite poor eyesight and hearing, he took an interest in the issues of the day and was a true friend and minister to those near him in Alexandra House. He said that he had had “a good innings” and those who knew him believe that he played it courageously and well. 

He died on the 21st January 1979 in the ninety-first year of his age and the sixty-fifth year of his ministry.

Family

William was born on 21 May 1888 at Hindley, Lancashire, to parents John, a coal miner, and Jane.

He married Alice Dudley (1889-1975) in th summer of 1918 in the Wandsworth Registration District, London. Census returns identify one child.

• Ronald Dudley Westthorpe (1919-1976) – a medical student (1939)

William died on 21 January 1979 Dovercourt, Essex.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1914 Sheerness
• 1915 Kennington
• 1918 Wickhambrook
• 1920 Stoke Newington
• 1925 Salisbury
• 1929 Bradford II
• 1935 Bayswater
• 1944 Luton
• 1951 Dunstable Vic
• 1954 Redditch (S)

References

Methodist Minutes 1979/86

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers