Cope John (1863-1940)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

JOHN COPE: born at Tunstall, Staffs, in 1863. He entered the Primitive Methodist Ministry in 1886 from the circuit in which Primitive Methodism had its beginnings. His active ministry, beginning at Southampton, was destined to cover but twenty years, and he sought retirement in 1906. For many years he lived quietly at Ashley, near Market Drayton, but up to the time of his passing kept his association with Jubilee Church, Tunstall. He was called home on March 2, 1940, in the seventy-seventh year of his age and the fifty-fourth of his ministry.

Family

John was born on 8 May 1863 at Tunstall, Staffordshire.

He married Annie Parker (1865-1899) in the summer of 1890 at Frilford, Berkshire Census returns identify three children

• John Henderson (1891-1961) – a clerk in colliery office (1911);  served in RAMC in WW!; an insurance agent (1940)
• Bramwell Robert Kaye (1892-1980) – a joiner’s apprentice (1911); a builder (1940)
• Alexander Maclaren (1897-1918) – died in WW1

He married Sarah Ann Page (1879-1964) in the spring of 1901 at Brigg, Lincolnshire. Census returns and birth records identify five children.

• George Bernard (1902-1979) – a public works general labourer (1939)
• Clarence (1904-1975) – a rabbit catcher (1939)
• Donald Hay (1906-1985) – a farm labourer (1939)
• Mabel Kathleen (1913-1989) – married Henry James Sharman Neilson in 1942
• Norman (b1917) – an engineer (1939)

John died on 2 March 1940 at Ashley, nr Market Drayton, Shropshire.

Circuits

• 1886 Supply
• 1887 Faringdon
• 1889 Wirksworth
• 1890 High Wycombe
• 1891 Petersfield
• 1892 Buriton
• 1893 Minsterley
• 1896 Church Stretton
• 1897 Pocklington
• 1900 Brigg
• 1902 Fincham
• 1903 Diss
• 1904 Hay
• 1906 Hay (Sup)

References

Methodist Minutes 1940/178

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers