Smith, Andrew Harforth (1847-1913)

Transcription of obituary published in the Primitive Methodist Magazine by B.A.B.

In the passing of Mr. Andrew Harforth Smith, the Harehills Avenue Church, Leeds, lost one of its most devoted officials. He was a class leader, local preacher and trustee, and rendered unfailing and unstinted support to all our institutions. He took a keen interest in all circuit and district affairs, and represented his Church on the Primitive Methodist and Free Church Councils.

Though quiet and unpretentious, he was a man of great force of character, and exerted a lofty influence in whatever sphere he moved. In the councils of the Church he revealed rare business capacity. He had also a reflective turn of mind which marked uncommon grasp. A man of simple habits and quiet dignity, tactful and courteous, he was generous and sympathetic in all his relationships. He was, moreover, a man of tireless industry, and although he had reached his sixty-sixth year, he appeared to defy the encroachments of age.

In the crowded days of his life he was heedless of the warnings of failing health; but perhaps no more fitting death can befall an industrious man than to die in harness.

Family

Andrew was born in 1847 at Marske by the Sea, Yorkshire, to parents James Smith, who worked the land (1851) and later a miner (1861), and Sarah Harforth. He was baptised on 18 November 1847 at Marske in Cleveland, Yorkshire.

Census returns identify the following occupations for Andrew.

1861 school
1871 clerk, commercial
1881 commercial clerk draper & Methodist local preacher
1891 accountant
1901 secretary clothing manufacturer
1911 cashier and secretary to clothing manufacturer

He married Isabel Thew (1844-1923) in the spring of 1869 in the Newcastle upon Tyne Registration District, Northumberland. The 1871 census return records Isabel as a Wesleyan Methodist local preacher. Census returns identify seven children.

Sarah Harforth (1870-1940) – a bedding maker (1891); married William Wainwright, a pork butcher shopkeeper (1901), in 1899
Isabel Thew (1872- – a milliner (1891); married Frederick William Allison, a chemical manufacturer’s clerk (1911), in 1897
Nora Gregson (1874-1909) – a mantle maker (1891); married James Herbert Gleave, a draper’s accountant (1901), in 1900
Rosamund Dixon (1877-1959) – married William Millner Livens, a manufacturing confectioner (1911), in 1904
Ethel Maud (1879-1932) – married Clifford Brooke, a commercial traveller (1921), in 1903
Gertrude Emily (1881-1947)
Thomas Vasey (1885-1969) – a despatch clerk at clothing manufacturer (1921); a builder’s labourer (1939)

Andrew died on 20 December 1913 at Leeds, Yorkshire.

References

Primitive Methodist Magazine 1915/583

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers