Allison, Lewis Henry M.A. (1900-1971)

Obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

LEWIS HENRY ALLISON, M.A.: born in 1900, the youngest of three brothers brought up in the Camden Town district of London. He was brought up in a Christian home. After a short period in banking and military service in the First World War, he was accepted into the ministry of the Primitive Methodist Church and entered Hartley College in 1921. He served in the following Circuits: Plymouth, Ebbw Vale, Bexhill, Reading, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Central), Leeds (Brunswick), Sunderland (North), and Stockton-on-Tees. In addition to fulfilling a diligent and conscientious pastoral circuit ministry, he made an important contribution to the work of the whole church in the ministry of healing. While at Reading he took his first degree in psychology and continued to an M.A. degree. In the North East he founded doctor/clergy groups; he was co-Secretary of the Methodist Society for Medical and Pastoral Psychology and for many years, Secretary of the Connexional Committee on Healing. These specialist gifts he used as a circuit Minister freely giving himself to needy people that he might further Christ’s work of making men whole. He is remembered affectionately in all the circuits where he served. The achievements of his ministry as superintendent of the Sunderland (North) circuit from 1952 to 1964 were outstanding. Year after year the circuit reported a growing membership. He pioneered and supported the formation of a new society in the Red House Estate, and saw the building there of a new church. He saw a new church built on the Seaburn Dene Estate and led the society from Fulwell, originally a village church, into new premises where the work has extended and grown. His own immediate pastoral charge was a down-town church in an area scheduled for slum clearance, and here he initiated activities to serve the local community. So hard working was he that few knew the pain and physical handicap he bore with a remarkable cheerfulness. In 1969 he retired to Haughton-le-Skerne in the Darlington Circuit where, typically, he threw himself whole-heartedly into the life and work of the village society. His painful illness he endured with amazing grace until he died peacefully on 12th August 1971 in the seventy-first year of his age and the forty-seventh year of his ministry.

Family

Lewis was born on 9 June 1900 at Islington, London, to parents John, a law stationer, and Emma. After his father’s death, his mother became a boarding house keeper (1911).

He married Margaret Rogers (abt1901-1944) in the spring of 1828 at Islington, London.

Lewis married Winifred Heslop in late 1945 at Newcastle upon Tyne.

Lewis died on 12 August 1971 at Haighton-le-Skerne, Co.Durham.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1924 Plymouth
• 1926 Ebbw Vale
• 1928 Bexhill
• 1931 Reading
• 1938 Newcastle &c
• 1946 Leeds Brunswick
• 1952 Sunderland N
• 1964 Stockton
• 1969 Stockton (S)

References

PM Minutes 1972/172

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers