Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference
JOHN PATERSON BARTON: born at Scotstoun, Glasgow, in 1892, one of ten children whose parents were founder members of the Primitive Methodists Circuit in that area, he early gave his heart to the Lord, and in due time was accepted for the Ministry.
His first Circuit to which he was sent in 1917, kept him for six years, and in 1944 invited him back to serve a further six years as its Superintendent Minister.
Small in stature, but great in heart, he was a gifted and able administrator, pastor, and preacher, and in all the Circuits in which he served his ministry was long remembered. In Waterhouses, Seaton Delaval, Shotley Bridge, Leeds (Rothwell), Morley, Dewsbury (Zion), and finally Leek (Mount) Circuits, many knew him as friend and guide, and could testify to the help he gave them in times of trouble and sorrow. His own tragic experience when his only daughter, then a schoolgirl, was killed in a road accident, enabled him to bring others to the Lord Whose grace is sufficient for every need.
Retiring in 1957, he remained in the Leek Circuit and for a further six years exercised a gracious ministry as Free Church Chaplain to the large St Edwards Hospital, until failing health compelled him to resign from this appointment, and to curtail his preaching within the Circuit. But with his wife he was a regular worshipper at the Wetley Rocks Church, and attended the Annual Covenant Service three days before his death on 10 January 1968 in the seventy-sixth year of his age and the fifty-first of his ministry.
Family
John was born in 1892 at Glasgow, Scotland. I have not been able to identify his parents.
He married Emily Martha Lecomber (1895-1978) in the summer of 1921 in the Thanet Registration District, Kent. The 1933 Who’s Who of Methodism records that they had two sons and a daughter.
John died on 10 January 1968 at Wetley Rocks, Staffordshire.
Circuits
- Hartley
- 1917 Berwick
- 1923 Waterhouses
- 1927 Seaton Delaval
- 1930 Shotley Bridge
- 1933 Leeds Rothwell
- 1937 Morley
- 1944 Berwick
- 1950 Dewsbury Zion
- 1953 Leek Mount
- 1957 Leek Mount (Sup)
References
PM Minutes 1968/188
W Leary, Directory of Primitive Methodist Ministers and their Circuits, 1990
Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers
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