Batty, Bernard (1877-1936)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

BERNARD BATTY: born at Mosborough, Derbyshire. After working under the Y.M.C.A. for a period he entered Cliff College and heard the call to the Ministry. Trained at Hartley College, for thirty years he rendered acceptable service in the homeland and overseas. Five years of ministry abroad were spent in Fernando Poo (Spanish West Africa) at San Carlos and Santa Isabel Stations, and later on he went to Nigeria, where for eight years he gave wise direction to a remarkable mass movement, building up a new station with forty-two churches and the first Ibo Central School. Subsequently he served in circuits near London until two years ago, when he returned to his native county. But West Africa had levied a heavy toll, and his depleted strength proved unequal to the demands of his zeal, and he passed to his reward on April 30, 1936, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. A quiet but effective expositor of the Word, a devoted pastor and capable administrator, he won the confidence of colleagues and people in all his spheres of service.

Family

Bernard was born in 1878 at Mosborough, Derbyshire, to parents William, an insurance agent, and Mary.

He married Evelina Coad (1878-1968) in the summer of 1910 in the Falmouth Registration District, Cornwall. The 1933 Methodist Who’s Who records they had two sons and a daughter.

Bernard died on 30 April 1936 at Bakewell, Derbyshire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1906 Hastings
• 1908 Chichester
• 1910 Pembroke Dock
• 1912 Fernando Po
• 1917 Grays
• 1920 Benda West Africa
• 1925 Uzualoli
• 1928 Enfield
• 1931 Worthing

References

PM Minutes 1936/196

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers