Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference
JOHN DONALD CALLOWAY: born at Brynmawr, South Wales, on 24th October 1903. On leaving school he began to study engineering, but responded to the call of God to the Primitive Methodist ministry, being accepted in 1924. He served for two years in the Scotter Circuit before going to Hartley College. He then travelled in the following circuits: Bournemouth South Yorkshire Mission, Stoke-on-Trent and Longton, Brierley Hill, Sheffield (Carver Street), Connah’sQuay and Hawarden and Doncaster (North – East).
It was while he was at Doncaster that his health failed. The doctor warned him that he must go to a different climate, so in 1953 he moved with his wife and young son John to Brighton where he remained until his death twenty-five years later.
He had always been a great reader and was a self-taught artist of no mean standard. He had a life-long passion for biology. These qualities, and his indomitable spirit, enabled him to take up the threads of life again. He was invited by a local college to set up a Biology Laboratory. He not only accomplished this task but he joined the staff for the next ten years. He was a born teacher who also cared for his students, qualities which had been very evident during his years of preaching and pastoral work. All through his long years of weakness he never gave up. His ‘den’ at home was a hive of industry and learning, especially as he also became involved in making special slides for both the home and export market. Over the years he did manage to preach occasionally. Many remember him as a true man of God whose gentleness and maturity of spirit had been moulded in the fires of frustration as his body responded less and less to the wishes of his mind and heart. A fine christian has joined the Church triumphant. He died suddenly on 24th December 1978 in the seventy-sixth year of his age and the fifty-second year of his ministry.
Family
John was born on 24 October 1903 at Brynmawr, Breconshire, South Wales, to parents John, a draper (1911), and Sarah Jane.
He married Mary Dawes (1902-1990) in the summer of 1931 at Rotherham, Yorkshire. Records identify one child.
- John D (b1939)
John died on 24 December 1978 at Brighton, Sussex
Circuits
- 1924 Scotter
- 1926 Hartley
- 1929 Bournemouth
- 1931 S Yorks Mission
- 1934 Stoke & Longton
- 1937 Brierley Hill
- 1942 Sheffield Carver
- 1948 Connah’s Quay
- 1951 Doncaster NE
- 1953 Brighton (S)
References
Methodist Minutes 1979/64
W Leary, Directory of Primitive Methodist Ministers and their Circuits, 1990
Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers
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