Collier, Ralph Rushton (1904-1964)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

RALPH RUSHTON COLLIER: born in Intake, Sheffield, in 1904. The son of a Primitive Methodist minister, he received his education in Lancashire and began his training at Hartley College at the age of eighteen. In 1927 he took his first appointment at Redditch, subsequently moving to Shaftesbury, Newbury, Stroud, Goole, Holmfirth, Workington, Louth, Grays, Bradford and finally Leek. 

He brought to the ministry a deep understanding and native gentleness which won the instant response of young and old alike. Beneath a happy exterior he had a winsome tenderness which carried every detail of need in his people. A lover of homely fun, his infectious laughter will remain an outstanding memory of him. In his early days he was a good tennis player and his interest in the game helped to further the youth work in his circuits. Hampered by deafness and a constitution which was not too robust he nevertheless did a strenuous work in his ministry. 

He took care to be thoroughly prepared for the pulpit and kept abreast of changing thought and present need. He never sought the limelight, and it was impossible for him to use any situation to his own advantage. In what proved to be his last appointment he faced up to the problems of a difficult Rural Circuit, but at the commencement of his second year his health suddenly became a source of anxiety, and he died on 6 February 1964, in the sixtieth year of his age and the thirty-seventh of his ministry.

Family

Ralph was born on 16 July 1904 at Sheffield, Yorkshire, to parents John Thomas Collier, a PM minister, and Caroline Maria Tubb.

He married Lizzie Wiggins (b1909) in early 1936 at Newbury, Berkshire.

Ralph died on 6 February 1964 at Leek, Staffordshire. he was laid to rest at Mere, Wiltshire

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1927 Redditch
• 1928 Shaftesbury
• 1930 Newbury
• 1935 Stroud
• 1938 Goole, Carlisle Terrace
• 1940 Holmfirth
• 1945 Workington
• 1948 Louth
• 1953 Grays
• 1957 Bradford Low Moor
• 1962 Leek

References

Methodist Minutes 1964/208

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers