Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference
JOHN METCALFE CRADDOCK: born at Leyburn, Wensleydale, in 1873. After working as a miner in the Durham Coalfields he entered the Ministry of the Primitive Methodist Church in 1901. He travelled in Abertillery, Nelson, Lydbrook, Spennymoor, Auckland, Barnsley, Weardale, Shildon, Loftus and Staithes, and South Bank, becoming a supernumerary in 1947. The early years of his retirement were spent at Woodville, Burton-on-Trent, and he later moved to Barnsley.
He endeared himself to his people through his direct, personal, sympathetic ministry. He never spared himself, and gave richly to the many demands made upon his time and gifts. He loved ordinary people, and they received and heard him gladly, responding readily to his fine tactfulness and rare sense of humour. His leadership and administrative work were of a high order, and the Silkstone Common Church, built during his ministry in the Barnsley Westgate Circuit, stands as a memorial to his careful, solid work. He loved circuit work, and for him there was no discharge from it on retirement. He continued preaching until his eighty-fifth year, and prepared sermons to the end. He is remembered affectionately as a gallant servant of his Lord, and an inspirer of the Lord’s people. He died on 23 December 1960, in the eighty-eighth year of his age and the sixtieth of his ministry.
Family
John was born on 12 July 1873 at Leyburn, Wensleydale, Yorkshire, to parents, Slinger Craddock, a coal miner, and Isabella Metcalfe.
He married Edith Florence Ball (1875-1960) in the summer of 1905 in the Burton on Trent Registration District. Census returns identify one child.
- Lucy Margaret (1906-1989) – a shorthand typist (1939)
John died on 23 December 1960 at Barnsley, Yorkshire.
Circuits
- 1901 Abertillery
- 1905 Nelson, Glamorgan
- 1907 Lydbrook
- 1911 Spennymoor
- 1914 St Helens Auckland
- 1919 Westgate
- 1925 Keighley
- 1926 Barnsley I
- 1931 Westgate
- 1935 Sheldon
- 1938 Staithes
- 1941 Loftus
- 1944 S Bank &c
- 1947 Burton on Trent (S)
References
Methodist Minutes 1961/210
W Leary, Directory of Primitive Methodist Ministers and their Circuits, 1990
Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers
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