Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference
THOMAS EMERSON CURRAH: born at Middleton, Teesdale, August 7, 1859. After a year at Hartley College he entered the Primitive Methodist Ministry in 1885. From Sheerness to Penge, and then to his beloved North at Durham-and South Shields, he showed promise of distinguished service in the Church. After nearly fifty years, his name and work are remembered with affection and appreciation.
Unfortunately his career was interrupted by ill-health, and eventually he had to seek retirement and live in the open air, engaging himself in fruit farming in Kent. While, however, the wider ministry was denied him, the severe discipline of these later years gave to the Church a brave and serene personality, strong in faith and love, with a genius for friendship. Full of years, being perfected through suffering, he was called home on October 8, 1936, at the age of seventy-eight years.
Family
Thomas was born on 7 August 1859 at Middleton in Teesdale, Co. Durham, to parents William Currah, a shepherd, and Isabella Coatsworth.
Before entering the ministry, Thomas worked as a joiner (1881).
He married Edith Beal (1868-1955) in the summer of 1889 in the Sheppey Registration District, Kent. Census returns identify six children.
- Mary (b1891)
- William (1892-1984) – a farmer (1936)
- Emerson (1896-1917) – died in WW1
- Edith Isabel (1898-1997) – married Hardy Clift Oetzmann in 1937
- Dorothy (1902-1985) – married Frederick Latham, a PM Minister, in 1931
- John (1910-1992) – a farmer (1936)
Thomas died on 8 October 1936 at Willesborough, Ashford, Kent.
Circuits
- Hartley
- 1885 Sheerness
- 1889 Croydon
- 1890 Durham
- 1894 Hexham
- 1895 S Shields
- 1901 Jersey
- 1907 Jersey (Sup)
- 1910 Folkstone & Dover
- 1912 Folkstone & Dover (Sup)
References
Methodist Minutes 1937/188
W Leary, Directory of Primitive Methodist Ministers and their Circuits, 1990
Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers
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