Featherstone, Thomas (1886-1962)

Transcription of Obituary in Minutes of Methodist Conference

Born in Crawcross, Co. Durham, in 1886. He came from a miner’s home and a devoted Methodist family.

On being accepted for the Ministry, he was sent for training to Hartley College. He served his probationary period in the Wymondham Circuit and subsequently travelled in the Aylsham, Thetford, Wells-next-the-Sea, North Walsham, Peterborough, Aylesbury, King’s Lynn, and Ipswich Circuits.

He was a member of the Primitive  Methodist Union Committee and the Primitive Methodist Missionary Committee as well as being an officer of various District committees.

From the time of Methodist Union he showed great zeal for its implementation, and in this had considerable success by the exercise of persuasive tact and patience.

All but ten years of his active ministry were spent in East Anglia, where he was greatly loved by those who came under his pastoral care, his visits to the homes of his people being especially appreciated.

As a preacher he was most acceptable, for he read widely and prepared carefully for the pulpit.

After forty-one years in the active work, he suffered a physical breakdown which compelled him to become a supernumerary, and he retired to Mundesley, where he lived until a few weeks before his death.

Throughout the years of his retirement his interest in the work of the Church never abated; he studied the plan and made constant enquiries about the progress of the work of God, especially among young people.

He died on 28 June, 1962, in the seventy-seventh year of his life and the forty-eighth of his ministry.

©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 1962

Family

Thomas was born in 1886 at Crawcross, Co. Durham, to parents Ralph Featherstone, a coal miner, and Ann Rutherford.

Thomas worked as a tailor before entering the ministry.

He married Elsie Rose Standley (1890-1977) in the summer of 1918 at Wymondham, Norfolk. Birth records identify two children.

  • Deryck Ralph (1920-2007) – a railway booking clerk (1939)
  • Standley Thomas Alan (1924-2017)

Thomas died on 28 June 1962 at North Walsham, Norfolk.

Circuits

  • Hartley
  • 1914 Wymondham
  • 1918 Aylsham
  • 1924 Thetford
  • 1927 Wells
  • 1933 Fakenham
  • 1934 N Walsham
  • 1938 Peterborough
  • 1944 Aylesbury
  • 1948 Kings Lynn
  • 1952 Ipswich Rope Walk
  • 1955 N Walsham (Sup)

References

Methodist Minutes1962/220

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers

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