Greenhalgh, Harold Frederick (1891-1950)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

HAROLD FREDERICK GREENHALGH: died suddenly on the 30th December 1950 in his sixtieth year and in the midst of his labours as superintendent of the newly amalgamated Coalville circuit, which, with its eighteen churches, gave him scope for the exercise of administrative gifts of an unusually high order. A Lancashire man, he had all the strength of character and forthrightness of manner for which that county is famous, but Divine Grace had added a winsomeness and charm which impressed all who knew him. 

His college course at Hartley began in 1913, but was interrupted by two years’ R.A.M.C. war service and by nine months in a military hospital as a victim of malaria. It was typical of his eager desire to be fully equipped intellectually for the ministry that he then re-entered Hartley and completed the full course. He was a student to the end, as all who had the privilege of his virile and moving pulpit ministry would testify. Exceedingly conscientious and spurred on by a passionate devotion to his Lord and Saviour, he strove to make himself a good minister of Jesus Christ. It has been a moving experience to read tributes to his memory paid by officials of all the circuits in which he travelled—Canterbury, Croydon, Douglas, Winsford, Grimsby, Crewe, and Coalville. 

He was greatly loved by people of all types and ages, and by young people especially. To the latter he gave an inspiring example of a full and finely balanced Christian life, deeply centred in a rich personal experience of Christ, yet embracing a wide range of intellectual, social, and recreational interests. In short, Harold F. Greenhalgh was a grand circuit minister, and of such is the strength of Methodism.

Family

Harold was born on 6 November 1891 at Rochdale, Lancashire, to parents John, a cloth warehouseman (1891), and Louisa.

The 1911 census return records Harold as a piecer in the cotton spinning mill.

He married Edith Smith (1890-1940) in the summer of 1920 at Bolton, Lancashire. Birth records identify three children.

• Margery Beryl (1923-2001) – married Derrick Potts in 1945
• Harold K (b1925)
• Doreen (1927-1983) – married Leonard T Stanton on 1950

He married Dorothy Swaby in the summer of 1942 at Grimsby, Lincolnshire.

Harold died on 30 December 1950 at Coalville, Leicestershire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1915 Army work
• 1919 Canterbury
• 1923 Croydon
• 1926 Douglas
• 1931 Winsford
• 1938 Grimsby Hainton
• 1942 Crewe Wedgwood

References

Methodist Minutes 1951/133

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers