Harper, Frederic William (1869-1937)
Early years
Frederic was born in July 1869 at Sturminster Newton, Dorset, to parents Joseph Harper and Rebecca Fanny Beckett. Joseph was a PM Minister.
Frederic served a five years engineering apprenticeship at Blandford. He then became a hired local preacher at Sturminster Newton and Ripon before entering the ministry in 1891.
Ministry
His obituary records that Frederic was a man of wide reading, and this combined with clear thinking, reverence of spirit, and intense sincerity, made his preaching very effective. Endowed with a legal mind, he loved an argument; but he was loyal to his Church and his colleagues.
Family
Frederic married Stella Florence Smith (1877-1921) in the summer of 1897 at Northampton, Northamptonshire. Census returns identify five of six children.
- Albert Ewart (1898-1975)
- Ronald Theodore (1901-1982)
- Doris Kathleen (1903-1961)
- Frederic Clifford (1905-1979)
- Florence May (1908-1976)
Frederic died on 29 March 1937 at Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire.
Circuits
- 1891 Grays & Romford
- 1893 Woburn Sands
- 1894 Stratford
- 1897 Bradfield
- 1900 Reading
- 1904 Alford
- 1908 Hull II
- 1911 Bournemouth I
- 1916 Swindon II
- 1922 Luton III
- 1926 Brinkworth
- 1932 Brinkworth (Sup)
References
Primitive Methodist Magazine 1920/634; 1932/521
Methodist Minutes 1937/204
W Leary, Directory of Primitive Methodist Ministers and their Circuits, 1990
Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers
Comments about this page
Frederic W Harper’s article in the Souvenir and handbook (Brinkworth District Synod, 1932) was possibly that famous District’s final pronouncement before Reunion. I haven’t copied out the whole text, but the following extract from pages 14-5 is eloquent:
I love to think of our church in the dawn of her glory. I love … the volcanic fire of her heart, the thrill of song, the buoyant testimony of her saints. I love her because of her unquenchable ideals, the largeness of her hope, the untiring energies of her faith.
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