Hadfield, Frederick Josiah (1867-1930)

Early years

Frederick was born on 8 May 1867 at Glastonbury, Somerset, to parents Isaac Hadfield and Alice Yeo. Isaac, was a PM Minister.

Frederick was at first intended for the scholastic profession, but preferring home companionship to lodgings, he accompanied his parents to Crowle, and became a chemist. His decision for Christ was made at Crowle during a mission conducted by Mrs E. J. Devenish. Whilst managing a chemist’s business as Lincoln, Rev George Ralph Dodd Austin gave him the Church’s call to the ministry.

Ministry

Frederick only spent a few weeks on his first station at Canterbury. The G.M.C. transferred him to Belfast on ‘sick duty’.

Four building schemes were carried through at Kingsley and Frodsham, one requiring the bed of a brook to be diverted, a task he carried out himself.

Frederick served as Building Secretary in the North British (Scotland) and Leeds Districts.

In Frederick’s obituary, Rev R. W. Callin wrote: ‘He was a fresh and interesting preacher, evangelical and earnest, giving the very best of heart and brain to the work he loved. He had a genuine gift of humour, considerable acquaintance with music and was a real lover of good pictures. Blest with the historical imagination, he delighted in things that were old and precious. As a circuit minister he was most conscientious. The welfare of the Church and of the Kingdom was in literal fact a very burden upon his heart. Our friend, through difficult days and secret suffering, did a great day’s work for his Master.’

Family

Frederick married Mary Davey (1872-1919) in the summer of 1897 at Louth, Lincolnshire. Census returns identify one child.

  • Freda Eleanor (1898-1969) – married William Firth Raistrick in 1923

Frederick married Kate Hewitt (1874-1963) in the summer of 1923 at Louth, Lincolnshire.

Frederick died on 5 March 1930 at Chester, Cheshire.

Circuits

  • Hartley
  • 1892 Canterbury
  • 1893 Sheerness
  • 1894 Whitstable
  • 1896 Grassington
  • 1897 Dent
  • 1898 Nantwich & Burland
  • 1901 Frodsham
  • 1904 Ossett
  • 1908 Glasgow
  • 1913 Pudsey
  • 1916 Leeds IV
  • 1922 Bradford III
  • 1926 Chester III

References

Primitive Methodist Magazine 1922/372

PM Minutes 1930/276

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers

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