Heppenstall, Richard (1861-1943)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

RICHARD HEPPENSTALL: born at Barnsley in 1861. He was accepted in the Primitive Methodist Ministry in 1884, after training at Hartley College. In the ex-P.M. Church he was well known, and in that Church he carried on a gracious and active ministry for forty-two years. After retiring in 1926, he had charge of the Mansfield Woodhouse Church for several years, and for a long period he acted as chaplain to the County Institution, Mansfield. 

Life and service both had dignity added to them by him. He was a noble character, and that quality entered into his outward activities. He had also a sympathetic nature, knowing how to show an understanding interest in and concern for others. As a preacher he was devoted and diligent, giving of his best and proving most helpful to those who were privileged to listen to him. We give grateful thanks to God for him. At the ripe age of eighty-two and in the sixtieth year of his ministry, he passed into the Eternal Home on November 9, 1943.

Family

Richard was born on 20 July 1861 at Barnsley, Yorkshire, to parents Richard, a colliery carpenter (1881), and Jane. He was baptised on 27 July 1861 at St George, Barnsley.

Before entering the ministry Richard worked as a grocer’s assistant.

He married Lucy Ellen Ramsden (1864-1946) in the summer of 1888 at Lincoln, Lincolnshire. Census returns identify three children.

• Lional Basil Wordsworth (1889-1964) – a teacher (1911); a clerk in Holy Orders (1946)
• Priscilla Thorpe (1891-1976) – a nurse; married John T Blackshaw, a railway accounts clerk (1939), in 1919
• Dorothy (1894-1962)

Richard died on 9 November 1943 at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1884 Bristol I
• 1886 Paisley
• 1887 Bury
• 1890 Manchester III
• 1891 Manchester VIII
• 1894 Hull V
• 1897 Bolsover
• 1902 Staveley
• 1906 Middlesbrough
• 1909 Blaydon
• 1913 Barnsley I
• 1918 Swindon II
• 1919 Northampton III
• 1921 Worksop
• 1926 Mansfield (Sup)

References

PM Minutes 1944/124

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers