Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference
WILLIAM HERRICK: born at Ashby, Lincolnshire, in 1833. He entered the Primitive Methodist Ministry in 1909 after training at Hartley College, and served in the following circuits: Selby, Hadnall, Wem, Llanymynech, Brighouse, Long Eaton, Bishop’s Castle, Wem and Llanymynech for second terms of six years. He became a supernumerary in 1951 and went to live in Lytham St Annes.
Most of his active ministry will be seen to have been spent in Shropshire, where his preaching and pastoral caring won the hearts of his members and brought many to Christ. He preferred country circuits and gave himself with most sincere devotion to the special pastoral needs of this work. The fact that he was invited back to Wem and Llanymynech for long second periods of service testifies to the value and effectiveness of his ministry, and the appreciation and affection in which he was held. He was a dearly loved supernumerary minister in the Lytham St Annes Circuit, and gracious memories of him will persist in the thoughts of his ministerial colleagues, and particularly of the members of Albert Street where he exercised a deeply appreciated part-time preaching and pastoral ministry in retirement from 1953 to 1965.
He became blind in 1956, but continued with courage and grace to preach and visit with the loving help of his dear wife. He was married in 1913, and his wife and their one daughter surrounded him with infinite tenderness during his years of blindness. He was interested in village cricket and took pleasure and satisfaction in his garden, where he made opportunities for meditation. William Herrick possessed a quiet disposition, was a humble, devoted minister of the Gospel and sought no honour or reward save that of knowing he was doing His Master’s will.
His ministry was characterized particularly by sincere evangelistic preaching in which he persistently offered Christ to his congregations and called for re-dedication of life and service to God. He was to the end a man of integrity, constant kindness, and transparent Christian faith. He died on 16 March 1968, in the eighty-sixth year of his age and the fifty-ninth of his ministry.
Family
William was born on 28 November 1882 at Ashby, Lincolnshire, to parents George, an ironworks labourer (1891), and Charlotte.
He married Elizabeth Eccles (1889-1972) in the summer of 1913 at Selby, Yorkshire. Birth records identify one child.
- Marjorie E (b abt1926)
William died on 16 March 1968 in the Blackpool Registration District, Lancashire.
Circuits
- Hartley
- 1909 Selby
- 1913 Hadnall
- 1916 Wem
- 1919 Llanymynech
- 1926 Brighouse
- 1930 Long Eaton
- 1933 Bishops Castle
- 1939 Wem
- 1945 Llanymynech
- 1951 Lytham (Sup)
References
Methodist Minutes 1968/194
W Leary, Directory of Primitive Methodist Ministers and their Circuits, 1990
Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers
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