Hooson, George Stewart (1881-1961)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

GEORGE STEWART HOOSON: born in 1881 at Wootton Basset, Wiltshire. He was educated at Bourne College, Quinton. After being trained for the Primitive Methodist Ministry at Hartley College, he went as a probationer to Walkden (Lancs.), and then served in Stoke Newington, Hornsea, Doncaster, Wigan, West Hartlepool, Swindon, Scunthorpe, Epworth, Barnsley, and Pudsey. 

Having received a sound training in elocution in early life, and possessing a good presence and expressive voice, together with a keen sense of drama and humour, he became well-known for his literary recitals, which brought much gain, both material and spiritual, to a large number of circuits in the North. In all his circuits he was admired for his gifts as a preacher and was greatly beloved as a pastor, in which work he found his greatest happiness and perhaps his most outstanding success. 

He retired in 1947, but continued to preach with acceptance and power in Brighouse, Ticehurst and Tunstall. At the last of these he lived with his daughter, and enjoyed an ‘Indian summer’ as a preacher of the gospel. He knew severe losses, that of his wife in 1941 and of a beloved son in 1953, but he faced all with courage. He was a great man and one who adorned the doctrine of Christ his Saviour. He died suddenly and peacefully on 1 April 1961, in the eightieth year of his age and the fiftieth of his ministry.

Family

George was born on 8 April 1881 at Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, to parents Stewart Hooson, a PM minister, and Mary Ann Humphries.

He married Jane Mildred Clarke (1897-1941) in late 1916 at Doncaster, Yorkshire. Birth records identify three children.

• Stewart Clarke (1917-1985) – a schoolmaster (1961)
• Margaret (b1920) – a nursery nurse (1939); married Arthur Schofield Phillips, a personnel manager (1961), in 1947
• Roger Edward (1925-1952)

George died on 1 April 1961 at Tunstall, Staffordshire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1903 Walkden
• 1907 Stoke Newington
• 1910 Hornsea
• 1914 Doncaster I
• 1916 Wigan
• 1920 Pudsey
• 1924 Hartlepool W
• 1928 Swindon II
• 1931 Scunthorpe
• 1934 Epworth West
• 1937 Barnsley W
• 1944 Pudsey &c
• 1947 Ticehurst (S)

References

Methodist Minutes 1961/222

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers