Transcription of obituary published in theMinutes of Conference
CHRISTOPHER HUTCHINSON : born in Sunderland in 1902. Boyhood days were spent in Seaham and from there he proceeded to Hartley College in 1923 as an accepted candidate for the Primitive Methodist Ministry. During his third year in college he offered for service in Africa, and after a short period of pastoral training in Chesterfield, went to Eastern Nigeria in 1928, being stationed in the Ikot Ekpene Circuit.
As a missionary he was eminently successful. He helped to develop the newly opened work in the Idoma country in Northern Nigeria and did much to open schools and build churches. He also assisted in producing literature in the Idoma language and translated parts of the New Testament. In 1939, ill health compelled him to retire from the Mission Field to which he had given himself so unsparingly, and where he is still remembered for his devotion and enterprise.
On returning to England he served with distinction the following circuits: Redruth Houghton-le-Spring, Consett, Haltwhistle, Carlisle and Douglas (I.0.M.).
His natural gifts were assiduously cultivated by regular study and wide reading. His preaching was fresh and challenging and he kindled interest in Overseas Work by his passionate advocacy. He was an able administrator and he excelled in a pastoral ministry, exercised with the sympathy and understanding of one who himself had experience both poignant sorrow and abundant joy. A lover of home and good fellowship, his cheerful disposition and keen sense of humour made him a delightful companion and colleague.
The sufferings of later life did not dim his burning faith and zeal, and to the end he bore a fine Christian witness. He died on 13 September 1963, in the sixty-second year of his age and the thirty-eighth of his ministry.
Family
Christopher was born on 9 August 1902 at Sunderland, Co. Durham, to parents Joseph Hutchinson, a general labourer at a coal mine, and Emma Annie Goodridge.
He married Doris Moffatt (1902-1940) in the spring of 1932 at Sunderland, Co. Durham.
He married Nora Hedley in early 1942 in the Durham Northern Registration District, Co.Durham.
Christopher died on 13 September 1963 at the Royal Infirmary, Sunderland.
Circuits
- Hartley
- 1926 Chesterfield I
- 1928 Nigeria
- 1939 Redruth
- 1940 Houghton le Spring
- 1944 Consett
- 1947 Haltwhistle
- 1952 Carlisle Cecil St
- 1958 Douglas Bucks Rd
References
Methodist Minutes 1964/193
W Leary, Directory of Primitive Methodist Ministers and their Circuits, 1990
Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers
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