Jones, Frederick (1905-1976)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

FREDERICK JONES: born in Stanton upon Hine Heath near Shrewsbury on 16th August 1905. At the age of twenty-two he was accepted for the Primitive Methodist ministry, and after training at Hartley College he served in the following circuits: Ramsor, Portland, Ludlow, Whitchurch (Castle Hill), Northwich (London Road and Central), Buckley and Mold, Glossop, South Derbyshire, Netherton and Ripley. 

Wherever he served, his people found him to be deeply conscientious in all his work, an interesting and helpful preacher and a diligent pastor, and they responded to a leadership that was none the less effective because it was exercised with characteristic gentleness and humility. His ministerial brethren knew him as an excellent colleague on whose loyalty and help they could always rely. Throughout his ministry he was delicate in health, and was the first to acknowledge that he would not have survived several serious illnesses but for the loving care and splendid nursing of his wife. 

His large library revealed his love of poetry and art, but he was first and foremost a Bible student. He kept abreast of the latest theological thought, but had little time for some of the more radical views that have been expressed in recent years. He held unswervingly to the great fundamentals of the faith. He had a delightful sense of humour which came out on occasion in the course of his preaching but frequently in conversations with his colleagues. When he retired in 1970 to Hadleigh (Suffolk) he continued to exercise a welcome preaching ministry in the Ipswich Circuit, and in 1975 he took pastoral charge of two small churches near his home. Both congregations deeply appreciated the faithful work he did in what proved to be the final year of his ministry. 

His last illness was mercifully brief and he died on Sth August 1976 in the seventy-first year of his age and the forty-sixth year of his ministry.

Family

Frederick was born on 16 August 1905 at Stanton, Shropshire, to parents Thomas, a farmer, and Elizabeth.

He married Maggie Forrester (1887-1978) in the summer of 1934 in the Uttoxeter Registration District, Staffordshire.

Frederick died on 5 August 1976 at Hadleigh, Suffolk.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1930 Ramsor
• 1934 Portland
• 1937 Ludlow
• 1940 Whitchurch Cas
• 1946 Northwich London Rd
• 1949 Buckley &c
• 1955 Glossop
• 1960 S Derbyshire
• 1966 Netherton
• 1968 Ripley
• 1972 Hadleigh (S)

References

Methodist Minutes 1977/72

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers