Naisbitt, James William (1877-1965)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

JAMES WILLIAM NAISBITT: born at Tudhoe Colliery, Co. Durham, in 1877 of devoted Methodist parents. He was educated at Elmfield College, York, where he heard the call to the ministry. After training at Hartley College he entered the Primitive Methodist Ministry in 1900 and travelled in the following circuits: High Wycombe, Maidstone, Foxhill Bank, Colne, Hull, Leeds, Pudsey, Sheffield, Poole and Hayle. 

He was a faithful and effective preacher of the Gospel. Supremely he was a pastor. A man of deep feeling, he loved people and delighted to minister to them in their homes, giving generously of his time and human understanding. Tested and strengthened by illness and bereavement, he brought hope and comfort to all who were in trouble or need. He was ever youthful and alert in mind and body. He exercised a profound influence on men and young people, many of whom he brought into the fellowship of the Church. 

He was a competent administrator and during a term as Secretary of the Leeds District Synod he fulfilled his duties graciously and with scrupulous care. After his retirement to Bournemouth in 1944 he continued to preach regularly, and took an active part in the life and witness of the Victoria Park and Winton Churches. 

In his later years he became blind, but he bore this affliction with indomitable courage and unfailing cheerfulness, confident of the good purposes of God, and daily proving His sustaining grace. He loved his brethren and to the end upheld them by his encouragement and prayers. He died suddenly on the eve of his eighty-eighth birthday and in the sixty-fifth year of his ministry.

Family

James was born on 25 April 1877 at Tudhoe Colliery, Co. Durham, to parents John, a coal miner and Ann.

The 1891 census return records  James as a colliery clerk.

He married Louie Robinson  (1881-1964) in early 1905 at South Bank, Middlesbrough. Census returns identify two children.

• William Raymond (1906-1925)       
• Peggy Doreen (1908-2001) – teacher

James died in the spring of 1965 at Bournemouth, Dorset..

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1900 High Wycombe
• 1904 Maidstone
• 1907 Foxhill Bank
• 1911 Colne
• 1916 Hull IV
• 1919 Leeds II
• 1924 Pudsey
• 1929 Sheffield John Street
• 1934 Sheffield Bruns
• 1935 Poole North St
• 1939 Hayle
• 1944 Bournemouth (S)

References

Methodist Minutes 1965/203

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers