Parbrook, George Henry (1884-1956)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

GEORGE HENRY PARBROOK: born at Cheslyn Hay, Staffs, in 1884. His training at Hartley College brought him under the influence of Professor A.S. Peake and stimulated what was to be his life-long love of Old Testament studies, in certain branches of which he became an acknowledged authority.

Yet it was his preaching and his kindly self which were most appreciated in the country circuits where he began his ministry, in the challenging circuits of County Durham where he spent more than a quarter of a century, and in the Midlands, from which he retired in 1951 to settle in Torquay. 

Here, again, he was greatly beloved throughout the circuit, and gave himself without stint to preaching in this and the neighbouring circuits and to the encouragement of his brethren in the active work. He died suddenly on 24th March 1956, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-third of his ministry.

Family

George was born on 6 September 1884 at Cheslyn Hay, Staffordshire, to parents George Parbrook, a coal miner, and Harriet Brevitt.

Before entering the ministry, George was a coal miner (1901).

He married Ida Evelyn Male (1892-1979) in the summer of 1917 in the Wolverhampton Registration District, Staffordshire. Birth records identify three children.

• Hubert D (b1920)
• Margaret Jean (1923-2004)
• Geoffrey (b1928)

George died on 24 March 1956 at Torquay, Devon.

Ida married George Sanderson in summer of 1960.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1913 Docking
• 1917 Wisbech
• 1919 Sheldon
• 1922 Spennymoor
• 1927 Waterhouses
• 1930 Chester le Street
• 1936 Stanley
• 1945 Birmingham Wesley
• 1949 Willenhall Russ
• 1951 Torquay (Sup)

References

Methodist Minutes 1956/199

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers