Pattie, Albert Alexander (1897-1978)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

ALBERT ALEXANDER PATTIE: born at Ashington on 27th April 1897. After employment in mining and insurance, he experienced a call to the ministry. He first went to Cliff College and later, when serving as a Lay Agent in the York (Centenary) Circuit, offered as a candidate for the Primitive Methodist ministry in 1924. His theological training was received at Hartley College. 

He married Eva Lawrence, and in her he found a wife who shared fully in church work. Every manse they lived in became a place of friendship and hospitality. 

Albert Pattie preferred to work in rural Methodism, and he served in the following circuits: Shaftesbury, Gloucester, Craven Arms, Leominster, Easingwold and Ashbourne: In 1937 he offered for service overseas and worked in St. Kitts, St. Eustatius and Anguilla in the Leeward islands district. 

Ill-health caused his return to England in 1946, after which he travelled in the Wirksworth, Hunstanton and Docking, and Shaftesbury and Gillingham Circuits. Afflicted by ill-health, he retired from active work in 1957.

His extemporary sermons and prayers were an inspiration to his congregation but behind them were hours of close and careful preparation. Humility and brotherliness endeared him to all who knew him. He survived his wife by four years, and lived in a little bungalow at Shermel Gate, Sixpenny Handley, in Dorset just across the lane from his daughter. Though very weak, every day when it was fine he would go for a short walk and it was while taking such a walk in his favourite country lane that he collapsed and died a little way from home. He died on the 25th August 1978 in the eighty-second year of his age and the fifty-second year of his ministry.

Family

Albert was born on 27 April 1897 at Ashington, Northumberland, to parents David Pattie, a coal miner, and Barbara Jane Hogg. He was baptised on 30 January 1898 at Morpeth. His older brother, James, was also a PM minister.

He married Eva Lawrence (1906-1974) in the summer of 1930 in the Whitby Registration District, Yorkshire.

Albert died on 25 August 1978 at Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1926 Shaftsbury
• 1928 Gloucester
• 1930 Craven Arms
• 1931 Leominster
• 1933 Easingwold
• 1936 Ashbourne
• 1937 Leeward Is
• 1946 Wirksworth
• 1951 Hunstanton &c
• 1954 Shaftsbury &c
• 1957 Salisbury (S)

References

Methodist Minutes 1979/82

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers