Pattinson, Joseph William (1882-1938)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

JOSEPH WILLIAM PATTINSON: born at Stanhope, Co. Durham, in 1882. He received his early education at King James I School, Bishop Auckland. At the age of twenty-two he entered Hartley College, Manchester, and began his ministry in 1907. For thirty-one years he served seven North country circuits with consistent zeal and fidelity. 

A preacher of great ability, he was a wise administrator and a brother beloved. At the Conference of 1936 he was appointed to the recently amalgamated circuit of Stoke-on-Trent (Tunstall), on the ground sacred to the memory of William Clowes and Hugh Bourne, a trust he greatly prized. His desire was to make Methodist Union a vital force in the county which saw the birth of Primitive Methodism. 

Always “in labours more abundant,” he collapsed while on a round of pastoral calls, on December 9, 1938, and within a few minutes had passed to his rest in the fifty-sixth year of his age and the thirty-first of his ministry.

Family

Joseph was born in 1882 at Stanhope, Co. Durham to parents Thomas Pattinson, a limestone quarryman (1891) and Sarah Dodd. He was baptised on 23 January 1883.

Before entering the ministry Joseph worked as a grocer’s assistant (1901).

He married Mary Pickles (b abt1887) in the spring of 1911 in the Skipton Registration District, Yorkshire. Birth records identify two children.

• Joan (b1913)
• Tom Pickles (1916-1998) – a medical student (1939)

Joseph died on 9 December 1938 at Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1907 Barnoldswick
• 1911 Doncaster I
• 1914 W Hartlepool
• 1919 Stockton
• 1923 Silsden
• 1931 Gainsborough
• 1936 Stoke on Trent

References

Methodist Minutes 1939/207

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers