Pearce, Mark Parsons (1877-1958)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

MARK PARSONS PEARCE: born at Manchester in 1877. He was the son of a cotton manufacturer, and was educated at Manchester Higher Grade School, where he began to hear the call to the Ministry. He was accounted as entering the Ministry in 1901, but he first served as a hired local preacher in Ollerton before passing examinations and serving his probation in Hoyland. Ordained in 1907, he proceeded to Tunstall. He travelled mostly in the Midlands, Shropshire, and Lincolnshire.

A devoted and conscientious servant of Christ, he manifested a quiet patience and sweet reasonableness in his pastoral office, albeit endeavouring to bring his people face to face with the truth. A man of no compromise, he often ploughed a lone furrow in his refusal to deviate from his convictions. His was especially a teaching ministry, and nothing delighted him more than to gather the younger men about him in order to train them as leaders and preachers. His quiet determination and his courage in the face of difficulties are especially remembered in Birmingham. He loved people and was loved by them wherever he travelled. On leaving Crowle in 1952 he went as active supernumerary to Welwyn Garden City, and then to Coad’s Green, Cornwall. After moving to Felixstowe in 1957 his health broke down.

Once, in an emergency, he rallied his failing strength to conduct effectively a service at Ipswich; but thereafter both his physical and mental activities deteriorated fast. He was moved to hospital, where, through all his weakness, his gracious humility captivated the whole staff. On 10 December 1958, he passed to higher service in his eighty-third year and the fifty-seventh of his ministry.

Family

Mark was born on 8 August 1876 at Manchester, Lancashire, to parents Frederick Pearce, a warehouseman (1881), and Susan Elizabeth Bartlett.Before entering the ministry Mark worked as a commercial warehouse clerk (1901). His brother, Frank, was also a PM minister.

He married Maud Brereton (b1882) in the spring of 1905 in the Wolstanton Registration District, Staffordshire. Census returns identify two children.

• Arnold Porteous (1907-1979)  – a mechanical & electrical engineer (1939)                            
• Norman Brereton (1908-2006) – a chemist & druggist (1939)

Mark died on 10 December 1958 at Felixstowe, Suffolk.

Circuits

• 1901 Eakring
• 1902 Hoyland
• 1905 Tunstall
• 1906 Birmingham II
• 1909 Clun
• 1914 Kidderminster
• 1917 Brierley Hill
• 1921 Easingwold
• 1923 Ipswich &c
• 1928 Bishop’s castle
• 1933 Lincoln II
• 1936 Donington &c
• 1938 Chesterfield Mount Zion
• 1941 Calne
• 1944 Shepton Mallet
• 1948 Epworth &c
• 1952 Welwyn Garden (S)

References

Methodist Minutes 1959/187

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers