Quine, John Robert (1886-1957)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

JOHN ROBERT QUINE: born at Askam, Lancashire, in 1886. Influenced as a boy by the fervent Primitive Methodist traditions of his home, he felt drawn to the Church in which his family played a conspicuous part. Here the call to the ministry found him, and in 1913 he entered Hartley College. His ministry took him into widely varied circuits, including Appleby, Sheerness, Newcastle upon Tyne, Weobley, Burnley, Keighley, Tipton, Cambridge, Castleford, Morley, and Chesterfield.

Throughout his ministry he displayed a constant zeal and vigorous spirit. Whilst ready to offer tender consolation, warm gentleness, and gracious courtesy where these were needed, he pursued Truth as he beheld it, with deliberate conviction, and proclaimed it fearlessly. His preaching was from a full heart; his pastoral duties were faithfully done; in business matters he was efficient and conscientious. Of him it could at all times be said that he was ‘not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord’. 

In 1950 he retired to Hereford, and it was to his constant regret that ill-health prevented his taking an active part in serving the Methodism he loved. It was not easy for him to accept the limitations now imposed upon him. Added to his suffering was the intense frustration of enforced inactivity. To the end, however, he maintained a lively interest in wide affairs, giving his alert mind to reflection upon current problems, and showing tireless interest in those studies which had been his delight down the years. 

He died on 28th June 1957, in the seventy-first year of his age and forty-first of his ministry.

Family

John was born on 22 October 1886 at Askham in Furness, Lancashire, to Joseph Quine, an iron miner (1891), and Elizabeth Rewley.

Before entering the ministry John worked as an insurance agent (1911)

He married Martha Anne Griffiths (1887-1962) in the summer of 1933 in the Weobley Registration District, Herefordshire.

John died on 28 June 1957 at Hereford, Herefordshire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1916 Southampton
• 1918 Appleby
• 1920 Leamington
• 1925 Weobley
• 1926 Burnley I
• 1929 Keighley II
• 1933 Tipton
• 1936 Cambridge
• 1939 Castleford Po
• 1944 Morley
• 1948 Chesterfield Mount Zion
• 1950 Hereford

References

Methodist Minutes 1957/217

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers