Redhead, Bartholomew William John (1880-1946)

Primitive Methodist Magazine 1932
Primitive Methodist Magazine 1932

Early years

William was born in 1880 at Sittingbourne, Kent, to parents John Redhead and Mary Ann Farrow. John was a PM Minister.

William was received onto full plan at the age of seventeen. He served a full apprenticeship in the teaching profession before entering Hartley College. This background made his ministry a teaching ministry. William spent four years at Hartley.

Ministry

His obituary records that the more thoughtful and inquiring minds found his sermons particularly helpful. Though well read in modern theology, William was equally at home among the poets; of whom – especially of Bridges and Thompson – he spoke with loving scholarship.

His interests were not limited to circuit work. He gave and received valued help in the Fellowship of the Kingdom, frequently lectured for the British and Foreign Bible Society, and constantly kept the claims of the Church Overseas before his own people.

William was quiet and unassuming, and his sensitive nature made him a great friend, especially to the distracted, worried and defeated. His strength lay in true Christian meekness, and he loved to preach of the power of the grace of God.

William was compelled to retire due to serious illness after forty-three years of wholehearted service.

Family

William married Laura Good (abt1879-1957) in the summer of 1906 at Wingate, Co. Durham. Laura was a local preacher. Census returns and birth records identify two children.

  • Laura Mary (1910-1991) – a medical student in 1932; travelled to Shanghai in 1936; married Frederick Charles Cram in China before 1941; returned to UK in 1949
  • Ada Good (b1912) – preparing for teaching profession in 1932; married Hugh L Williams in 1945

William died on 20 August 1946 at Seahouses, Northumberland.

Circuits

  • Hartley
  • 1904 Hetton
  • 1906 Silsden
  • 1909 Wigton
  • 1913 Amble
  • 1916 Clayton West
  • 1919 Lincoln I
  • 1923 Cleethorpes
  • 1926 Gateshead II
  • 1930 N Sunderland
  • 1933 Pickering
  • 1936 Masham
  • 1940 Keighley
  • 1942 Rothwell
  • 1945 Grimsby (S)

References

Primitive Methodist Magazine 1932/130

Methodist Minutes 1947/126

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers

 

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