Ross, Edwin Harold Walmsley B.A., B.D. (1890-1960)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

EDWIN HAROLD WALMSLEY ROSS, B.A., B.D. : born in Tipton, Staffordshire in 1899. His father was a Primitive Methodist minister, and it bears testimony to the quality of life in the manse that after serving in the pioneer days of the Royal Naval Air Service in World War I, the son should have offered as a candidate for the same Ministry. Methodist Union came shortly after his Ordination and he gave himself with passionate loyalty to the service of the larger Church. 

His interests ranged widely—from poetry to mechanics—but to all he did he brought the same desire for precision and perfection. His integrity and consistency impressed all who knew him; but these qualities did not produce austerity or remoteness. Rather, they were accompanied by deep sympathies and a most lovable nature. As a preacher he was essentially practical. He knew the Christian way to work and he wanted his hearers to know it too. But preaching and all else was directed in him to the pastoral care of souls. It was this which lay at the heart of his ministry. The needs of people and the sufficiency of Christ dominated all his work. He was a man who refused to quarrel. Set in positions of tension or of partisanship, he revealed the serenity and balance of one who lived near to Christ. 

It had been his hope to retire in the West Country, and in 1959 he moved to the superintendency of the Week St. Mary Circuit. However, illness incapacitated him the following spring, and he died on 20 April 1960. 

His circuits had been Heywood, Hereford, Harrogate, Boston, Luton, Stoke Newington, Redditch, Derby, Walsall, Chipping Norton, Ilford, and Week St. Mary. 

He died at the age of sixty, in the thirty-fourth year of his ministry.

Family

Edwin was born on 7 October 1899 at Tipton, Staffordshire, to parents Harry Ross, a PM minister, and Fanny Walmsley.

He married Margaret Hole (abt1896-1939) in the spring of 1928 in the Newton Abbot Registration District, Devon. Birth records identify one child.

• John P (b1929)

He married Winifred May Lloyd (1897-1986) in the spring of 1940 at Luton, Bedfordshire.

Edwin died on 20 April 1960 at Hreenbank Hospital, Plymouth, Devon.

Circuits

• 1925 Heywood
• 1926 Hereford
• 1928 Harrogate
• 1931 Boston
• 1934 Luton Hightown
• 1936 Stoke Newington
• 1939 Redditch
• 1942 Derby S
• 1946 Walsall Staff St
• 1950 Chipping Norton &c
• 1955 London Ilford
• 1959 Week St Mary

References

Methodist Minutes 1960/200

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers