Rowe, Herbert Ramsey M.M. (1895-1971)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

HERBERT RAMSEY ROWE, M.M.: born at Whitehaven in 1896. He was proud of being a Cumbrian. He began preaching at the age of fifteen. He saw active service in the First World War and was awarded the Military Medal. The experiences of the War took their toll upon his health, and for much of his ministry he fought a noble and victorious battle against ill-health. 

He entered the ministry in 1921. He spent a pre-collegiate year at King’s Lynn, and then trained at Hartley College. Subsequently he served in the following circuits: Blackpool, Richmond (Yorks.), Bishop Auckland, Ramsor, Shipley, Selby, Wakefield, Aireborough, Sandbach (Providence). On becoming a supernumerary, he lived at Bispham for four years, and then spent his later years at Sandbach, returning to the place where he spent the last nine years of his active ministry. 

In his preaching he was original and appreciated. He could stand neither cant nor humbug and was not afraid to expose these things for what they were. In matters of policy he was quite prepared to take an independent line and stand up for what he believed to be right. Yet there was nothing ‘isolationist’ about him and it was always a joy to share fellowship with him. He adorned the pastoral office, and no minister could have given himself more completely to his people. Numerous tributes have been paid concerning the high quality of his pastoral care. 

He died in Crewe Memorial Hospital on 17 March 1971, in the seventy-sixth year of his age and the fifty-first of his ministry.

Family

Herbert was born on 3 November 1895 at Egremont, Cumberland, to parents William, a draper’s traveller & local preacher (1901), and Elizabeth.

He married Doris Evelyn Marsden (1898-1989) in the summer of 1925 at Blackpool, Lancashire. Birth records identify one child, although the 1933 Methodist Who’s Who  records Herbert also having a daughter.

• Peter Ramsey (1928-2017)

Herbert died on 17 March 1971 at Crewe, Cheshire.

Circuits

• 1918 Kings Lynn
• 1919 Hartley
• 1922 Blackpool
• 1923 Richmond, Yorks
• 1925 Bishop Auckland
• 1926 Ramsor
• 1927 Shipley
• 1934 Selby
• 1940 Wakefield
• 1948 Aireborough
• 1952 Sandbach
• 1961 Bispham (Sup)

References

Methodist Minutes 1971/181

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers