Sellers, Ezra (1886-1954)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

EZRA SELLERS: born at Sheffield in 1886. After training at Hartley College he entered the Primitive Methodist ministry in 1909. Apart from a term at Kingston-on-Thames, he spent nineteen years in East Anglia. In 1928 he moved to the Nottingham District, in which he remained to the end of his ministry.

His wide knowledge and experience of the Church in this area made him a valued counsellor in District committees. He was an able administrator, and for several years he gave distinguished service as District Chapel Secretary and Secretary of the Synod. On inter-Church councils he could speak with authority for Methodism, and constantly worked for greater co-operation between the Churches. He was respected and loved both by his Anglican and Free Church brethren. A loyal Methodist, serving on the Methodist Union Committee, he was proud of the contribution which his own section made to the united Church. 

His sermons, quietly delivered, searched the soul, and were the fruit of deep thought and wide reading. Many found in him a warm-hearted and firm friend, and he loved the fellowship of his brethren. He had many interests. He was a keen sportsman and an ardent lover of good music. He took great delight in using his fine tenor voice in choral work. Becoming a supernumerary in 1950, he continued to exercise an effective ministry at the King’s Hall in the Nottingham Mission, and as Free Church chaplain to the Nottingham General Hospital. 

In failing health, he continued to preach and take an active part in District life. At his fireside and with a book in his hand, he passed away on 9th November 1954, at the age of sixty-eight and in the forty-sixth year of his ministry.

Family

Ezra was born on 30 May 1886 at Sheffield, Yorkshire, to parents George H Sellers, superintendent of collectors for London Friendly Society (1891), and Mary E.

He married Gertrude Ruth Benstead (1883-1952)) in the spring of 1913 in the Wandsworth Registration District, London. Birth records identify two children.

• Eileen Ruth (1915-1997) – an elementary school teacher (1939); married Bernard Francis Warren in 1945
• John Ezra (1923-1994)

Ezra died on 9 November 1954 at Ingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1909 Wickhambrook
• 1913 Kingston
• 1916 Docking
• 1920 Manea
• 1923 Wymondham
• 1928 Sutton & Kirkby
• 1935 Mansfield
• 1942 Nottingham S
• 1946 Nottingham E
• 1950 Nottingham (S)

References

Methodist Minutes 1955/125

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers