Stamp, Ernest M.B.E. (1891-1970)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

ERNEST STAMP, M.B.E.: born in Northampton on 31 January 1891. He heard God’s call to the Mission Field at a missionary meeting in Bristol and entered Hartley College in 1914. His two years there were interrupted by a period of non-combatant war service and on leaving he became a Chaplain, serving in Palestine. After a year in Guildford and another year in Eastbourne he went in 1920 to Northern Rhodesia.

With the exception of a year each in Nelson and Scarborough (Jubilee), the next thirty-six years of his ministry were spent in Africa. For many of them, he lived in remote bush stations and enjoyed the necessity to undertake a wide variety of practical tasks in addition to his work of preaching and teaching. Much persuasion was needed for him to become Chairman, first of the Northern Rhodesia District and later of the Gambia District. In his later ministry, he led an interdenominational team of missionaries in the Copper Belt. 

He returned to England on retirement in 1956 and in 1957 was awarded the M.B.E. for his services in Northern Rhodesia. He spent the last years of his life at Sprowston, Norwich, and gave willing help in the St Peter’s Circuit. Through all his life he had an outstanding gift for friendship; and many remember not only his clear preaching but his care and graciousness in visitation. He showed courage in a long illness. 

He died on 18 September 1970, in the eightieth year of his age and in the fifty-fifth of his ministry.

Family

Ernest was born on 31 January 1891 at Northampton, Northamptonshire, to parents Charles Stamp, a shoe laster (1901), and Mary Ann Williams.

The 1911 census return records Ernest as a foreman’s assistant at a celluloid manufacturer.

He married Muriel Clare Venables (1895-1995) in the summer of 1920 at Leeds, Yorkshire. Muriel was a daughter of Rev. J.W. Venables.

Ernest died on 18 September 1970 at Sprowston, Norwich, Norfolk.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1917 Mission House
• 1919 Guildford
• 1920 Eastbourne
• 1921 N Rhodesia
• 1935 Nelson
• 1936 N Rhodesia
• 1942 Scarborough, Jubilee
• 1943 N Rhodesia
• 1956 Norwich (S)

References

Methodist Minutes 1971/164

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers