Tubb, William Joseph (1887-1956)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

WILLIAM JOSEPH TUBB: born at Lydbury, North Shropshire, in 1887. Entered Hartley College from Kidderminster, to train for the Primitive Methodist Ministry, in 1911. 

He was a big man in every sense. His tall and impressive figure was paralleled by both mind and soul. So strong were his principles that his enunciation of them could be devastating. His enlightened conscience was always the determining factor for speech or action. His friendships and fellowships in college, rich though they were, had to be subordinated to the work he was there to do. He volunteered for the ranks in the first World War, and later became a chaplain.

He superannuated in his prime for the sake of his wife, and came back to the active work again after her death. Strength was his, without hardness, only kindliness; he loved, and laughed with, his people. But everyone knew where he stood, and if he were standing for His Lord he was immovable. Those whom he served will mourn, but thank God, for him. For through him, his word, his life, and his labours, God so often spoke to them. He travelled in many circuits and, particularly in Blackpool and Fleetwood, his memory will be cherished for a rich pastoral ministry, and a deep and sympathetic understanding of his people’s needs. 

To his colleagues his comradeship was precious, his friendship a prize to be won. A lover of books, his taste was catholic, and his mind, always ready and alert, was shaped to meet the challenges and changes of his time. He died on the 24th May 1956 in the forty-fifth year of his ministry and the sixty-ninth of his age.

Family

William was born on 13 February 1887 at Lydbury North, Shropshire, to parents William Edmund Tubb, a miller & farmer (1891), and Sarah Causer.

He married Sarah Jane (Jennie) Wilson, nee Jones (1878-1953) in the summer of 1915 at Newtown, Montgomeryshire. Birth records identify one child.

• Clifford Mervyn (1916-1998) – an industrial chemist (1956)

William died on 24 May 1956 at Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1911 Newtown
• 1913 Glasgow II
• 1915 Patrington
• 1916 Chaplain H.M. Forces
• 1919 Patrington
• 1920 Hull V
• 1924 Grimsny II
• 1927 Risca
• 1930 Blackpool N
• 1938 Fleetwood
• 1944 Backup
• 1947 Louth
• 1951 Bebington (S)

References

Methodist Minutes 1956/201

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers