Webb, John Gordon (1897-1968)

Transcription of obituary published in the Minutes of Conference

JOHN GORDON WEBB: born at Marple, Cheshire in 1897. He commenced work as a Cabinet Maker. He started to preach at the age of sixteen, and after being accepted as a Candidate for the Ministry was trained at Hartley College. Subsequently, he served in the following Circuits: Crowle, Rochdale, South Yorkshire Mission, Rotherham, Pontefract, Walkden, Stroud & Cirencester, Blackheath & Langley Green, Winsford (Central), Lowton, Alfreton, Nantwich and Burland. He became a Supernumerary in 1964, retiring to Haslington and returning to the Village Church from which he was a Candidate and to the Circuit where he began preaching.

Until a few weeks before his passing he was preaching with great acceptance in his own Sandbach and Alsager and neighbouring Circuits. He was much loved by the members of the Baddeley (Bradeley) Road Society, Haslington where he was honorary pastor, a work which was very dear to his heart. 

In all of his Circuits he was the beloved pastor, gentle and faithful, patient and understanding. Often his very gentleness was his strength, as when on more than one occasion he successfully guided a Circuit through an amalgamation scheme. As a young man he studied logic, and he always felt that this lay behind his self-confessed love of tidiness, both in thinking and in administration, and he prepared his services with the same diligent care. His gracious humility endeared him to all. He was always so profoundly grateful that God had called him to the Ministry of His Church, that he never sought praise or adulation, but only hoped and prayed that he might be used to bring others into an experience of God’s Grace and Mercy. And far more often than he could have known or believed this humble man of God was used in just this way. 

Almost the last Service that he conducted was during the Centenary Celebrations of his own Church, and the inspired Sermon that he preached on that occasion will be remembered by that Congregation for a long time. He died suddenly on Easter Day 14 April 1968, in the seventieth year of his age and the forty-fifth of his ministry.

Family

John was born on 19 November 1897 at Marple, Cheshire, to parents Jonathan Webb, a domestic gardener (1911), and Leah Harris.

He married Eva Chapman (1900-1979) in the summer of 1927 at Thorne, Yorkshire.

John died on 14 April 1968 at Haslington, nr. Crewe, Cheshire.

Circuits

• Hartley
• 1923 Crowle
• 1925 Rochdale
• 1927 S Yorks Mission
• 1931 Rotherham
• 1935 Pontefract
• 1938 Walden
• 1941 Stroud &c
• 1945 Blackheath &c
• 1949 Winsford Central
• 1951 Lowton
• 1957 Alfreton &c
• 1961 Nantwich &c
• 1964 Sandbach (S)

References

Methodist Minutes 1968/197

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers