Woodcock, John (1825-1911)

Ministry

Petty records the following.

‘In 1847 we find the Hertford mission divided into two stations, Mr. John Woodcock being appointed to Hertford, and Messrs. J. Guy and E. Powell to Baldock. In November of that year Mr. Woodcock gave a distressing account of the state of morals in the county town, and in the neighbouring villages. “In Hertford,” he says, “there are eight places of worship, but the moral state of the people is awful. Often am I horror-stricken while passing through the streets on the Lord’s day, to see the manner in which the Sabbath is desecrated; grocers, butchers, bakers, gardeners, and fishmongers, are as actively engaged in business during the first part of the Sabbath-day as on any other day; and the authorities of the town actually countenance the evil.” “Many of the villages,” he adds, “have no means of grace, and but few of the inhabitants enter either church or chapel.” The number of members on his station had, however, increased about twenty from the time on which he entered upon it, and two additional chapels to preach in had been obtained.’

Family

John was born on 27 March1825 at Bridlington, Yorkshire, to William Woodcock and Mary Coupland. He was baptised on 7 June 1825 at Bridlington.

Census returns identify the following occupations for John.

• 1841 cabinet maker’s apprentice
• 1851 PM minister
• 1861 PM minister
• 1871 house agent
• 1881 estate agent
• 1891 estate and insurance agent
• 1901 estate agent
• 1911 retired estate agent

He married Mary Normandale (1829-1896) in the summer of 1850 in the Bridlington Registration District, Yorkshire. Census returns identify one child.

• John Willim Henry (1868-1944) – a timber merchant’s clerk (1891); a timber importer (1911)

He married Sarah Milner (1837-1915) in the spring of 1897 in the Sculcoates Registration District, Yorkshire.

John died in late 1911 at Hull, Yorkshire.

Circuits

• 1846 Brighton
• 1847 Hereford
• 1849 Edinburgh
• 1851 Clay Cross
• 1852 Nottingham S
• 1855 Mansfield
• 1857 Lincoln
• 1860 Nottingham II
• 1863 Derby
• 1864 disappears

References

J Petty, The History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion, 1880, p464

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

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers