Sister Ruth, Evangelist

Thanks to Jane Richardson for the picture of Sister Ruth, Evangelist.  Was she another Sister of the People, the Primitive Methodist equivalent of the Wesleyan Deaconess movement?

There is a possible complication: the picture carries the words “Upper Denby, Huddersfield”.  Upper Denby is a small village some 11 miles from Huddersfield, and Ordnance Survey maps of 1903 show no Methodist chapel of any variety.  However, the 1929 map does show a Wesleyan Reform Methodist chapel, a group that chose not to join either the United Methodists in 1907 or the grand Union in 1932.  In 2016 on the site is a modernised residential  building carrying the datestones 1911 and 2012 Is she linked to that chapel, or did she simply come from the village?