Jones, Alfred (1877-1962)

Obituary from Minutes of the Methodist Conference

Born at Ellesmere, on the borders of Shropshire, in 1877. In 1901 he was accepted for a provisional year into the Ministry of the United Methodist Free Churches and was sent to Worcester.

He was denied the privilege of a college training but served faithfully in London, Litcham, Stonebroom, Camelford, Kingswood, Middlesbrough, Bury, New Mills, Ripley, South Shields, Bacup, Bristol, Derby, Haslingden and Birstall.

After forty-five years of devoted service as a circuit minister he became a supernumerary in 1948. The last twelve years of his life were spent at Bolton-le-Sands, where he exercised a tireless ministry of visiting in a growing community. and of preaching in the Lancaster and Morecambe Circuits.

He brought to his ministry outstanding gifts of administration to which were wedded a passionate love of people, an enquiring mind and a zeal for preaching.

He died as the result of an accident on 23 January 1962. within two days of his eighty-fifth birthday and in the sixtieth year of his ministry.

©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 1962

Family

Alfred was born in Ellesmere, Shropshire in 1877, to Stephen Jarrett and Ann Jones. His father was an agricultural labourer and then a well sinker

Alfred was employed as a servant to a butcher (1891) and then as a Free Methodist parson in Frome, Somerset (1901) before being accepted in to the United Free Methodist ministry.

He married Eliza Ann Ellwood (1883- ) during the third quarter of 1906 in Lancaster.  She became  known as Ida. They had four children.

• Richard Leslie (1907- )
• Marjorie Ellwood (1911- )
• Audrey Mavis (1913- )
• Albert Ellwood Eaton (1920- )

Alfred died on 23rd January 1962 in Bolton le Sands, Lancashire.

Circuits

• 1901  Worcester
• 1903  London VI
• 1905  Litcham
• 1906  Stonebroom (received into Full Connexion)
• 1908  Camelford and Wadebridge
• 1911    Kingswood
• 1912   Middlesbrough
• 1915   Bury
• 1919   New Mills
• 1923  Ripley
• 1928  South Shields
• 1932  Bacup
• 1935  Bristol South
• 1938  Derby
• 1941   Haslingden
• 1944  Birstall
• 1948  Oldham (supernumerary)
• 1949  Lancaster (supernumerary)

References

Oliver A Beckerlegge, United Methodist ministers and their circuits: Being an arrangement in alphabetical order of the stations of ministers of the Methodist New … and the United Methodist Church, 1797-1932

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers

Minutes of the Methodist Conference 1962 p205