Young, Harry Edward (1896-1949)

Obituary from Minutes of the Methodist Conference

Born in London in 1896. He entered the United Methodist Ministry in 1923 and after training at Victoria Park, Manchester, served for twenty-five years. He was the founder, and for many years the organizing secretary, of the ‘ Overseas Friendship League ’ through which he promoted pen- friendships with people of different nationalities, especially amongst young Methodists.

He was the friend of many coloured men and women. His outstanding success, however, was as a circuit minister. He understood the importance of the ordinary routine of a circuit, and brought to it the power of a consecrated life. Every department had his interest, and he ministered to young and old alike.

As a pastor he was diligent and systematic. His instinctive sympathy, knowledge of psychology, and his ready help aided many a troubled soul. As an organizer he was painstaking and possessed initiative. He brought to his work the equipment of a cultured mind, was a painstaking student, and prepared conscientiously for his pulpit utterances. His sermons were thoughtful and forceful, and marked by freshness and light. There was much of the mystic about him, yet he did not withdraw from life. He gathered people together in prayer-circles so that they could share in the service of prayer.

His last circuit was Sheffield (Norfolk), where he was soon overtaken by illness. With singular courage he endured disappointment and intense suffering, rallying himself again and again in an effort to serve, but growing weaker and weaker until, after much pain, he ceased from his labours on the 22nd December 1949, in the fifty- third year of his life, leaving behind a great and treasured memory.

©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 1950

Family

Harry was born in West Ham on 20th November 1896, to George J. Young, a greengrocer (1901) then a worker in a soda works (1911), and his wife Harriet.

Harry was working as an assistant chemist when he joined the RAF in 1918.

He married Gertrude Adeline Colwell (1897-1954) during the 3rd quarter of 1929 in Conway Registration District. She was the daughter of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, Rev. R.H. Colwell. They had three daughters

• Joan M. (1930- )
• Rosalie M. (1932- )
• Kathleen M, (1935- )

Harry died on 22nd December 1949 in Sheffield.

Circuits

• 1923  Victoria Park College
• 1925  Shrewsbury
• 1927  Louth
• 1929  Yarmouth and Totland Bay (received into Full Connexion)
• 1933  Todmorden, Bridge Street
• 1940  Long Eaton
• 1949  Sheffield (Norfolk)

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

Ministers and probationers of the Methodist Church: formerly Wesleyan, Primitive and United Methodist ; with their appointments in chronological and alphabetical order … revised to the conference of 1936

Who’s Who in Methodism 1933 An Encyclopaedia of the Personnel and Departments, Ministerial and Lay in the United Church of Methodism

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers

Minutes of the Methodist Conference 1950 p 135