WEDDELL, Walter Sydney 1881 - 1951

Obituary from the Minutes of the Methodist Conference 1952, page 124

Born at Bradford in 1881, but most of his early life was spent on Tyneside. He was accepted as a candidate for the Wesleyan Methodist Ministry from the Gateshead, Bensham Road, Circuit in 1902.

After three years at Headingley College, his first two circuits were as far apart as Lerwick and Devonport, but most of his ministry afterwards was in industrial and mining areas of North-East England, Lancashire and Yorkshire.

There he was completely at home with the people whose daily life he understood so well.

His kindness, sympathy, cheerfulness and manliness, together with his gift of humour, made him a very welcome visitor in the homes of our people, who remember him with affection and gratitude.

He had the gift of ready speech, and preaching was a joy to him throughout his life.

His reading covered a very wide range, and his exceptional memory enabled him to use the fruits of his reading in his vigorous, interesting and stimulating sermons.

His deep love for his Church was linked with a delight in Methodist history and biography.

In his circuits he was a loyal colleague, and an able superintendent. He was a shrewd observer of men and things, and formed his own judgement upon them.

Beyond all else he was a man of sterling character, to whom the service of Christ and His Church was the dominant passion of his life.

Ill-health compelled him to retire from the active work in 1950, and he passed away on 24th September 1951, in the seventy-first year of his age, and the forty-seventh of his ministry.

©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 1952

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