LITTLE, Richard Ernest 1866 - 1950

Born at Castleford in 1866. He was educated at Pontefract Grammar School. After training at Richmond College, he commenced his ministry in the year 1893. He travelled in a number of circuits before ceasing, in 1925, to accept pastoral charge.

He would seem to have possessed the temperament conducive to itinerancy.

In 1938 he went to America, and after living in various places in North America settled in Bermuda.

His interests were various and his service wide. Whilst he enjoyed the peace attendant upon angling, he was more concerned about the peace of the world, and became a staunch supporter of the League of Nations.

He was a strong advocate of temperance. At one time he was Curator of Wesley’s House and the Museum attached. He possessed a gift for obtaining interviews with leading personalities, Mahatma Gandhi being one who received him.

For some years he acted as representative of the Methodist Times, attending, in this capacity, the Paris Peace Pact, Naval, Round Table, and World Disarmament Conferences.

In America he moved about lecturing and preaching. Amidst his various activities he never ceased to be an evangelist.

He easily won the friendship of others. He had abnormal faith in his fellow-men, and this, added to his charm, courtesy, and humour, endeared him to many.

He is remembered as an able and effective preacher, retaining his evangelical fervour to the end.

He enjoyed good health almost to the last, but it was undermined by a severe fall.

He died on 11th July 1950, in the eighty-fourth year of his age and the fifty-seventh year of his ministry.

©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 1950