Rev Henry Burn Clough

Henry Burn Clough was born in Thirsk, Yorkshire on 4 April 1849, the son of Henry and Mary Ann Clough. Although born into a Congregationalist family, Clough attended a Wesleyan private school in Sand Hutton where he ‘made his decision for Christ’. Henry was 16 when he began to preach.

Clough entered the Wesleyan Methodist ministry in 1872. His Conference obituary described him as being ‘deeply reverential’ and someone who ‘sought to inculcate a high conception of the sacredness of public devotion’.

An interesting glimpse of the of the worship led by Clough is given in the diary of Charlotte Bousfield. In October 1885 Mrs Bousfield noted her family attending a service at St Mary’s Wesleyan Methodist church led by Mr Clough. They were ‘more amused than impressed by the accompaniments of the worship in its imitation of Church forms beyond those to which they are accustomed.’ Bousfield’s examples are ‘Flowers on the Communion Table, intoning, Mr Clough leaving the pulpit & coming to the front of the communion rail to receive ‘the offertory’ & then pronouncing the Benediction at the foot of the pulpit stairs’. Mrs Bousfield notes that these are ‘all most unusual proceedings in a Wesleyan Chapel in these days,’

Returning from a preaching appointment in March 1905, Clough caught a chill. This turned into acute pneumonia and led to Clough’s death on 30 March 1905.

In 1876 Henry Clough married Mary Metherell Bowden. The Newcastle Evening Chronicle in its obituary of Clough mentions 11 children. Those children identified so far are:

Ethel Mary b 1879
Harold Henry b1883
Maurice Bowden b 1885
Bernard Metherell b 1887
Florence Maud b 1888
Dorothea Margaret b 1890
George Alwyn b 1892
Irene Gertrude b 1894
Francis O b 1896
Henry M b 1898

Sources and References
Census Returns; Birth, Marriage and Death Records
The Bousfield Diaries Volume 86 Bedfordshire Historical Record Society – Edited by Richard Smart
Ampthill & District News 24 June 1893
Newcastle Evening Chronicle 31 March 1905