LAWSON, William Henry 1875 - 1949

Born in Barbados, West Indies, in 1875, where his father, the Rev. Thomas Lawson, was a Wesleyan Methodist missionary. He began to preach at the age of seventeen, and was accepted as a candidate for the Wesleyan Methodist Ministry in 1896.

After training at Handsworth College, he travelled for over twenty years in the London Districts, then in the Channel Islands and, later, in country circuits, north and south. His preaching was evangelical, and during his ministry he was successful in bringing many into membership.

He had a genius for friendship, and loved children and young people. An able administrator, he enjoyed tackling difficult tasks. His sense of humour often proved a great help in dealing with people. His last circuit was in the East Anglia District, where, as Superintendent of the East Suffolk Circuit, he lived at Southwold, on the East Coast, during three difficult and dangerous war years.

Here, in 1945, he became a Supernumerary and, in spite of failing health, he maintained a buoyancy of spirit and an amazing freshness of interest to the last. As a zealous and conscientious minister of Christ Jesus, he will be affectionately remembered by all who knew him.

He had a simple but firm faith in God, and in that faith he passed peacefully away on the 2nd November 1949, in the seventy-fourth year of his age and the fifty-first of his ministry.

©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 1950