ROBINSON, John Harold 1883 - 1961

Born at Barton on Humber, Lincolnshire, in 1883. He came of a line of Methodist ancestors reaching back to the Evangelical Revival.

At an early age he felt a clear and unquestionable call to preach, and in preaching he always excelled. His eager, alert mind was ever seeking new truth; his reading was wide and his well-stored mind was evident whenever he spoke. To the work of preaching he gave all his powers, and he laboured to make the truth as it is in Jesus clear and compelling to his hearers.

He was trained at Richmond College, after a pre-collegiate year at Retford in 1905.

He later served in the following circuits : Crook, Sunderland Mission, Hartlepools, Barrow in Furness, Bradford, Bristol, Altrincham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bolton. Bradford and Cross Hills.

He became a supernumerary in 1953 and settled in Bradford, where he continued his ministry of preaching. In all his circuits he is remembered with affection.

He was a true pastor, a wise counsellor, a staunch friend and a true father in God not only to his people but to his colleagues and their families. He loved to meet his brethren at Conference, and took a deep and lively interest in all the life and work of the Methodist Church and of all its Departments. But he possessed the spirit of true catholicity, and longed to see the whole Church of Christ go forward to victory.

After some weeks of pain and increasing weakness he died on 24 November 1961, in the seventy-seventh year of his age and in the fifty-third of his ministry.

©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 1962