SANDFORD, William Arthur 1876 - 1962

Obituary from the Minutes of the Methodist Conference 1962, page 199

Born in Lancashire in 1876. Both his parents died in his early years, and at the age of seven he worked in a cotton mill. Before he was twenty he would have been a sub-manager, but already his course was set.

He entered the Ministry in 1899, and after being trained at Handsworth College went to the Trichinopoly District in South India, where he gave magnificent service for thirty-three years. He knew Trichinopoly both before and after the wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Mass Movement at Dharapuram.

After decades of apparently unfruitful sowing, the harvest came like a flood. He was a great pioneer missionary and a most able District Chairman.

It is impossible to over-estimate how much the movement owed to his wise guidance and encouragement.  

His absolute impartiality, his sound judgement, his clear vision, and above all his deep spirituality, all worked to make him a leader for whom the Church in Trichinopoly will never cease to thank God.

In his ministry in England he served in Burslem and Newport. As a supernumerary, first at Round Green in Luton and later for many years in Dunstable, he continued to give fine service.

By his pulpit and pastoral ministry he exercised great personal influence in the villages of the Dunstable Circuit until 1957.

He died on 2 January 1962, in the eighty-sixth year of his age and the sixty-first of his ministry.

©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 1962

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