A PROLIFIC PARENT OF CIRCUITS

And now we have arrived at that wonderful parent of circuits, North Shields: mother of Newcastle and its progeny, Blyth and its offshoots, Berwick and its children, and Seaton Delaval—fourteen in all! Greater honour rests on few places in the Connexion. What a territory it was, even after it shed the Newcastle area in December, 1823. About that time it was the missioner of tracts of Northumberland which are connexionally blank to-day—Alnwick on the main highway, but also penetrating into the interior as far as Longhorsley, Wingate, Kirkwhelpington, Middleton, and Hartburn. Just a month before his death in March, 1824, George Wallace was on the latter “round,” and walked seventeen miles amid rain and snow. “There were great mountains, and crags, and burns to go over,” he said, “which sometimes nearly exhausted my strength.” He says his toil that day reminded him of the first Methodist missionaries.

But we are before our tale. While on a visit to his Newcastle friends in the autumn of 1821, William Clowes went down to North Shields, and preached to a large congregation in the open-air. In the January following, Joseph Peart, a schoolmaster and a Wesleyan local preacher, wrote a letter to Mr. Clowes, while he was in the Darlington branch, inviting him to go to North Shields to establish a cause there. How he came to write the letter, Mr. Peart tells about three years after he himself had become a Primitive Methodist travelling preacher. He says:—

“One day I was alone in my room, studying how I could best glorify God in supporting His blessed work; for there had frequently been antagonists to great outpourings of the Holy Spirit, even among the professed members of the church. They could not endure the natural result of such visitations, but looked upon it as wildfire, confusion, enthusiasm, etc. I had a very strong debate with a professor of the dead languages, who, as well as myself, belonged to the society of Old Methodists. While contending with him in vindication of the rationality and great utility of such a work as had been effected in North Shields (about five years previous to that time) by an extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Ghost, he (by way of derision) said: ‘You should have been a Ranter.’ It powerfully wrought on my mind, as I sat in the room, that it was my indispensible duty to send for the ‘Ranters’ (so called). The circumstance was very singular, for I had never heard, nor never seen, any of them. ‘I was not disobedient to the heavenly call,’ but wrote for William Clowes, who shortly arrived at our house, and stopped till the cause got established.”

In a schoolroom belonging to a Mr. Webster, at the low part of the town, William Clowes began his mission in North Shields on Sunday, February 3rd, 1822. Next day a class was formed. Joseph Peart’s name was put down first, and Mr. Clowes appointed him “to lead some more that followed, viz., William Summersides, who stood the test, and S. H., who failed.” It was a feeble start, yet out of that little class two became prominent evangelists in the North of England, and William Summersides afterwards had the honour of being one of the first batch of Primitive Methodist missionaries sent to the United States by the Conference of 1829, and lived to become a Bishop of the American Episcopal Church. On two Sundays following Clowes preached in North Shields with telling effect, when he joined other nine members to the original class, and formed another class on the third Monday at the upper end of the town.

Speedily thereafter Hull quarterly meeting (March) determined to send three missionaries into Northumberland, and John and Thomas Nelson were the colleagues of William Clowes. In August about seventy members were in the two classes, and the work increased in the town and country, notwithstanding the severity of the weather during the winter of 1822-3, when the roads were blocked with snow-drifts and the coast was strewn with wrecks. On the early morning of March 3rd, 1823, William Clowes and the Brothers Nelson had a narrow escape. They met at North Shields for the purpose of attending the preparatory quarterly meeting, and were the guests of Dr. Oxley. After having been in bed for a while, Clowes was awakened by the noise of the wind, which had risen to a perfect hurricane. Scarcely had he dressed, when a stack of chimneys crashed through the roof and broke in the floors. When he and his alarmed companions made for the stairs, they found them blocked by the fallen roof. They managed to escape, however, as did also the doctor and his family.

“Three hundred and seventy increase this quarter in North and South Shields branches—in all 681. It was proposed that North Shields branch should be made into a circuit. The work in these parts is more promising than ever.” Such is the note William Clowes makes respecting the preparatory meetings. It meant that Percy Main, Howdon, Newcastle, Gateshead, Morpeth, Blyth, Newbiggin, and the villages within that radius had been evangelised by North Shields, and it meant also the formation of many flourishing societies. The circuit was formed, and included, as has been previously stated, Newcastle and its western societies until December of that year, when the northern metropolis became an independent station. By that time the membership was nearly eight hundred, and there were seven preachers on the ground. Jeremiah Gilbert had arrived in the July, and that was the month—20th day—when the far-famed camp meeting was held on Scaffold Hill, near Benton Square. Thousands attended. Seven travelling preachers took part in it—the Nelsons, Gilbert, Spencer, Wallace, Shaw, and Baker—and a number of local preachers, exhorters, and prayer-leaders. It was a blustering, wet day, but “the work of the Lord went on well.” In the morning sinners fell down before preaching began, and several were set at liberty in the afternoon. A lovefeast was held in the open-air in the evening, and a few penitents found the Lord. Over twenty souls professed conversion that day; and the Benton Square society of the present time counts it a high honour that that historic event occurred in its neighbourhood.

Union Street Chapel, built on the side of the hill, was secured from the Wesleyans early after the Primitives obtained a footing in North Shields. Jeremiah Gilbert described it as “a noble chapel,” Mr. Kendall thinks another adjective might have been more appropriate, and Mr. Dent has not a good word to say for it. “The main peculiarity was that the Sunday School was over the chapel, and the preachers’ houses actually under it.” That is how John Hallam puts it, and he was born in one of the houses. It was heavily burdened with debt, and in 1836 Mary Porteus had to be sent “through Yorkshire, Lincoinshire, and elsewhere where Providence might direct her” to collect funds. From 1849 the debt was tackled earnestly, but it was not until 1861, when Thomas Smith was superintendent for the second time, that Saville Street Chapel was built. At no time in its history was Primitive Methodism in North Shields on such an elevated plane, as when Thomas Smith, C. C. McKechnie, Ebenezer Hall, Robert Clemitson, and H. B. Kendall travelled there in the swinging sixties.

Mr. McKechnie had been in the circuit before, when its borders were wider. He had gone shortly after the 1844 strike, by which the societies between the Tyne and Blyth had been reduced to mere skeletons of their former selves. Many of the “sacrificed” men were officials in the Primitive Methodist societies, and had been compelled to seek work elsewhere or turn to some other calling for a livelihood. “Religion had done much in the colliery villages in awakening a sense of manhood, which made the servitude in which they were bound galling to many, and they sought by combination to improve their condition.” They failed in 1844, and other attempts failed. So we speak. Were not the foundations thus laid in blood of the huge superstructure of unionism afterwards reared? Joseph Spoor was in the circuit when the disastrous conflict was proceeding, and his references to it give a glimpse of the appalling havoc and distress. For two or three years previously there had been steady progress in the circuit, and Moses Lupton had rejoiced in being able to report an increase of 187 members in two years. So valiantly did Messrs. Lightfoot and McKechnie face the repairing of the wreckage that in 1846 the circuit was actually able to take an additional preacher.


DAYS OF CONQUEST

It was a different circuit Mr. McKechnie returned to sixteen years afterwards. The change in the position, habits, and intelligence of thousands of the Northumbrian miners and the inhabitants of the riverside towns was extraordinary. Men of strength were at the front. Good men like Stephen Knott, W. Grieves, John Foster, and James Hall had done their work amid trial and reverse. The sixties and seventies saw another type dominant: John Spence, who was a trapper boy at Percy Main at nine years of age, and was Mayor of North Shields before he died; Thomas Smith, intensely religious, strong in mind and in passion; Ralph Walton, intellectual, an able preacher; Joseph Salkeld, the healthy-minded, sunshiny Christian; Benjamin Hall, the metaphysical cobbler, a genuine man; Richard Raine, the renowned camp meeting singer. These were specimens, closely allied with whom, and becoming prominent in the years following, were Thomas Nightingale, trim in person, quick in action, lofty in thought, brilliant in imagination, poetic in soul, with his sudden flashes of humour, and a master hand before a great popular audience or at a camp meeting; John Barnard, the winsome man and winsome preacher; John H. Joplin, efficient in many directions, a life crammed with fruitful service, self-effacing, generous, beloved for his own sake—thank God, he is still alive; J. Grant, the kindly patriarch of Percy Main; Adam Rutherford, the hospitable, for many years circuit steward; the Jewels, the Thompsons, the Nicholsons, and others which may be named hereafter.

Mr. McKechnie’s superintendency of North Shields Circuit was a period never to be forgotten. The impression he made upon the political and literary circles of the town, as well as upon the churches, was considerable. For several years prior to his term conversions had been taking place in Shields and in the country places; indeed, an extensive work of grace occurred in 1858, when Thomas Southron was superintendent. It was at an ordinary service, on a Wednesday evening, in the autumn of 1867, that the first great manifestation of saving power was witnessed in the revival which spread through the circuit. Saville Street schoolroom was full, and when Mr. McKechnie had done preaching he thought that the words he had spoken had been forceless and inappropriate. Yet, scarcely had the prayer meeting commenced, than anxious seekers after God began to find their way to the penitent form. Among the seventeen penitents that night was his own daughter Kate. A colleague gives this description of one of “the usual Friday night prayer meetings” which Mr. McKechnie was planned to conduct:—

“To use the old term, there was an unction in the opening prayer that lifted us up to the ‘heavenly places.’ . . . There were alternations of singing and prayer, such as you only hear on occasions like this, blended with strong crying and tears, and shouts of salvation from I know not how many. . . That night every form was a penitent form. I had seen my friend in positions of honour, or on the platform where he swayed a host of people, as the wind sways the trees of the wood, or in the pulpit when in the mood he preached in power, or in debate, or in company, where I admired him, but never as on that night when I saw him stepping over form after form amongst the people struggling in the pangs of the second birth, pleading with them, striving to lead them into the way of peace, the falling tear bespeaking the intense sympathy of his heart, and anon the radiant expression of joy which lit up his countenance, and the exclamation of praise when the struggler realised his conscious acceptance with God. The spiritual birth-rate that night was high.”

The influence spread more or less over all classes in the town, and not a place in the circuit failed to share in the visitation. Times and again, as the weeks sped on, men and women by the dozen crowded the penitent forms. A rich harvest was gathered at Seaton Delaval, Cramlington, Dudley, Howdon, Cullercoats, and other places, as well as in North Shields; and the circuit’s numerical returns for 1868 and 1869 show an increase of six hundred members for the two years.

During the forty intervening years men of superior ability like John Hallam, John Watson, Hugh Gilmore, Henry Yooll, and Samuel Horton have laboured in the circuit, and left their impress. Saville Street society has still in Thomas Lowes (circuit steward), D. C. Hibbs, A. Hastie, the Elsdons, the Hamiltons, Fairless, Scott, Badger, Whitfield, Halcrow, and many more, a band of devoted workers. Inspired by the present superintendent (Ralph Laidler), a plot of land in the new district Preston way has been bought, and the trustees propose to build a church and schools there and a second chapel in the western part of the town when they dispose of Saville Street Chapel. The giving up of the Bull Ring Mission is deplored until this day. To Thomas Nightingale, Arthur Johnston, and other zealous men belong the honour of carrying on a beneficent enterprise in that locality, and a year before he went into the ministry James S. Nightingale devoted much of his leisure to the flourishing mission, where Thomas Campbell (of Sunderland) and Newton were converted.

Percy Main society was born in revivalism, and the evangelistic spirit hovers around it still, with the Grants, Halls, Telford, Barlow, Potts, Carr, Taws, and Hunter at the front. There were eighteen members there when William Clowes preached on Friday, August 2nd, 1822, and the first chapel was built in 1829. John Spence was the first scholar in the Sunday School, and became a member in 1830, when he was fourteen years of age. William Grieves was also among the first members, and was circuit steward for a time. The chapel was enlarged in 1867; but soon a better site was secured, on which a capacious schoolroom and class-rooms were built, and eventually the present church.

William Clowes preached at Howdon Pans in February, 1822, and had a congregation of about a thousand people. This was followed up by subsequent visits, and a society was formed. At this period Willington High Row, Willington Low Row, Willington Square, and Bigge’s Main possessed societies, and felt many a baptism of power. For many years Howdon society worshipped in dwelling-houses, but in 1840 it took up its quarters in the Temperance Hall, shortly after which the new era in the history of this mighty church opened, which has had giants of the capaciousness of Hudson, Salkeld, Hall, Raine, Heslop, Appleby, sen., G. Rutherford, and Heppell, together with Rimer, Forster, Crow, Davidson, Thompson, Cook, Stafford, Stoker, Heads, Stobbs, and others. In 1844 the chapel was built on the hillside, and what shining days were witnessed in that little sanctuary! There salvation came to such men as John Barnard, John H. Joplin, Adam Rutherford, N. Lee, W. Johnson, W. C. Forster, John Bell, J. Scorer, Wm. Proudlock, R. Dodds, J. Brown, T. Reed, J. Cubit, and many another valiant follower of the Lord Christ. What a record! The present fine church and schools (extended and beautified since) were opened on Easter Sunday, April 17th, 1881. The last service in the old place was conducted by the late Ben. Hall, who had then been identified with the society forty-one years. In the new house, near to the famous “Howdon Well,” Thomas Bolam, Batey, and others named and unnamed carry on a beneficent work.

On February 27th, 1823, Joseph Spencer preached to a large congregation, at Whitley, had a powerful time, and formed a society of ten members. A member named Henry Milburn, who joined the society in 1838, removed from Whitley to Seaton Delaval, and, in conjunction with John Forster, was the founder of the society there. All that sounds odd in these days, for Whitley Bay Church is the youngest born in the present North Shields Circuit. But Whitley was a colliery village before the modern town was ever dreamt of, and the society sometimes met there and sometimes at Monkseaton. For the most part the members would be miners, and the closing of the colliery would end the society of that period. At the latter end of the nineties, however, a few Primitives residing in the rapidly-rising seaside resort of Whitley Bay began services in the Assembly Rooms. In 1899 a site was secured in Oxford Street, on which an iron structure was then erected, and in 1904 a beautiful church was built. Most of the men who have served here with fidelity and success have been named in other connections, but special mention must be made of the valuable pastoral work of the venerable James Young.

Primitive Methodism had a feeble start in Cullercoats. A society of three members was formed in 1833, and the school was commenced by John Forster, a native of Corbridge, in 1838, in which work he laboured until 1872. The fisher folk were captured, and the society flourished. Originally the services were held in an old chapel jointly used by the Presbyterians, the Independents, and the Primitives; but in the end the latter were left in possession, and they rebuilt it in 1868. As the “fishermen’s chapel” its fame was known throughout the Northern counties. To hundreds of the summer visitors the services were a novelty. With the building of the present handsome church in 1900, and the acquisition of an organ, the musical part of the service underwent a marked change. Charles Young (son of the retired minister) succeeded in gathering a large and efficient choir, and, with Mr. Stapylton, an able organist, gave Cullercoats services quite a modern attraction. That the second minister (George W. Wellburn, B.A., who is even greater than his widely-extending popularity) resides there also counts for much. For many years John Jefferson has seen to it that the pulpit was well supplied, and there is barely a man of note in the Connexion he has not succeeded in drawing to minister in the popular resort. Families like the Taylors, Smiths, Lisles, and Dawsons have been for many years a tower of strength in the society. There are others now also taking a leading part, conspicuously Arthur Johnston and his family, Bowey, Hindmarsh, and Thwaites. Alec. Pettigrew, the eccentric, was a long time at Cullercoats.


HISTORIC BENTON SQUARE

Though it has had a varied experience, there is at Benton Square to-day a healthy little society, thanks to the loyalty of George Laverick and one or two others. Thomas Nelson is said to have been the first Primitive Methodist missionary who preached there. Robert Dawson gave the preacher a chair to stand upon, afterwards opened his house for services, and was a useful member until he died at the age of ninety-three. This has been one of the most fruitful causes to be found in the Connexion. A chapel was built in 1833, and it is stated that the first Bible for the “new chapel” was given by the father of the present Lord Joicey. The sanctuary was enlarged in 1904. Thomas, Matthew, and Ralph Dawson were active workers for many years. The Ralph Dawson who was styled “Aad Ralph” was known over a wide area. His daughter Mary is the wife of Thomas Johnson, of Backworth; her brother George is a member at Westmoor, and her brother Ralph at. Barrington. William Barrass and his family were also early connected with the society; James was converted there. The Johnsons, too—a notable family. Thomas, the father, was not a member, but his second wife, Martha, was, and each of his brothers Joseph, Robert, George, and Elijah, the latter being still alive at Bebside. Tommy Wanless and Matthew Lowther, other two remarkable men, were converted at Benton Square. The latter was the father of Alderman Edward Lowther, of Brighton. Though living at the Allotment, Peter Clarke was converted at Benton Square, and was soon sent into the ministry. James and Sarah Bell also lived at “the Square” usefully, and “dear old Willie Parker,” of the Hetton Circuit, was a local preacher there. There were the Bateys also, two of whom have done such good work at Backworth. Reverting back to the Johnson family, we have mentioned Thomas, the local preacher, of Backworth. Charles, another local preacher, died at Choppington in 1880; John sits in the House of Commons as Member for Gateshead, and Matthew, who is superintendent of Hetton Circuit, was prepared for the ministry by Dr. John Watson, who had Peter McPhail in hand at the same time. But there was another Johnson at Benton Square—at least, he was known all his life as William Johnson. His mantle of steadfastness fell upon George Laverick, and though the great exodus made the society feeble, it revived again, and is now living its cheery life. Men and women who made West Cramlington famous sprang from parents who had been trained at Benton Square. The flower of West Cramlington was transferred to Ashington when it came into view, and Ashington begat Hirst and the surrounding societies. Benton Square has thus exercised an enormous influence over a large number of societies and circuits.

Earsdon society is a delight—“a fruitful bough.” Joseph Dobinson, at one time a leader there of much intelligence, says Jeremiah Gilbert was the pioneer of the village Primitive Methodist church. The house in which John Lowes, jun., now resides occupies the site on which the dwelling stood where the pioneers held their services. The first society was formed in 1825, and in nine years a chapel was built at the bottom of the village. Among the early members at Earsdon were John Lowes, sen., Edward Dunn, and another named Short. Willie Forrest was the leading singer afterwards, and the cause got so low that he urged Lowes to close the doors. “ No, Forrest,” was the reply; “as long as the preachers will come, will I stand by the doors, and keep them open.” And the tide turned. Henry English, William Foster, James Hedley, J. U. Crone, and others joined the society. One of the greatest manifestations of saving power ever witnessed in the locality took place in 1857-8, when James Foggon was in the circuit. The present chapel and schools were built in 1886, and a further building extension cannot be long delayed. John Lowes lived to see his five sons and two daughters all become members, and their service has been the church’s enrichment. Joseph is steward of the society, and Thomas is steward of the circuit. Miss Bertram, another family of Hedleys, J. McCulloch, and others are worthy of all praise for the work carried on in that “hilt of blessing.” John Richardson’s sudden call has left a big blank.

Backworth society, known as East Holywell in the days that were, has had many seasons of power and salvation. Thomas Fairley, afterwards known as a conspicuous official in Sunderland, was one of the fruits of the 1829 revival. Three chapels have been erected in the locality—one in 1854, another in 1868, and the present one in 1901. It was in connection with the latter that a tea meeting was held down one of the Backworth pits, by which £35 was taken in aid of the new chapel funds. Preaching services were established at the Allotment and Murton by the first missionaries. Through the efforts of R. Prudhoe and others a brewery at the Allotment (discontinued in 1866) was obtained, and transformed into a chapel in 1868. Worship is continued there until this day. At Shiremoor a comfortable chapel was built in 1902.

There was a time in the history of North Shields Circuit when more than forty societies were counted within its area, including Morpeth, Alnwick, and Berwick. The last circuit which was an offshoot from North Shields was Seaton Delaval, and the parent circuit was left with nine preaching places, 425 members, and property reputed to be worth £5,000. There are now ten chapels, valued at £25,000, and 730 members.


ABUNDANT HARVESTS

At the December quarterly meeting of 1874, North Shields made Seaton Delaval and its adjacent societies into a new station, William Bowe being the first superintendent. Seaton Delaval, Cramlington, Dudley, Seghill, and Hartley have been favoured spots in the Kingdom of God. Close about the year 1840, as we have seen, Henry Milburn and John Foster raised a society at Seaton Delaval. After the 1844 strike rapid progress was made, a chapel being built ere twelve months had gone past, and Matthew Richardson tells that there were 150 members in 1849. Men of mental and moral stamina gave force to the church, and the outward and visible sign of its progress to-day is the large sanctuary and school premises and the comfortable manse which stand by the side of the main road.

Here as elsewhere in their struggles to better their conditions of labour, some good Primitive Methodists were called upon to suffer severely. A glaring instance of how men were “marked” took place in 1859. Galled by a succession of petty tyrannies, some of the more impetuous of the men decided to strike, and the pit was thrown idle without notice having been given, though the rash act was opposed by the more intelligent and leading men of the colliery. Nine of the best men in the village were arrested, taken before the magistrates, and eight of them sent to Morpeth gaol for two months. Wilson Ritson, Alexander Watson, Thomas Wakenshaw, Amos Hetherington, Henry Bell, Robert Burt, Anthony Bolam, and Edward Davis were the victims— every man a teetotaler, six of them Primitive Methodists, and two of the six local preachers. When remonstrated with for selecting for prosecution respectable men who had opposed the strike, the manager callously answered: “I know they are respectable men, and that is why I put them in prison. It is no use sending those to gaol who cannot feel.” When Robert Burt (uncle of Thomas Burt, M.P.) was arrested he was kneeling by the bedside of his dying wife, and the prison experiences of Henry Bell left their mark upon him in a weakened body all his life afterwards. But several of the “gaol birds,” as they were called—the case of Anthony Bolam, now living at Newsham, is a striking example—lived to become capable and trusted officials at the same colliery from whence they had been haled to prison.

Of the other men of note at Seaton Delaval, the saintly, though eccentric, Tommy Gleghorn was widely known. He and “Jimmy Hepplewhite”—a toy soldier, with which he used to collect for the chapel—were familiar in all the colliery villages round about. Then there were John Bruce, Thomas Bower, William Robinson, William Ovington, Edward Sanderson, James Sanderson, John Ramsay, and Robert Baxter. John Roseby and John Carter are yet alive, and can tell of the marvels of grace wrought through the instrumentality of Robert Wheatley and others during the years, as can also J. A. Grainger, who has served long and well in the ministry.

Death, migration and emigration sapped the Cramlingtons, but Old Cramlington rose again, having now at its head Burrell, Endean, Trenberth, Bell, and Smith. It was first missioned quickly after the early preachers got a footing in the region, and John Grieves had a class of intrepid men and women, whose strenuous work told upon the village. William Bell, too, gave his life for the people of Cramlington. The colliery owners built the Primitives a chapel, which they held free of rent until they erected one for themselves. Old Cramlington has the high honour of having had much to do with the missioning of New Zealand. William Harland started the idea at an exciting missionary meeting held there in November, 1843, and proposed that the mission should be supported by the Sunday School teachers of the Connexion. An approving resolution was carried, and it caught hold of the Connexion in such a way that the same year (1844) which saw Joseph Long and John Wilson sent to South Australia, witnessed Robert Ward, whose name will never die, set sail for New Zealand. Of the many visitations from on high which have lifted souls from dejection and depravity at East Cramlington, one occurred in 1875, when James Young preached the anniversary sermons, and when thirty-nine souls professed conversion in one night. Conversions had taken place in the fortnight preceding, when George Warner was there, and they continued afterwards.

When Christopher Gregory arrived at West Cramlington from the Allotment in 1838, he found no society there, so he opened his house for worship. From that initial step grew a church which has had a far-reaching influence. A chapel was built in 1850, after a powerful revival—and it was not the first—and soul-saving went on in the new sanctuary. Young men, who afterwards rose to distinction in their craft and in reforming work, were gripped in mind and soul by “the hand of the Lord.” Said an octogenarian minister not long ago:—

“There was a group of places which contained the finest specimens of Christian human nature I ever came across. West Cramlington was the centre of the most vigorous, intelligent, and spiritual societies I ever beheld. Jim Barrass, as I have seen him on his knees, especially at a Coble Dene camp meeting! And there was William Crawford! West Cramlington had some rough young men in it, but the influence of William Crawford was remarkable. He was a king amongst them, and the power he exercised over them, though he never obtruded it, was marvellous. A man of superior gifts of mind, of much suavity, and full of fire, he was altogether a great force.”

The Lowthers, Crawfords, Campbells, Cloughs, Gregorys, Absaloms, Wanless, and John Ramsay took a leading place in all good works. J. G. Harbottle, J. Absalom, Milburn, and D. Hopkins are among the chiefs to-day.

In its early life Dudley society was feeble, but some fine souls went to live there, and the work of the Lord revived amazingly. Such were John Bell and his saintly wife, parents of the late James Bell, who was a Vice. President of the Conference; B. Creigh, George Bell, Robert Grieves, M. Jackson, J. Wright, G,. Purdie, J. Cherey, G. Hall, G. Wilson, J. Askew, J. Ross, and Henry Bell. The latter used to have as many as a dozen of the converts in his kitchen, teaching them to read and write. Robert Grieves, as overman of the colliery, was of invaluable service when the chapel was built in 1865. Burradon has had heavy trials. The disastrous explosion of 1856, when seventy-two men and boys were suddenly hurled into eternity, and when the heroic Robert Jefferson, one of the rescuers, was overpowered with the foul air and died, depleted the society. All the trustees and many of the members were among the victims. There was a good society in 1884, when Thomas Stoddart and Joseph Johnson (now of Lemington) were the chief figures in it, but the strike of 1887 and the closing of the pit for two years scattered the people. A better day dawned, however, and the work went forward again. A healthy influence has been exerted by the Primitives at Bates’ Cottages. The Knox family did much to found this church, being zealously assisted by Joseph and Robert Johnson and their families, while the service of Ralph Smith and Matthew Davey has been valuable.

Soon after the first missionaries visited the district a cause was established at Seghill, and the colliery owners helped the members to build a chapel in 1838-9. The prominent original members were William English, John Alexander, D. Fanterrow, John Nicholson, John Parkin, Joseph Humble, Charles Stephenson, and his wife, and Thomas Davidson. The 1844 strike played havoc with the society, and for many years they worshipped in an inconvenient place. The arrival of T. Dunn, the colliery engineer, from Eston, in 1896, however, gave the society a new impulse, and the present excellent premises were built in 1901, costing £853, and are now debtless. A long list of useful men and women have been (and some are still) connected with Seghill: Peter Burt, J. Wanless,, Hayes, Harrison, the Davidsons, Austin, Hogg, the Dobinsons, Graham, Leek, Brown, Wake, Redalph, the Soulsbys, the Richardsons, Telford, Moore, Graham, Symington, Holmes, Nutter, Carr, and Morton.

Hartley, Hartley Pans, and Seaton Sluice Glass Works have an interesting past. “Old Nanny” Smith was a fervent sister of repute at Hartley, and James Long and G. Gleghorn have since been honoured names in the church there. But Hartley cannot be named without the fatal day in January, 1862, coming to mind, when, by the breaking of the ponderous shaft of the pumping engine, 204 men and boys were entombed in the pit, and not one was got out alive. Ten toilsome days passed before the bodies were reached; and, as showing the power of religion to sustain in a situation so terrible, there was found on the body of the backoverman a note, roughly pencilled on a piece of paper, which ran:—

“Friday afternoon at half-past two.

“Edward Armstrong, Thomas Gladston, John Hardy, Thomas Bell, and others, took extremely ill. We also had a prayer meeting at a quarter to two, when Tibbs, Henry Sharp, J. Campbell, Henry Gibson, and William U. Palmer [exhorted]. Tibbs exhorted us again, and Sharp also.”

Four of those mentioned as having exhorted were Primitive Methodists. William Tibbs was a classleader at New Hartley, and Henry Sharp a chapel steward at Old Hartley. Joseph Humble, an esteemed member, was under-viewer of the colliery when the catastrophe occurred. Jeanie Patterson was a vigorous soul at the beginning of New Hartley society, and the chapel built in 1885 has been made a centre of moral and spiritual life. The new Seaton Sluice has also an enterprising cause, nor should mention of the push at Annitsford and Station Terrace, Cramlington, be omitted. To the energy of Ralph Dixon the latter owes a place of worship, and the Urwin family, now of Whitley Bay, contributed much to the success of the church.

There are 503 members in the circuit, and the church property is valued at £10,784. John Carter is circuit steward, and J. Burrell finance secretary. In recent years M. Dobinson, J. W. Collingwood, and others have gone into the ministry from this circuit.


“PORT CARBON”

Blyth (“Port Carbon,” as it has been called), is the product of the growth of the coal trade in East Northumberland. Few were its inhabitants when William Clowes preached there on February 5th, 1822, but he thought there was “an opening for the work of the Lord.” He was confirmed in his opinion when he was again in Blyth in the summer, this time having John Nelson as his companion. To Joseph Jefferson, of Cowpen Square, is given the credit of having been the first to open his house to accommodate the few members forming the infant society; then a room in the Grey Horse Inn was secured, and afterwards a blacksmith’s shop, but the cause waned and died. In the early thirties it was resuscitated, and in 1835 a chapel was built. For a few years all went well, but the great strike cast its pall over the society, and bitter feuds followed, which even frustrated the efforts of Joseph Spoor, who was in the town twelve months. Again the cause failed, and the chapel was lost. Little time, however, had elapsed before another society was raised; in fact, it is doubtful whether the Sunday School, opened in 1833, had ever been relinquished, its last removal up to 1852 (says a report then published, signed by George Davison), was to “the new commodious school’ room, underneath the new chapel.” From thence a new complexion was given to the entire district by the springing up of new collieries.

The society and congregation in Blyth grew amain, and it and other Societies were made into a branch of North Shields Circuit in 1856, with 144 members, whose total quarterly contributions amounted to £8 18s.1d. By 1864 the branch was made into an independent station, James Jackson and John Nicholls being the first ministers. The membership was then 297, and the quarter’s revenue £31 18s. 34d. A dozen years later, when the third minister was engaged, there were 939 members, and the quarterly income was £94 1s. 5d. Amble and other’ places were made a branch in 1893, with 103 members, and two years later Ashington Circuit was constituted. This left Blyth station with 555 members, and in 1908 the number on the roll was 713. The present church at Cowpen Quay was built during the superintendency of John M. Dawson, but so extensive have been the additions, alterations, and improvements since then that the original has disappeared. W. Hindmarsh and J. G. Ogle are the circuit stewards, and R. P. Clark is the society steward at Cowpen Quay. But there is a second church in Blyth to-day, and Coburg Street, with its hundred members and R. Grant as its steward, has a rosy future. Primitive Methodism, with such men as Adam F. Pickering, W. Dawson, George Bailey, R. Dodds, the Bakers, Charlton, the Colpitts, T. Mason, W. Scott, James Elliott, Lee, and many more, in addition to those already named, has been a force in Blyth.

The ministry of James Jackson, John M. Dawson, Henry Yooll, sen., Adam Dodds, John Snaith, Robert Clemitson, M. A. Drummond, J. Ritson, Hugh Gilmore, Robert Hind, J. A. Grainger, J. W. Allison, A. J. Campbell, T. Robson, and M. T. Pickering was fruitful. R. G. Graham and M. Johnson were each twice in the circuit, and witnessed days of the Son of Man and of power. What is called “the great revival,” however, took place in 1867-8, and which continued in the circuit for more than a year, upwards of four hundred souls being added to the church.

Bedlington, Netherton, Bebside, and Shankhouse are notable societies in this circuit. The first class at Shankhouse was formed in 1848, and Henry English was appointed to lead it. In 1865-6 there was a great influx of miners from Devon and Cornwall into the Cramlington district. Many of these were religious men, and not long afterwards a powerful revival took place. In less than four years the Wesleyans, Primitives, and Free Methodists had comfortable chapels in the village. For twenty years the Shankhouse Primitives were noted for their religious fervour and enthusiasm in temperance work. Several young men from this village have become ministers—W. Cann, James Polwarth, and the popular William Younger, of Harrogate; J. H. Cann, another youth, became a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. Two women of strong personality in Shankhouse’s heyday — Bessie Younger (William’s grandmother) and Betty Robinson—are named with enthusiasm until now. Then there were the Grieves, Wrights, Canns, Doneys, Braunds, Stanburys, Forsters, Dawsons, Phillips, Ailsop, Easton, Shaw, Farthing, Symons, and Rowe. Representatives of the families are still there. The disastrous strike of 1887 brought Shankhouse down from being the most powerful society in the circuit to a struggling cause; but it must never be forgotten that it is practically the parent of the flourishing interest at the new colliery of Hartford, and that it has given sons who have exercised extraordinary power in this and other lands.

Bebside is an old society, and it is claimed for this village that in the later seventies and early eighties it was “the intellectual hub of the district.” It was here that Charles Fenwick, who was born at Cramlington, was sent to work at the pit-bank at nine years of age, and it was here he worked “at the face” until he laid down his pick to contest Wansbeck Division of Northumberland, when that constituency was created in 1885. He won the seat splendidly, and the division has had no other member. “If my life has been in any degree a success,” Mr. Fenwick said recently, “I owe it all to the providence of God, and my early and continued connection with the Primitive Methodist Church.” There are many other men, such as John Foster, who did a good work at Bebside.

West Sleekburn, Cambois, Barrington, Newsham, and New Delaval have all been sweetened by the savour of the gospel through Primitive Methodist agency. Ald. Reavley, ex-Mayor of Jarrow, remembers Thomas Burt’s father preaching in his parents’ cottage at Newsham. That was before the miners pulled down the disused “pig crees” to build the chapel. New Delaval had the last years’of the zealous Thomas Davison, and was lifted up in status by the advent of the Pickering family. West Sleekburn, where the veteran Robert Grieves resides, has shown its enterprise in chapel building which speaks well for future endeavours. Splendid trophies of grace have been won at all the collieries, and Barrington, where Ralph Dawson has been a pillar in the church for over forty years, has shared in the blessing, in spite of serious adversities.

Netherton has been the spiritual birthplace of a band of men of whom any church might be proud. It was a feeble cause in 1852, when the services were held in the cottage of Martin Middleton, and when John Bell (afterwards of Dudley), George Pringle, Robert Hepplewhite, and Daniel Robinson began a Sunday School. Bedlington was then the head of the northern part of North Shields ,Circuit, and the preacher stationed there in 1854 was Thomas Carrick. Then Netherton chapel was built. Conversions followed the opening of the sanctuary, among the first being the well-known Henry Pringle, of Chester-le-Street; Robert Wheatley, the conspicuous evangelist; and W. E. Nicholson, who died in the autumn of 1908 at Consett. Revival work was “the meat and drink of the people”; and William Walton, Daniel McKinley (who afterwards became a travelling preacher), James Barrass, William Postgate, and other men of grit and soul going there to reside, Netherton was a centre of evangelistic power. Robert, Walton (William’s cousin) was converted when he was seventeen years of age, and in 1877 he went from Netherton into the ministry. The closing of the pit put a stop to the brilliant career of the society, and for years it was a desolate place. George Randall, who had arrived in the village with his family in 1890, got the chapel re-opened; and since the pit has been again started, a healthy society and prosperous school have been gathered.

Jeremiah Gilbert was in all probability the first Primitive Methodist missionary to visit Bedlington. Cosens, the coloured preacher, held services in the Old Hall, once a place of some importance, and in which, it is said, King, John dined. Sir David Gooch, who laid the Atlantic cable, was born at Bedlington, his father being a clerk at the once celebrated ironworks there. A new chapel was built in 1828, and the work of God progressed. Some fine men and women were nurtured in the chapel, but the stoppage of the ironworks brought evil days upon the society. James Elder Davison, who lived until February 3rd, 1892, went through all the stress. He was a local preacher fifty-eight years, and at his jubilee meeting James Barrass, John Wood, Thomas Wanless, John Ramsay, and Robert Clough (Cramlington) joined hands with him on the platform, and sang, “Now here’s my heart and here’s my hand.” The event is still spoken of with emotion. The prosperity of the coal trade has made Bedlington a populous centre, and not only is there a fine church and schools in the old village, but also an excellent suite of premises and a vigorous society and Sunday School at Bedlington Station. Beginning with James Baxter, John Davison (son of the veteran James), John Foster, and Ralph Moralee, all at the top of the plan, there are about a dozen local preachers in the two societies, not a few of them men of distinct individuality.

In 1845 William Gleghorn, a native of Blyth, went to be a travelling preacher, but he broke down in 1848, and died in 1852, not before he had laid the foundations, however, of a useful society at Blyth. But there was another of the earlier travelling preachers who was born at Blyth, the able, judicious, affectionate and successful William Jefferson. To him the Connexion owes the song, “The Lion of Judah shall break every chain.” The cultured Nadin Jefferson is his second son.


“FELL-’EM-DOON”

Here is the simple record of the beginning by Thomas Carrick of what is now the head of a circuit which teems with life, and the whole story of which is one of the marvels of this industrial age and of evangelistic accomplishment

“In 1859 I missioned Fell-’em-Doon, afterwards called Ashington Colliery. At first I preached in the open-air, in one case to twelve men who were lying on the green playing cards and drinking whiskey; afterwards in a cottage house. It was almost impossible to get a house at the start, as there were so few; and then when one was secured, it was difficult to get anybody to go into it. But the work broke out, and kitchen, bedroom, and step-ladder were crowded.”