Lakin, Thomas Mansfield (1850-1916)
Early years
Thomas was born on 16 July 1850 at Newhall, nr Burton on Trent, Derbyshire.
Thomas began work in a brickyard at the age of nine and the following year went to work in a coal mine. Thomas attended night school to improve his education, and after becoming a member of the Church when about twenty, he put himself under private tuition with the village schoolmaster. Soon after becoming a Church member, Thomas was appointed as a local preacher.
Ministry
After his time at Frome and Radstock, Thomas accepted a call to be superintendent of the Sailors’ Mission in Swansea, still retaining membership of the PM Church. After three and half years he re-applied to Conference for stationing within the PM Church.
While at Worthing, Thomas built a new church and school in the centre of the town. Unfortunately, on completion of the new buildings, a typhoid epidemic broke out, resulting in thirteen hundred cases and three hundred deaths. Thomas had five cases in his own family and his eldest son died.
His obituary records that Thomas was an able minister of the New Testament. As a pastor he excelled, and was always welcome in the homes of the people. He thoroughly and conscientiously attended to the minutest details of his circuit work.
In July 1915, he went to the Chinnor station very much exhausted by his strenuous services at Blandford as circuit minister and military chaplain. He hoped that the change of air would restore his health and vigour. This proved not to be the case as, in November 1915, he was struck down by a malignant ailment.
Family
Thomas married Ann Merry (1855-1922) in the summer of 1879 at Lichfield, Staffordshire. Census returns identify four children.
- Annie Ava (1880-1965)
- John Thomas (1882-1893) – died of typhoid
- George William (1884-1959) – an advertising specialist (1911)
- Emily (1886-1960)
Thomas died on 21 May 1916 at Thame, Oxfordshire.
Circuits
- Sunderland
- 1875 Hereford
- 1876 Pillowell
- 1878 Monmouth
- 1879 Frome
- 1882 Radstock
- 1883 Bristol
- 1884-7 not shown
- 1888 Merthyr
- 1891 Worthing
- 1895 Kingstone
- 1901 Ellesmere
- 1904 Uttoxeter
- 1908 Winster
- 1912 Blandford
- 1915 Chinnor
References
Primitive Methodist Magazine 1915/170
PM Minutes 1916/279
W Leary, Directory of Primitive Methodist Ministers and their Circuits, 1990
Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers
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