Bultitude, Elizabeth
1809-1890

PM itinerant, born on 12 August 1809 into a WM family at Hardwick, Norfolk. Following her father's death, the fmily moved to Norwich. She was converted at a camp meeting on Mousehold Heath on 14 May 1826. She joined the PMs in 1829 and became an exhorter in March 1830, a local preacher in June and an itinerant two years later, working chiefly in East Anglia. She was remembered as having a 'large round rubicund face in a poke bonnet', for using 'ejaculatory prayers with many fervent repetitions' and as a stickler for propriety. On superannuating in 1862 she received an annuity and settled in Norwich, where she continued to preach and attend her class. She itinerated the longest and was the last of the PM female preachers, claiming that in thirty years she had only missed two appointments, both through stormy weather, had walked thousands of miles, preaching five or six times a week and up to five times on Sundays. She died after a long, painful illness on 14 August 1890. As the only female itinerant to 'die in the work' she alone has an obituary in the PM Minutes.

Sources
  • PMM, 1891 pp.564-5
  • Joseph Ritson, The Romance of Primitive Methodism(1909) pp.151-53
  • Donald C. Taylor, 'The Reverend Betsy', in East Anglian Magazine, October 1959 pp.703-5
  • E.D. Graham, Chosen by God(Bunbury, 1989) pp.7-8
  • Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church

Occupations

See also

Entry written by: EDG
Category: Person
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