Ansdale, Jane (Mrs Suddards)
fl. 1820- ?

One of the earliest PM female itinerants, she worked tirelessly in the extensive Hull Circuit between 1820 and 1823, with Thomas Batty in Weardale, and elsewhere in the north-east. Many of her converts became local preachers and leaders. She married, probably in 1823, a fellow intinerant William Suddards, and they served in adjoining circuits until emigrating to the USA, apparently in 1829. 'A man of superior ability' who was 'not satisfied with fourteen shillings a week', he became an episcopalian minister, first in New York and then in Philadelphia, where he obtained a DD and became rector of Grace Episcopal Church.

Quotations

'The preacher's appearance, her voice, delivery and manner (so becoming her sex), her praying and singing, all combined to win attention and make the happiest impression; and the subject of her discourse and her mode of treating it, were alike interesting and profitable.'

(Primitive Methodist Magazine, 1882, p.525)

Sources
  • PM Magazine, 1882 pp.525-26
  • Joseph Ritson, The Romance of Primitive Methodism(1909) pp.143-45
  • William M. Patterson, Northern Primitive Methodism (1909), passim
  • E. Dorothy Graham, Chosen by God (1989), p.2

Occupations

Entry written by: EDG
Category: Person
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