Two Keeling brothers entered the WM ministry, followed by two further generations..

Isaac Keeling (1789-1869; e.m.1811) was born at Newcastle-under-Lyme on 12 February 1789. Though without outstanding oratorical skills, he was noted as an expository preacher. He was stationed in the Leeds (West) Circuit from 1826 to 1828 at the time of the Protestant Methodistsecession over the Leeds Organ Case and wrote pamphlets defending the Conference position, including A Letter to the Editors of the Leeds Mercury on the present unhappy dissentions of the Methodists in Leeds (1827). He was President of the Conference in 1855 and died at Ripon on 11 August 1869.

His son Enoch Bassett Keeling (1837-1886), born at Sunderland on 15 March 1837, an architect and surveyor of Stoke Newington, is mainly known for his high gothic Anglican churches in London; e.g. St. Mark's, Notting Hill (1862-1863) and St. Andrew's, Glengall Road (1864), as well as the Strand Music Hall. His WM chapels include North Street, Strood (1859), Richmond Road, Dalton (1864) and the refurbishment of the interior of St. John's Square, Clerkenwell (1868). He died on 30 October 1886 at Stoke Newington. His so, G.T. Keeling, was also an architect.

Ralph Ratcliffe Keeling (1796-1851; e.m. 1824) was married three times. His third wife, Sarah Stather Stamp (1799-1867), was the twin-sister of John Sundius Stamp. Widowed early, she raised four children of her own and three step-children, and with her sister Elizabeth Margaret Stamp, ran a small school in Barnsley. She was the mother of Edward Blanshard Keeling (1846-1916; e.m. 1870) and of the author Anne E. Keeling (1841-1918), among whose many titles was Eminent Methodist Women (1893). A grandson, George Blanshard Keeling (1887-1928) entered the ministry in 1913.

Entry written by: DCD
Category: Person
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