The Kendalls were PM farmers at Ashby (now part of Scunthorpe), Lincs, having moved there from Bishop Norton in the 1820s. Thomas Kendall (baptized 1 December 1788) at Waddingham, Lincs) was converted at Crosby by Hannah Parrott (later Mrs. Smith). He died at Ashby on 22 February 1854. Six of his ten sons and two grandsons entered the PM ministry.

Of the sons the most distinguished was Charles Kendall (1818-1882; e.m. 1839), born on 19 February 1818 at Bishop Norton, was initially apprenticed as a shoemaker. He was described byJoseph Ritson as 'an excellent superintendent, powerful preacher and able administrator'. Among his books were biographies of Atkinson Smith (1800-1853; e.m. 1831) (1854),William Sanderson (1803-1874; e.m. 1822) (1875) and William Fenby of Scarborough, and a pamphlet against smoking. Along with Sanderson he edited the first series of the Primitive Methodist Pulpit (1857). He was President of the Conference in 1881, but died in office on 5 May 1882. He was the father of H.B. Kendall.

Of the other five sons of Thomas Kendall who entered the PM itinerancy, all left it except for two. Thomas Kendall junr. (1816-1878; e.m. 1840), born at Bishop Norton on 1 September 1816, died on 23 April 1878. Dennis Kendall (1824-1896; e.m. 1847) died on 11 September 1896 at High Wycombe; he had a son Frederick Kendall (1858 - post-1917; e.m. 1879) who left the ministry in 1882 because of ill health and opened a stationer's shop in High Wycombe, where he was a local preacher. Joseph Kendall (1827-1890) born at Ashley, Brigg, Lincs on 19 December 1827, entered the ministry in 1851, but by 1855 was a minister in the Louth WR Circuit and thence entered the UMFC itinerancy. He died on 16 September 1890. Amos Kendall (1830-1909; e.m. 1851) disappeared from the records in 1855, when he emigrated to the USA and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church South. He died on 12 April 1909 at Aberdeen, Mississipi. Henry Kendall (1832-1900; e.m. 1850), born at Ashby on 27 April 1832, was a popular 'boy preacher', preaching his first sermon on 27 December 1842. Disagreeing with the doctrine of eternal damnation, he left the PM ministry in 1855 for the Congregationalists, entering Lancashire Independent College, Manchester in December 1855. For almost thirty-five years he had a distinguished ministry at Bethel Chapel, Darlington, where he died on 25 February 1900.

The Kendall Memorial PM Chapel at Ashby was opened on 2 February 1885, with Holliday B. Kendall as the preacher. It closed in 1960 and was subsequently demolished.

Entry written by: DCD and GEM
Category: Person
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