Book Steward 1932-1948. The son of Henry Sumpter Barton (1836-1899; e.m. 1860) and grandson of William Barton (1803-1857; e.m. 1826), he was educated at Woodhouse Grove School and Richmond College. He served briefly in MaltaMalta and the Gold Coast (now Ghana), then from 1911 to 1922 in the inner-city mission at St John's Square, Clerkenwell, London. After four years as Assistant Book Steward, in 1932 he succeeded J.A. Sharp and was responsible for the building of Epworth House, City Road, as the headquarters of Methodist publishing. He played a leading role in the formation of the Religious Group of the Publishers' Association. From 1914 he was Secretary of the First London District, becoming its Chairman in 1932, and in 1935 became the first secretary of the Methodist Church Music Society. He died on 4 November 1953.