UMFC layman and philanthropist. A Londoner by birth, he was a prosperous timber merchant who pioneered the manufacture of plywood. In 1893 he became treasurer of the connexion's London Church and Extension Committee, a post he held for 40 years. Under his leadership 30 chapels were built in London and he endowed a trust for their benefit and carried through a scheme for the extinction of all debt in London. He also founded the Shern Hall Building Society in 1922 to help his fellow Methodists. Gipsy Smith was once in his Sunday School class. He was created a baronet in 1935 and died at Walthamstow on 5 May 1936.