IM minister, born on 21 July 1851 in Bolton. He was Secretary of the Independent Methodist Connexion 1909-1921. A journalist and editor by profession, he wrote many pamphlets on IM polity, notably his History of IM (1920), still a seminal work on its subject. During World War I, when IM ministers, being unpaid and non-clerical, received conscription papers, he arranged for a test case to establish that they fell within the legal definition of Ministers of Religion. This was successful and they were thereafter exempt from military service. He died on 3 December 1923.