Cole, Richard Lee
1878-1963; e.m. 1900

Irish Methodist minister, born on 24 January 1878 at Lurgan, he was educated at Methodist College, Belfast. His circuit ministry was mainly in Dublin. He became widely known as a preacher and administrator and was involved in educational affairs. He was Secretary of the Irish Conference 1926-32 and President of the Irish Church in 1933. A keen student of history, he gave the WHS Lecture in 1938 on John Wesley's Journal. He was made a Fellow of Methodist History by the World Methodist Council in 1956 and was President of the Irish Branch of the Wesley Historical Society. He supplemented C.H. Crookshank's history of Irish Methodism with a fourth volume covering the century from 1860 and wrote histories of Dublin Methodism (1932) and of Wesley College, Dublin (1963).