CUSHING, George Irvine James 1895 - 1962

Born in Shipdham, Norfolk, in 1895. He early heard the call to preach, was soon welcomed into local pulpits, and without delay offered himself for the Ministry of the United Methodist Church.

After being trained at Ranmoor and Victoria Park Colleges he went on probation in 1917, first to Matlock then to Louth. His ordained ministry was spent in Holt, Rochdale, Salford, Nottingham, Chestefield and Barton-upon-Humber.

He prepared thoroughly and prayerfully for the pulpit and became an authoritative preacher ; from the beginning he was a successful administrator ; and as a pastor he was greatly loved for his deep understanding and self-giving compassion.

He was a modest man, unconscious of his own worth, self-effacing, and seeking no high place. His was a world not of abstractions but persons, and this explains his regular attendance, even after retirement, at the conferences of the Society for Medical and Pastoral Psychology.

His giving of himself was unending. often going beyond the limit of his physical powers.

After forty-three years in the full work, he went back home to Shipdham and continued to preach frequently in the East Dereham and other circuits.

He was contemplating still more work, but he died on 29 March 1962, in the sixty-seventh year of his age and the forty-fifth of his ministry.

©Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes 1962