▶Date of birth:   4 August 1890       Place of birth:

▶Father:  William Retallack Bellerby     Mother: Catherine Eliza Tweddle

▶Spouse(s):  Cicely Winifred Driver    Date(s) of marriage:  4Q 1919     Place(s) of marriage: Leicester

▶Occupation: Clergyman

▶Lifestory: William was the only son of William Retallack Bellerby, draper, of Carlisle, and his wife Catherine. In 1911, aged twenty, he worked as a Clerk at a miller’s in Carlisle, living at home with his parents. He attended the London College of Divinity from 1914, and was ordained Deacon in 1916, and Priest (both Peterborough) in 1918. In 1916 he was licensed Curate of Holy Trinity, Leicestershire, where in 1919 the popular Curate married Cicely Winifred Driver. He then moved to St Bartholomew, Sheffield as its Vicar in 1924, finding “the difficulties obtaining” in his new parish to be “the chief incentive for his accepting the living”.

His next move came in 1929, when he was appointed Perpetual Curate (Vicar) of St Paul’s, Cheltenham, where he remained until his death; in the same year he was licensed Chaplain to the Cheltenham Union. In Pittville, William and his family lived at 94 Evesham Road (variously known as Clarefield 1929, St Paul’s Vicarage 1930 onwards, and also simply at 94 Evesham Road). In 1934 he was installed as the Provincial Grand Chaplain at the Gloucestershire Provincial Grand Lodge of Freemasons, and in 1940 became an Honorary Chaplain to the Army. He was installed as an Honorary Canon of Gloucester Cathedral in 1947, and from February 1949 was Rural Dean of Cheltenham.

He died suddenly in Cheltenham in late 1950, collapsing at the wheel of his car on the way to church, at the age of sixty.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Sheffield      Moved from Pittville to: (deceased)

▶Date of death:   3 December 1950     Place of death: Cheltenham

▶Date of burial: 6 December 1950        Place of burial: service at St Paul’s, followed by cremation

▶Notes:        ID: 14064

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden