▶Date of birth:  (baptised) 11 June 1872        Place of birth: York

▶Father:  William Clare Senior     Mother:  Elizabeth Mathews

▶Spouse(s):   Catharine Mary Shouksmith      Date(s) of marriage:  10 August 1905     Place(s) of marriage: Bishopthorpe Wesleyan Chapel, York

▶Occupation: Schoolteacher; Clergyman (Wesleyan Methodist Minister)

▶Lifestory: The Revd. Frederick Senior’s full career included his appointment in 1922 as Superintendent of the Cheltenham district, when he lived in Pittville. He was born in York in 1872, the eldest son of Wesleyan parents, elementary school teacher William Clare Senior, and his wife Elizabeth, eldest daughter of W. H. Mathews, of Northwich, Cheshire.

Brought up in York, Frederick decided early that he wanted to join the Wesleyan ministry, and by 1891 he was a student at the Wesleyan Training College in Horseferry Road, Westminster in London. Later reports indicated that at this time Frederick Senior was a schoolteacher. A member of the York Wesley Circuit, he began his qualification for the ministry in 1898 after a “searching and comprehensive examination in theology, in which the candidate displayed conspicuous ability and power of thought”; he passed this stage and was sent to preach a trial sermon at Scarborough before proceeding to Didsbury College for the ”July Committee” examination, and was recommended to Conference.

His first official station was with the Devon and Dorset Mission 1901-4; in 1903 it was announced that he had achieved an “eminently satisfactory” second-class honours in the probationers’ examination and his application for a fourth year in this district was accepted, though he was required to move to Chard (where he stayed for two years, and was much liked). After Chard he was allocated to the Surrey and North Hampshire Mission, where he was based at Epworth House, Petersfield. In 1905 he married Catharine (“Kate”) Mary, elder daughter of plumber John Henry Shouksmith, of Bishopthorpe, near York; the couple had one daughter.

By 1911 he lived at Ashton Old Road, near Openshaw, Manchester, and in 1912 was stationed with the North Derbyshire Mission at Bakewell. In 1922 Senior was Superintendent Minister at Cheltenham where, in 1924, he accepted an offer to remain for a fourth year. Between 1923 and 1926 he lived with his family at 2 Clarence Square, Pittville. While at Cheltenham he introduced the system of graded Sunday schools, in which he had been trained at Westhill Training College, Selly Oak, Birmingham.

In 1926 he moved to Hunstanton in Norfolk when he was stationed here, though he returned to Cheltenham on several occasions to preach; on one occasion in 1934 he was described as “of Ettingale”. He lived in retirement in Malvern in 1937, though he would preach from time to time when invited. However, between 1940 and 1943, and although he was a Methodist, he accepted the duties of Pastor of the Holly Mount Congregational Church at Malvern, before entering into a second retirement, which included remaining Secretary of the Methodist Training College at Handsworth and a member of the Ministerial Training Committee of the Methodist Church.

He decided to move once again in 1947, to Surrey, and he lived at 36 Lacey Avenue, Old Coulson, Surrey; he died at the Dene Extension, Caterham Hospital in 1959, at the age of eighty-six. His estate at death was valued at £204 12s 6d.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Bakewell, Derbyshire      Moved from Pittville to: Hunstanton, Norfolk

▶Date of death:   5 May 1959     Place of death: Dene Extension, Caterham Hospital, Surrey

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:        ID: 14631

Contributor(s):  John Simpson