Enoch GRATTON

GRATTON, ENOCH (b. Burslem, Staffs England,14 Feb 1838; d. Adelaide, SA, 30 June 1931). Methodist minister.

Gratton had only two years of schooling before going to work in a pottery at the age of seven. Towards the end of a long life he was to acknowledge his indebtedness to 'the stern and invigorating school of daily life and persistent private study'. He became a voracious reader but especially of 'that dearest and most wonderful of all books, the Bible'.

Gratton was converted in a chapel of the Methodist New Connexion (MNC) and became a local (lay) preacher. He began his ministry in 1861 at Newcastle-on-Tyne following the resignation of William Booth. He served in several English circuits until in 1883 he was appointed to the Franklin Street church in Adelaide.

During his ministry of seven years at Franklin Street, the small MNC denomination merged in 1888 with the Bible Christians. Gratton transferred to the latter and was president of the Bible Christian Conference in 1894. Under Dr William Torr (4.v.) he was a tutor to candidates for the ministry, a work he continued after Methodist Union in 1900.

Register Nov 1921, 'Sixty Years in the Methodist Ministry'; A D Hunt, This Side of Heaven: A History of Methodism in South Australia (Adelaide, 1985)

ARNOLD D HUNT