Arthur POCKLINGTON

POCKLINGTON, ARTHUR (b. Mt Best, via Toora, Vic, 13 Aug 1908, d. Melbourne, Vic 31 Aug 1978). Missionary and pastor.

Arthur Pocklington was the sixth of eight children born to Edward Loyde Pocklington and Hannah Kidd. They were pioneer dairyfarmers and pillars of the Methodist Church, where Edward was Sunday school superintendent and organist. Arthur was educated in a primary school held in the local Mechanics' Institute and then worked on the family farm. In 1928 a visit from Jim Gruar and Stanley Frost of the Melbourne Gospel Crusade (now the Evangelisation Society of Australia) brought him and other family members into a deeper religious commitment. He went to the 1928-29 Upwey Convention and then to MBI 1929-30 before being accepted by CIM for work on the borders of Tibet. By 1937 severe hardships had undermined his health and he was invalided home, but he was remarkably healed. He worked briefly as an associate pastor in the Dandenong Methodist Circuit and married Edna Smart in 1941. She was from a Stanhope farming family and had worked in Ethiopia with SIM as a nurse.

Together they were prayerful advocates for missionary service and led many to deeper commitment. Pocklington was assistant-secretary of the Upwey Convention 1940-48 and then secretary from 1948-72, during which time it became Belgrave Heights Convention. He also worked as pastor at the Spring St Mission in Prahran from 1957. He was a keen Bible student, an effective teacher and a remarkable organiser among Melbourne evangelicals, whose gifts were not widely known, for he was very humble. He served on the Council of MBI 1942-77, was on the SIM Council for over 20 years, worked with Len Buck in the foundation of Campaigners for Christ and was secretary of the Interdenominational Missionary Fellowship which provided the base for the beginnings of Wycliffe Bible Translators, until they formed a Council in 1954. He was also one of the founders of New Life. He was buried in Springvale Lawn Cemetery.

IAN BREWARD