William Hall PRYOR

PRYOR, WILLIAM HALL (b. West Maitland NSW, 17 Nov 1851, d. Tamworth, NSW, 14 June 1927). Farmer and Methodist local preacher.

Born into a Christian family of devoted workers in the Wesleyan Methodist Church, William Hall Pryor early became involved in such activities himself, including as a Sunday school teacher. Converted at Lochinvar under the Rev J A Nolan on 30 November 1871, after an inner struggle lasting some three months, he continued his work and remained earnest in his attendance at class meeting until his move to Branxton in 1881. There he soon began a cottage prayer meeting in his home, and one at the local church after the Sunday evening service. The following year, he was appointed a class leader, though he doubted his own fitness for the role.

Pryor was intensely concerned to promote evangelism and would walk long distances to attend evangelistic meetings anywhere in his home circuit. Sometimes he stayed until the early hours of the morning working with penitents to bring them to an experience of Christ. On one such occasion in mid-August 1883, Pryor himself came into the experience of 'entire sanctification' so ardently sought after by the more earnest Methodists of his day. Thereafter he spoke occasionally at open-air services and, in time, became a local preacher who was much appreciated for his faithful and earnest work over more than 40 years.

Pryor worked hard to organise special meetings in the cause of both evangelism and sanctification, was a member of the Methodist Holiness Association and local distributor for its paper, Glad Tidings. Almost inevitably in his day, he was also an Orangeman and an enthusiastic temperance worker. It was said of him that he lived as he preached, loved righteousness and hated iniquity. In a real sense, Pryor was the very archetype of the deeply committed conservative evangelical Methodist layman of the late nineteenth century. Methodist, 16 July 1927; W H Pryor Papers in UCA (NSW)

DON WRIGHT