Thomas Parkin WILLASON

WILLASON, THOMAS PARKIN (b. Ireland, 1882; d. Adelaide, SA, 26 July 1939). Methodist minister.

Little is known for certain about Willason's early life. Brought up a Roman Catholic he went to sea, ending up in Wellington, New Zealand where he was converted at the Central Mission. Along with a fellow-Irishman, Samuel Forsyth (q.v.) in 1905 he entered Hope Lodge, an undenominational training centre for missionaries at Belair conducted by W Lockhart Morton (q.v.). Then for two years both young men worked as lay evangelists, principally in Methodist circuits on Yorke Peninsula. Willason was received as a probationary minister by the Methodist Conference in 1910. He served in seven country circuits before being appointed superintendent of the Port Adelaide Central Mission in 1924. This was the scene of a notable ministry that lasted eleven years and evoked widespread public support.

With the onset of the depression in the 1930s Willason and his wife ministered to the needs of the poor and unemployed. With benefactions from various sources he built up a fishing fleet that was manned by those out of work. The sale of fish after each trip enabled a number of families to come off government rations. Along with his attempts to relieve the material needs of the poor, Willason remained an evangelist, believing that the Gospel could keep hope and self-respect alive in those prone to despair because of their poverty. He had a fine tenor voice and, with his helpers, he preached and sang the gospel to the unemployed labourers on the wharves and to the crowds in the street market on Friday evenings. A notable convert was a Communist Party official in Port Adelaide. Willason was transferred to the North Adelaide church in 1935 and then to Parkside where he died at the age of fifty-seven.

A D Hunt, This Side of Heaven: A History of Methodism in South Australia (Adelaide, 1985); Australian Christian Commonwealth (4 Aug 1939), Tribute by Rev S Forsyth

ARNOLD D HUNT