Sydney, Monday morning, June 20/98.
At night yesterday we went to the Primitive Methodist Church, close by Mr. Whitfield‘s, & enjoyed the service. Very few there but the night was wet. Revd. Mr. Atkinson is their minister, & he & his wife came down to Mr. W’s after the prayer meeting was over. I found him a very fine, genial man. Knows the Hartlepools well, as also Newcastle, having been in the drapery business until he reached manhood. His father had been the H’pool minister & he knows many whom I know well, Mark Harrison, A.C. Rowe &c. &c. His brother, a Mr. Atkinson, was draughtsman in Irvine’s & lodged with Mr. Anderson in Thornton St. just opposite the Particular Baptist place of worship. Mr. Beck knew him well & it appears he had been very delicate & came out here for awhile. Mr. & Mrs. W. knew him well, & he is now in Armstrong’s at Elswick. The minister knew several W. H’pool prims,[1] also, Mr. Corner, (Warr’s friend) & others who have now left, & some dead. Willie might mention his name to Mrs. Harrison. She will know him (Daisy Lewis’s Mother, I mean) he knew Mr. & Mrs. Lewis (now Mrs. Spoor) & also knew Mr. Spoor. I am to spend a night with them before I finally leave Sydney.
[5:3]
By the way, the Revd. Mr. Atkinson told me he had read in the British weekly that the Revd. J. B. Whyte had left H’pool, or his connection had ceased with the ministery [sic] there. I did note in the “Mail” McLean gave me, April 30th, that a Revd. E. Scott of Leith was to preach & I concluded the crisis had come. I noticed also in an “Advertiser” that one of Strothers of Sunderland had got married.
[1] Primitive Methodists?