William Arthur (3 February 1819 – 21 March 1901) was an Irish Wesleyan Methodist minister and author.

Biography

Born at

Newport Newport most commonly refers to: *Newport, Wales *Newport, Rhode Island, US Newport or New Port may also refer to: Places Asia *Newport City, Metro Manila, a Philippine district in Pasay Europe Ireland *Newport, County Mayo, a town on the ...

, in

County Mayo County Mayo (; ga, Contae Mhaigh Eo, meaning "Plain of the Taxus baccata, yew trees") is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Conn ...

, eight miles from Castlebar, Arthur was educated at Horton College, and at the age of twenty was sent to Goobbee, in Southern India, where he was engaged for several years in missionary work in the Mysore.''The Irish Nation: its history and its biography, Volume 4'' (1876), p. 557-58. While there his progress in the Canarese language is said to have been remarkable; but being threatened with blindness, he was obliged to return to Europe, and was employed for three years in advocating with much ability the Indian missionary work of the Wesleyan Society. He acted in his ministerial capacity in Paris from 1846 to 1849; then for seventeen years he filled the post of secretary to the Methodist Missionary Society. In 1867 he was elected Principal of the Methodist College Belfast, and continued to fill that office until 1871, when he resigned, but still maintained his connection with the Conference as honorary missionary secretary. In 1866-67 he was President of the Wesleyan Conference. Arthur was best known as the author of numerous pamphlets and books including: * ''A Mission to the Mysore, with Scenes and Facts Illustrative of India, its People, and its Religion'' (1847) * ''The Successful Merchant— Sketches of the Life of Mr

Samuel Budgett Samuel Budgett (27 July 1794 – 29 April 1851) was an English merchant. Rising from humble origins, Budgett built up a wholesale grocery business called H.H. & S. Budgett, based in Kingswood Bristol, covering a large area of Southern and We ...

'' (1852) ** This was a bestseller: in the UK a 43rd edition was published in 1878 by William Mullan and Son. ** In the US, editions included: Swormstedt & Poe, Cincinnati (1856), Carlton & Phillips,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

(1853) and D. Appleton, New York (1857). ** It was also translated into Welsh * ''The Tongue of Fire, or true Power of Christianity'' (1856) * ''Italy in Transition: Public Scenes and Private Opinions in the Spring of 1860, illustrated by Official Documents from the

Papal Archives The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

of the Revolted Legations'' (1860) His lecture on

Systematic Beneficence Systematic may refer to: Science * Short for systematic error * Systematic fault * Systematic bias, errors that are not determined by chance but are introduced by an inaccuracy (involving either the observation or measurement process) inherent ...

gave the first impetus to that movement; and his own practice was referred to as a living example of it. His intimate knowledge of India and its people made his counsel valuable to statesmen; and it was widely acknowledged that he was a power outside his own Church, and an aggressive proponent of Christianity. Arthur suffered various infirmities throughout his life, but lived to the age of 83, dying in Cannes, France.Nolan B. Harmon, ''The Encyclopedia of World Methodism, Volume One'' (1974), p. 145-146.

William Arthur Memorial Church, Gubbi, 1904

The William Arthur Memoria
Church
is located on th
NH206 Bangalore-Honavar Road
at

Gubbi Gubbi is a town in Tumakuru District, Karnataka, India. It is 20 km from Tumakuru and 90 km from Bengaluru along NH-206 (BH Road). Gubbi ULB Contains 17 Wards and equal number of Councilors. The population of the Gubbi Town is 18,457 ...

Town, about 80 km from Bangalore. The church is painted turquoise blue and built in the Gothic style, being completed in 1904. The church is named after William Arthur, an Irish Wesleyan missionary and Canarese Scholar, who served in Gubbi. The present structure replacing the old Gobbee Chapel, built by

Thomas Hodson Thomas Hodson was a Wesleyan Missionary, who served in India, in the Wesleyan Canarese Mission, at the Bangalore Petah and Gubbi. He helped in running the first Wesleyan Mission Canarese school in the erstwhile Mysore State. Hodson was a ...

and William Arthur.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arthur, William 1819 births 1901 deaths Irish writers Wesleyan Methodists Irish Methodist ministers Irish Methodist missionaries Methodist missionaries in India 19th-century Methodist ministers Irish biographers Irish male non-fiction writers Irish male writers Male biographers Methodist writers Christian clergy from County Mayo Irish religious writers 19th-century Irish clergy Presidents of the Methodist Conference