MEMORIAL TABLET ERECTED

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22418, 3 June 1938, Page 17

MEMORIAL TABLET ERECTED

TRIBUTE TO REV. DR. W. MORLEY SERVED METHODIST CHURCH FOR SIXTY YEARS A tablet has been erected in the Durham Street Methodist Church in memory of the Rev. Dr. William Morley, for 60 years a prominent Methodist minister in New Zealand and Australia. Dr. Morley, who was president of the churchts General Australasian Conference in 1894-96, and twice president of the New Zealand conference, was stationed at Durham street for six years. He was the author of “The History of Methodism in New Zealand,” published in 1900. The tablet has been placed beside one in memory of his first wife. Mrs Hannah Morley, and has been erected by members of his family. It will be unveiled by the Rev. Clarence Eaton after the evening service on Sunday. Dr. Morley, who was born in Nottingham in 1842, entered the ministry of the New Zealand Methodist Church in 1863, and served in the main centres until his transfer to Victoria in 1902, As well as six years as minister of the Durham Street Church, he spent three years at St. Albans and three years at Lyttelton. While in Christchurch, he was for three years connexional editor, and, after a term as principal of the Theological College in Auckland in 1892, he became the first connexional secretary of the church when that office

was established in 1893, holding the position until 1901. In 1888, Dr. Morley represented New Zealand at the British and Irish Methodist Conferences, and three years later at the Methodist Ecumenical Conference in Washington, US-A. During his American visit, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from the McGill University (Montreal). One of the founders and managing treasurer for nearly 20 years of the Church Building and Loan Fund and an organiser of the church fire insurance scheme. Dr. Morley _ was closely associated with the business' side of the church’s work, and this led to his appointment as managing treasurer of the Australasian Supernumerary Fund in 1902, an office which he held in Victoria until 1914. Dr. Morley was president of Queen’s College, Melbourne University, for five years. He retired from the active work of the church in 1923. and died in Melbourne on May 24. 1926.