Blacksmiths and Missionaries : The family of George and Elizabeth Marshall, who lived in West Thirston from 1780

Blacksmiths and Missionaries tells the story of my family, the Marshalls of West Thirston, intertwining it with the history of early 19th-century Wesleyan Methodism in Northeast England, Pennsylvania, the Gambia and Newfoundland.

It focuses on the family of blacksmith George Marshall and his wife, Elizabeth Hunter, who married in Felton, Northumberland, in 1780; a time of revolutionary change in England.

Several men in this family became Wesleyan Methodist preachers.

The book gives some background information about the Marshall family, then discusses each of George and Elizabeth Marshall's twelve children in turn.

Several became devout Methodists and some moved to Newcastle or County Durham.

John, the eldest, migrated to Pennsylvania; Richard, the youngest, worked as a Methodist missionary in the Gambia, where he worked with slaves and freed slaves.

Richard, a linguist, started writing an English-Wolof dictionary and began translating the New Testament into Wolof, using Arabic script.

He also trained several locally recruited African preachers and strongly advocated using them, instead of Europeans.

Two of George and Elizabeth's grandchildren, William and Elizabeth, married and served together as missionaries in Newfoundland.

After William Marshall's death, Elizabeth returned to Newcastle with her sons, and lived with her father untilhe died.

In 1855, she married match manufacturer Richard Seanor, and moved with her remaining son Andrew to live in Rothwell, near Leeds. Andrew became the proprietor and editor of a local newspaper called the Rothwell Times, and was heavily involved in the Wesleyan Methodist community there.