author

Henry Woodcock

b. 1830

A Yorkshire Primitive Methodist minister, he turned his preaching, local history, and social concern into books meant for ordinary readers. His work ranges from lively religious writing to a popular life of the Hull rescuer John Ellerthorpe.

1 Audiobook

The Hero of the Humber; Or, The History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe

The Hero of the Humber; Or, The History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe

by Henry Woodcock

About the author

Born at Bridlington on 30 April 1829 and baptized on 1 January 1830, Henry Woodcock left school young and was first apprenticed in printing before training as a tailor. He was converted in his teens and soon became an exhorter, then an itinerant Primitive Methodist preacher from 1849.

Woodcock spent his life in ministry, and accounts of him stress how deeply he loved preaching. He also wrote extensively. Confirmed works include The Gipsies (1865), Popery Unmasked (1871), Wonders of Grace (1879), The Hero of the Humber; or, The History of John Ellerthorpe (1880), Students Handbook to Christian Doctrine, Queen Victoria and the Royal Family (1887), and Piety among the Peasantry (1889).

For audiobook listeners, he is especially notable as the author of The Hero of the Humber, a warm, morally earnest biography of the famous lifesaver John Ellerthorpe. The surviving biographical source I found gives his lifespan as 1829 to 1922, so the "b. 1830" form likely reflects his baptism year rather than his birth year.