The death has occurred of the Reverend Cecil Newell, a former President of the Methodist Church, a missionary, and past Chorister of St Anne’s, Belfast.
A tribute in the Portadown newspaper states:
One of Portadown’s most beloved Methodist ministers of recent years, the Rev Cecil Newell has died after suffering from ill-health over a number of months.
Mr Newell was superintendent of the Portadown Circuit and minister of Thomas Street Methodist Church from June 1985 until July 1991. He was President of the Methodist Church in Ireland from 1983-84, and officially opened the Thomas Street suite of halls in March 1994.
He was respected in Portadown – and wherever he served – for his caring Christian leadership, his sense of pastoral commitment, his friendliness and his sense of humour. Mr Newell had a remarkable knowledge of the members of his congregation, and he was renowned for his principles of strict time-keeping and his management skills, both in Thomas Street and throughout the Portadown circuit.
His family believes these time-keeping principles were established at birth! When he was born in Belfast on October, 1925, the doctor had been called to attend the birth, but young Cecil Newell arrived before him!
He was educated at Rosetta Public Elementary School and for a short time at Belfast College of Technology, and started work in a factory at the age of 14. He had no clear goal what he wanted to do with his life.
The family was Church of Ireland – he was one of three brothers – and he was a boy chorister in St Anne’s Cathedral. He was confirmed at this stage, after which he attended St Jude’s on the Ormeau Road, sang in the choir and taught in the Sunday School.
He then decided to enter the ministry, had a preference for Methodism, and when he turned 18, left work to study for the Matriculation exam requited for entrance into the Methodist ministry, after which he studied for his acceptance as a fully-qualified minister at the 1945 Conference.
Mr Newell then served as a probationer for two years in Trillick in the Irvinestown Circuit, followed by a year in Lisnaskea in the Newtownbutler Circuit before entering Edgehill College, after which he served in Greencastle Church, a daughter church of the North Belfast Mission.
In 1952, he met and fell in love with Sylvia Wilson from Ballymena and on August 7 1954, they were married in Greencastle Church. The following month they sailed to Africa after being appointed by the Methodist Missionary Society to work in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) where they serve in four circuits – Wedza, Gatooma, Bulawayo and Gwelo.
During this period, their two children were born – daughter Sharon and son Clive. Sharon is now Mrs Yarr (Holywood) Clive lives in Saintfield, and Mrs Newell’s home is in Bangor to which they retired after Mr Newell retired in 1991. He is also survived by six grandchilden – Stephen, Jonathan, Michael, Stephanie, Annika and Rachael, as well as great-granddaughter Imogen. He is the first of the original Newell brothers to pass away and is survived by Jim (still in the original family home at Ormeau Road) and Maurice (Canada).
When in Southern Rhodesia, the Newells were involved in pioneering work among the BaTonga people at the time when many thousands of them were moved from their ancestral lands from the Zambezi Valley for the building of the massive Kariba Dam, and he was chaplain to the political prisoners in the Wha Wha Restriction Camp and detainees in Gwelo Prison, organising their education courses.
After 16 years in Africa, the Newells returned to Northern Ireland where he was appointed to the Carnalea Circuit in Bangor, then to Carrickfergus and finally to Portadown, from where he retired in 1991 after 44 years as a minister.
During the period after he returned from Zimbabwe, he was District Overseas Secretary in various districts, and held other offices, including the fully-deserved Presidency of the Methodist Church in Ireland.
Mr Newell was also involved in the launching of the Lay Witness Movement in the Methodist Church in Ireland, he was Methodist patron of the Columbanus Community for Reconciliation in Belfast, and a director of the Buddy Bear Trust for children suffering from cerebral palsy.
He and Mrs Newell initially moved to Annahilt on his retirement where he was involved in part-time preaching and pastoral work in the Lisburn Circuit, and he did the same when they moved to Bangor in 1999. He preached his last sermon on Pentecost Sunday in 2009.
His pastimes were sports orientated. In his younger days, he rowed for the Belfast Commercial Boat Club and in latter years, he was a member of the Royal County Down Number Two Club Golf Club, where he played with a group of ministers, especially on their ‘Monday days off’.
There will be a special Thanksgiving Service for the life of the Rev Newell on Monday January 23 at 2.30pm in Carnalea Methodist Church, Bangor.