Bamford, Stephen

Bamford, Stephen a Methodist preacher in the British provinces, was born near Nottingham. England, in 1770. When a youth he enlisted in the 29th Regiment of Foot, was with the duke of York in Holland in 1793, and assisted in quelling the great rebellion in Ireland in 1798. He was converted while there, and soon became a zealous local preacher. In 1804 he came with his regiment to Halifax, N. S. In 1806 he entered the ministry, and for twentyleight years travelled and preached with great success in the maritime provinces. In 1810 he was ordained by bishop Asbury; in 1836 he attended the Wesleyan Conference in Birmingham, England, and on returning assumed a supernumerary relation in St. John, N. B. He subsequently removed to Digby, N. S., where he died, Aug. 14, 1848. Bamford's preaching was unique in ingenuity of thought, aptness in illustration, and religious quaintness; powerful in its sweetness, unction, and pathetic appeal. He was greatly beloved for his many excellences of character, and his labors did much to establish Methodism in the provinces. See Burt, in (Lond.) Wesl. Meth. Maq. Sept. 1851, art. i; Huestis, Memorials of Wesleyan Preachers in Eastern British America (Halifax, 1872), p. 13; Minutes of the British Wesleyan Conference (of which Bamford was reckoned a missionary), 1849 (8vo ed.), p. 179; Cooney, Autobiography of a Wesleyan Missionary (Montreal, 1856), p. 241, 249-251; Smith [T. W.], Hist. of Methodism in Eastern British America (Halifax, 1877), 1, 400.