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[ Transcription of Obituary Notice in the Year Book of the Congregational Union of England & Wales for 1917, page 163, from a copy in Dr Williams's Library, London ]
Barrett, George Slatyer, B.A., D.D.
. . . , was born at Four Paths, Jamaica, on September 16, 1839, his father, the Rev. W. G. Barrett, being at that time in charge of the London Missionary Society station in that part of the island.
Mr W. G. Barrett returned to England in 1848 and became the minister of John Street Congregational Church, Royston, and it was there Dr. Barrett's happiest days as a boy were spent. His father was a very cultured man, and his influence as well as that of many friends stimulated his son's natural abilities, and in time he became a student of the London University and obtained his B.A. degree. He early became a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and his first efforts to bring others to serve and know his Master were among some navvies making the railway from London to the Crystal Palace. An iron church was put up for them and Dr. Barrett, though so young in years, was asked to undertake the services. Thus he began the apprenticeship to his life-work. While engaged in this work he was offered the pastorate of the Church at Worthing, but recognizing the great work of the ministry needed special teaching and training he refused the offer and instead entered Lancashire College then under the principalship of Henry Rogers. Dr. Barrett used to say that he owed very much to the literary stimulus and teaching of his addresses.
While a student he was often asked to supply the pulpits of different Churches in the county, and he received at the same time a call to one in the North of England and one at Prince's Street, Norwich. Dr. Barrett decided to accept the unanimous invitation to Norwich but to complete his college course first, and in 1866 he became the pastor of his first and only Church. He followed the Rev. John Alexander, who fifty years before had founded the Church, and under whose leadership it had grown to maturity and influence.
For forty-five years Dr. Barrett laboured unsparingly for his people. These were years of unbroken and affectionate relationship between pastor and people, and many as were the calls made on his time and energy in spheres outside the work of his Church, nothing was ever allowed to interfere with his work as the pastor of his people. Gifted with splendid health, fine energy, and great spiritual zeal, Dr Barrett stirred the Church to great spiritual activity. During his pastorate tha church itself was enlarged and almost rebuilt --a fine organ was added; and in 1872 a new mission chapel and Sunday Schools were built at Trowse. Then came the question of very large expenditure to provide new schoolrooms for the parent Church. In faith and prayer the great undertaking was begun, and in 1879 the foundation-stone was laid by the late Mr. J. J. Colman,. M.P., to whose large-hearted generosity the enterprise was greatly indebted for success. £15,000 was raised, and in 1881 the new rooms were opened, providing accommodation not only for the Sunday Schools with their 800 scholars (300 of whom were above fifteen years of age), but for all the manifold activities Dr. Barrett had called into being and into which his people threw themselves wholeheartedly. Later years saw the erection of other mission chapels, and a large share in the building of a new Congregational church in the city.
But these were material signs of a successful pastorate, and though they count for much they counted as nothing to him who inspired them compared with the spiritual work of the Church. Dr. Barrett had the passion for souls -- the central theme of his preaching was ever the atoning work of his Lord, and whatever might be the text of his sermon he seldom, if ever, closed it without a personal appeal for fuller service to those who were already servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, and for those who knew Him not to make the great decision and yield their lives to Him.
Dr. Barrett's Church numbered 288 members when he came to it and 840 before he left it. As a natural result of his teaching the work of the London Missionary Society was ever forwarded in his Church, whose members gave even to real sacrifice to further that work in the world. Dr. Barrett frequently urged systematic giving, and when it is known that independently of the pastor's income the church raised yearly nearly #2,000 for various objects, and of that sum #600 on an average was for Foreign Missions in connection with the L.M.S., it will be seen how greatly his teaching bore fruit.
Dr Barrett also found time to serve the larger interests of Congregationalism. In East Anglia he constantly visited the smaller Churches, was three times Chairman of the Norfolk Congregational Union and was often called the Nonconformist Bishop of East Anglia.
In 1887 Dr. Barrett completed the compilation of the Congregational Church Hymnal, and this work which made for so great an improvement in the musical services of the Churches met with conspicuous success.
In 1890 Dr. Barrett preached the sermon to the Autumnal Assembly of the Congregational Union of England and Wales at Southport. He chose as his subject "The Burden of Souls," and many of his brethren who heard it confessed it marked an epoch in their spiritual lives. In 1894 Dr. Barrett became Chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, and the subjects of his addresses from the Chair were characteristic of his teaching, viz. "The Secularization of the Pulpit," and "The Secularization of the Church."
In 1894 The University of St. Andrews conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon him, and henceforth he was always affectionately known amongst his people as "The Doctor."
In 1895 Dr. Barrett, in company with the late Rev. W. J. Woods, then the Secretary of the Congregational Union, made a prolonged tour in America and Jamaica, visiting the Churches and helping their ministers to realize how the Church at home had their welfare at heart, and sympathized in all the difficulties under which they often worked.
Besides his work for Congregationalism, Dr. Barrett did no little service for the city in which he lived. He helped on the work of its medical charities, he served on many committees for the welfare of the working classes, and was unanimously elected Chairman of the Board of Guardians. As a good citizen he never grudged any effort to serve his fellow-men.
In 1908 Dr. Barrett had a breakdown in health, and for six months he was laid aside from the work he loved so well. His Church and congregation treated him with the greatest affection and generosity, and arranged on his return to their midst to give him an assistant pastor. This help continued until 1911, when Dr. Barrett, feeling the time had come that it would be for the best interests of his Church to have a younger minister, laid down his work and said goodbye to the people he had so long loved and served. At a large farewell meeting the Church and congregation presented him with an annuity of £200 -- the last of their many generous gifts during his long pastorate. For five years more Dr. Barrett worked on in health and strength, and had the joy of seeing his old Church happy and prosperous under his successor, the Rev. Griffith Jenkins, and then, after sixteen months of weariness and weakness, borne without a murmur, His Master called him home. It was characteristic of the man that, when thinking of the life beyond, he would say he wondered what work His Master would give him to do.
His death took place on April 24th, 1916.
During the forty-five years Dr. Barrett was at Prince's Street he received many calls from other Churches in England and Scotland to become their pastor. One well-known Church in London asked him no less than three times to come to them. In many cases Dr. Barrett found it a difficult matter for decision, but he believed it was God's will he should remain in East Anglia; and it was this belief which led him to refuse the Secretariat of the Congregational Union when it was offered him in 1890 -- a post for which his great gifts as an organizer and his high ideals of Congregationalism well fitted him.
Dr. Barrett was a great believer in a definite creed of faith. He was a devoted follower of Dr. Dale in the theory of the Congregational Church. As a High Church friend of his once said of him, " He was such a strong Churchman." He had a very real belief in the validity of his calling and his place in an apostolic succession, and it would have been almost impossible even to imagine him swerving from the faith as he believed it to have been once for all delivered to the saints. But though so convinced a Free Churchman he was strongly in favour of a liturgical service combined with free prayer in Congregational Churches, and he delivered an address on this subject to the Congregational Union. In many ways he did much to make the service of his Church very reverent, and above all insisted on the value of prayer -- prayer for the Church and for the individual; and he would often acknowledge with thankfulness how the prayers of his people helped him to serve them. Dr. Barrett in his home, however great was the pressure of work, always spent half an hour in his study in communion with God before meeting his family at breakfast, and never would he omit "Family Prayers." His teaching was well illustrated in the various books he found time to write, such as "Religion in Daily Life," "The Seven Words from the Cross," "The Intermediate State," and the "Commentary on the First Epistle of St. John."
Perhaps it was in his personal dealings with his people that Dr. Barrett best revealed himself -- so human in his sympathies, never too busy to do the smallest kindness for any one, tender in sickness and sorrow; gentle though firm in dealing with erring souls. It was no wonder his people loved him, and felt on losing his that they were losing a very dear friend; but, as one said after he had passed away, "Heaven will seem more like home now that Dr. Barrett is there."
Dr. Barrett's funeral service was attended by representatives of all the various societies with which he had been connected, as well as by many clergymen and members of the Church of England; for though Dr. Barrett had never minimized the differences between the Established and the Free Churches, yet his relations with the former had always been of the most cordial nature, and many of her clergy were among his most intimate friends. Thus it was only fitting that while his successor at Prince's Street conducted his funeral service in his old church, one of the leading and most respected clergymen of the Established Church in Norwich took the committal service at the grave, rendered all the more impressive by the beautiful unaccompanied singing of his old choir who used to help him so much by their share in the services of his Church.
Dr Barrett married, in 1868, Catharine Lance Bower, daughter of Mr. Alfred Bower, of New Brighton, Cheshire, and granddaughter of George Lance, the painter, by whom he had four daughters, three of whom survive him. In spite of all his outside interests, Dr. Barrett was never so happy as at home, and never too busy to be the friend as well as the father of his children. His was a very perfect home-life until, in 1910, he lost her who had been so much to him. The love of children had always been very marked in him, and his little granchildren helped to make up to him something of that loss, so that his eveningtide was full of light.
C.C.B.
(pencilled note: i.e. Constance C. Barrett)
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(The Rejoice & Sing Enchiridion:edited by David Goodall; last amended 12/12/03)