The Times/1937/Obituary/Frederick Hastings

The Rev. Frederick Hastings, a minister of the Congregational Church at Eastbourne, died on Saturday at the age of 98.

Hastings was born on July 21, 1838. His father was a merchant and shipowner in London, and the son began his active life in his father's office. Later, he joined a Greek New Testament class started by the pastor of the church he attended, and after a sermon by Spurgeon at the Surrey Music Hall he decided to become a minister. He entered Hackney College, and in 1862 became pastor of of the historic Quay Meeting of the Congregational Church at Woodbridge. After four years there he went out to New Brunswick as a minister at St. John. In 1870 he returned to this country to a charge at Wanstead, where he remained for two years. His next appointment was at Weston-super-Mare from 1872 to 1881. Then he had seven years at the Institutional Church at Tolmer's Square. At the request of Dr. R. W. Dale he went to Australia as minister of a church in North Adelaide and remained there five years. He came back to London in 1894 to Markham Square, Chelsea, and preached there till 1903, when he went back to Tolmer's Square for 10 years. In 1912 he was appointed to Clifton Church, Peckham, where he remained for six years, going to Eastbourne in 1920. He celebrated his ninety-eighth birthday last year, and the seventieth anniversary of his induction to the pastorate in 1932, by breaching in his church.

Mr. Hastings was a traveller in many lands. He returned from Australia via Paraguay wrote letters which helped to prevent the exodus of shearers and other labourers from Australia. He visited so many countries on his bicycle that he received the soubriquet of "the cycling parson," a name he employed in one of his many books, "The Spins of a Cycling Parson." He claimed to have ridden some 30,000 miles, visiting France, Saxony, the coat of Italy to Rome, and many parts of the Mediterranean coast. After the War he cycled to Ypres.

Mr. Hastings was an ex-chairman of the London Congregational Union, and for some years served on the London County Council. He was a delegate representing the Free Churches at the tercentenary of the signing of the Edict of Nantes. for eight years he was editor of the Homilectic Magazine and of Nisbet's "Theological Library." His recollections were published under the titles. "Memories of a Million Miles" and "Phases of a Joyous Life." Sketching, boating, cycling and chess, as well as travel, were the recreations of a long and useful career. His union with his first wife, Emily Brightman, who died in 1925, lasted for 63 years. At the age of 88 he married the widow of Mr W. Wallace Copland, of Gibraltar. He leaves three sons and two daughters.