William Clemitson (1810-1881)
Whilst superintendent at Stockton in 1844, William had a ‘run in’ with the Mayor. It had become usual for preachers to hold open air worship at the Cross in Stockton on Sunday afternoons. Complaints were made to the Mayor, who sent a policeman to William to inform him that preaching at the cross should be discontinued. William consulted a solicitor and identified there was no local act that forbade open air preaching, and the Mayor backed down an hour before he was due to meet the magistrates.

Robert Clemitson (1836-1925)
Robert was noted for his sermons, which grew before the eyes of the hearer, with naturalness and inevitability of life. It had taken form and phrasing in his mind before anything was committed to paper and then, under what he called ‘the mental elevation of the pulpit’, was delivered without a note of any kind. Robert’s wife, Ann, was the sister of Joseph Ritson, another well known Primitive Methodist minister. ...

Robert Clemitson (1901-1977)
The son of Primitive Methodist parents and the grandson of a Primitive Methodist minister, after whom he was named. Throughout his life he retained a proper pride in coming from the County of Durham and in this spiritual heritage. He trained as an analytical chemist, and subsequently joined his father and worked in the family pharmacy in the market place at Crook until his candidature for the ministry in 1923.

Acknowledgement
Biographical infomation by kind permission of the My Primitive Methodists website.

James Linge (1832-1907)
Last, but not least my great-great-grandfather. James Bloomfield Linge was born at Hopton, eight miles from Thetford in Suffolk, where he worked with his parents as a farm labourer. At the age of 41 he made his way to the County of Durham, settling down at Southwick, where he at once joined the local church, and for thirty-three years was first a member, then the leader of the Sunday morning class. He was in the truest sense a “father to the poor.” Secretly and silently he gave of his substance to many a needy soul. Aged men and feeble women were often the objects of his kindly ministry

Family tree showing relationship between the above.