Description:This is an abridged biography from the Handsworth Magazine of February 1898. The full biography can be downloaded at the bottom of the page. Asbury Church stands on the corner of Milestone Lane and Soho Road.
In August next the Rev. J Scoley Edman will complete a ministry of three years duration at Asbury Memorial Church, Handsworth; the following month will see him installed as pastor of a Church at Sutton, Surrey. For his short residence in this parish, the Methodist triennial system alone is responsible. It cannot be supposed that all Methodist ministers relish being “moved on” every third year and we can vouch for the fact that a congregation with a clever and popular pastor at the head of its affairs does not appreciate his departure. Mr Edman has made a host of friends and they would like him to remain. But he will have to go and in his place Asbury will have the Rev. J T Gurney, now doing useful work at the Central Mission, Birmingham.
Mr Edman comes from an old Methodist family in the County of Lincolnshire, a county rich in the traditions of Methodism. In the year 1875 he was accepted as a candidate for the ministry and after a year spent in supplying at Castletown (Isle of Man) and Haslingden, he was sent to Didsbury. Here he had the incalculable privilege of tutorial guidance of Dr Pope (Theological Professor), Dr Geden (Classical) and the Rev. A J French, B.A (Mathematical). His first appointment after leaving college was to Daventry Circuit and from thence he went to Stamford and St Neots. In Matlock, Douglas, Kidderminster and Rugby he has been faithful to his conception of truth and righteousness and of his work in Handsworth we can only speak in terms of the highest commendation.
As a preacher, Mr Edman has won a wide reputation and if his life be spared, the Methodist connexion will assuredly hear more of this earnest and cultured minister. A writer in an early number of the Asbury Magazine thus describes his pulpit powers: - “To the work of preaching he bends his deepest energies and under the potent spell of his words the old truths live again. His style is epigrammatic, combined with a strong sense of humour. Lovers of the ‘deadly dull’ with find nothing to encourage their strange taste in the Asbury pastor. He has in common with those whom Spurgeon once wittily said seem to find the Bible a text which bids them ‘Groan in the Lord always – and again I tell you groan.’ Though receptive of all the truth modern thought has to teach, still he holds with firm grip the essentials of the Evangelical creed. With him too the man is more than the parson and with fine indignation he scorns all that pertains to priestly assumption.”
We have had some acquaintance of Mr Edman in his capacity as preacher and very heartily endorse what is here stated. Very happy is the description of Mr Edman as a man first and a parson afterwards; not that the two don’t blend – Mr Edman is a living assertion to the contrary. That by the way. We remember well the air of concernment in which a young lady of our acquaintance informed us just after the advent of Mr Edman to the parish, that she had been told by a mutual friend he was addicted to a form of exercise she personally considered ‘lowering’. Our ears became very intent. Then lowering her voice to a hoarse whisper. “He rides a bicycle