James Endicott (church leader)

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The Right Reverend James Endicott (1865-1954) was a Canadian church leader and missionary. He was born in Devon, England the fourth of eleven children. His father was a farm worker.

Endicott left England for Canada at the age of seventeen and worked with his brother as a house painter in southwestern Ontario. He met Sarah Diamond who introduced him to the Methodist church. Sarah and James married and Endicott became a probationary minister for the church and was sent to Lethbridge in western Canada. He impressed the local minister who sponsored his application to study at the University of Manitoba's Wesley College. His colleagues at the Methodist college raised money upon his graduation to send him the new Methodist mission in Szechuan, China in 1893, the same year as his ordination. The Endicotts and their five children returned to Canada in 1910 due to the poor health of their youngest daughter and settled in Toronto where James Endicott became general secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Church of Canada in 1913.

In 1924 and 1925, Endicott was a leading figure in efforts to merge the Methodist, Congregationalist and Presbyterian churches leading to the creation of the United Church of Canada in 1925. He served as Moderator of the United Church of Canada from 1926 to 1928. He also served as head of the Foreign Missions Board of the United Church from its founding until his retirement in 1937 and remained a leading figure in the denomination until the end of his life.

His son, James Gareth Endicott, was also a minister and missionary in China and became a supporter of the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China.