Burt, William

BURT, WILLIAM: Methodist Episcopal bishop; b. at Padstow (38 m. n.w. of Plymouth), Cornwall, England, Oct. 23, 1852. He was educated at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. (B.A., 1879), and Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J. (1881). He entered the New York East Conference in 1881, and after being successively pastor of St. Paul's Church, Brooklyn (1881–83), and the De Kalb Avenue Church in the same city (1883–86), he was transferred to the Italy Conference and made presiding elder of the Milan district. He then resided in Florence from 1888 to 1890, when he removed to Rome, where he remained fourteen years, having charge of the Methodist Episcopal churches and schools of Italy and establishing several churches and schools, as well as a publishing house and two colleges. He was a delegate to the Ecumenical Methodist Conference at London in 1901, and to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1892, 1896, 1900, and 1904. He was also a fraternal delegate to the Irish Conference at Belfast in 1906 and to the British Conference at Nottingham in the same year. In theology he is an orthodox, though liberal, member of his denomination. In 1904 he was elected bishop by the General Conference at Los Angeles, Cal. Since that time he has resided in Europe, with special jurisdiction over the Methodists of the Continent. He was created a cavalier of the Order of Mauritius and Lazarus is 1903, and is the author of several works in Italian, and in 1889 founded the Italian weekly L’Evangelista.