Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Randles, Marshall
RANDLES, MARSHALL (1826–1904), Wesleyan divine, born at Over-Darwen, Lancashire, on 7 April 1826, was son of John Randies of Derbyshire by his wife Mary Maguire. He was educated at a private school, and after engaging in business at Haslingden he was accepted as a candidate for the methodist ministry in 1850 and studied at Didsbury College. He commenced his ministry in 1853, and was stationed successively at Montrose, Clitheroe, Boston, Nottingham, Lincoln, Halifax, Cheetham Hill, Altrincham, Bolton and Leeds. In 1882 he w£is elected a member of the legal conference, and in 1886 succeeded Dr. William Burt Pope [q. v. Suppl. II] as tutor of systematic theology at Didsbury. For many years he was chairman of the Manchester district, and in 1896 was elected president of the conference. In 1891 he received the degree of D.D. from the Wesley an Theological College, Montreal. He retired in 1902 from the active ministry, and died at Manchester on 4 July 1904, being buried in Cheetham Hill Wesleyan churchyard. In August 1856 he married Sarah Dewhurst, second daughter of John Scurrah of Padiham; by her he had a son and daughter; the son, Sir John Scurrah Randles, is conservative M.P. for North West Manchester.
A strong advocate of total abstinence, he first dealt with the question in 'Britain's Bane and Antidote' (1864). But his pen was mainly devoted to theology on conservative lines. In his best-known work, 'For Ever, an Essay on Everlasting Punishment' (1871; 4th edit. 1895), he argued in favour of the eternity of future punishment. Of kindred character was his book 'After Death: is there a Post-Mortem Probation?' (1904), in which he discusses 'Man's Immortality' (1903), by Dr. Robert Percival Downes, a work which favoured an intermediate period of moral probation after death. The view that God is incapable of suffering he strongly maintained, against Baldwin Brown, Dr. A. M. Fairbairn, George Matheson, George Adam Smith, and others, in 'The Blessed God: Impassibility' (1900). His ablest criticism of modern scepticism is found in his 'First Principles of Faith' (1884), in which he deals with the views of Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Mansel. He also published 'Substitution: a Treatise on the Atonement' (1877), and 'The Design and Use of Holy Scripture' (Fernley lecture, 1892), in which he incidentally acknowledges the service of the higher criticism. A portrait, painted by Arthur Nowell, is at Didsbury College.
[Private information; works as above; Methodist Recorder, 23 July 1896.]