Revd Joseph seems to have been fairly wild in his youth, tormenting his sister Elizabeth who had joined the Wesleyans. However, the beginnings of faith stirred in him as a result of the preaching of one Mr Salt in Dale. Elizabeth died suddenly at Whit 1805, and Joseph and his brothers William, John and Benjamin plus 12 neighbours all became Wesleyans, nurtured in their faith by one of their father’s labourers, William Bacon (there were Bacons in Dale until the 1990s). Joseph began to preach in 1807 and soon became noted as an evangelist.

On 21st August 1808 Joseph preached three times in his father’s barn in Dale, to ‘large attentive congregations’: this was his farewell oration, but he was to continue to visit Dale all his life and to keep in touch with his brothers here. He was appointed to the mission station at Church Town, Lancashire, and went on to work in Lancaster and Leigh. He was recognised as a Methodist minister in 1812 and married a Miss Sharrocks of Lamberhead Green; they had several children, a distressing number of whom died in childhood, usually of typhus.

Revd Joseph’s ministry took him to Durham, Sunderland, Nottingham and Derby. His father died on 1st May 1821. He went to Stockton-on-Tees in 1823, when his daughter Priscilla Mary aged nine died, and his mother also, in Dale. Her funeral was held outside the chapel in Dale because it was too small to contain the number of mourners; it was led by Revd Isaac Turton, and, the record says, in the church by Revd J.D.Wawn. Revd Joseph continued his ministry in Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, Manchester and Liverpool. His wife died on 8th January 1833 at 41 years of age. He returned to Derby in 1835 and passed away on 25th January 1836. His story is recorded in the fascinating Memoirs of the Rev. Joseph Hollingworth, Wesleyan Minister, with notices of Dale Abbey etc. by Joseph Thorpe Milner, published in Sheffield in 1836.