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The minister of the church where industrialist Sir William Wright has been buried this afternoon has spoken of him as “a very genuine Christian man”.

Rev Sarah Groves of Gracehill Moravian Church outside Ballymena oversaw a short committal service at her churchyard at noon for Sir William’s family.

Unusually, it came before his funeral service at 2pm today.

Verses from the Psalms (no. 119) were read at the graveside (“Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord...”).

He was not a member of the church (he was affiliated to Highkirk Presbyterian in Ballymena), but his wife Ruby was connected with it, and the two of them were married there.

“William has always been very kind and generous in a gentle way to the Moravian Church; many individual acts of kindness to people in the village,” said Rev Groves.

“If ever I saw him he’d say ‘oh how is the church?’ He’d always come to the village fair. He’d be sat there just having a cup of tea and cake with everybody else.

“He was what you saw. He would be the same in his home or if he met you at the cashpoint – wherever. He was a very good ‘person’ person. He remembered people’s names and there was no fancy way about him. The titles were an honour but he didn’t live on them.

“He was a faithful Christian.

“I always think of him as a man who lived out the ethos of the ‘wisdom’ literature of the Bible – the Book of Proverbs; working steadily, delighting in the wife of your youth, of seeking the Lord’s ordnances.

“Nobody’s perfect, but he was a very genuine Christian man.”

The Moravian Church is very small in Northern Ireland, with just five congregations.

It owes its genesis to the Czech reformation in 1457, several decades before Luther, and is considered close to both the Church of Ireland and the Methodist Church.

The Gracehill church dates back to 1765 and Sir William’s family have asked well-wishers to donate to its upkeep.

Sir William Wright buried before his funeral: minister declares him a ‘genuine Christian’ who shunned ‘fancy ways’