VOL. I. 
 
THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. H. B. KENDALL, B.A. 
 
 ROBERT BRYANT: 4850 ALDERSGATE STREET, E.G. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 |N an important document recently discovered, and never, up to this time, 
 quoted, William Clowes passes certain strictures on the first official 
 History of the Primitive Methodist Church. " I must confess," he says, 
 " though I never said so to anybody in my life, that I did not approve 
 of its being drawn up in the way it was." To William Clowes, the history of the 
 Primitive Methodist Church began when the Camp Meeting Methodists and the 
 Clowesites came together in 1811 to form one united Church. He furthermore 
 maintained that Hugh Bourne, William Clowes, James Steele, James Nixon, arid 
 Thomas W r oodnorth, should be recognised and honoured as the real founders of our 
 Church. 
 
 As though to confirm the view of Clowes, the historical preamble to the Deed Poll 
 of the Primitive Methodist Connexion its document of highest official authority 
 sets forth the origin of the Connexion, and finds it in the fusion of the Clowesites 
 and Camp Meeting Methodists. Having mentioned the societies at Eamsor, Wootton, 
 Stanley, and Tunstall, this carefully-drawn legal instrument proceeds : 
 
 "And the said several societies and classes, together with other congregations, 
 societies, and classes, in several parts of England, were afterwards closely united 
 and connected, and the whole thereof under the care of the said Hugh Bourne, 
 James Bourne, William Clowes, and James Steele, were formed into one general 
 community or Connexion, known and distinguished by the title or denomination 
 of ' The Primitive Methodist Connexion.' " 
 
 Undoubtedly, then, William Clowes is right in his main contention, viz., that the 
 Primitive Methodist Church began in 1811, and, therefore, that the proper history of 
 the Church must also begin with that date. It is an anachronism to speak of 
 Primitive Methodism before 1811. Any incidents which took place prior to the 
 union effected in this memorable year, must be regarded as incidents and episodes 
 belonging to a revivalistic movement, or series of revivalistic movements, locally 
 differentiated, proceeding on early or primitive Methodist lines, partaking, therefore, 
 of the nature of a survival, reaction, or return to an earlier type of aggressive agency, 
 and finally converging and coalescing in one general community or Connexion. 
 
2 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 All this may appear very obvious when stated, and to amount to little more than 
 a question of words. But words, unless carefully chosen and kept in their right place, 
 have a way of confusing thought and raising a false issue. The view of Clowes, 
 endorsed as it is by the Deed Poll, as to the origin and foundership of the Connexion, 
 may be plain as a pikestaff when pointed out, but had this very obvious truth been 
 always kept in mind, it would have made impossible much useless discussion as to 
 whether this or that event which occurred anywhere between 1799 and 1811, is to be 
 regarded as the beginning of Primitive Methodism whether it be the conversion of 
 Hugh Bourne in 1799; the conversation-sermon, and revival at Harriseahead in 1800; 
 'the camp-meeting without a name' in the same year; Mow-Cop camp-meeting in 1807 ; 
 or the taking over of Stanley class in 1810. All these events, important as they 
 were, belong to the preparatory movement, and not the denominational period. 
 Another result would have followed : disputes as to who was the true founder of 
 the Connexion would soon have had the heart taken out of them. For "Who was 
 the one founder of the Connexion?" is seen to be a question quite beside the mark, as 
 soon as we recognise the true state of facts. How could there be but one founder 
 when there must have been as many founders as there were heads and leaders of 
 the various revivalistic agencies which in 1811 became, as the Deed Poll puts it, 
 "closely united and connected" ? Who was the founder of the Camp Meeting Methodists ; 
 or of the Dowites at Rizley, or of the Clowesites? are questions relevant enough. 
 But who was the founder of the Primitive Methodist Connexion? is like asking, What 
 was the name of Isaac's son ? or What did they call Solomon's wife ? The enquirer 
 must reshape his question, or stand down. We have had founders in the plural, but 
 no one man can lay exclusive claim to that distinction, as Clowes knew, as the 
 Deed Poll deponeth, and as this history, we hope, will clearly show. 
 
 And now we fear that, like Dr. Faustus when he preached his too moving sermon 
 in the market-place, we have proved our point too much. We have laboured to make 
 clear the fact that Primitive Methodist history, properly so called, begins in 1811 ; and 
 yet, straightway, we shall proceed to dwell with some minuteness and care on men who 
 lived and events that happened in the twelve years previous to 1811. And it should, 
 moreover, be admitted that we shall do this despite the opinion and judgment of 
 William Clowes himself, as recorded in the document aforesaid, recently brought to 
 light. In the strictures passed upon the first "History" of 1823, he expresses the 
 opinion that in drawing up that History, there was no need to write of events so far 
 back as the conversion of Hugh Bourne, or of the Tunstall revival in which Clowes 
 himself was converted. We cannot go with him in this opinion. On the contrary, 
 Ave make bold to say and the truth of the statement is not loss assured because 
 expressed in a paradoxical form The most important part of the history of Primitive 
 Methodism relates to what occurred in 1800 11, when, as yet, there was no Primitive 
 Methodism.- William Clowes lived in the pre-evolutionary days, before the advent 
 of the relative spirit by which our methods of writing history and biography have 
 been largely modified. Under the influence of this pervasive spirit, neither man nor 
 institution can now be regarded as a true "absolute" separate and self-contained, 
 indopeiident of what went before and unrelated to what is around. It is felt that 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 that subject be it individual or institutional cannot properly be understood unless 
 we know something of its parentage and antecedents as well as of the contemporary 
 forces which have gone to shape and modify it. Thus history has become largely 
 biological, and biography the analysis of a product as well as the telling of a human 
 story. True ; there is danger that too much may be yielded to the exacting 
 demands of the relative spirit as we can see in such a work as Buckle's " History 
 of Civilisation," yet, within limits, its claims are just and reasonable. No one can 
 ignore the sources and streams of the Jordan because they do not bear that name 
 until their confluence; neither do men begin to write of the Oxford Movement by 
 describing the publication of the "Tracts for the Times." The "movement," as its 
 originators and abettors loved to call it, had been some seven years in progress before 
 that " portentous birth of time," and the explanation of that movement must be sought 
 in the character and aims of the three men who gave it its inspiration, impulse, and 
 direction. To understand the confluent stream, you must survey its tributaries and 
 trace them to their source. To understand movements, you must know something of 
 the men who gave them their momenta and direction. 
 
 It is such considerations as these that induce yea, that compel us to include within 
 the scope of this history a survey of the formative period prior to 1811, and especially 
 to consider the training of Hugh Bourne and William Clowes, and how they acted 
 upon the movements of their time, and were, in their turn, re-acted upon by those 
 movements. Let the reader not begrudge the space needful for dealing at all 
 satisfactorily with so difficult and necessary a task. 
 
BOOK L 
 
 SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE HARRISE AHEAD REVIVALISTS. 
 HUGH BOURNE'S CONVERSION. 
 
 UGH BOURNE first saw the light at Fordhays Farm, in the parish of 
 Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, April 3rd, 1772; his second birth took 
 place in the summer of 1799. For the first sixteen years of his life 
 that is to say, during the period when the deepest and most permanent 
 impressions are made Hugh Bourne lived on a solitary moorland farm. The 
 farmstead is still standing, though it has been raised, and its roof is no longer 
 thatched. Those who knew the original building well have left us a description 
 of it which might almost seem to 
 have been taken from " "Wuthering 
 Heights." 
 
 "As a residence, there could hardly 
 be anything more bleak, desolate, and 
 lonely. In the whole neighbourhood 
 of this moorland there were only some 
 two or three other houses, and beyond 
 these was the wide stretch of the moor. 
 There was no road, public or private, 
 not even a foot-road to the house or 
 any where near it, and to complete the 
 isolation and loneliness, the only access 
 to the house was over a wide brook upon 
 a plank, and often for weeks together, 
 the family saw no one beyond their 
 own circle, and of the great outside 
 world they knew but very little."* 
 
 If the bleak Yorkshire fells are needed 
 to account for the sombre genius of the 
 Bronte sisters, so it needs Fordhays Farm 
 fully to account for Hugh Bourne. To 
 the very last his moorland origin stood 
 confessed. His native environment had its counterpart in his strong, rugged nature, 
 and especially in that bashfulness which was so marked a feature of the man. Nor 
 need we wonder at this ; for he must have had a temperament sanguine indeed to have 
 * "Memorial of the Centenary of Hugh Bourne," 1872, p. 11. 
 
 HUGH BOUKXE. 
 From "History of Connexion," pub. 1823. 
 
8 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 enabled him to overcome the steady pressure and influence of such an environment as 
 that amid which the most plastic years of life were passed. But he was also 
 constitutionally shy and serious, and it was inevitable that a timidity inborn and ingrained 
 
 should be deepened by the solitary aspects of his early 
 life. To such an extent was this the case that he became, 
 to use his own words, "so bashful as is seldom seen." 
 We cannot but admire that, handicapped as he was by 
 this temperamental thorn in the flesh, in its very despite 
 this diffident moorland youth of few words eventually 
 got so far and did so much. After all, he must have had 
 considerable reserves of doggedness and moral courage 
 to draw upon, and there must have been rigorous self- 
 discipline and the habit of reliance. 
 
 " But, perhaps," it may be said, " even Fordhays had 
 its compensations. When the plank over the brook 
 was crossed, and you entered the farm-kitchen, there 
 might be enough light and cheerfulness within to make 
 up for the gloom without and to people its solitude. It 
 might be the abode of piety of 'plain living and high 
 thinking.' " Scarcely ; for the master of Fordhays 
 Joseph Bourne, farmer, wheelwright, and timber-dealer 
 was no good liver, though his days were long in 
 the land.* He was passionate, a drunkard and dissolute, 
 a derider of Methodism and dissent, and yet withal a stiff 
 Churchman. Sometimes in his convivial moments he 
 would boast that " he had a bishop and two parsons at home " (alluding to his wife 
 and sons) ; but if so, the parsons had to do their priest's office in the attic or anywhere 
 they could out of sight and hearing of the violent and churlish man. All the time, 
 Joseph Bourne had an angel in the house had he but known it a thrifty, long-suffering 
 woman who did her best to keep together the gear he did his worst to scatter. She, 
 and not he, the husband, was the true stay and band of the house. Partly to save 
 expense, and partly from the love of the work, she taught her children to read as 
 she sat busy at the spinning-wheel. Ellen Steel let us give her maiden name so 
 that two of that surname may honourably figure in the history of our Church early 
 taught her lad to fear God and walk righteously, though she could not bring him 
 into the joy and peace of assurance, and, indeed, did not herself enter therein until 
 Hugh, her son, showed her the way. 
 
 Hugh Bourne's own papers reveal that as a child he was uncommonly serious, and 
 knew something of gloom and even of terror. Early might it have been said of him : 
 
 " Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
 Upon the growing boy." 
 
 But he kept his sorrows and struggles to himself, hiding them even from his mother. 
 
 HUGH BOURNE. 
 (From an old Circuit Plan) . 
 
 Circa, 1848. 
 
 " This side-view portrait struck us 
 as aii exceedingly good one, and 
 worthy of being published in a 
 more permanent form." 
 
 KEV. J. WOOD, D.D. 
 
 * He lived to be nearly a hundred years of age. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 FORDHAYS FARM AS IT WAS. HU(JH BOURNE'S BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 FORDHAYS FARM AS IT IS (BACK VIEW,. 
 
10 1'ltIMlTlVK MKTHODIbT CHUKi II. 
 
 Of this period he afterwards wrote pathetically : 
 
 " Oh, that I had had some one to take me by the hand and instruct me in the 
 mystery of faith and the nature of a free, full, and present salvation ! How happy 
 would it have been for me ! . . . . But like Bunyan's Pilgrim, I had to make 
 my way alone. The Lord neither gave me guide nor companion in the way to the 
 Cross. I was painfully convinced of sin when I was but a small boy, and this 
 without the aid or knowledge of any man : and during my twenty sorrowful years 
 I went through much moral and religious readings." 
 
 This period in Hugh Bourne's life left its mark upon him to the end. Familiar to 
 all is that peculiarity in his character and ministry his constant practice of taking 
 kindly notice of children. He did this not merely to please their parents, or because 
 he himself was, as the phrase goes, " fond of children." He did it on principle ; 
 because, as he knew from his own experience, they had affinities with the Kingdom ->f 
 God, and rightly belonged that Kingdom. So it was his invariable custom to preach 
 short, simple sermons to the children, and to insist upon others doing the same. There 
 lay behind this practice of his, as its sufficient reason and justification, his own 
 experience when as a child he walked in darkness and had no light. What sore travail 
 might have been missed, and how much earlier might he have been won for the Church, 
 had some good soul but broken in upon his solitude and led him, child as he was, into 
 the fold of Christ ! So, as he had suffered when a child from the wrong ideas or 
 indifference of others, he was determined to do his part to save other children, who 
 might even now be before him, from the like experience. 
 
 We shall see, when we come to consider Hugh Bourne as author and editor, what he 
 did in this same period towards self-culture. If we refer to his reading now it is only 
 because by reading, and by reading alone, he was led into the light. It was not by the 
 means of grace as ordinarily understood, or by the living voice of preacher, teacher, or 
 friend that a new direction was given to his life. His conversion was not directly 
 traceable to any living personal influence whatever. On the contrary, the influence 
 exerted upon him by the lives of many around was rather such as to perplex him and 
 hinder his progress. If ever there was a conversion brought about through the 
 instrumentality of books it was in the case of Hugh Bourne. All that men did for him 
 was to lend him the books for which he asked. They neither chose his reading for him, 
 nor asked the question Philip put to the eunuch: " TJnderstandest thou what thou 
 readest ? " 
 
 In 1799 he found rich spoil in a volume of varied contents borrowed of a Methodist 
 neighbour. Between the covers of this book were the Life of Fletcher of Madeley, 
 Jane Cooper's " Letters," the lives of T. Taylor and John Haine, early Methodist 
 preachers, Alleine's " Alarm to the Unconverted," a Treatise on the Articles and 
 Homilies of the Church of England, etc. truly a library in a volume. Amongst the 
 sennons of Wesley was the one on the Trinity (1 John v. 7), which made it clear to 
 him that he had been pursuing a search foredoomed to failure in trying to find a perfect 
 fprm of religion, perfectly expressed. He was now "delivered from laying stress on 
 opinions," and " found that the religion of the heart was alike in all." How much 
 Hugh Bourne felt himself indebted to Wesley's broad Catholic teaching may be inferred 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 11 
 
 from the fact that he has incorporated a weighty paragraph from this sermon in the 
 first History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion, published in 1823. That quotation 
 rightly stands where it does in the History since, but for it, he might have continued to 
 hold aloof from any and every organised religious society. On this ground, Wesley's 
 sermon on the Trinity, and particularly the excerpt given by Hugh Bourne, may be 
 viewed in the light of a document belonging to our sources, and for this reason might 
 quite properly have had insertion here. 
 
 In the early part of this same year 1799 he 
 
 " Read the books of the first Quakers great examples of patient suffering, 
 zealous for open-air worship, mighty in faith. They would exercise faith even 
 in silence, until they moved whole neighbourhoods by so doing. I was much 
 edified in reading of the faith, patience, and sufferings of the primitive 
 
 Quakers I was enabled to see a little more clearly into the mystery 
 
 and power of faith, truly their trials of faith were great." 
 
 BIDDULPH MOOR. 
 
 Next, sundry volumes of the " Arminian Magazine " eldest of our religious serials 
 fell in his way ; and now, for the first time, he learned that the Arminians, whom he 
 had once thought of seeking out in the West of P^ngland, were the same people as the 
 Methodists at his very doors ! After this we can quite believe him when he avers that 
 he " knew but little of the Methodists," and that on account of the conduct of certain 
 inconsistent professors in his neighbourhood, he had gone the length of " thinking the 
 Methodists a fallen people." Assuredly, he much needed at this juncture the offices of 
 a candid and well-informed friend. 
 
 As Wesley had broken down barriers and prepared the way for communion, so 
 
12 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CIIUliCH. 
 
 John Fletcher was instrumentally the means of completing the work of ending the 
 twenty long years of conflict and giving him sure-grounded peace. It will be well to 
 let Hugh Bourne describe in his own na'ive way that experience which was at once the 
 end of a dreary journey, shot by only occasional gleams of brightness, and the 
 beginning of a new and fuller life. 
 
 " One Sunday morning (in the spring of 1799) in my father's house at Bemersley, 
 1 sat reading in Mr. Fletcher's ' Letters on the Spiritual Manifestation of the Son 
 of God,' and realised the blessing named in John xiv. 21, where Christ says, ' I will 
 love him, and will manifest Myself to him'; and He manifested Himself to me, 
 and I was born again in an instant ! yea, passed from death unto life. The naughty 
 was taken out of my heart and the good put in. In an instant I had power over 
 sin, which I had not before ; and I was rilled with joy and love and glory which 
 
 BEMEESLET FARM, THE HOME OF THE BOUKNES. 
 
 made a full amends for the twenty years' suffering. The Bible looked new ; creation 
 looked new ; and I felt a love to all mankind ; and my desire was that friends and 
 enemies and all the world, if possible, might be saved." 
 
 Hugh Bourne could, one thinks, have written a good article on "Books that have 
 Influenced me." And, indeed, from his own incidental references to his indebtedness to 
 books, we have endeavoured to put together such a chapter. Well might he believe in 
 the power of the Press, who was himself a living witness of its power, and humbly 
 follow the example of Wesley in making use of the Press as an instrument in advancing 
 the Kingdom of God. 
 
 It seems the most natural thing in the world to find reprinted in the Magazine 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 13 
 
 for 1822 the six letters of Fletcher, in which Bourne maintains the thesis regarded as 
 " unscriptural, enthusiastical, and dangerous" l>y some "That the Son of God, for 
 purposes worthy of His wisdom, manifests Himself sooner or later to His sincere 
 followers in a spiritual manner which the world knows not of." Soon, we shall 
 find John xiv. 21, the very heart and centre of the written account of his own 
 conversion he drew up for the edification of others, and the text of his first conversation- 
 sermon. 
 
 Elsewhere we have written "Hugh Bourne was the child of primitive Methodism." 
 This is no question-begging phrase. We use it without prejudice or thought of any 
 ulterior argumentative advantage to be gained thereby. As the dictum stands it is 
 historically and psychologically true, and further reflection only serves to deepen our 
 conviction of its truth ; only, the statement needs to be somewhat enlarged. Hugh 
 Bourne was the child of primitive Methodism, but there was also a strain of primitive 
 Quakerism in his blood. He was the product of Methodism, but not of the Methodism 
 of his own day. He knew but little, and could know but little of that. The Methodism 
 of which he was the product, the Methodism he was to do his best to revive and make 
 a living force, was the Methodism of John Nelson, and of the other early preachers 
 whose lives he had read. As we have shown, Methodism reached him first of all 
 through the media of books. Very illuminating are his own words written of a time 
 two or three years subsequent to his conversion : " As my information had been 
 mainly acquired by reading it was chiefly primitive I may say unconsciously primitive." 
 The remark shows acuteness of self-discrimination ; Methodism of the early type was at 
 first imbibed unconsciously. Presently it became his set deliberate purpose to revive ib, 
 and he found himself in association with others of like mind and purpose, and an active 
 participant in a movement which locally was afterwards to differentiate itself. But 
 a word as to the Quaker element in Hugh Bourne's Methodism : the reading of the 
 large volumes containing the annals of the first race of Quakers left its mark its 
 indelible mark upon him, and to a certain extent upon the denomination he helped to- 
 found. To his somewhat narrow, intense, sombre nature there was much in the 
 primitive Quakerism of George Fox with its mystic sympathies, its openness to receive 
 and be guided by impressions and dreams ; with its tendency to give a severe and 
 ascetic interpretation to the injunction, "be not conformed to this world" there was 
 much in all this that was congenial to Hugh Bourne, and to which he readily responded. 
 The law that stood so long on the statute-book requiring travelling-preachers to wear 
 their hair in its natural form, witnesses to the influence which Quakerism in its least 
 vital and attractive form exerted upon our fathers. But though its lower workings 
 might be seen in enactments prescribing the mode of wearing the hair or the cut of the 
 coat, its higher workings wrought results of much more permanent value. In truth, 
 primitive Methodism and primitive Quakerism made a good blend, one which England at 
 the turn of the century was all the better for having offered to it. 
 
 After his conversion, Hugh Bourne was still in some perplexity as to what Church 
 he should join ; for that it was his duty to join some Church he was quite convinced. 
 The question in debate within his own mind Avas whether he should cast in his lot with 
 the Methodists or Quakers. It may even be that he was in a worse strait than the 
 
14 
 
 PRIMITIVE MKTHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 BIDDULPH PARISH CHUPvCH. 
 
 
 STANDLEY FIELDS FARM, RESIDENCE OF FARMER BIRCHENOUGH. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 15 
 
 Apostle, and that he hud likewise drawings to the Quaker-Methodists, who formed 
 a kind of tertium i/ni'l. With each of these he had affinities and sympathy. There is 
 no evidence that he ever seriously thought of making his home in the Established 
 Church, though up to the time of his conversion he and his mother regularly attended 
 the Sunday morning service at Biddulph parish church. He seems to have had some 
 weeks of hesitancy. He felt himself " in a dilemma " ; that is the phrase he uses to 
 express the difficulty he experienced in making up his mind, and he resolved to take no 
 decisive step until the Lord should make known His will. 
 
 Deliverance from his perplexities was brought about in an odd and unexpected way. 
 Of lovefeasts, Hugh Bourne had read in Wesley's Life, and was wishful to see one for 
 himself. But, in his innocence and unfamiliarity with Methodist procedure, he did not 
 know that the ticket he took from the minister's hand was not only a passport to the 
 lovefeast to be held at Burslem on the wake-Monday, but actually made him a member 
 of the Church. But farmer Birchenough, in whose house the travelling-preacher was 
 writing the tickets, knew. He, shrewd man, harped upon the value of the ticket as 
 
 an open-sesame to the lovefeast, but was 
 discreetly silent as to its higher value. He 
 doubtless wished to put an end once for all 
 to Hugh Bourne's dubieties and hesitancies, 
 and to commit him to a definitive course by 
 a little well-meant guile. Next day, Hugh 
 Bourne learned the truth, but resolved upon 
 now going through with the bu&iness and 
 attending the lovefeast, since if it were not 
 the Lord's will that he should be a Methodist, 
 he could still draw back. The superintendent 
 the Rev. John Brettell led that Burslem 
 lovefeast, and so much was Hugh Bourne's 
 heart stirred that, despite his timidity, he 
 was near rising to speak, and at the close he 
 gratefully acknowledged that God had indeed 
 made known His will. " I was," says he, 
 " heart and hand a Methodist." The next 
 Sabbath, June, 1799, Hugh Bourne and his 
 mother both joined the class at Ridgway. 
 
 Thus by a singular coincidence Hugh Bourne was both made a member of the Church 
 and nine years afterwards dismembered without at the time being privy to the fact. 
 
 REV. JOHN HUKTTKLL. 
 
 MOW COP THE MOUNT OF BEGINNINGS. 
 
 By the beginning of 1800, Hugh Bourne had become his own master, and business 
 affairs required him to be much in the neighbourhood of Mow that place of memories. 
 
10 
 
 TKIMITIVK MKTIIODIST CHUKCII. 
 
 
 UIDG WAY- HALL FAKM. 
 
 A VIEW OF MOW COP. 
 (From an old print.) 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 17 
 
 He had speculated in timber at Dales Green between Harriseahead and Mow Cop, and, 
 naturally, he had to be on the spot to take over and prove his purchase. 
 
 As Mow now becomes for a time the chief centre of interest, a word as to this 
 rugged district and its, then, equally rugged inhabitants will not be out of place. The 
 moorlands and heights of North Staffordshire are part of the Pennine range which 
 like a spine runs down from the Cheviots to the Peak of Derbyshire. Mow is a spur 
 or outlier of that range to which Cross Fell and Ingleborough also belong, and forms 
 the south-western extremity of the range. On the north-west, the ridge of Mow 
 presents a somewhat steep and abrupt face to the plain of Cheshire, but on the 
 Staffordshire side its descent is more gradual, and it sinks in terraces into the valley 
 of the Trent the great central plain of England. As its name signifies, Mow Cop 
 is the highest point of the south-westernmost ridge of the aforesaid Pennine range, 
 which here, as if to make the very most of its proportions, thrusts itself up some 
 1091 feet above the level of the sea and attains almost to the dignity of a mountain.* 
 The traveller on the London and North Western Railway between Manchester and 
 London, must surely have lifted his eyes from his newspaper to notice the extended 
 ridge, bordering the counties of Cheshire and Stafford, and crowned by the picturesque 
 structure known as the Tower, which, though erected only in 1754, not unsuccessfully 
 puts on the aspect of hoary antiquity. This is Mow Cop. 
 
 We cannot but think that Primitive Methodism was happy in the locale of its 
 origin, and that there was something even of prophetic significance in what the 
 Northumbrians call its "calf-yard" the place of its nativity. The north-midland 
 county of Staffordshire here epitomises many of the physical and industrial features 
 amongst which so much of the success of the denomination was to be won. The 
 wealth and population of Staffordshire aggregate round its two coal-fields. The northern 
 one, where the coal-measures which run through Lancashire and Cheshire end in the 
 hilly district of the county, is the chief centre of the manufacture of earthenware. 
 Here, too, are moorland shepherds, and miners, and iron-workers as well as the still 
 more numerous potters. The southern coal-field, separated from the northern one by 
 the purely agricultural valley of the Trent, is given up to ironworks and hardware 
 manufactures, and is known to everybody as the Black Country. Candid friends of 
 our Church will tell us that right along the course of our history we have worked 
 amongst peasants and potters, pitmen and puddlers. If so, we have been true to our 
 origin, for we began among these classes of workers and, the physical geography of 
 Stafford and the industrial life of its crowded population being what they were, we 
 could not well have begun among any other ; nor could we have begun our work 
 among any sections of the community that more needed a rousing evangelism. 
 
 * Though " Mow," we are told, was formerly written " Mole," we need not infer that the name 
 was given in irony or to express a fancied resemblance to a mole-hill, though such a derivation is 
 possible enough. Mow may be the slightly disguised Celtic " Meol " or " Mel," a bare chalk-hill, 
 or it may, more probably, be the Saxon " Mow,' a stack or heap, as in barley-mow ; and as " Cop " 
 is the good old word for the top, summit, or crest, Mow-Cop will be no hybrid compound, but 
 a pure Saxon double designation denoting the highest point of the ridp-e. 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 19 
 
20 I'l.'IMITIVK METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 The Mow Cop of a century ago was very different from the Mow Cop of to-day. 
 It requires an effort of the imagination to picture it as it would appear to Hugh Bourne 
 in 1800, when his lot was cast there. It was a region rugged and bleak, dotted here 
 and there with a few grey roughly-built cottages, that might have been the outcrop 
 of the rocky ground, so well did they correspond in form and hue with their 
 environment. And the morals and manners of the people who lived in these cottages 
 and wrought the quarries or won coal in the adjacent pits, were in keeping with the physical 
 aspects and conditions amid which their lives were spent, being rough and rude. But 
 they were worse than rough and rude ; for those who lived nearer those days speak of the 
 district as though it were an enclave of heathendom. One biographer of Bourne records 
 his opinion that the Kidsgrove and Harriseahead colliers were quite as ignorant and 
 
 KIDSUROVE COLLIERY. 
 
 debased as the Kingswood colliers of Wesley's and Whitefield's day. Drunkenness, 
 cock-fighting, bull-baiting, poaching, pugilism, midnight marauding, and profanity were 
 rife. Crimes of violence were common enough to give the stranger, or even the belated 
 native who was compelled to cross .the mountain, an unpleasant feeling of uneasiness 1 , 
 and he walked warily, as one who knew he ran some risk. It was, indeed, one of the 
 dark places of the land ; for, with the exception of one small chapel of ease (New 
 Chapel where Brindley, the great canal engineer, lies buried), there was no place 
 of worship to be seen for miles on the Staffordshire side of Mow. > Here, however, it 
 ought to be observed, lest a wrong impression be made, that, bad as the people 
 of Mow were, they were not, after all, " sinners above all that dwelt " in England at 
 the opening of the nineteenth century. Though special attention, like a searchlight, 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 21 
 
 NEW CHAPEL CHURCH. 
 
 (Brindley's Grave is the Monument on the left). 
 
 has been turned on this particular corner of North Staffordshire, with the result of 
 disclosing sad spiritual destitution and deplorable morals, yet the light only needed 
 to be concentrated elsewhere with equal intensity, in order to reveal a spiritual 
 
 destitution just as great and 
 morals not one whit better. Of 
 this abundant evidence could be 
 given were this but the time and 
 place to give it. Let us think 
 of Mow as one of many similar 
 
 MOW COP CHAPEL (SIDE VIEW). 
 
 The foreground is past the 
 site of the first Camp Meeting of 1807. 
 
 benighted districts that in 1 800 
 sorely needed evangelising. 
 
 But what conspicuous 
 changes the years have brought ! 
 In few parts of England is a 
 
 MOW COP CHAPEL (INTERIOR). 
 
22 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 more striking contrast between the state of things prevailing in 1800 and 1900 afforded 
 than in the neighbourhood of Mow. Ironworks and other industries now give 
 steady and remunerative employment to an increased population. The conditions of 
 material well-being are everywhere to be seen. On hill and in dale neat cottages 
 abound the homes of thrifty, self-respecting, and God-fearing men and women, and 
 the country is dotted with sanctuaries and Sunday-schools at once the sign, cause, and 
 effect of the improvement the century has witnessed. No wonder that one of ourselves 
 should have broken out into a jingle : 
 
 " Upon the mossy brow 
 Of the venerable Mow 
 There stands a chapel now, 
 Upon a hill." 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS-DAY CONVERSATION-SERMON. 
 
 But we revert to 1800 and to Mow as Hugh Bourne looked upon it in the early part 
 of that year. His first feeling was not " What a fine field of usefulness is here ! " but 
 rather " Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar ! " 
 He recalled with a twinge of self-condemnation how at Ridgway he had thought the 
 means of grace all too scanty. But now, as if to punish him for his undervaluing of 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 23 
 
 opportunities, there was an absolute famine of the Word of Life. In this mood Mow 
 was to him as the hill Mizar, the hill of longing and of wistful memories. With this 
 regret for what he had lost, there was mingled the more acute feeling of fear for himself 
 lest he should succumb to the dearth of means and the evil examples all around him. 
 He wished the timber were all won and he free to return to more congenial surroundings. 
 But, instead of loosing him, providence proceeded to tie him more tightly to this barren 
 spot by a double cord of business engagements. First he was asked to undertake the 
 woodwork of a mountain farm, and then to do the same for Stonetrough Colliery, nor 
 did he see how he could, with any show of reason, refuse either contract. 
 
 It is with the beginnings of the Christian life in the renewed heart of the individual 
 as it is with fire and water. 'The fire needs fuel to feed it and air to fan it, so that it 
 
 SOflAH_;/;a; L STONKTHOUGH COLLIERY. 
 
 Showing shops where Hugh Bourne worked. 
 
 may gather strength and subdue other material to its own nature ; and the water must 
 be let flow so that it may find its way and keep itself fresh by running, and join with 
 kindred drops and streams. Should it be hindered of its way, the fire will die down, 
 and the water, perchance, turn into a noisome puddle. In like manner, the new life in 
 Christ must seek to express itself or it will soon be repressed. So it was well for 
 Hugh Bourne that soon the instinct, so elemental in the Christian life, to tell to others 
 what he himself had experienced, began to force its way through the regret and fear for 
 his own spiritual safety, and even to master that morbid shyness which kept him from 
 having any dealings, save unavoidable business ones, with the hill-dwellers so different 
 from himself. 
 
24 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 As yet and we would emphasise the fact we are a long way from the first conscious 
 efforts in Church-founding or proselytising. We have not even reached the stage when 
 testimony is borne to what is regarded as primitive Methodism as against a Methodism 
 not primitive. This stage will be reached by-and-by. At present we have to do with 
 something more primitive than primitive Methodism, viz., the primal instinct and 
 impulse of the renewed soul such as prompted Andrew to bring his brother to Jesus. 
 As that incident, so true to the elemental, abiding facts of the Christian life, stands on 
 the first page of the Church's beginnings, so we are glad that the first incident which 
 after Hugh Bourne's conversion can distinctly be related to the chain of causes and 
 effects which led to the formation of our own Church, irresistibly reminds us of 
 Andrew's deed. Better so than that something more showy or cataclysmic marked our 
 beginning. Better the tiny streamlet trickling from the heart moved with compassion 
 than the breaking forth of the waters of strife. 
 
 The story of how the shy moorland carpenter spent the Christmas Day of 1800 has 
 often been. told, but it must be told once more; for it is entirely honourable to Hugh 
 Bourne and to the denomination that claims him as one of its founders. Moreover 
 that incident stands as an object-lesson pointing out the way of hope for the conversion 
 of the world each man seeking to save his brother. Individual reproduction is the 
 law of the Christian life. With that law Primitive Methodism is accordant, and in 
 obedience to that law it had its birth. 
 
 Workers in wood naturally have frequent business relations with workers in iron. 
 So Hugh Bourne, the carpenter, was occasionally found at the village smithy. On one 
 of these visits he so far broke through his habitual reserve and bashfulness as to broach 
 the subject of experimental religion, and finished by putting into the hands of Thomas 
 Maxfield, the smith, a written account of his own conversion.* This would probably 
 be in the autumn of 1800, as the MS. bears the date August 17th. 
 
 Now, the smith had a crony who was a man of some note in the neighbourhood, not, 
 however, because of his virtues, for he was a ringleader in wickedness, a champion 
 boxer, an adept rabbit-snarer, a card-player and hard drinker. There was something 
 Titanic about Daniel Shubotham. When his vehement temper was on him he could do 
 nothing by halves, but did it, as it were, with both hands. But these hot fits were apt 
 to be succeeded by what, in comparison, looked like cold ones. There were intervals of 
 listlessness and inactivity between his outbursts of energy. Because when he willed he 
 willed strongly, Daniel was a man to be reckoned with, but the fitful character of his 
 energising was in danger of giving his life the appearance of a patch-work discontinuity. 
 Daniel's father had been a man of some position and property, and had given his son 
 what would be considered at the time a very fair education, -and had started him with 
 hopeful prospects. But Daniel had squandered all but a remnant of his patrimony, and 
 was now reduced to the level of a working miner. 
 
 At the time of which AVC write Daniel Shubotham was intermittently under conviction 
 of sin. It was brought about in this wise. One evening he and others were, by 
 invitation, making a night of it with a moorland farmer. When inflamed with his 
 potations Daniel surpassed himself in profanity. His oaths were loud and deep and 
 
 * See page 13. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 25 
 
 various ; so much so that the farmer-host, himself a proficient in profanity, was shocked, 
 and administered a severe rebuke. Quoth he : " Thou art the worst curser and swearer, 
 Dan, I ever heard in my life ! I am quite ashamed of thee ! " Daniel was cowed and 
 in silence sat self-condemned ; and from that time the habit of profane swearing, 
 which he had worn as a garment, seemed to have fallen from him. Bouts of drinking 
 alternated with seasons of poignant conviction. When the latter were upon him he 
 would throw down his pick, and, to seek distraction and comfort, make his way to the 
 smithy, where he would sit on the smithy hearth, kicking his heels and talking as he 
 listed. On one such " idle day " Daniel's splenetic humour led him to rail against his 
 cousin, Hugh Bourne. " What a timid, bashful fellow he was ; no company for any 
 one ; and he had no comfort of his life." " Aye, lad ! but he's a safe mon ! " was the 
 smith's quick retort ; for he had read Hugh Bourne's written statement, and knew the 
 real worth of the man. These few words in the vernacular, spoken on the impulse of 
 the moment, produced a startling effect on Daniel as though a finger had pressed 
 a secret spring. " I'll be a safe man, for I'll go and join him," cries Daniel, leaping 
 to his feet from the smithy hearth on which he had been ensconced. Maxfield, 
 astonished at the effect of his own words, would have recalled them, or at least have 
 discounted their influence ; for he feared lest Daniel should make good his threat and 
 he should lose his boon companion. But the words had gone home and done their 
 work. The kinsmen, so dissimilar, did come together. Daniel lost no chance of 
 having speech with his cousin ; and often would the two forgather, and the one be 
 seen squatting, miner-like, " on his hunkers," hearing and asking the other questions 
 concerning the deep things of God. But all these conversations were but preparatory, 
 leading up to the memorable meeting on Christmas Day morning of 1800, which 
 meeting we will let Hugh Bourne describe in his own words. Only, let the reader note 
 {as accordant with what has already been said of the primitive sources of Hugh Bourne's 
 present enjoyed experience) the reference to the reading from the book of Robert 
 Barclay, the Quaker ; the written statement of his conversion put into his interlocutor's 
 hand ; and, above all, the conversation-sermon on the text " I will love him, and will 
 manifest Myself to him." The scribe who had been made a disciple to the kingdom of 
 heaven brought out of his treasure things new and old.* 
 
 " Christmas Day, Thursday, December 25th, 1800. Last night I lay down in 
 sorrow, and this morning I arose in sorrow ; the main cause of my grief was my 
 kinsman not being born of God. My natural timidity pressed upon me, so that it 
 was a task to go ; but my mouth had been opened before the Lord, and to have 
 drawn back would have been awful : so off I set, taking with me a book written by 
 R. Barclay, the Quaker ; and I took the written account of my own conversion and 
 experience. It was a sorrowful journey ; but I found Daniel waiting for me, so 
 my introduction was easy. Having never prayed in public, and judging myself 
 not capable of it, I did not pray with the family ; but, knowing him to be hindered 
 by an erroneous notion, read him a piece out of Barclay, with which he declared 
 himself satisfied : so the way was open. Next followed a little general conversation. 
 I then rose up to go, requesting him to accompany me a little way. I was full of 
 
 * Matthew xiii. 52. 
 
26 
 
 PRIMITIVE MKTHODIST CHU11CII. 
 
 sorrow ; but so soon as we were in a suitable place, I set to preaching the gospel to- 
 him with all my might ; and, taking up John xiv. 21, where the words of Jesus 
 Christ are, ' I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him,' I told him that 
 Jesus Christ must be manifested to him, or else he would never be born again, and 
 then he could not go to heaven : and, being all the time in deep sorrow, I laid open 
 the gospel of Jesus Christ, showing him of being justified by faith, and having 
 
 THE-OLD-MAN OF-MOW- 
 
 I*"" DALES j STONE-TROUGH 
 
 GREEN. 
 
 HARRISEAHEAD 
 
 KIDSGROVE 
 
 CHAPEL: 
 
 GOLDEN-HILL 
 
 BEMERSLEY 
 
 V X 
 
 . RIDGEWAY 
 
 peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ ; and I dwelt very fully on' the 
 manifestation of Jesus Christ unto him. At parting I put into his hands the full 
 account of my own conversion and experience. I then took leave, but parted from 
 him in sorrow, fearing he did not take sufficient notice, and I passed the day in 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 27 
 
 sorrow. But God's thoughts were not as my thoughts, for Daniel afterwards told 
 me that when I was talking to him that morning, every word went through him." 
 
 One could fain linger on that scene in the miner's cottage, and on the walk and talk 
 by the way, when one humble soul brought to another sorely needing it the true 
 Christmas message the. manifestation of the Christ. And one could linger all the 
 more willingly upon it, remembering that just then, the year 1800 perhaps the 
 gloomiest year of the fast-dying century, was itself fleeting away with its grisly 
 attendant shapes of war, famine, and tumult, into the " dark backward and abysm of 
 time." It would be easy, under the stress of the notion of the dignity of history, to 
 
 HARRISEAHEAU VILLAGE. 
 
 The second building from the left-hand side is the Chapel built by Bourne, 
 and now used as Wesleyan Sunday Schools. 
 
 cavil at the introduction of such an incident into this book and grudge the space 
 devoted to its narration. But events are trivial or important as they are or are not 
 related to what is of abiding significance. Adjudged by this standard the Christmas- 
 day conversation-sermon at Harriseahead was not trivial. That incident was the 
 beginning of beginnings a runlet which fed the stream itself destined to be a tributary 
 of the broad river tending to the sea. Humanly speaking, the revival at Harriseahead 
 and much else came of that incident. Meanwhile, let sticklers for the dignity of 
 history ponder what good Cotton Mather has said : " A little man may do a great deal 
 of harm ; and pray, why may not a little man do a great deal of good ? It is possible 
 that ' the wisdom of a poor man ' may start a proposal which may ' save a city '- 
 a nation ! A single hair, applied to a flyer that has other wheels depending on it, may 
 eradicate an oak, or pull down a house." 
 
28 rimilTIYK METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 THE HAKHISEAIIEAD REVIVALISTS AND SOME OF THEIR METHODS. 
 In the good old town of Driffield, in Yorkshire, there is a clear chalk-stream which 
 bears, and doubtless for more than a thousand years has borne, the name of " Water- 
 forlorns " the issuing forth of the water. We think of this graphic and appropriate 
 name as we take note of the revival of religion that followed and was largely the result 
 of Daniel Shubotham's conversion. In that morally dry and sterile region, [God's 
 prophetic Word had its fulfilment : " In the wilderness shall waters break out, and 
 .streams in the desert." Now and onwards Mow Cop was to be, in a double sense, the 
 birthplace of streams. In a natural sense it had long been so ; for on Mow, as on any 
 other part of England's " Great Divide," the presence of running water is distinctly felt. 
 
 THE WATER-FORLORNS, IHUFFIELI). 
 
 " A tricklet here at the bottom of a crag, or a trickle there from the top of it, is always 
 making one think whether this is one of the sources of the Trent, or rootlets of Mersey, 
 or beginnings of distant Severn."* Thoughts similar to these, though relating to higher 
 things, occur to us as we watch the progress of the revival that " broke out " at 
 Harriseahead like a stream from the well-head. That time of revival may belong to 
 " the day of small things," but the small things are beginnings which, like the rills 
 trickling down the sides of Mow, are destined to last and go far. Knowing what they 
 will become we cannot " despise the day of small things." Mow has had its part to 
 play in the wondrous hydraulics of Grace as well as Nature. It may be but a coincidence, 
 tut whether or not, it is worth noting that Primitive Methodism and the river Trent 
 * Buskin : ' Prseterita' i. ix. The quotation is adapted. 
 
SOURCES AND OKI c, IN. 
 
 THE MOW COP SOURCE OF THE TRENT. 
 
 The stream rises under the wall shown at bottom of right-hand corner of illustration- 
 are inseparably associated ; for both have their head-waters near Mow Cop* (as any 
 good map will show), and in its early progress Primitive Methodism followed the course 
 of the Trent. 
 
 Daniel Shubotham was soundly converted. He escaped the snares his old companions 
 
 
 < 
 
 THE JUNCTION OF THE TWO STREAMS FORMING THE TRENT. 
 
 * One of the sources of the Trent is on Mow, under the wall shown in our first picture. The 
 other is on Biddulph Moor. These come together near the Abbey Farm, Milton. 
 
30 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 set for him, and began at once in his turn to capture others for Christ. He was not 
 the man to do anything by halves, and soon his conversion and the change it had 
 wrought in him, became the talk of the country-side. Daniel's zeal acted as a stimulus to 
 the shrinking piety of Hugh Bourne. The two colleagues were soon joined by another 
 collier, who was to do yeoman service. This recruit, whose name was Matthias Bayley, 
 had been converted, as Hugh Bourne is careful to inform us, through the instrumentality 
 of Thomas Allen, the only open-air preacher on the Burslem plan. The moorland 
 carpenter and the two colliers became like a threefold cord. 
 
 " H. Bourne's timidity stood in his way. But Daniel would not allow this to 
 be a reasonable objection. H. Bourne had talked to him to purpose, and why not 
 
 CONGLETON EARLY IN THE 1'jTH CENTURY. 
 
 to others. And he saw no reason for talking in a doubting, hesitating way about 
 religion. Daniel and Matthias spoke and spared not. And their plain, strong way 
 was NEW (sic) to H. Bourne. In that one conversation H. B. was fully brought out 
 of his former way. He saw at once the excellence of Daniel and Matthias' way, 
 and fully entered into it; and in that respect fully entered on a NEW course. 
 And from that hour to the present, H. Bourne has laboured with all the diligence 
 in his power to promote that course ; and, through the mercy of God, it has great 
 root in the Connexion." (H. B. in Magazine, 1836, pp. 178, 9). 
 
 "And, really, in a short time, we were like two flames of fire. I had never 
 in my life noticed anything that equalled this it really was primitive Methodism 
 indeed." (Early Journal.) 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 31 
 
 No wonder that a revival broke out which soon changed the face of things in 
 Harriseahead and neighbourhood. One trophy of the revival was a collier who 
 had been the first of a newly-organised gang of poachers ; and the gang was 
 broken up. Not only was Harriseahead " moralised " (to use Hugh Bourne's 
 expression), but from this point as a centre the revival spread, until by the time of 
 Congleton May Fair (1801), much of the country lying on the slopes and under the 
 shadow of Mow, as well as Mow itself, felt the influence of the evangel. It reached 
 the colliers in the vale of Kidsgrove, over whom Hugh Bourne felt called upon to 
 exercise some degree of oversight. He not only visited them in their homes but 
 established a society class. For him the revival meant more work and more care. He 
 could not escape responsibility ; for his reputation as " a safe man," and one gifted with 
 book-learning, naturally led his colleagues to rely on his judgment and look to him for 
 guidance. " We had," says he, "to establish order and maintain discipline, keep up the 
 converting work, and promote piety." 
 
 Historically, the revival at Harriseahead in the opening year of the 19th century 
 merits close attention. We may think that if we know one revival we know all 
 revivals, and may ask, " What, then, was there about this Harriseahead revival that 
 makes it unlike any other within our knowledge and experience ? " Well, it had its 
 own peculiar features and its special meaning. It set a type. It moved on early 
 Methodist lines ; and yet for a time it was unattached, or but slenderly attached, to the 
 official Methodism of the locality. Indeed, some of the features it presented, and the 
 methods of carrying it on most in favour were, to say the least, not the ordinary 
 conventional ones in use and repute at the time in official circles. 
 
 One of the methods of evangelism mainly relied on and most successful in results 
 was Conversation-preaching we need the word to mark off the thing. What Hugh 
 Bourne had done on Christmas Day everybody seems to have been expected to do. 
 Never, perhaps, was a revival carried on with less preaching of a formal pulpit kind, 
 and yet preaching was everywhere going on. The preacher was always ready, and his 
 congregation never far to seek. On the pit-heaps, in the " delf," by the wayside, the 
 new converts talked religion. They did it both by impulse and on principle ; not in 
 a general abstract kind of way, but in the way of direct personal appeal. " All at it ; 
 always at it," seems to have been the watchword of the time. So characteristic of 
 the Harriseahead proceedings was this button-holing Conversation-preaching that the 
 revivalists might have been called Conversation-preaching Methodists. 
 
 Soon after the revival began, a weekly cottage prayer meeting was established at 
 Jane Hall's for long the only Methodist at Harriseahead. At the first meeting held 
 here, Hugh Bourne " broke through splendidly." He had attempted to pray at Bidgway 
 the previous Sunday, but the result was not encouraging. From this time, he notes, 
 " he was fitted to be a public praying labourer." The prayer meetings thus instituted 
 were not of the ordinary kind. Here, again, everybody was expected to take part, and 
 liveliness was the characteristic. " The people got to be, in a great measure, Israelitish," 
 says Hugh Bourne, which we find, being interpreted, means noisyish. He quotes 
 Ezra iii. 12, 13 : "And all the people shouted with a great shout ..... and 
 the noise was heard afar off." This was strictly true of the " Israelitish " prayer 
 
32 
 
 I'IMMJTIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 meetings held at Jane Hall's, for Hugh Bourne tells how, the door of a house on Mow 
 Cop happening to stand open, Elizabeth Baddeley, a miner's wife, who was given to the 
 use of profane language, distinctly heard the sound of prayer and praise coming from 
 Harriseahead a mile and a half off, and was convinced of sin and set out for heaven. 
 The praying company were exercising with all their hearts and minds, and with all 
 their voices striving to " get into faith." H. B. says drily : " Any one that could 
 distinguish his or her own voice must have had a pretty good ear ! " Yet it would be 
 wrong to describe these lively meetings as lawless. That they could not well be if 
 Hugh Bourne had anything to do with them. " Our rules," says he, " were strict." 
 Every one must keep out of sin, and none were allowed to use improper expressions,* 
 
 OLD JANE HALL'S HOUSE, HARRISEAHEAD. 
 
 and the meeting was not to continue beyond the hour or the hour and a half at the 
 longest, lest they should be unfitted for their morrow's labours, and their good be evil 
 spoken of. To the stringency of this last regulation we owe a homely saying of Daniel 
 Shubotham, which for years men kept in mind, and is likely to be recalled as often as 
 the history of camp meetings shall be written. One night when the allotted hour and 
 a quarter seemed all too short, and the praying labourers rose from their knees with an 
 appetite for more prayer, and expostulatory voices were heard " "Would that the 
 meeting had gone on longer ! Why did you break it up so soon ? " then it was that 
 Daniel, prophet-like, spoke words of wider reference than he himself knew at the time. 
 Wishful to mollify those who felt as though they had been put off with short-commons, 
 
 * " H. Bourne showed them a sermon of Mr. Wesley's, that disallows fondling expressions as 
 ' dear Lord,' ' sweet Lord.' So these were put away, and sound and clear expressions were 
 cultivated." Magazine, 1836. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 33 
 
 he promised they should have their fill some one day. " You shall have," said he, 
 " a meeting upon Mow some Sunday and have a whole day's praying, and then you'll 
 be satisfied." Daniel's proposal was novel, yet seemed eminently suitable. So acceptable 
 was it to the people that it was repeated the next Sunday. The twice-given assurance 
 did not fall on heedless ears, but "the people began to take it up, and months and 
 years after they conceived that the first proposal of a day's meeting was providential." 
 
 Another fixed and favourite idea of Hugh Bourne's was "variety in class leading." 
 He maintained that this method of multiple leadership also was quite in accordance 
 with the practice of early Methodism, and he refers for corroboration to Wesley's 
 expressed views in the Minutes of 1744. We are not sure whether, in his view, the 
 ideal class would not have been one in which every member should take his or her 
 turn at "leading" Be this as it may, he believed in variety in class leading, and, as 
 far as lay in his power, practised it too. The class which Hugh Bourne first joined at 
 Kidgway was conducted on these lines, and when Daniel Shubotham was made leader 
 
 JOSEPH POINTON'S HOUSE ON THE SIDE OF MOW COP. 
 
 of the Harriseahead class, he would not consent to act unless he were assisted. So 
 Hugh Bourne, Matthias Bayley, and T. Cotton would lead in turn, and sometimes 
 others. When a class was formed at Norton the same course of procedure was adopted, 
 and we infer that the class at Kidsgrove was similarly conducted. 
 
 To this same revival time the time of beginnings belongs also what is known as 
 
 "THE CAMP MEETING WITHOUT A NAME." 
 
 So far, Hugh Bourne had never, to use his own quaint phrase, " stood up in the pulpit 
 \vav. though he had, despite his shyness, become an adept in talking salvation-sermons. 
 But in the Midsummer of 1801 he was pressed to preach. It was thought a man who 
 knew so much and had done so much could do still more. Reluctantly he consented. 
 The service was to be held at Joseph Pointon's house on the Cheshire side of Mow, 
 when- there was a small Sunday morning class and a fortnightly preaching service. 
 
34 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 It was arranged that Hugh Bourne should preach on July llth, advantage being taken 
 of its being an " off" Sunday on the plan. He himself had wished that the service might 
 be held out of doors; but Joseph Pointon was no believer in open-air worship, and vetoed 
 the proposal. But held in the open air the service was, after all ; for the fame of the 
 revival, and the announcement that the man was going to preach who, according to 
 Thomas Maxfield had driven Daniel Shubotham crazy, drew such a number of people 
 together from far and near that the house could not hold them. " Then it's like to 
 be out of doors" said good Joseph Pointon. The words, in his use of them, simply 
 expressed a physical necessity ; but to us, who see them in the light of after events, 
 the words convey the hint of a moral necessity as well. There was a needs-be for 
 out-of-door religious services, not so much because chapels were always full, as because 
 
 they were so often nearly empty. So we have here, in Joseph Pointon's " Then it's 
 like to be out of doors," another of those homely sayings in the vernacular which the 
 reader of our history occasionally meets with as he passes along sayings in which he 
 cannot but find a deeper meaning than may have been felt at the time even by those 
 who first uttered them. Two, at least, of these voces populi we have already noted, 
 and others will challenge attention as we follow our narrative. 
 
 Hugh Bourne stood up and took for his text Heb. xi. 7, which speaks of the faith 
 of Noah. He preached with his left hand before his face fingers outspread like 
 one who looks forth from a barred window. The attitude was very characteristic of 
 the man when conversing or addressing an audience, and was noted as a peculiarity 
 to the end. Behind this fleshy screen did diffidence entrench itself, not suffering the 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 35 
 
 searching glance of men to get within its guard.* Hugh Bourne tells us he was "soon 
 at a loss " in preaching, but recovered himself somewhat when he bethought him of 
 speaking before many as though he were addressing but one. Exhausted with the 
 nervous strain of this effort he withdrew for rest, but soon returned to join in the 
 exercises of prayer and exhortation which followed the sermon. 
 
 Assuming as we do the fact of the importance of this first open-air service on 
 Mow Cop, we must be careful lest we emphasise its importance in the wrong place. 
 We shall be wrong if we magnify it as the first camp meeting or celebrate it as the 
 birthday of Primitive Methodism. And yet men have fallen into this double error, 
 and may fall into it again. This may be shown by a concrete case. In a twelve-page 
 
 POINTON S FARM, AND FIELD OF FIRST CAMP MEETING. 
 With Mow Cop Chapel in the distance. 
 
 pamphlet published in 1854, now lying before us, the anonymous author, in a truculent 
 and scornful fashion, repudiates the claim of William Clowes to be regarded as a 
 founder of our Church simply on the ground that when the founding took place 
 
 * " Occasionally in preaching, almost constantly in conversation, his open left hand elbow of that 
 arm resting the while in the palm of the right hand was put up like a shutter before his face and 
 eyes, but unlike a shutter in this respect that he could watch, through the interstices formed by the 
 fingers being spread out a little, the effect of his words upon the person or persons with whom he 
 was conversing, without their being able to obtain any satisfactory view of his countenance. In 
 this posture, the left shoulder (that of the "shutter" arm) keeping up a kind of. motion like that 
 of a perpendicular piston in action, he would express his thoughts in terse and suitable phrase." 
 Rev. J. Wenn's MSS. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 "William Clowes was not Methoclistically born ; that is to say, the repudiation of 
 William Clowes' right to be called a founder can be made good only by antedating the 
 origin of the Connexion by some ten years and five months, and the establishment of 
 camp meetings by close upon six years. Then, by a daring adaptation of the sublime 
 question which the Eternal is represented as putting to Job out of the whirlwind, the 
 pamphleteer pictures Hugh Bourne demanding of William Clowes : " Where wast thou 
 when I laid the foundations of English camp meetings on Mow Cop in 1801 1" And 
 we are left to imagine how, when he hears this demand, William Clowes is covered 
 with shame and confusion, and buries his face in his mantle. All this is very amusing 
 though smacking of irreverence, and the foolish pamphlet is only unearthed for a 
 moment in order to point the lesson How history can be perverted by the misreading 
 of the plainest facts when looked at through partisan eyes. And now, to earth again 
 with the exhumed pamphlet ! 
 
 In sober truth, the service in Joseph Pointon's field, so far as Hugh Bourne's part 
 in it was concerned, was but a halting exhortation, by the veriest chance delivered out 
 of doors. Wherein then lies its significance 1 for it must be confessed that, looking 
 back upon it in after years, Hugh Bourne regards it as of outstanding importance. 
 To him, July 12th, 1801, was "this great Sabbath"; "this extraordinary day"; "it may 
 be called a camp meeting without a name." And, in a sense, Hugh Bourne is right, as 
 he so often is. Though, only proleptically in the light of subsequent developments 
 could it with any shadow of propriety be called a camp-meeting, yet it was of 
 importance, from the influence it exerted upon the mind of Hugh Bourne in leading 
 him to develop on principle what others had struck out casually. It suggested 
 a modification of field-preaching, in harmony with Hugh Bourne's ruling idea of 
 variety, and the co-operation of the many in evangelistic work. In this respect it 
 was in close analogy with the other methods adopted by the Harriseahead revivalists, to 
 which reference has been made conversation -preaching, the participation of all in 
 prayer meetings, variety in class leading. The fine saying of Moses " Would God 
 that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put His spirit upon 
 them ! " seems to have been the ideal they were instinctively groping after ; and 
 this is the ideal we must still set in front of all our work and steadily pursue and 
 contend for, whatever may be the changes a hundred years may have brought about 
 in our methods. How Hugh Bourne came to regard this camp meeting without a name 
 is shown by the following remarks concerning it, made in the retrospect : 
 
 " Mr. Whitefield, Mr. Wesley, and others practised field-preaching ; but here on 
 Mow Cop the Lord caused open-air worship to be commenced on a broader 
 foundation." . . . " On this day, July 12th, 1801, the Lord enlarged our ideas. 
 He, in His mercy, opened out a dispensation of sacred and divine worship, 
 consisting of a text and sermon, accompanied with a camp meeting movement, 
 performed or carried on by more persons than one ; and this order of proceeding 
 exhibited a newness or enlargement in Methodism. In the union of preaching 
 and praying services, the Lord, in His providence, set forth an example for holding 
 future camp meetings." 
 
 Within three weeks after the holding of the out-door service on Mow Cop, a 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 37 
 
 deputation of the Harriseahead miners waited upon Hugh Bourne with a project for 
 building a new chapel, for which Daniel Shubotham had promised a corner of his 
 garden as site. They themselves promised to do what they could towards the erection. 
 Hugh Bourne looked upon the proposal favourably and undertook, for his part, to 
 provide the timber necessary for the building. It is clear that none concerned were 
 much versed in chapel building, or quite knew the right way to go about the work. 
 The miners, probably as the result of their former thriftless and dissipated habits, were 
 poor, and after digging out the foundations were at the end of their resources, which 
 were muscular rather than monetary. It seemed as though, once more, the parable in 
 the gospel of the man who *-layeth the foundation and is not able to finish" was about 
 to be enacted. To save the situation, Hugh Bourne was again appealed to, with the 
 result that he had to shoulder the responsibility and bear the chief expense of seeing 
 the business through. " Materials had to be brought from a great distance, and the 
 roads in general were not good, and in some parts very bad ; and there was no one to 
 lay on a hand, or advance a single pound, and it was difficult at times to get materials 
 carried." Worse was to follow one of the gables was blown down and the roof fell 
 in. " I hope the Lord will have mercy on any one who has to pass through such 
 scenes of trouble," is the prayerful comment of Hugh Bourne on this, his first, 
 experience of chapel building. 
 
 But the movement, such as has been described, was not to be allowed to go on 
 without check or conflict. Hitherto the work in the Harriseahead district had met 
 with opposition springing only from the unregenerate human heart, just as is the case 
 when the gospel is making its way in a region as yet unchristianised ; but we have 
 now reached a period at which, describing it in his Journals, Hugh Bourne has to 
 record how the views and practices he favoured came in conflict with views and 
 practices of a different cast and type. The revival at Harriseahead was brought to 
 a stand, we are told, mainly through the influence of two Goldenhill potters* who 
 began to attend the meetings. The Moorland carpenter and the Goldenhill potters 
 were quite at issue. They claimed to be old standards in Methodism, and regarded 
 Hugh Bourne and his coadjutors as innovators, as men who "were in a new way, 
 a new cause, and new proceedings." He, on the other hand, believed himself to be 
 moving on the lines of primitive Methodism, and saw in them the representatives of 
 modern Methodism. Hugh Bourne expresses his sense of the contrariety or divergence 
 between himself and them very clearly when he says : " Modern Methodism, by these 
 two potters, said we were all wrong and should soon ruin all by our proceedings." Now, 
 the potters it seems, could mould men as well as clay, for they succeeded for a time in 
 impressing their views on both Daniel Shubotham and Matthias Bayley, and, as we 
 
 * Goldenhill is a village three miles from Mow. Since the above paragraph was written we have 
 come across a passage in the Magazine for 1836, in which Bourne still more strongly puts the fact 
 of the controversy thus early showing itself. He says : " When the Lord began to own their labours 
 . . . there was soon an outcry made, that they were going on in a NEW (sic) course. This outcry 
 was raised by Methodists who came from a distance, and who called themselves ' old standards.' But 
 Hugh Bourne and his fellows were not conscious of any NEW course, any more than were Mr. Wesley 
 and his fellows at Oxford." p. 174. 
 
38 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 have said, the revival received a check, until the two miners, seeing how they were 
 being manipulated and turned, "laid hands on the potters, and got rid of them bypassing 
 them on to Newchapel village, where they soon ruined the cause, and then forsook 
 the place .... and Daniel and Matthias learned a lesson which for years they did 
 not forget." 
 
 We are not attempting to judge between Hugh Bourne and the potters, and to decide 
 who were the innovators and who inquired for the old paths. The former naturally 
 looked upon the two latter very much as Paul looked upon Hymeriaeus and Alexander, 
 the coppersmith, who did him' much evil. But, doubtless, the two potters stood not 
 alone ; they were types and representatives very unworthy ones, it may be but they 
 loere representatives. They had their point of view, and had something to say for 
 taking their stand where, and viewing things as, they did. On a small scale they 
 precipitated a conflict between divergent views and practices which was going on 
 elsewhere on a much wider scale. 
 
 We believe the history of Primitive Methodism as hitherto written, so far as that 
 history claims to have to do with the yeasty formative period of the first decade of the 
 nineteenth century, has not sufficiently taken account of the fact that what was going 
 on in North Staffordshire was but part of a larger movement, similar in character 
 though marked by minor local differences. To be rightly understood and appraised, 
 the Harriseahead Revivalism must not be isolated as though it were a Melchizedekian 
 movement, with no traceable lineage or relationships. If the differences that showed 
 themselves at Harriseahead were nothing but a petty local squabble, it were foolish 
 to recall them. If the case stood on the calendar as " The Goldenhill Potters v. Hugh 
 Bourne," then the affair might be left to the local historian, or, better still, be clean 
 forgotten, as so many Church bickerings deservedly have been. But Hugh Bourne 
 maintained that it was much more than that ; it was no local, or temporary, or personal 
 squabble. To him it stands docketed "Modern v. primitive Methodism." The claim 
 involved in the very title of the case at once lifts it into importance, and requires 
 a change of venue. It belongs of right to the history of the Church at the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century. Let us, therefore, take a wider survey, and inquire what 
 ground there is for concluding that the description " Modern v. primitive Methodism " 
 does truly express the bearings of the case. 
 
 METHODISM MODERN AND PRIMITIVE. 
 
 We have just uSed the words primitive and modern Methodism. Is the use of these 
 terms in their application to the religious life of the opening years of the nineteenth 
 century defensible ? Such is our opinion. These terms do not express a merely verbal, 
 and therefore false, antithesis. They are not simply question-begging epithets. They 
 were terms in current use, and they represented real distinctions. 
 
 And first of all, as a descriptive term, " primitive " Methodism was in use years 
 before it was assumed as a denominational title. In 1792, a twopenny tract was issued 
 by G. Whitfield at the Chapel, City Road, entitled " Sufferings of the Primitive 
 Methodists at Wednesbury." This tract has nothing to do with the sufferings of the 
 
SOURCES AND 'ORIGIN. 39 
 
 early missionaries of our Church as, but for the date upon it, we might suppose to be 
 the case ; but it narrates the sufferings undergone by the Methodists in 1743. Here, 
 plainly, the word " primitive " refers to those who came first in order of time, and is 
 used in its primary chronological sense. 
 
 But here is the title of another book in which the word " primitive " is evidently 
 used in a secondary and derived sense : " Primitive Methodism Defended : showing 
 what means have been used to make a Division among the Methodists and to separate 
 them from the English Church, 1795." That the non-holding of preaching services in 
 church hours, or, still more, dependence upon the clergy of the Church of England 
 for the reception of the sacrament was one form of primitive Methodism which was 
 departed from and rightly departed from by modern Methodism, will not of course 
 be denied. It was just this defection as it was deemed from primitive practice 
 which was made the ground of the secession of the Primitive Wesley ans in 1816. 
 
 But the word "primitive" may stand for something else besides an attitude of 
 subserviency to the Church of England and dependence upon its most sacred ordinance, 
 as it does in the fervent ejaculation of a writer in the Methodist Magazine for 1802, 
 who has been describing the revival resulting from the holding of camp meetings in 
 America : "What cannot the Methodist do through grace? Glory be to God ! primitive 
 Methodism shines in this country and through America." Heedless to say, it was in 
 this sense Hugh Bourne was constantly using the term in describing the events of the 
 period we are considering. He does this when he says : 
 
 " I never knew a Burslem circuit travelling preacher perform what Mr. Wesley 
 calls ' field-preaching ' all the time I was a member. . . . This then was and is 
 modern not primitive Methodism, and I think there is a broad difference between 
 
 the two." 
 
 Now though the phrase " modern Methodism " may not so frequently be met with in 
 the literature of the time, yet in the very fervour with which a writer will avow his 
 wish or determination to revive or maintain primitive Methodism, there is the tacit 
 acknowledgment that some change of tone or modification in practice has taken place, result- 
 ing in what naturally and for the sake of distinction might be called modern Methodism. 
 Of course what may be called " the opposition " habitually use the term as might be 
 expected. It was to them an organised entity to be feared and withstood. But even 
 members of the government (to keep to our parliamentary figure) will betray their 
 knowledge of the existence of the said entity. For example, Mr. Entwisle writes in 
 a private letter of 1807 : 
 
 " The doctrines preached by Messrs. Wesley, Grimshaw, (fee., in the beginning, 
 accompanied with the power of the Holy Ghost, did wonders. And the same 
 truths are now equally important, equally necessary, and may be equally 
 efficacious. Primitive Methodism I admire ; and I think I come nearer than ever 
 to that standard."* 
 
 A few weeks after Hugh Bourne had preached in the open air beside Joseph Pointon's 
 * The Life of Jabez Bunting, D.D., vol. i. p. 290. 
 
40 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 REV. JOS. ENTWISLE. 
 
 house, Jabez Bunting, then a young man of 
 twenty-two, but wise and already influential 
 beyond his years, entered upon the third year 
 of his probation in the adjoining Macclesfield 
 Circuit a fact in itself interesting and sug- 
 gestive. It is more than likely that Hugh 
 Bourne, who lost no opportunity of hearing 
 the ministers of both the Burslem and Maccles- 
 field Circuits, would occasionally hear Bunting 
 on his visits to one of the preaching places 
 not far from Bemersley. Bunting was already 
 taking a keen and watchful interest in the 
 "crystallisation of Methodism." His biographer 
 sheds light on the conflicting diversities of 
 Methodist life of which we have already seen 
 the sijms in Burslem Circuit. 
 
 "Mr. Lomas and Mr. Reece corresponded 
 with each other, and with my Father, as to 
 certain movements at Leeds and Manchester, 
 on the part of the ' Revivalists ' ; a class 
 which, about this period, again occasioned 
 considerable uneasiness to the Fathers of 
 the Connexion, and to the more intelligent 
 and pious of the junior Preachers. William 
 Bramwell, a man eminent for holiness, and 
 for the gifts which, rightfully used, insure 
 ministerial success, openly espoused the 
 cause of this party, until their conduct 
 ended in a miserable schism."* 
 
 Bramwell's biographer is somewhat reticent 
 about the Leeds episode, but what he does say 
 is significant : 
 
 "Mr. Bramwell was, at this period, in 
 danger of thinking that his brethren in 
 the ministry who could not enter into all 
 his plans of usefulness were opposed to 
 revivals ; he therefore yielded himself to gloomy forebodings, similar to those 
 which distressed the mind of Elijah. . . . He for a time yielded to the 
 temptation that the glory of God had departed from Methodism, and that it was 
 his duty to separate from his brethren." t 
 
 JABEZ BUNTING. 
 
 The earliest portrait in existence. 
 
 * The Life of J. Bunting, D.D., vol. i. p. 147. The date is 1803. 
 
 t Memoir of William Bramwell by the Rev. Thomas Harris, pp. Ill, 112. Bramwell was at 
 Leeds 1801-2 with John Barber and Eichard Reece as colleagues. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 RKV. W. BHAMWKU,. 
 
 The painful experience glanced at in 
 the preceding quotation is also referred to 
 by William Dawson in the funeral sermon 
 he preached on the occasion of BramwelPs 
 death. In a highly rhetorical passage of 
 this sermon Bramwell is once more likened 
 to Elijah, who in a fit of depression betook 
 himself to the wilderness, where his 
 solicitous brethren find him. When they 
 put the question : " What doest thou 
 here, brother?" 
 
 "He might have answered with great 
 propriety, "I have been very jealous 
 for the Lord God of Hosts. I fear a 
 criminal love of the world is rivalling 
 Jesus Christ in the heart of His 
 Church, and therefore I thought my 
 best course was to retire, and try 
 what can be done by me in any other 
 way." But when his brethren softened 
 down the distorted features of the detested object, which his trembling 
 hand, at the instigation of his jealous heart, had drawn ; when they took off the 
 deep shades with which he had overcharged its countenance ; when they drew the 
 picture of the monster division ; when they proved that, in the present state of the 
 Methodist Body, the evils of a schism and division would be much greater than 
 the evils which he lamented and deplored and he then saw, in some measure, as 
 they did ; conviction, like a voice behind him, cried out, " This is the way, walk 
 thou in it." He listened ; he obeyed ; he retraced his steps ; he returned to his 
 work ; filled his station with credit to himself, and profit to the Church ; and lived 
 and died in union with his brethren." * 
 
 We may be sure that any cause Bramwell openly espoused would, in his judgment, 
 be in harmony with primitive Methodism, 'though in conscientiously taking the line he 
 did it is likely enough he may have fallen into some imprudences, crossed the inclinations 
 of the majority, or even have infringed some recognised written or unwritten regulations 
 of the Church. However this may have been, it is clear that he suffered greatly in the 
 clash and impact of opposing ideals and tendencies, and was pained by not meeting 
 with the sympathy and co-operation he desired. In a private letter of November, 1802, 
 he laments : 
 
 " I have not the help I want ; I say sometimes, ' Woe is me ! for I am a man 
 beset with opposition from all the powers of hell.' You would be surprised to see 
 what plans I have discovered to prevent the general crush."! 
 
 Why do we dwell on these things and press the distinction between primitive and 
 modern Methodism 1 It is in no contentious spirit ; with no desire to stir into flame 
 
 Life. p. 113. 
 
 t Op. cit. p. 116. 
 
42 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the embers of strife that, left alone, would soon go black out. Our purpose is rather 
 eirenic ; to make it clear that revivalism of the early Methodist type such as Hugh 
 Bourne and his fellow-workers were carrying on, was not confined to Mow Cop and its 
 vicinity, but, allowing for local differences, was contemporaneously to be met with 
 among the Band-room Methodists of Manchester, the Independent Methodists of 
 Macclesfield, the Quaker Methodists of Warrington, the Magic Methodists of Delamere 
 Forest, the Tent Methodists of Bristol (1820), the Revivalists of Leeds. The development 
 and crystallisation of Methodism that took place after the death of Wesley and the 
 Plan of Pacification of 1795 was no process superintended by Fate, or due to accident 
 or the working of natural law, but was a process directed and controlled by some of 
 the wisest heads of those concerned for the future of Methodism. In this period of 
 transition for Methodism, an ethos was acquired and a form assumed that involved the 
 discountenancing and rejection of the methods of revivalism, although these were very 
 largely the survival or revival of methods that characterised Methodism in its primitive 
 and heroic period. 
 
 The two types of Methodism were at that day regarded as incompatible; and modern 
 Methodism, in the person of its leaders, made its election and acted accordingly 
 thinking to serve the best interests of the Church by so doing. We have already 
 shown what some of the heads of houses thought of Leeds revivalism and Revivalists. 
 To illustrate still further what was the consistent attitude and policy of the influential 
 leaders of Methodism with regard to the recrudescence of old-time methods of 
 evangelisation, we give two quotations from contemporary letters and private letters 
 help us to the knowledge of the real thoughts of men, as official documents cannot. 
 In 1803 Mr. Lomas writes to Mr. Bunting : 
 
 " Divisions in the Church of Christ are awful ; and I would do all I could, 
 with a good conscience, to 1 prevent them: but I think the time is come for the 
 Methodist preachers to bestir themselves, and to do all they can for the honour 
 of the religion of Christ, as taught and enforced among themselves. I think 
 they must now 'arise or be for ever fallen.' "* 
 
 Then Bunting, writing confidentially to Marsden in December of the same year, lays 
 down the guiding principle : 
 
 "All persons enthusiastically or schismatically disposed are dangerous in our 
 Connexion to its peace and permanency ; and the more pious in their general 
 character, the more dangerous." t 
 
 Does the reader ask " And what is the bearing of all this on the beginnings of the 
 camp meeting movement ? " The answer is " Much, every way." If and the if implies 
 no doubt, but is simply basal of inference if what Hugh Bourne honestly believed was 
 agreeable to Methodism in her pristine and palmy state, was just as honestly regarded 
 by others as part and parcel of that troublesome Revivalism, which for the safety of 
 Methodism must be discountenanced and disallowed, then separation sooner or later was 
 inevitable unless, indeed, one yielded to the other ; and as neither was made of 
 yielding stuff the inevitable happened the earthen pipkin and iron pot clashed 
 together with what results we do not need to be told. 
 
 * Life of J. Bunting, D.D., p. 148. t Op. cit. p. 219. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 43 
 
 The view we have endeavoured to set forth in this section which may be summed 
 up as the frank recognition of the working incompatibility between the two types of 
 Methodism we have called modern and primitive explains much that would else be 
 inexplicable. For instance, most biographers of Hugh Bourne or those who have 
 touched upon the history of the period 1800 7 are puzzled to understand why -Hugh 
 Bourne was never put on the plan ; why he and his co-workers were so severely let 
 alone ; and how it was that, only after considerable delay, and by dint of importunity, 
 the Burslem circuit authorities were prevailed upon to take over Harriseahead chapel 
 and authorise Hugh Bourne to gather into classes the fruits of the revival. But surely, 
 after what has been said, the reason is neither recondite nor far to seek. If Hugh 
 Bourne's proceedings were regarded as of a piece with the proceedings of the Revivalists 
 at Leeds and elsewhere, then the reason of the action or inaction of the authorities lies 
 on the surface and it needed no prophet to foretell what would happen. 
 
 THE CONVERSION OF WILLIAM CLOWES. 
 
 The interdependence of events is seen in the fact that the conversion of William 
 Clowes was the indirect result of that Revivalism which was endemic at the beginning of 
 
 the century. By this statement 
 more is meant than that 
 Clowes was converted dur- 
 ing a revival : for the said 
 revival can be distinctly traced 
 to the influence propagated by 
 the Stockport Revivalists whom 
 J. Clark, at his own expense, 
 brought over to the September 
 Lovefeast at . Congleton in 
 1804. In his first History of 
 the Connexion * Hugh Bourne 
 refers to these people as 
 EEVIVALISTS, and by thus 
 typographically distinguish- 
 ing them, he evidently in- 
 tended to convey the impres- 
 sion that they were a well- 
 known band who had been 
 made a link in the chain of 
 events. Hugh Bourne and 
 many of the Staffordshire 
 Methodists were present at 
 the Lovefeast. The services 
 partook largely the character 
 
 From the steel portrait of W. Clowes that formed the frontispiece o f what W6 should nOW Call 
 to the minutes of 1819. ,, 
 
 ' ' a Holiness Convention. The 
 
 * 1823 ; the name is also so printed in the edition of 1835. 
 
44 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Revivalists " spoke much of being sanctified wholly." In prayer and testimony and 
 conversation the distinction of Methodism as ' the doctrine of heart-holiness ; was 
 made emphatic and pressed home. The Staffordshire men were quickened and 
 instructed. They were led to probe themselves with questions similar to those 
 which by Wesley's direction were to be put to his helpers on the occasion of their 
 being received : " Have you faith in Christ ? Are you going on to perfection ? 
 Do you expect to be perfected in love in this life ? Are you groaning after it ? " ' 
 The effect of all this was marked ; for the next night a most remarkable prayer meeting 
 was held at Harriseahead, at which " there was an extraordinary outpouring of the 
 Holy Spirit " ; and to the visit of the Stockport Revivalists Hugh Bourne attributes 
 the origin of the second revival which was by no means confined to Harriseahead : 
 "since their first coming many have obtained clean hearts, and the work has been 
 great among sinners, and it has almost spread through the circuit." 
 
 DANE VALLEY, CONGLETON. 
 
 A second visit of the Stockport men to Congleton on Christmas Day, 1804, gave a 
 still further impetus to the revival in its double aspect, and the work of grace amongst 
 both saints and sinners rolled on. A Lovefeast at Harriseahead followed quickly the 
 one at Congleton, and this is of special interest to us because Mr. James Steele, whose 
 name stands on the Deed Poll of the Connexion, was present and took a leading 
 part Hugh Bourne speaks of this meeting in enthusiastic terms. He tells how 
 the chapel was packed with people and "twenty souls prayed into liberty." He had 
 evidently caught the spirit of the Revivalists, and it is curious how naturally 
 the word seems to drop from his pen, and how important a matter it seemed to him 
 
 * Minutes of Several Conversations, &c., from the year 1744 to 1780. p. 34. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 45 
 
 JAMES STKKI.K. TIN STALL 
 (From an old print.) 
 
 that James Steele should have been drawn 
 consentingly into the movement. He 
 writes : 
 
 " Mr. Steele and others from Tun- 
 stall were converted into Revivalists. 
 It was a mighty revivalist move, and 
 the Lord enabled those from Tunstall 
 to carry an increase of the revival 
 fire and revival work to that place. 
 The mighty outpouring of the Holy 
 Ghost in Harriseahead chapel, in Sep- 
 tember, had reached Tunstall, and 
 had made a gracious move ; but on 
 this Christmas occasion it increased 
 to a gracious outpouring of the Holy 
 Spirit. The Tunstall dead ness, which 
 had been proverbial for years, was 
 done away, and Tunstall rose into 
 revival notice, insomuch that shortly 
 after this great Lovefeast, William 
 Clowes, Thomas Woodnorth, James 
 Nixon, William Morris, and others 
 were brought to God, and became 
 useful evangelists." 
 
 As William Clowes steps on the scene we experience something like a feeling of 
 relief; just such a feeling probably as the portrait-painter will have when at last a 
 bafflingly difficult subject is bowed out and another takes his place, whose facial lines and 
 expression and natural pose can more easily be caught and transferred to the canvas. 
 Mr. Gladstone, in comparing two men, both great, but very diversely great, once wrote 
 "The constitution of Dr. Dollinger's mind was simple, that of Newman's complex." 
 We recall these words and the distinction drawn as we think of 'our founders ; the 
 constitution of Clowes' mind was simple, that of Hugh Bourne's complex. This radical 
 difference between the two men can only, be noted here. Meanwhile, in passing, we 
 may remark it is not at all surprising, that a distinguished journalist who seems to 
 have taken all knowledge for his province and who is a candid friend of our Church, 
 should have admitted that William Clowes he thought he knew, but he was not sure 
 that he had got to the true inwardness of Hugh Bourne. We judge that every one 
 who has made a careful study of the mechanism and movements of Hugh Bourne's 
 mind would have to make a similar confession. 
 
 Though no couipleter contrasts than Bourne and Clowes presented can well be 
 imagined, their lives had certain points of coincidence. Both were true Staffordshire 
 men scions of families long rooted in that county. If, as has been repeatedly said, 
 Bourne had Norman blood in his veins and came of a stock that once held considerable 
 landed estates, so, on his mother's side, Clowes claimed kinship with a family of con- 
 sideration that any one might be proud to belong. His mother was born Ann Wedgwood, 
 and belonged to the family which did so much to extend and improve the ceramic art. 
 
46 
 
 I'KIMITIVK METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 47 
 
 Who does not know the famous " Wedgwood " ware ? Through his mother, Clowes 
 could claim relationship with Josiah Wedgwood, the founder of Etruria, the bearer, by 
 
 royal grant and the good pleasure of Queen 
 Charlotte, of the title of "the Queen's 
 Potter," the promoter of roads and muni- 
 ficent patron of the Grand Junction Canal, 
 by which Trent and Mersey and Severn 
 were linked together. Clowes' grand- 
 father, Aaron Wedgwood, in partnership 
 with his brother-in-law, Mr. William Littler, 
 made costly experiments to improve the 
 white stone-ware of the district, and after- 
 wards won the distinction of producing 
 the first china-ware at Longton, near 
 Stoke-on-Trent. 
 
 The Clowes family had to be content 
 with the reflected glory of their house, for 
 nothing more substantial fell in their way 
 as the result of their connections on the 
 spindle-side. If Clowes could record 
 with pardonable pride, how some of his 
 forbears, in 1740, built the largest house 
 in Burslem, "The Big House" and, he 
 might have added, owned also "Ivy House," 
 CLOWES' HOUSK AS IT is NOW, BUKSLEM. to which Josiah Wedgwood brought his 
 
 newly-wedded bride he himself first saw 
 
 the light March 12th, 1780 in a workman's cottage in an obscure court, neat probably, 
 thanks to the housewife, and at that time covered with flowers, yet a dwelling humble 
 enough. 2s r ow, whether a child be born in a big house or a little one is really a matter 
 of small concernment, as many a wise saying testifies. But in this case, as in so many 
 others, the small house was part of a long, quiet domestic tragedy, just as it was in 
 the Bourne household a tragedy in which it falls to the lot of wife and child quietly 
 to suffer what the husband and father, as the evil genius of the family, brings on or will 
 not avert. Samuel Clowes never got to be more than a working potter, nor ever 
 seriously strove to give his wife the position due to her. He was indolent and 
 dissipated, and though he had been religiously inclined in early life, he was turned 
 aside by the reading of a pernicious book and by yielding to temptation, and underwent 
 no change until his last illness. 
 
 Mrs. Clowes was a woman of good parts and amiable character, who bravely set 
 herself to supply as best she could the deficiencies of her home. She had been 
 brought up in the belief and practice of the Church of England, nor did she enter 
 upon the rest of faith until after her son's conversion. And here another interesting 
 parallel may be observed between the personal and family experience of Clowes and 
 Bourne. Each pressed into the kingdom of God before the mother to whom each 
 
48 
 
 PRIMITIVE MKTHODIST CHURCH 
 
 owed so much ; soon each had the comfort of welcoming his beloved parent into the joy 
 and peace of that kingdom; and each had well-grounded hopes, at the long last, 
 
 that the father, though late, 
 and while drawing near to 
 the very margin of the grave, 
 had truly repented and found 
 mercy. 
 
 Still one other parallel be- 
 tween the two remains to be 
 noticed. After that is pointed 
 out, then, any comparison 
 drawn between our two chief 
 
 founders would yield contrasts 
 rather than resemblances. This 
 last point of coincidence be- 
 tween the youthful experience 
 of Bourne and Clowes has in 
 it instruction for the Church 
 of to-day. It blazons the 
 lesson Shepherd the young ! 
 Whatever you do for the full- 
 grown flocks, look after the 
 lambs. The story of the 
 shadowed and perplexed child- 
 hood of Hugh Bourne has 
 already been told, and the 
 biography of Clowes yields 
 the same lesson. At ten years 
 of age, he tells us, being at 
 . a prayer meeting, he wept 
 disobedience ; and later, during 
 
 CLOWES' HOUSE, BURSLEM, AS IT WAS. 
 
 bitterly, under the clear conviction of the sin of 
 a revival at Burslem he adds : 
 
 " My convictions were such, that had an experienced Christian taken me by the 
 hand, I have no doubt that I should at that time have been converted ; but being 
 young, I passed unnoticed, and soon lost those convictions." Journals, p. 12. 
 
 The story of Clowes' life for the first twenty years, when, to use his own words, he 
 was " in the wild olive-tree which is wild by nature," is edifying as a warning rather 
 than as an example. It is just the old familiar story of a youth, who is richly endowed 
 by nature, with abounding vitality and strong in social qualities, giving the reins to his 
 lower propensities. And what wonder ! His education was meagre in the extreme, 
 and he had no intellectual interests. He was not inspired and directed by parental 
 example and counsel, or restrained by wisely administered home discipline. Besides, the 
 world seemed fair ; pleasure allured, and youthful passion went forth to welcome it. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 49 
 
 When a mere child of ten years of age, he was apprenticed to his uncle, Joseph 
 Wedgwood, of the Church Works Pottery. He soon became so expert at his trade 
 that he could easily make up the twenty-one dozen plates which formed his daily tale 
 of work. But what he could do was not always done ; work was sometimes neglected for 
 play, and then deception was resorted to in order to save him from censure or punishment. 
 Next, he was apprenticed to Mr. Mear in order that he might acquire skill in another 
 branch of the potter's art " turning." In this he soon became so proficient that, as 
 
 
 OVEN-HOUSE, OR HOVEL. 
 
 THROWER, WITH THE OLD POTTER'S WHEEL. 
 
 a reward and encouragement, he was paid for all work done beyond what was due to 
 his master. Whether he were saint or sinner, William Clowes was always a clever 
 workman. 
 
 But his great accomplishment was dancing, for which he had a perfect passion. He 
 became a prize-dancer, and " pride and vanity so inflated his heart " that he challenged 
 all England to compete with him. But his favourite amusement reacted unfavourably 
 upon his morals. It took him into questionable places and bad company. " Associated 
 
50 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 LEEK OLD TOWN HALL. 
 
 with dancing was visiting public assembly rooms, where banquetings, gambling, and 
 fighting ranked among the sins of my youth." 
 To this black catalogue must be added drunken- 
 ness and profanity. What a scene that is which 
 Clowes describes himself as taking part in at 
 Leek in North Staffordshire during wake-week ! 
 We see Clowes (who has now a young wife) and 
 his set holding a mock prayer meeting in the 
 sanded parlour of the public-house. Their deep 
 potations that have been going on for hours have 
 brought them to this pitch of recklessness and 
 profanity. This "extravagance of impiety" is 
 
 LEEK MARKET-PLACE FROM THE NORTH. 
 
 too much even for the not very squeamish tipplers who witnessed it, and the bacchanals 
 are turned into the streets only to make their way to the Market Cross, there to finish 
 their burlesque of sacred things. By Tuesday morning all their money is spent, but 
 not their ardour to drink strong drink. One of their number pawns his watch ; others 
 borrow two guineas of a recruiting-sergeant of the 55th Regiment, and one guinea of 
 a sergeant of the Royal Artillery, who advance the money on mortgage of their persons ; 
 for if the money is not returned by Saturday night the recruiting-sergeants will foreclose 
 and the borrowers will belong to His Majesty's forces. With their pockets thus 
 strangely replenished the orgie goes on until Thursday, and then " each one of us retired 
 to his home." Whether the money-lending recruiting-sergeants got back their loan 
 we are not told. 
 
 Between the close of his apprenticeship and his conversion Clowes flitted from place 
 
SOUKCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 51 
 
 to place like a restless spirit sometimes with his wife and sometimes from her and his 
 mother-in-law. In 1803 he is in Hull working at a new Pottery, and able to earn, if 
 the will is there, his pound a day. But whatever he earns it is put into a bag with 
 
 BARTON FROM \VATEUSIDE ROAL) ONE HUNDKEL) YEAUS AGO. ' - 
 
 holes, and he cannot keep out of debt. It was the time when the press-gang was 
 unusually active, and when the sight of it, or the merest rumour of its approach, was 
 enough to spread consternation. Taking advantage of this feeling Clowes and his 
 companions determine to play a practical joke upon the inhabitants of the quiet town of 
 Barton-on-Humber. Attired 
 in appropriate costume, and 
 accompanied by fiddlers and 
 hornpipe dancers, they take 
 a boat and cross the broad 
 
 BARTON FROM BEACON HILL 100 TEARS AGO. 
 
 river, and making the public- 
 house their base of opera- 
 tions, they sally out to 
 frighten His Majesty's 
 lieges. Clowes, in his UR- 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 regenerate days, was something of a dandy, and he tells us how he was dressed on this- 
 occasion " I wore a coat and pantaloons of the best superfine, mounted with yellow 
 buttons, which were made according to the orders that pride led me to give the tailor 
 when I first came to Hull." Parenthetically, we may observe that imagination refuses- 
 
 to conceive the time when Hugh 
 ^_^ Bourne could have been " hail fellow 
 
 1 ifii ftP '''.Pif 'iftfeJ well met" to those seated at the 
 
 llmV ' mm \WlM a i e -bench, or when he with zest 
 
 " tripped the light fantastic toe," or 
 when he might have been seen 
 dressed in a coat and pantaloons of 
 the best superfine, with yellow 
 buttons, made by a fashionable- 
 tailor and not paid for. And yet 
 it was Clowes, and not Bourne, who- 
 was afterwards the stiffer on the 
 dress question. We take note of 
 these contrasts and what they imply, 
 and pass on. 
 
 The culmination of what may be 
 called " the rake's progress " wa 
 reached soon after the Barton 
 exploit. By what looked like the- 
 retributive irony of providence, 
 Clowes was to make closer acquaint- 
 ance with the press-gang. He was- 
 a noted bruiser, and one day was 
 fighting in a drunken brawl which 
 had originated in the "Dog and: 
 Duck" public-house, where certain 
 A PRESS-GANG AT WORK. officers of the press-gang were 
 
 quartered. Some of these watched the fight with evident interest, but when it was 
 over they claimed the combatants for His Majesty's Honourable Corps of Marines. 
 While being escorted by the police, Clowes made a bolt for it, running down Grimsby 
 Lane into Market Street, finally taking refuge in his master's china-shop. But for the 
 intervention and appeals of the keeper of the tavern where the captain lodged, 
 and of his own master, Clowes would undoubtedly have been pressed as a marine^ 
 The captain let the brawlers off, warning them " never to be out after nine o'clock 
 at night." But thoroughly frightened, Clowes was off by nine o'clock next morning. 
 He left Hull and his debts behind him, and tramped to Tunstall, paving the way 
 with good intentions. 
 
 These dark passages in Clowes' unregenerate life are referred to with reluctance with 
 no thought of dishonouring the memory or sullying the reputation of one to whom our 
 Church owes so much. The passages in question could not be omitted from any history 
 
SOURCKS AND ORIGIN. 
 
 of the Connexion worthy of the name ; for, while they may serve to throw some 
 light on the events, the manners and morals of the time, especially of the class which 
 Clowes in the years to come was most mightily to influence and to which he himself 
 belonged, they are referred 
 to mainly here for the same 
 reason that Clowes himself 
 referred to them in his 
 Journal to magnify the 
 grace of God in him. He 
 showed how in his case sin 
 had abounded, and did it 
 relentlessly as though reso- 
 lute not to omit the least 
 detail or soften the darkest 
 colours of the condemnatory 
 picture ; and he did this in 
 order to show more triumph- 
 antly that " where sin had 
 abounded, grace did much 
 more abound." His fervid 
 evangelism had a great "But 
 I obtained mercy " at the 
 back of it. Did any one 
 in the hey-day of Clowes' 
 folly and wickedness think 
 and speak of him as "the 
 graceless potter " 1 The 
 judgment was a natural 
 one and in a sense just ; 
 but in a higher sense it 
 was vastly wide of the truth ; for even when he ran to excess in riot and evil-doing 
 grace was abounding to him, the chief of sinners, just as it was to the Tinker of 
 Elstow before him, ere the tempest within his soul had been turned to calm. Indeed, 
 in reading Clowes' .experiences in these early years of his life, one is irresistibly 
 reminded of Bunyan. Like him, paroxysms of passion were succeeded by paroxysms 
 of conviction. Like him he made resolutions and even took vows on God's Holy Word 
 to amend his ways ; and like him both resolutions and vows were broken by the gusts 
 of temptation like a web of gossamer. 
 
 So it was with him on his return from Hull. He was as ' a limed soul struggling to 
 be free.' Here is a Bunyan-like account of the experience which antedated his 
 conversion : 
 
 " Under feelings of terror, I prayed that if God would carry me in safety to my 
 native place, I would then serve Him ; but no sooner had He preserved me safe to 
 my journey's end, than among my old companions my promises were forgotten in 
 
PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 acts of rebellion. Before my conversion to God, the internal -misery of which I was 
 the victim was in many instances almost insupportable. Sometimes I used to walk 
 in solitary and unfrequented places, wishing that I was a bird or a beast, or 
 anything else that was not account- 
 able to the tribunal of heaven. 
 Sometimes in sleep in the night 
 I have been agitated with terrible 
 dreams, and, starting up, I have 
 been afraid of looking out of my 
 bed, supposing the room to be 
 full of devils and damned spirits. 
 Occasionally I have broken out 
 in strong perspiration, and wished 
 for the light of day, in order that 
 I might drown my distressing 
 
 convictions with 
 strong drink, and in 
 singing the drun kan I 's 
 song, which begins 
 with the words : 
 ' Come push the grog 
 about strong beer 
 drowns all our 
 sorrows.' 
 
 " Well I remember how conscience used to lash me when 1 used to sing this song,, 
 and with what power and force those words were occasionally applied to my soul : 
 ' For all these things God will bring thee to Judgment.' " 
 
 His anguish of soul became known to a friend, who took him to the House of God. 
 Shortly afterwards lie gained admission to a lovefeast (in a way we need not stop to 
 describe) and, as if to better Hugh Bourne's innocency about the Burslem Lovefeast, 
 when he saw the bread and water being carried round, he thought in his simplicity 
 " This must be the sacrament of the Lord's Supper." Thus thinking, he had an access. 
 of terror, for he was fresh from reading the passage which solemnly warns against 
 eating the bread or drinking the cup of the Lord unworthily. This, the unpardonable 
 sin as he deemed it to be, he feared he was in danger of committing. The next 
 morning he attended a prayer meeting, and while all was excitement and noise around 
 him he wrestled as one alone with his Maker until he felt the bands which long had 
 held him breaking. " What is this ? " asked he of himself. This, he said is what the- 
 Methodists mean by being converted : yes, this is it God is converting my soul. 
 In an agony of prayer I believed God would save me then I believed he was saving 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 55 
 
 me then I believed he had saved me, and it was so." This notable event took place 
 January 20th, 1805, some three weeks after the memorable lovefeast at Harriseahead 
 before described. 
 
 Clowes' conversion was clear and convincing. Its catastrophic character was quite in 
 kei-ping with the fervid nature of him who experienced it. His profiting soon appeared 
 to all. His old associates, who had reckoned on soon welcoming him back to their 
 fellowship, were both astonished and angry when they saw him taking long forward 
 steps in his new-found path, and had to admit that they had lost him for good and all. 
 His debts in Hull and Staffordshire were paid. He withdrew from the volunteer corps, 
 
 officered by his master, much to the chagrin 
 of the latter. He joined the class of Mr. 
 James Steele, associated himself with the 
 people of God, and made each Sabbath a day 
 of unremitting yet gladsome toil. He threw 
 open his house for the holding of prayer 
 meetings, lovefeasts, and class meetings. The 
 practical side of religion was not overlooked. 
 He drew up strict rules for holy living, began 
 to reprove sin, took part in efforts to suppress 
 Sabbath breaking, and became an active member 
 of a Tract and Bible Mission, and as such 
 walked many miles and did real evangelistic 
 work in the homes of the people. The members 
 of this society, apostle-like, went two and two 
 on their mission. Clowes' colleague was his 
 like-minded friend, James Nixon, and, together, 
 they visited the part around Alsager Heath and 
 
 Lawton Saltworks in Cheshire, which was the 
 JAMES NIXON. 
 
 district assigned them. 
 
 And so for Clowes the former internecine conflict the sad duality of the 7th 
 Romans was overcome, and his life could now flow evenly on in blessed simplicity and 
 singleness. And here for a time we leave him. 
 
1'liIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CAMP MEETING METHODISTS. 
 THE ABEYANT PERIOD. 
 
 class tickets have long familiarised us with the statement "First Camp 
 Meeting held, May 31, 1807." Yet it was as far back as 1801 when 
 Daniel Shubotham made his twice-repeated promise to give the Harrisea- 
 head converts a day's praying on Mow Cop. What is the explanation of 
 this long delay ? It is scarcely consistent with the assumption that there were many 
 during those six intervening years consumed with longing to have a camp meeting, or 
 surely they would have found a way to have one. If any were eager Hugh Bourne 
 would be the most eager. But a careful reading of his Journals kept at the time, 
 as contradistinguished from the historic and autobiographical memoranda written much 
 later, does not leave the impression that even Hugh Bourne was possessed with 
 the camp meeting idea so fully as we might suppose. The idea was there, and there as 
 a cherished idea, but it was not so dominant or charged with such driving power as it 
 afterwards got to be. The fact is, from 1801 to 1807 the Harriseahead Revivalists 
 and Bourne chief among them were being led a step at a time, and the establishment 
 of camp meetings was the outcome of a kind of evolutionary process. Still, we need 
 farther explanation with regard to this abeyant period, and as Hugh Bourne's is the only 
 explanation forthcoming, let this be briefly summarised. He says, with reason, that 
 the day's praying should have been arranged for, if at all, before the society and chapel 
 at Harriseahead were taken over late in 1802, for after that, the plan with its two 
 services a Sabbath which says he " was overdoing it " interposed an effectual barrier. 
 Moreover, the redoubtable Daniel had veered round again, and was now in 1802 opposed 
 to open-air worship. In this same year, and right on into 1807, the Methodist magazines 
 contained stirring accounts of camp meetings on an elaborate scale which were being held 
 in various parts of America and were attended by vast throngs who camped for two or 
 three days together in the forest. The reading of these accounts increased the desire 
 for a camp meeting, so that Hugh Bourne intimates that from 1802 to 1804 the burden 
 of the Harriseahead people's prayer was " Lord, give us a camp meeting ! " But in 
 September of the latter year, the second revival breaking out gave them ample employ- 
 ment. The time was all too short for the work to be done ; minds and hearts were full. 
 Then the revival received a check ; nor does Hugh Bourne hesitate to say from what 
 quarter the check came. It was, he affirms, " modern " Methodism that quenched it. 
 Even in the first official History it stands on record : 
 
 "Early in the year 1806, owing, as it was thought, to some steps taken by the 
 under (i.e., the second) travelling preacher, the revival at Harriseahead made a 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 57 
 
 pause, which was cause of grief to many, and the more so as upwards of twelve 
 months elapsed without a single conversion taking place. During this interval, 
 many wished the day's meeting upon Mow to be held, hoping it would be a means 
 to increase or revive religion." 
 
 In his journals, Bourne felt free to write more frankly. Nor is there any reason 
 at this day why Mr. Miller's name should not be mentioned, for he was an able 
 and eminently worthy man. Clowes was much attached to him, and has recorded 
 
 an interesting interview he had with him 
 at Leeds after Primitive Methodism had 
 gained firm footing. Mr. Miller had his 
 own views of Revivalism such as we have 
 described it or rather he shared the 
 views of the leading ministers of his 
 Church in regard to it and when he 
 came to the Burslem circuit, late in 1805, 
 he made those views known and impressed 
 them on the societies. This is what is 
 meant when Hugh Bourne, evidently re- 
 cognising the marked ability of Mr. Miller, 
 writes : 
 
 " Mr. Miller could do what no other 
 preacher had been able to effect. He 
 could talk on revivalism as no other 
 travelling preacher had been able to 
 do, and by so doing he could get hold 
 of the people's minds, and bend them 
 to his own views." 
 
 Daniel Shubotham for whom, one thinks, Reuben Shufflebotham * would have 
 been a fitter name, so impressionable and variable of mood was he came under Mr. 
 Miller's quiet but strong influence. He was induced to take the charge of the class at 
 Harriseahead entirely into his own hands, for Mr. Miller did not believe in variety in 
 class meeting ; so that here, as in other places, variety gave way to uniformity. Daniel 
 furthermore hinted that the prayer meetings too were " to be put in a different way by 
 Mr. Miller." Hugh Bourne expostulated, but Daniel " had no ears to hear ; neither 
 had others: so the Lord might have said as in Jer. xii. 10 'Many pastors have 
 destroyed my vineyard.' The preachers had made Daniel so unprimitive, that he was 
 opposed to open-air worship." 
 
 So revivalism, or as Hugh Bourne and those who were with him would have called 
 it, primitive Methodism, suffered a reverse at the hands of modern Methodism ; " and 
 it became a serious inquiry, Would not a camp meeting again raise the cause ? " shall 
 we not, in short, re-introduce the old tactics in our campaign against sin. Thus we 
 have now reached the point at which the Harriseahead Revivalists who, with 
 
 REV. HOBT. MILLER. 
 
 * This, it turns out, was his real name, though by local usage it was shortened to Shubotham. 
 
58 I'KIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 fluctuating fortunes, have been at work since 1800, will try to retrieve the day by 
 nving body and actuality to what has long been before their minds as an ideal of 
 religious enjoyment and a promising method of usefulness. The Revivalists of these 
 parts will soon be differentiated as the Camp Meeting Methodists. 
 
 LORENZO Dow AND THE AMERICAN FACTOR. 
 
 What precipitated their resolve to have a camp meeting as well as pray for one, was 
 a visit of Lorenzo Dow to the neighbourhood. We have not time to write Dow's 
 
 strange biography, or to describe what had 
 been the influence of his occasional visits to 
 this part of the country where his fore- 
 fathers had lived in fanning the revivalistic 
 flame ; nor shall we attempt a sketch of the 
 personal appearance and dress of the man, 
 which may best be judged of by the aid of 
 the engraver. Suffice it to say in words 
 used elsewhere : " It was the presence and 
 writings and personal influence of Lorenzo 
 Dow unattached Methodist whom no Con- 
 ference or Bishop could hold or bind a 
 veritable comet in the religious world who 
 rushed flashing from America to England 
 and Ireland and back again thrice over, 
 astonishing and bewildering men who had 
 
 LORENZO DOW. 
 
 a record of labours and privations almost 
 
 without parallel ; whom many thought more than half madman and the rest knave, 
 while others beheld in him more than half prophet and the latest apostle and 
 discerner of spirits, and who hence was at once reviled and praised, shunned and 
 followed, persecuted and kindly entreated ; it was through Lorenzo Dow surely one 
 of the strangest earthen vessels that ever God condescended to use and honour, that 
 the Camp Meeting movement was precipitated."* 
 
 We need not nervously set about trying to eliminate the Dow-factor from the origin 
 of the English Camp Meetings, as though the admission of any indebtedness to him 
 would detract from the originality of Bourne. There are few perfectly original things 
 in this world ; and, as Dr. Clifford says : " It is little, vain- glorious souls who are 
 afraid of citing the works of others, lest somebody should presume to think they 
 themselves are not absolutely original. Really capable minds, instead of shrinking 
 from quotation, delight in it." Men and movements are very largely but multiplex 
 quotations from other men and other movements, and the function of biography, and 
 yet more the function of history, is to discover such quotations and trace them to their 
 source. In this sense, Bourne himself and the first and succeeding camp meetings 
 were quotations. John Wilkes once said that Hugh Bourne made him think of 
 
 * Quoted from the author's smaller History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion, p. 21. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 59 
 
 George Fox, the Quaker ; * a certain Deist, fresh from a discussion with him, remarked 
 "that he had just seen Lorenzo Dow's brother." There was a measure of truth in 
 both observations, which were like the attaching of quotation marks to a human life. 
 Undoubtedly, because of the influence he exerted on Bourne and others, Lorenzo Dow 
 was one factor amongst several, of which Mow Cop Camp Meeting was the joint 
 resultant. This and only this is meant by the statement : " If there had been no Dow, 
 there would have been no Mow." The few grains which, when added to the heap 
 already in the scale, make the balance even, must not have all the credit for the 
 equipoise gained. 
 
 While some would minimise our indebtedness to Lorenzo Dow in order, possibly, 
 to magnify Hugh Bourne and the leaders of the Camp Meeting movement, others, 
 apparently for the very opposite reason, would seem to have an interest in emphasising 
 and exaggerating the fact of that indebtedness. To be able to prove a real connection 
 between Dow and Mow Cop seems to be thought quite sufficient to compromise the 
 latter, because Dow was a religious irregular, an itinerant evangelist, who broke bounds 
 and made the world his parish, and "communicated his own spirit of self-superintendence 
 to the leaders of the movement."! But one cannot but reflect and the reflection brings 
 with it a certain measure of relief and satisfaction that all the terms here used of 
 Lorenzo Dow could have been employed, and were employed, to describe John Wesley, to 
 say nothing of Martin Luther. Those, therefore, who owe more than they can tell to 
 the " irregularities," and world-parish outlook, and " spirit of self-superintendence of 
 John Wesley," may be counted upon to look with complacency and appreciative 
 interest upon our indebtedness to " the erratic American." There was nothing in 
 Lorenzo Dow we are aware of that should make us anxious to repudiate any obligation 
 we may be under to him. We acknowledge our debt, though it is not a large one, 
 and we have heavier liabilities elsewhere. Still it is a debt of honour and not of 
 dishonour. } 
 
 On the eve of his second departure to America, April, 1807, Lorenzo Dow paid a 
 flying visit to Harriseahead, where Hugh Bourne saw and heard him for the first time. 
 Dow spoke largely of camp meetings, observing : 
 
 "That occasionally something of a Pentecostal power attended them ; and that, 
 for a considerable time in America, as much good had been done, and as many souls 
 brought to God, at the Camp Meetings as at all the meetings put together." 
 
 The same day Dow spoke at Burslem, and the next morning at five and nine o'clock 
 he preached farewell sermons* at Congleton, so abundantly did he labour down to the 
 last moment. On each occasion Hugh Bourne was one of his auditory. Clowes, too, 
 tells us how he walked the nine miles from Tunstall to be present at the five o'clock 
 service, that he saw the two Bournes there, and noticed that Hugh bought some books 
 of Dow. These were "An Account of the Origin and Progress of Camp Meetings and 
 
 * John Wilkes was the legal adviser employed in the preparation of the Deed Poll. 
 t The late Dr. Gregory, as quoted in Methodist Times. 
 
 1 It is a fact of some interest and significance that Lorenzo Dow preached in the Wesleyan 
 Chapel, Tunstall, for the Primitive Methodists in 1818. See engraving of handbill. 
 
PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 Tunstall Sunday School. 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 Iftte Methodist Chapel, Tuvstull y 
 OH Sumfoy, Aug. 16, 1818, 
 
 BY LOREJVZO DOW, 
 
 When a Collection will "be made after ej:h Sermon, for 
 -the support of this Institution. 
 
 Afternoon service at half past tjfo." Evening Service at Stx. 
 
 NUMBER OF SCHOLARS. - 
 
 BOYS. 
 
 In Writing.. 80 ', In Wtitjyig 73* 
 
 Reading 134>Total 420 
 
 Reading..,. 133 
 v 213 
 
 The friends of the old Methodist Connexion having generously 
 offered the u.>e of their Chapel. T)y. which a more uumerouh congre- 
 gation may be accommodated, tfie Alaiiage^of the School respect- 
 fully solicit the attendance ond surtW of 4t friends on the abov 
 wasion. 
 
 I'rinU'it ';\- J. Tieijortha, Bursleiu. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. Gl 
 
 the Method of conducting them," written by himself, and " A Defence of Camp- 
 Meetings," by Rev. G. K. Jennings, M.A. Familiar as Bourne already was with camp- 
 meeting literature, the reading of these pamphlets gave him new light, and decided him 
 upon trying to introduce camp meetings into Staffordshire. The time and place were 
 fixed upon, and the details thought out. 
 
 To COUNTERACT THE WAKE. 
 
 The wake or annual feast of Xorton-on-the-Moors would be held in August. These 
 feasts or wakes were quite a feature of the lower social life of England at the beginning, 
 of the century, and as such, and because we shall often meet with references to them 
 as we proceed with our narrative, a word or two with respect to them will not be o\\t 
 of place. As the word " wake " suggests, their origin was distinctly ecclesiastical, and, 
 unlike the more modern statutes or hirings with which they sometimes became blended, 
 that origin goes back to the far distant past. The wake was really at first a Feast of 
 Dedication, commemorating the opening of the parish church for worship, which would 
 take place on the festival day of the patron-saint of the church. At the first institution 
 of the parish feast, the vigil or wake of the saint, on the eve of the day devoted to him 
 or her, would be duly observed, and then would follow the feast, lasting several days, 
 and, at the beginning, often held in the churchyard. So the annual, return of the wake 
 was a double anniversary of the dedication of the church and of the patron-saint to- 
 whom it was dedicated. But in the long course of time the feast became secularised, 
 and then almost paganised. The Church and Saint's Festival degenerated into a Satanic 
 revel a time of licence an annual saturnalia. We know how Clowes kept the wake 
 at Leek before his conversion the " high old time," as modern roysterers might term 
 it, he and his companions fancied they enjoyed while there. To many the local wake 
 held out the prospect of such deplorable goings on as these. But after his conversion 
 how different his attitude ! Knowing that while the Tunstall wake was on, he would,, 
 as a young convert, be exposed to peculiar temptations, he shut himself up in his room 
 during the day, and read and fasted and prayed, and then at night, when the carnival 
 was at its worst, he went forth to warn and rebuke. Bad as the wakes were in North 
 Staffordshire at this time, they were quite as bad in other parts of England during the 
 early part of the century. The author of " Tom Brown's School Days " has written as 
 favourably as he can of the " veasts ; ' in the vale of the White Horse, in Hefts. ; but he 
 is forced to admit that the picture drawn by his friend, Charles Kingsley, in " Yeast,"' 
 of the low vice and nameless abominations that went on in the booths and amongst the 
 shows of the village feast or wake, is all too true to life. At these recurring vanity-fairs- 
 many a youth and maiden were ensnared and ruined body and soul. At such times the 
 devil seemed to have it all his own way, and the pious onlooker might have exclaimed, 
 " This is your hour and the power of darkness." 
 
 It seemed necessary to say thus much, once for all, about the old-time wakes, because 
 a century has wrought many changes. The social perils of one age are not those of 
 another. From some parts the wake has vanished altogether, and where it survives it 
 often is but the shadow of its former self. What we have now to fear is the football 
 field, the racecourse, and the betting-ring rather than the wake. But we want to make 
 
62 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 it clear that Bourne and his coadjutors were not fighting chimseras or wind-mills, but 
 veritable early nineteenth century devils when they seriously set about to counteract 
 the evils of the wake, and fell back on the camp meeting as the best means to do it- 
 "We emphasise the fact that the first-planned camp meeting " went for " the wake. As 
 those who cared for public morals, and felt they were in special trust for the young and 
 frail and inexperienced, they might well await the annual recurrence of the wake with 
 apprehension. The wake justified the camp meeting regarded both as a defensive and 
 aggressive instrumentality. Furthermore, the Norton Camp Meeting laid down the 
 principle and furnished the example that was to be largely followed in the early history 
 of our Church. This principle, illustrated by example both at Norton and at the 
 second Mow Cop Camp Meeting, as well as at the one on the "Wrekin, was that evil 
 must be sought out and met on its own ground. Time and again shall we see this 
 
 VIEW OF MACCLESFIELD FROM BCXTON KOAI) EARLY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 From an old print. 
 
 principle acted upon as we proceed. Enough here to state it, and to point out the 
 significance of the fact that in the very first number of the Connexional Magazine 
 published in 1819, there is an article on "Camp Meetings at the Times of Wakes," in 
 which Hugh Bourne quaintly says : "Camp meetings at wakes have a peculiar beauty 
 and propriety "yes ; the beauty of treating serious evils seriously, and of coming to 
 closest quarters with them. 
 
 Mow COP CAMP MEETING. 
 
 But why was the camp meeting first sketched and determined upon, not also the 
 first to be actually held 1 The answer is found in the strange variations oscillations 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 63 
 
 we may even call them of Daniel Shubotham's mind. He, too, had come under the 
 influence of Lorenzo Dow, having heard him at Macclesfield, and now was all for camp 
 meetings. So that when Hugh Bourne attended the class meeting at Harriseahead, 
 in order to lay his Norton project before the members and secure their concurrence and 
 help, he met with much encouragement. " Norton ? Yes : by all means. You may 
 rely upon us. But why not, in the meantime, have that day's praying on Mow, which 
 has been our dream for these six years past 1 " Why not, indeed ! It were feasible 
 enough, but for that double appointment on the plan, thirteen Sundays a quarter, 
 which like a dam bars the way ! Hereupon Daniel took up the plan and examined 
 it closely. Said he : "Thomas Cotton is planned in this chapel on May 31st. That's 
 the camp meeting;" which homely utterance must be added to the other vernacular 
 sayings we have already noted. It is strange how Daniel by virtue of his mere mass 
 and bulk should have to be reckoned with at every turn, notwithstanding his 
 tergiversations. He might be as easy to move as a rocking-stone, but he was formidable 
 enough when he did move. After Daniel's ipse dixit the little company fell on their 
 knees and devoutly prayed for the success of the two camp meetings. 
 
 The words of Daniel Shubotham might serve to express the feelings of thousands of 
 our people with respect to Mow Cop camp meeting "That's the camp meeting." 
 It has the pre-eminence, and is likely to keep it, because, as the joint offspring of the 
 eighteenth century field-preachings and American camp meetings, it was the first 
 English camp meeting of the new century worthy of the name of which we have any 
 record. Moreover its site was happily chosen on the Cheshire side of Mow, in the 
 same field and hard by the spot where Hugh Bourne had his open-air service (" It's 
 like to be out-of-doors "). With Mow Cop for its site, sentiment has something to 
 attach itself to, and imagination something to work upon, more so than in the case 
 even of Norton which, historically, was of much greater moment. Mount Zion 
 appealed all the more strongly to the imagination of the devout Jew because of its 
 physical eminence and because it was " beautiful for situation." Alumni of a certain 
 northern university think all the more tenderly and proudly of their Alma Mater, as 
 they recall her incomparable situation so appropriately set forth in the legend on her 
 seal "Her foundation is in the holy mountains." So no more ideal situation for the 
 holding of the first English Camp Meeting than Mow Cop's " bleak and frowning 
 summit " can well be conceived ; and if it be in contemplation to commemorate the 
 centenary of the establishment of camp meetings by the striking of a medal, no apter 
 legend to place round its periphery could be chosen than these same words " Her 
 foundation is in the holy mountains." One can but wonder that Mow has not inspired 
 verses worthier the theme. The subject is there, awaiting the poet's advent, but he 
 tarries long. Meanwhile rhymesters give us of their poor best, and we have to rest 
 content with such a stanza as this : 
 
 " On the great mountain called Mow Cop 
 
 God did His Majesty display ; 
 A cloud of glor} r then rose up 
 
 To shine unto the perfect day." 
 
 The morning of the 31st May broke cloudy and unpromising, and many, no doubt, 
 
(34 PKIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 as they looked out from their door, concluded that no camp meeting would be held that 
 day. Amongst these was Hugh Bourne, who intimates that the Harriseahead people had 
 agreed that the holding of the meetings should depend on the weather's being 
 favourable, and hence, he and others were somewhat late on the ground. Whether 
 Clowes was aware of this understanding we are not told. He had stayed overnight 
 with Daniel Shubotham in order to make an early start, and the unpropitious weather 
 did not deter him from making his way to the rendezvous at an early hour. At six 
 o'clock he found a small group singing under the lee of a wall. He threw himself 
 heartily into the prayer meeting with which the day's proceedings were opened, and did 
 not slacken his labours until nightfall. Shortly after six o'clock the clouds lifted and the 
 day became more favourable. Soon, from various points, the people streamed to the 
 field, which was a few yards from the dividing-line of the two counties, and, the better 
 
 FIRST CAMP MEETING ON MOW COP, MAY SlST, 1807. 
 
 to guide^ them to the spot, at the suggestion of one Taylor, of Tunstall, Capt. Edward 
 Anderson improvised " a sort of flag " to serve as a signal. Many who made their way 
 up the steeps of Mow came from a considerable distance ; for Lorenzo Dow's recent 
 visit to the neighbourhood had aroused much interest in the camp meetings which he 
 often so graphically described, so that when the news circulated that one of these novel 
 meetings was actually going to be held on Mow, curiosity was stirred, and many came 
 from Macclesfield, Congleton, Warrington, Knutsford, and other places where Dow had 
 laboured and revivals had been going on. 
 
 As the day wore on, the multitude increased to such an extent that Hugh Bourne feels 
 justified in describing it as "immense," "prodigious," and says that it presented a "sublime 
 and magnificent spectacle." Even during the morning a second and third stand of 
 stones were pitched in sheltered positions, and in the afternoon yet a fourth was found 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 65 
 
 necessary in order to reach the vast assemblage, so that simultaneously " four preachers 
 were dealing out their lives at every stroke." 
 
 Yet these four preachers, multiplied we know not how many times over, are all but 
 unknown to us, despite the fact that Mow Cop Camp Meeting has been so often 
 described. Hugh Bourne published an account of it at the time which was widely 
 circulated, and lie also refers to it at length in his History. Clowes, too, describes it 
 in his Journal, and his description has been incorporated by Mr. Petty in his 
 Connexional History. Successive writers have copied these accounts without being 
 able to supplement them. We are thankful for the information we have but we would 
 gladly have had more. Especially could we have wished to know the names, " persuasion" 
 and antecedents of those who took a leading part in this memorable gathering. But 
 names are sparingly given, and the distinction is not always drawn between those who 
 preached and those who laboured in the " permanent praying companies which did not 
 break up for preaching." It is clear, too, from Hugh Bourne's words that many gave a 
 word of exhortation who were not officially recognised as local preachers : 
 
 " At the first camp meeting, there were abundance of local preachers and praying 
 labourers of the Old Methodist Connexion. These came from Macclesfield, 
 Congleton, and many other places. From Tunstall there was a considerable 
 number who were not preachers, but who laboured diligently, among whom were 
 William Clowes and James Nixon. There were also several preachers of the 
 Independent Methodists." 
 
 Two others, we may be quite certain were present to do their part Thomas Cotton, 
 none the less active because he was not in the Harriseahead pulpit, and James Bourne, 
 calm, self-possessed, practical, reliable, ever ready to do his best without fee or reward, 
 whether under or away from the eyes of men, who will be spared to be present " in age 
 and feebleness extreme " at the Jubilee Camp Meeting on this same spot. Curiously 
 enough we cannot be sure that Hugh Bourne was amongst the public speakers of the 
 day.* We see him moving about the ground. Returning from the first stand he found 
 a company praying with a man in distress. He got as near to the circle as he could and 
 fain would have lingered, but " other matters called him away." Probably his organis- 
 ing bent found sufficient employment in directing and overseeing the proceedings. This 
 is all the more likely from the fact that this huge camp meeting was not conducted 
 according to a plan drawn up beforehand. "It was" we are told, "like Judges xxi. 25 
 Every man did that which was right in his own eyes." When men were wanted to 
 address the people, men were forthcoming. The stringent rules afterwards in force 
 as to how long a man should speak and what should be the staple of his discourse, do 
 not seem to have been applied at Mow Cop first camp meeting. The result was an 
 extraordinary variety marked the public utterances of the day. The various speakers 
 assuredly succeeded, amongst them, in sounding the entire gamut of hortatory and 
 odiiicatory speech ; for there were exhortations, readings, the recital of experience, and 
 the telling of anecdotes ; nor was there wanting an example of the conveyance of truth 
 through the medium of verse. 
 
 * " Brother H. B. was not there when we began the meeting in the morning, and I do not know 
 that he preached at all that day." Clowes MSS. 
 
 F 
 
PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 For instance, at ten o'clock, Clowes rose and began by narrating his Christian 
 experience. He explained the reason of his presence and the motive urging him to 
 take an active part in the day's proceedings, and he closed with an impassioned and 
 powerful exhortation. Concerning the poet of the camp meeting, who was also its 
 
 flag-hoister, a word or two may be per- 
 mitted. Captain Edward Anderson's 
 biography reads like a romance. His 
 father was a farmer on the Yorkshire 
 Wolds, and the youth's first business in 
 life was tending his father's sheep. But 
 the shepherd-lad early took to sea and 
 poetry, for he had the knack of rhyming, 
 and even wrote a poem called "The Sailor," 
 which is said to have achieved a certain 
 measure of popularity and to have run 
 through several editions. During hissea-far- 
 ing life he had many adventures and hair- 
 breadth escapes. He suffered shipwreck 
 at various times, was captured by French 
 privateers, and, like Clowes, fell into the 
 hands of the press-gang. But after all 
 his sufferings and hazards he at last found 
 safe anchorage. Lost to his friends, he 
 one week-night wandered into Pitt Street 
 Chapel, Liverpool ; he heard his brother, 
 wiiomhedid not recognise at the time, preach 
 a moving sermon from the story of the 
 Prodigal Son. He united with the Metho- 
 dists of Pitt Street, of which circuit his 
 
 brother was a minister, and afterwards settled in Hull where, on Clowes' entry into 
 that town, he joined the society in Mill Street. His name stood on the prayer-leader's 
 plan ; he was an anti-slavery advocate, a temperance reformer, and, to the extent of his 
 powers, a favourer and promoter of all that was good. He died in 1843, and his body 
 lies near the porch of the parish church of Kilham, his native place. On the Sunday 
 before the holding of Norton camp meeting, August 16th, a camp meeting, attended 
 by a vast concourse of people, was held at the secluded village of Langtoft-on-the- Wolds, 
 near Driffield, in Yorkshire. During the day, allusions were made by the speakers not 
 only to American camp meetings, but to those just held in Staffordshire. Though 
 nothing permanent remained as the result of the Langtoft services, yet the fact of a 
 camp meeting on such a scale being held in this part of England at this early date is 
 worth chronicling the more so, as, but for the meeting on Mow, it might never have 
 been held at all. As Kilham is only a few miles distant from Langtoft, are we wrong 
 in surmising that Captain Edward Anderson who, on May 31st, at Mow Cop Camp 
 Meeting, told the story of his life in verse interspersed with sentences of exhortation, 
 
 CAPTAIN E. ANOERSON'8 TOMBSTONE, 
 KILHAM CHURCHYARD. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 67 
 
 had something to do with the inception and carrying out of the great camp meetin" 
 at Langtoft-on-the-Wolds in August ? 
 
 Spiritual and individualistic as were the aims of the promoters of the first camp 
 meeting, there were some of the speakers from the waggons that day who, beinf 
 far-travelled men, naturally could not refrain from dwelling, for purposes of edification, 
 on experiences they had gone through and events they had taken part in in those days 
 of " sturt and strife," and who by so doing imported a deeper meaning into the day's 
 proceedings. Listening to these speakers, their stay-at-home auditory would find their 
 horizon insensibly widening, and dimly perceive that to set down or set aside that 
 
 KILHAM CHURCH. 
 
 The Tomb of Captain E. Anderson and his brother is the second from the Porch on your 
 left hand as you enter the Porch. 
 
 camp meeting as being nothing more than a faddist's freak or a glorified gigantic 
 religious picnic, was a' conclusion forbidden not only by the condition of their own souls 
 that day, which was also the condition of multitudes of people in these parts, but. that 
 it was a conclusion yet more sternly forbidden by the condition of the sorely distracted 
 and disjointed world they were hearing about. And we, coming across these allusions 
 to current or recent events in the reports of that first camp meeting left to us, do not 
 scout them as irrelevancies, but welcome them as timely and significant of much. For 
 our founders and fathers being men of imperfect education and contracted outlook, so 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 PKIMITIVK MKTHODIST CHUKCII. 
 
 far as world affairs were concerned and yet, being above all, men of such single purpose 
 that they could have said "this one thing we do," they have not left us in their scanty 
 journals many allusions to contemporary national or world events. They did the work 
 that was before them, and saw not or recked not of the far-reaching references and 
 influences of their work. But this does not absolve us from the necessity of constantly 
 reminding ourselves what kind of a world it was into which they were thrust when they 
 began their long day's work. Rightly regarded, those humble camp meeting stands 
 were no more to be scoffed at than a park of artillery with unlimbered guns, for they 
 marked the bringing up of fresh supports in the war of amelioration. 
 
 Yielding to such thoughts as these, we can appreciate the statement that one of the 
 
 
 
 LANGTOFT-ON-THE-WO1.DS. 
 
 speakers at Mow Camp Meeting an Irish lawyer and a convert of Lorenzo Dow gave 
 vivid details of the horrors of the late rebellion in Ireland he himself had witnessed, 
 and in which to his own spiritual enrichment he had lost his worldly all. We can see 
 the pertinence of his applications" that we should praise God for our privileges as 
 English Christians, improve them to the glory of God, and pity and pray for the poor 
 and spiritually degraded Irish." 
 
 Largely autobiographic too was the address of another speaker an ex-officer in the 
 British army and ex- Deist who had recently been arrested and soundly converted under 
 the instrumentality of Lorenzo Dow at Macclesfield. Though no name is given we know 
 that this man was Eleazar Hathorn alias "Eleazar of the wooden leg"; for he had lost 
 a limb in Spain. Him we shall meet with again. " He had," says Hugh Bourne, 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 69 
 
 with a rhetorical exaggeration rather unusual to him, " seen death flying in every 
 direction, and men falling slain on every side. He had walked in blood, over fields 
 covered with mountains of dying and dead. He showed the happiness of our land, and 
 the gratitude we owed to God for its exemption from being the seat of war." 
 
 So this day of labour and of blessing lapsed. At six o'clock there was but one stand, 
 and towards the end the work was carried on by praying companies. At seven, Hugli 
 Bourne tells us and how characteristic this is a work broke out amongst the children, 
 some half-dozen of whom were converted, forming the last, though by no means the least, 
 spoil of the day. We can picture W. Clowes, as exhausted with his incessant labours 
 extending from six in the morning until eight at night, he left the field, feeling inex- 
 pressibly thankful as he reflected" Myriads of saints and angels will everlastingly 
 laud the Eternal Majesty on account of the day's praying on Mow Cop." 
 
 CAMP MEETINGS AND THE CONVENTICLE ACT. 
 
 It was not so much the holding of Mow Cop Camp Meeting that gave offence 
 and roused opposition, as the fact that its success encouraged its supporters to 
 arrange at once for the holding of a second and third. Had it stood alone without 
 
 a successor, like the one at Langtoft, its 
 contemporary, it would have been a nine 
 days' wonder nothing more. The first was 
 borne with because it was expected it would 
 also be the last. Such an impression might 
 have been justified in 1801 ; it was quite 
 erroneous now. Then, opponents might have 
 said : " Let them have their fling and you will 
 hear no more of camp meetings. They will tire 
 of them as a child of the toy for which it has 
 clamoured." But what might have been true in 
 1801 was not true in 1807. The movement had 
 acquired momentum ; all the greater because it 
 " had been let hitherto," and now that the pro- 
 pulsion given by Lorenzo Dow had been added, 
 the movement was not to spend itself in one big 
 effort, as some who had neither understanding 
 of the times nor of men thought it would. 
 
 A conversation reported to have taken place between Hugh Bourne and his superin- 
 tendent, Mr. Riles, before Mow Cop Camp Meeting, lets us see into the minds of both 
 the promoters and the opponents of camp meetings. In Walford's " Life of Hugh 
 Bourne," that conversation is made a foot-note, but it is too significant to be left in that 
 obscurity, as though it had no bearing on the course of events. If that brief talk did 
 not shape events it certainly throws light on them. 
 Mr. R " The forthcoming meeting will do hurt." 
 H. B. " It will not do hurt." 
 
 Mr. R. " "Well, one meeting will ' satisfy ' all people." 
 H. B. " Very well, then, we'll leave it as that meeting leaves it." 
 Mr. R. Very well." 
 
 REV. JOHN RILES. 
 
70 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Unless we are much mistaken, this very laconic dialogue discloses ready to our hand 
 a clue worth following. Mr. Thomas Church has too hastily drawn a double inference 
 from Mr. Riles' sentence. He concludes that " the official representative of the 
 Wesleyan Conference not only sanctioned officially the holding of England's first camp 
 meeting," but, more than that " his words conveyed a willingness on his part for camp 
 meetings to be continued, should the first prove successful in its design." * We, on the 
 contrary, take Mr. Riles' meaning to be that, as there was not likely to be a second camp 
 meeting, this one should be tolerated " sanctioned " is too strong a term. He saw no 
 long series, no extended vista of camp meetings opening out before him. One, he 
 thought, would satisfy all, opponents and favourers alike. " All people " included 
 Bourne himself; therefore he would interpret Hugh Bourne's somewhat enigmatical 
 atterance by his own thought. The forthcoming meeting would, at its finish, leave 
 Hugh Bourne so satisfied with having had his own way that he would be quite willing 
 to settle down, and avoid the trouble inseparable from organising further meetings, and 
 the pain and discomfort of running counter to the wishes of the Methodist authorities. 
 One camp meeting was to be suffered because it would have no successor, and there 
 would be an end of it; and we are not sure whether Mr. Riles would not read acquiescence 
 in this view of the matter into Hugh Bourne's reply. As to Bourne, whether there was 
 to be a second camp meeting or not, was to be determined by the event. If that 
 meeting left him " satisfied " that there had been more of the whim and will of man in 
 camp meetings than he had suspected well and good : he would desist. But if by its 
 success and manifest tokens of the divine favour the impression were deepened that 
 camp meetings " should not die but live," then, in God's name, he would stand by them. 
 
 How, then, to use Bourne's phrase, did Mow Camp Meeting " leave it " 1 " The 
 propriety and utility of camp meetings appeared to every one." Adjudged by the 
 criteria of numbers, good order and decorum, and spiritual results, there could be no 
 doubt as to its success. " Pious people were of opinion that more good was done at 
 that camp meeting than had been done at all the preachings and meetings held at 
 Harriseahead and Mow during the preceding twelve months." Its promoters were fully 
 satisfied it was of God, and were resolved to continue this method of doing good. 
 A public announcement to this effect was made on the camp-ground, and the penny 
 pamphlet which was at once published and circulated by thousands, not only described 
 the first camp meeting, but also advertised the second and third, and laid down certain 
 regulations for the due ordering of the same. 
 
 This public advertising could not fail to be construed into a declaration of war as 
 tantamount to throwing down the gage of battle. The first camp meeting had been but 
 " loathly allowed." Now, the permissive era was to give place to the prohibitive. 
 
 * Thomas Church: History of the Primitive Methodists, 1870, p. 121. H Bourne writing in 1836 
 on this conversation, recognises its importance. " It would seem Mr. Biles in his zeal, was not fully 
 aware of the import of his own words ; for he, being the agent of the Conference in that circuit, 
 did hereby in effect not only give the Conference sanction (as far as he was concerned) to that 
 meeting, but to leaving the Camp Meeting cause or system, on the same footing as that meeting 
 should leave it. Neither was H. B. at the time aware, either of his owu words, or of those of 
 Mr. B-." Magazine, 1836, p. 303. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 71 
 
 Henceforward the opposition to camp meetings became more pronounced, organised, and 
 official in character ; so much so, that some who in heart sympathised with this new 
 mode of evangelism, and had even countenanced and aided the first effort of the kind, 
 now wavered and drew back. Handbills in opposition to camp meetings were published 
 by the preachers of the Burslem and Macclesfield Circuits. This was fair and above- 
 board ; but there also crept forth from some quarter or other a handbill announcing that 
 no camp meeting would be held. But it was bill against bill. A counter-placard drawn 
 up and signed by H. and J. Bourne, D. Shubotham, M. Bayley, and T. Cotton soon 
 appeared, declaring that the arrangements already made held good, and that the camp 
 meetings most assuredly would be held. How fared it with Hugh Bourne and the rest 
 as the storm thus gathered 1 We shall be deceived if we regard him as absolutely 
 tremorless composed and comfortable as the storm hurtled around him. He was not 
 so devoid of sensitiveness.* Indeed, there was one moment when the thought took 
 him like a vice " Put out a bill to say there will be no camp meeting, and be at peace." 
 But that moment was not, we may be sure, the moment when his eye first caught sight 
 of the unauthorised poster, minus the printer's imprint, but rather the moment when by 
 staring handbill it was brought home to him that the highest local authorities of his 
 Church had declared against him. 
 
 After what has been said of the working incompatibility between modern and 
 primitive Methodism, and the inevitability of a collision between them sooner or later 
 taking place, we need not now stay to account for the opposition of official Methodism 
 to camp meetings, much less to denounce it. However unwise and unfortunate we may 
 now think it to have been, regarded from the standpoint taken at the time, it is quite 
 understandable, and one may even say, natural. So here for the time we may leave it, 
 always remembering whether it be referred to or not, that the opposition is there to be 
 felt and reckoned with, like a strong head-wind, in the teeth of which the camp-meeting 
 movement has to make its way. 
 
 There was, however, opposition to be encountered and provided against of quite another 
 kind of a kind, indeed, we find it hard to estimate the nature and gravity of, since it 
 owed its being and force to the more intolerant laws under which Dissenters and 
 Nonconformists then lived and in the shadow of which they had to do their work. 
 True, there was the Toleration Act ; but the Conventicle and Five Mile Acts were not 
 yet repealed. They still stood on the Statute Book and could be invoked and set in 
 motion to harass and injure. It was a time, too, when the growing influence of Dissent 
 and Methodism was the cause of uneasiness and offence to many. Under the stimulus 
 of this composite feeling, the provisions of the Toleration Act were very closely scanned, 
 with the result, that the highest legal authority in the realm Lord Ellenborough 
 presiding over the Court of Queen's Bench, threw doubt on the meaning and effect of 
 the existing laws. What though a dissenter had got his licence as a preacher and 
 teacher, it now began to be questioned whether that licence availed him anything, 
 unless it could be proved that he was the minister of a separate and particular 
 
 * There is one place in his Journals, written some little time after this, where something very 
 much like a moan escapes him, that he who would like above all things to live at peace with all men 
 seems cruelly fated to be always witnessing and contending. 
 
72 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 congregation nay more, unless it could also be proved that he had been duly ordained 
 by those authorised and competent to convey the grace of orders and confer legal status. 
 But if the position of regular pastors and ministers of dissenting churches was thus called 
 in question and made insecure, the position of lay preachers, and those " irregulars " 
 who, like Bourne, carried on religious services in the open-air was rendered doubly 
 precarious. There can be little doubt, with the strong disposition felt in certain 
 quarters to strain the existing laws so as to make them bear hardly on dissenters, that not 
 only the speakers at the first camp meeting but all those who attended and took part in 
 it, might have been pounced upon and subjected to fine, and, in default of payment, to 
 imprisonment, had any one bold and bad enough to take the needful trouble been 
 forthcoming. That this is no extravagant fancy is clear from the provisions of the 
 Toleration Act icself, and is established by such facts as these : 90 were recovered 
 from persons found at a prayer meeting, and another man was fined 20 for offering 
 
 ^ 
 
 fl 
 
 up public prayer to the Almighty.* Again, on Sunday, the 14th June, 1812, the 
 ancestor of an influential Primitive Methodist family now resident in Nantwich, Crewe, 
 and Willaston, was made to feel .the weight of the obnoxious laws. George Wood had 
 taken his stand on a bank in the open air of the town of Audlem with a view to the holding 
 of a religious service when he was assaulted and stopped by an attorney named Groom, 
 acting under an alleged warrant which he never showed. Wood, on appearing before 
 the Bench, was convicted in the penalty of .20, and, being unable or unwilling to pay 
 the fine, he suffered the distraint of his goods. Fortunately he appealed to a higher 
 Court, and the judges of the Chester Assizes awarded him 200 damages. The 
 mortified defendant appealed to the King's Bench, but the verdict of the lower court 
 
 * Houlder's " Short History of the Free Churches," p. 144. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 73 
 
 was sustained.* Thus, locally, even as late as 1812 the Conventicle Act had power to 
 annoy, and what the trend of the time was is clearly shown by Lord Sidmouth's bill for 
 checking the facilities with which persons entered the dissenting ministry. This bill was 
 brought in in 1811, the birth-year of Primitive Methodism. Lord Sidmouth complained 
 that " cobblers, tailors, pig-drivers, and chimney-sweeps " had assumed the sacred office. 
 The clause requiring the signatures of six respectable householders of the village 
 belonging to the applicant's denomination might seem a harmless condition, but it was 
 shrewdly suspected that the true billet of the bill, and especially this clause of it, was 
 the suppression of local preachers and the extirpation of village dissent. The 
 Nonconformists were up in arms ; and historians do not fail to note the fact that, for the 
 first time, the Wesleyans took a leading part in a political struggle, joining heart and soul 
 in the resistance which was organised to the bill. On the day of its second reading there 
 
 THE LATE MR. JOHN WOOD. THE LATE MR. THOMAS WOOD. 
 
 were lodged against it no less than 336 petitions so bulky that they impeded the 
 movements of " my lords." The bill had to be dropped, but its dropping was the 
 immediate raising of the Protestant Society for the Protection of Religious Liberty, of 
 which John Wilkes, who had to do with the preparation of the Deed Poll of our 
 Church, was the secretary. 'The year 1812 saw the obnoxious Conventicle and Five 
 Mile Acts wiped off the Statute Book. 
 
 We have said thus much in order to place the second camp meeting in its proper 
 historic setting. That being done, certain special features of that camp meeting, 
 which might easily be passed over as due to nothing but the personal idiosyncrasies 
 of Hugh Bourne, are seen to have been the outcome of prudent foresight, and are full 
 of significance. They have the Conventicle Act at the back of them. When we are 
 told that it began to be whispered Hugh Bourne was a political ringleader, and 
 most likely a traitor ; that if he got his deserts he would be brought to justice and 
 mulcted in heavy damages, or clapped in prison, we can see, in the light of what has 
 been said, that these rumours were of sinister import. When, further, we are told how 
 it was noised abroad that a man of standing and influence in the neighbourhood 
 
 * " Religious Intolerance in Cheshire in 1812." Reprinted from the Crewe and Nantwich Chronicle, 
 May 28th, 1887. Also " The Story of an Old Case of Persecution Retold," by Rev. T. Home, 
 Aldersgaie Primitive Methodist Magazine, 1899, p. 195. 
 
-j, PRIMITIVE MKTHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 a deistic master-potter uaim-d Stcphenson was threatening to crush camp meetings and 
 get the leaders of them punished by means of the Conventicle Act, we can understand 
 Hugh Bourne's movements. We can see he was not "frighted with false fire," or 
 indulging a whim, but simply taking precautionary measures when, having secured the 
 promise of the ground from a freeholder, he trudged to Lichfield and back in 
 order to get the ground licensed for worship. He was told, however, that the licence- 
 could not be granted unless a building were erected on the site. Accordingly, at an 
 expense to himself of some thirty pounds, he got a wooden tabernacle erected, together 
 with two smaller tents. W. Clowes assisted him in the purchase of crockery ; a stock 
 of provisions for the expected strangers was laid in ; then he got a preacher's licence for 
 
 himself from Stafford, and, having done all he could, he finished by affixing a public 
 notice on a board, warning all and sundry that the ground and erections being duly 
 licensed for worship, any one disturbing the worshippers would render himself liable 
 to penalty. 
 
 Mow Cop second camp meeting was held on July 19th. As its design was to 
 counteract the wake of the ancient parish of Wolstanton, which included Tunstall and 
 district, it lasted three days. We need not describe the services further than to say that 
 like those of the first camp meeting they were largely carried on by auxiliaries from 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 75 
 
 a distance. Clowes was present, but tells us he " laboured little." James Nixon, 
 however, was not only on the ground but threw himself heart and soul into the 
 services : " I was, with many others," says Clowes, " greatly struck with the solemnity 
 and power which attended his ministrations." 
 
 Camp meeting No. 2 was, as we have seen, organised with a view to probable 
 opposition of a quasi-legal kind. Its elaborate preparations were of the nature of 
 a defence, as much so as are the parapets and stockades of a fort ; and it is chiefly 
 memorable to us from the way in which the threatened opposition showed itself and did 
 little more than that. All eyes were fixed on the master-potter the champion of order 
 and the Conventicle Act, who "breathed out threatenings." On that July 'Sunday 
 afternoon, he endeavoured to make his threatenings good. Attended by one or two 
 others, whose names, fortunately for themselves, have not transpired, Mr. Stephenson 
 rode on the ground just at the time penitents were being prayed with at one of the 
 praying companies. Not succeeding in breaking up the company by riding through it, 
 he asked for the person in charge, and was directed to Hugh Bourne. Mr. Hugh Bourne 
 had retired behind the hill and, because of the labour he had to perform, he had not yet 
 endued his Sunday garments, so that he did not look much like the generalissimo of the 
 forces. The two met the representative of the Conventicle Act and the champion 
 of camp meetings. Mr. S. was heated and spoke in a high tone ; but H. B., on the 
 contrary, conversed with him "coolly and at large." The minister's licence was 
 demanded and at once produced ; then the licence for the buildings was asked for. 
 That, he was told, was at home, but should be sent for if necessary. Upon this, Mr. 
 S. went away, riding past the congregation. " Then," we are told, " the Lord interposed, 
 and struck such a terror in him, that he stopped his horse and sent for H. B., 
 and seemed conscious of being in the wrong." Very probably ; for as he rode off, in all 
 likelihood his eye caught sight of the minatory board warning all would-be disturbers 
 of a lawful assembly. Anyhow, his mood was changed. He was now more reasonable, 
 and deist though he was, disposed to argue from the Scriptures as a common standard 
 of authority. So he took his final leave, invoking a "God bless you" upon the 
 bystanders, and the people present cried "God bless him." He who had come on the 
 ground like a lion left it like a lamb. 
 
 We have referred to this instance of unsuccessful opposition because it was the first 
 of its kind, though not the last by any. means. And yet we may be permitted to doubt 
 whether, if the opposition had only been more thorough and persistent, the existing 
 laws might not have been so strained as in the result to make H. B's. two licences not 
 worth the parchment they were written on insufficient for his own protection, still less 
 sufficing to screen the other speakers and praying labourers who had no licence. It 
 must have been under the influence of the suspicion that after all, his proposed safe- 
 guards might prove Avorthless, that H. B. shouted to the people who were disquieted 
 by the manufacturer's bluster and threats: "Whoever is fined for attending the 
 meeting I will pay." By these words of reassurance he sought to stay the beginning 
 of panic. 
 
 The attempt to put down camp meetings under legal cover had in this case 
 ignominiously failed and this was, so far, well. It was rightly argued : " If a man of 
 
70 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 ^ - 
 
 tj ' ('i/ (+ l OftHiy 
 
 crJift /e '9* 
 
 > 
 
 / / 
 
 "*> of /' 
 
 
 
 n. 
 
 ORIGINAL LICENCE FOK PREACHING -ROOM. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 77 
 
 standing and substance like this, who ought to know the law if any one knows it, and 
 how far it will let him go if he has done his best, or his worst, and has failed, then it 
 is not likely that any one else who may be bold enough to try conclusions with the 
 camp meeting Methodists will fare any better. We may safely go. We run no risks." 
 Considerations of this kind would induce many to attend camp meetings who might 
 have been intimidated and kept away by the successful imposition of fines. 
 
 CAMP MEETINGS AND CONFERENCE. NORTON, THE PROCLAIMED CAMP MEETING. 
 
 Between the second and fourth camp meetings, what H. B. calls " a small camp 
 meeting," was held at Brown Edge, two miles from Norton, on August 16th (the very 
 day on which Langtoft Camp Meeting was held) ; but as this was really nothing more 
 than a couple of open-air services held morning and evening we need not linger upon 
 it, though it may by courtesy be called the third camp meeting. 
 
 Norton Camp Meeting bespeaks our careful attention in many regards. It had been 
 arranged for long before the Conference of 1807 met at Liverpool. Until the Conference 
 pronounced, the opposition of the ministers and the greater part of the officialdom of 
 the circuit, though hard to withstand, might be partly discounted, and, therefore, more 
 easily braved, by its being regarded as local, and as not representing the deliberate, final 
 judgment of Methodism. In such circumstances, a silent appeal might be made to 
 a higher tribunal, and the hope cherished that the local judgment might not obtain the 
 endorsement of the supreme court. In vain ; the Conference pronounced and pronounced 
 adversely. The fateful words have often been written, but they must be written 
 once more. 
 
 Q. " What is the judgment of the Conference concerning what are called Camp 
 Meetings ? " 
 
 A. " It is our judgment that, even supposing such meetings to be allowable in 
 America, they are highly improper in England, and likely to be productive of 
 considerable mischief ; and we disclaim all connection with them." 
 
 Compared with some fulminations of the Church, this Conference minute was 
 mildness itself. If camp meetings were really so very bad too bad to be let live- 
 then one thinks the minute might very properly have been made more stringent, and 
 have been couched in stronger terms. It reads more like a recommendation than an 
 anathema ; its attitude to camp meetings is negative rather than positive, and that 
 attitude is taken up more from expediency than on principle. For it is conceded 
 grudgingly, we grant that camp meetings may " do good," and therefore be allowed 
 in America, while in England they will be highly improper and must be disallowed. 
 Hence it is reasonable to infer, that it is not camp meetings in themselves that are 
 objected to, so much as the temper and habit from which they are supposed to spring 
 the self-willedness and ecclesiastical do-as-we-likeness which, in the thought of many, 
 had come to be associated with Revivalism of which, probably, it was regarded as the 
 latest and most flagrant manifestation. We do not condemn the Conference. It had 
 a perfect right to take its own course ; but we claim the liberty of expressing an 
 
78 
 
 PKIMITIVK METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 opinion whether the direction 
 taken was according to precedent, 
 or the' genius of Methodism. The 
 Minute of Conference marked a 
 deliberate departure from the 
 primitive policy and practice of 
 Methodism. Several times during 
 the course of his marvellous 
 
 QUEEN STREET, BUK 
 
 (Jl'KKN STKKKT, IH USLEM. 
 
 itineraries, Wesley had preached 
 
 at Burslem in the open-air the 
 
 last time so recently as 1790, only 
 
 seventeen years before. " I was 
 
 obliged to preach abroad," says 
 
 he, "such were the multitudes of 
 
 the people. Surely the people 
 
 of this place were highly favoured. 
 
 Mercy embraced them on every side." The Conference minute, too, is in striking 
 
 contrast with Wesley's farewell address to the preachers of the Chester Circuit given 
 
 that same year 1790. 
 
 "Fellow labourers, wherever there is an open door enter in and preach the 
 Gospel ; if it be to two or three, under a hedge or a tree ; preach the Gospel go 
 out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor 
 and the maimed, and the halt and the blind; and the servant said, 'Lord, it is 
 done as Thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.' He then lifted up his hands, 
 and with tears flowing down his cheeks, repeated, ' And yet there is room ! ' " 
 If " Conference is the living Wesley," his views and practices must have undergone 
 
 a great change during the short course of seventeen years. But even Dr. Bunting is 
 
 witness that there are times when it is both right and expedient to take to the streets 
 
 and lanes and fields and commons to preach the gospel : 
 
 " When a superintendent told the Conference that the Warrenites had got all 
 the chapels in his Circuit which were not upon the model deed, Dr. Bunting nobly 
 told him to go out into the streets and lanes and fields and commons and preach 
 the doctrines that our fathers preached, and in the way they preached them, and 
 we should soon have as good chapels or better ones, or as big chapels or bigger."* 
 
 Dr. Bunting did speak nobly when he tendered such advice as this. Would that 
 a voice equally potent had been raised in the Conference of 1807 in defence of camp 
 meetings as an agency for reaching those whom no chapels, however good or big, could 
 entice within their walls. If the "irregularity" of going into the open was justifiable 
 
 * Dr. Gregory : " Sidelights on the Conflicts of Methodism," p. 574. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 in 1849 under the circumstances, then, a fortiori, it was still more justifiable as things 
 were in the country in the earlier years of the century. However, it is not the 
 unwisdom of the minute of Conference on which we care to dwell. Rather do we 
 press the fact of the inconsistency of that minute with the views and methods 
 characteristic of Methodism in its early heroic days. It is this fact for fact it is, and 
 no mere private opinion on which the historian of the Free Churches has fastened ; 
 and we are quite content to leave the matter where he has left it : 
 
 " The Primitive Methodists were established because the Conference, proving 
 more conservative than Wesley himself, and forgetting the origin of their existence, 
 set itself against the general practice of field preaching."* 
 
 If the Conference pronouncement had to be no mere bmtum fulmen, it was the 
 Burslem Circuit which must feel its effects. That circuit was the storm-centre of 
 the camp meeting movement, and within its limits the issue between the promoters of 
 the movement and the Conference would have to be decided. The circuit preachers, 
 
 on their return from the 
 Conference, took such a view 
 of the action of Confer- 
 ence and of their duty in 
 relation to it, that they could 
 not allow the minute to 
 remain a dead letter. The 
 
 BURSLEM IN 1800, SHOWING TOWN HALL. 
 
 
 officials of the 
 circuit were got 
 togethe r and 
 required to 
 declare them- 
 selves against 
 camp meetings. 
 This prompt 
 and decided 
 action on the 
 
 part of the BURSLEM WESI.EYAN CFAPEL. 
 
 ministers had its natural effect. William Clowes was absent from Norton Camp 
 Meeting, and was not seen at another for a period of thirteen months. For a time even 
 James Bourne wavered : and then, one can well imagine Hugh Bourne would feel 
 himself a terribly lonely man with a heavy burthen to bear. He had reached at one 
 * Skeats' "A History of the Free Churches of England," 1868, p. 621. 
 
80 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIbT CHURCH. 
 
 and the same time the culminating point of his responsibility and the nadir of his 
 loneliness. Had he, too, lost heart at this juncture the movement must have collapsed. 
 But H. K. remained firm, and very soon his brother became convinced that it was his 
 duty to stand by camp meetings, being, it would appear, largely brought to this 
 conviction by a remarkable dream. This is all the more noteworthy because he was 
 matter-of-fact, and we seldom hear of his dreaming dreams. Now he was ready to 
 share the expense and labour involved in successfully carrying through another cam}) 
 meeting of the American type a type not destined to take root in England with its 
 booths and tents, its provision for worshippers, and lasting three days. All eyes were 
 directed to the forthcoming Norton Camp Meeting and with good reason. It was the 
 crucial gathering ; for it would decide whether camp meetings could go on living and 
 
 justify their survival, even in the state of outlawry created by Conference proscription. 
 Had the movement given way at this point, just where the pressure was the strongest, 
 ^and the power of resistance apparently the feeblest, then it would have mattered little 
 that Captain Anderson had hoisted the flag of out-door evangelism on Mow Cop. The 
 contest seemed a very unequal one. If it were not exactly " Athanasius contra mundum " 
 it was Hugh Bourne flying in the face of the Wesleyan Conference and of his own 
 circuit authorities. But he tells us how he had read that "General Councils may err, 
 and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God," and was led to believe 
 that this was just such an instance of aberration on the part of a grave and reverend 
 assembly as Article XXI of the Church of England had recognised as possible. Thinking 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 81 
 
 thus, he stiffened his will, and was emboldened to carry through what he had determined 
 as though he were right and the whole Methodist Conference wrong. Moreover, he 
 believed, the Conference had been misled by giving heed to hearsay reports, and 
 " H. and J. Bourne knew that the Lord could turn the minds of the Conference 
 or carry on the camp meetings by other means." * 
 
 The morning of August 23rd, 1807, broke unfavourably, and in other respects than 
 weather the conditions were depressing. Not that the assembly was disappointingly 
 small ; rather was it unexpectedly large, and the labourers few in proportion to the 
 multitude gathered together. Many, no doubt, were absent who but for the Conference 
 edict would have been present, and whose presence would have stamped it as a local 
 Methodist gathering. But, probably, the edict brought together more than it kept 
 away. Those to whom the interdict did not apply, or for whom it had no terrors, 
 would come out of curiosity to see what all the stir was about, and wherein lay the 
 harm of such meetings. The promoters of the camp meeting had not looked further 
 than the holding of a series of meetings of modest dimensions, yet sufficing with their 
 praying companies to keep the young from being drawn away by the enticements of the 
 wake, and, behold ! a multitude brought together from far and near, and only four or 
 five available for labour ! Besides Hugh Bourne and his brother, there were James Mxon, 
 " about as difficult to be persuaded from pursuing what he deemed a proper course as 
 Hugh Bourne himself," t a man from Knutsford, and another from Macclesfield. Later 
 in the day Thomas Cotton would render good service, but he had to fulfil his appointments 
 at Kidsgrove morning and afternoon. One can imagine Hugh Bourne's surveying the 
 slender forces at his disposal and the work cut out for them, and the depression that 
 would come upon him as he recognised how disproportionate they were in numbers and 
 physical strength to the task before them. But help came unexpectedly. A stranger 
 to the conductors of the meeting came upon the field and made his way to the centre. 
 The stranger proved to be Paul Johnson, a physician from Dublin, staunch friend of 
 Lorenzo Dow, whom his professional skill had saved from what seemed imminent death. 
 He had laboured too with Dow in the recent revivals in Lancashire and Cheshire, and 
 consequently would be known to many on the ground. He was " much in the Quaker 
 way," and had come to the camp meeting by " impression," though at some sacrifice, 
 and was moved to take a prominent part in the meetings. Being an excellent speaker, 
 with a fine resonant voice which filled the field, he quite captivated the potters. His 
 corning at that moment was regarded as exceedingly opportune; it was even looked upon 
 as ''an extraordinary interposition of Divine Providence," and turned the feeling of 
 depression into one of hopefulness and confidence. They were satisfied that camp 
 meetings were of the Lord, and taught by experience how faithless had been their 
 fears, they resolved hereafter to trust less than ever in an arm of flesh. 
 
 The camp meeting went on until Tuesday evening, though on the latter day with 
 diminished numbers, and marred by the appearance on the field of Daniel Shubotham 
 to play the part of a protester ! Henceforward Daniel will be absent from this history. 
 Soon the tents were struck and the tabernacle taken down, and Norton Camp Meeting, 
 fourth in order but first in historical importance, was a thing of the past. It had 
 
 * Bourne's "History," 1835, p. 23. f Petty's "History," p. 31. 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 answered its immediate purpose not one member was " drawn away by the vanities of 
 the wake." More than this -" from that important moment the English camp meetings 
 were established on an immovable foundation, and could never afterwards be shaken." 
 
 THE " SHEDDING " OF HUGH BOURNE. 
 
 From Norton Camp Meeting follows in true historical sequence the expulsion, or, as 
 it might more correctly be called, the dropping or shedding of Hugh Bourne. It was 
 the next natural step to take after what had already been done. If camp meetings 
 were proscribed, the man who more than any other was responsible for their forfeited 
 existence, could not long be tolerated ; if they were proclaimed un-Methodistic, he, their 
 
 Where Hugh Bourne's parents are buried. 
 
 chief author and abettor, must soon be denied the character of true Methodist. And 
 yet, one thinks, the authorities were not precipitate in their action ; for the guillotine 
 did not fall until;.. June 27th, 1808 ten months after the holding of Norton Camp 
 Meeting, so there was no indecent haste in making Hugh Bourne pay the penalty of his 
 contumacy. But even during those ten months of respite he was not suffered to live 
 under the illusion that the passing of the Conference minute had made no difference, 
 and that things would continue on the old footing. True ; opposition may be said to 
 have spent its force at Norton, and after that time to have quickly moderated, yet, 
 Bourne tells us, " theJininute of Conference continued to be pressed," and the brothers 
 " were made to feel the force of it in a variety of ways." Whatever unpleasant form 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 83 
 
 this pressure took, its indirect result was for the furtherance of the gospel. If it availed 
 to close some accustomed doors, mediately it brought about the finding of fresh openings 
 for evangelistic activity. The line of least resistance taken coincided largely with the 
 line of most usefulness. Where they found themselves free to labour was just the spot 
 where labour was most needed. Neglected neighbourhoods were missioned ; open-air 
 services were held and cottage prayer meetings established ; the scantiness of religious 
 ordinances here and there was supplemented. In addition to all this, conversation- 
 preaching and family visitation went on continually. These, not the least effective 
 methods of evangelisation, were under no ban, and could be followed anywhere. 
 Moreover, when the vernal equinox of the new year 1808 was passed, the Camp 
 
 THE WREK 
 
 Meeting Methodists, as they now began to be called, acting in conformity with their 
 name, organised a series of camp meetings. 
 
 The first of the series, opening what may be called the camp meeting season, was 
 held May 1st, 1808, on the singular isolated hill or mountain in Shropshire the 
 Wrekin, not far from Madeley, where John Fletcher lived and laboured. What made 
 them pitch upon a distant mountain, 1320 feet high, for their camp meeting, was not the 
 strangeness or the picturesqueness of the site, though in these respects the spot chosen 
 was quite as remarkable as Mow Cop itself. What took them so far afield* was the 
 knowledge that on this first Sunday in May, as had been the custom time out of mind, 
 
 * The Wrekin is fort}- miles from Bemerslej'. 
 
84 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 a vast multitude of people would come together to spend the day in unhallowed pleasure. 
 True to their principle of coming to close quarters with vice and profanity, they resolved 
 not to let this annual desecration both of the Lord's Day and of the Lord's mountain 
 pass without protest. They would bear witness to the truth that "the heights of the 
 hills are His also," and would see to it that the heights of old Wrekin should for once 
 give back other echoes than those with which bad " old use and wont " had made them 
 familiar in the long succession of years. So the sounds of praise and prayer and 
 exhortation vied and struggled for the mastery with the sounds of revelry, lewdness, 
 and profanity. Finally, and appropriately, they distributed their " Rules for Holy 
 Living," and left the mountain and the results with God. 
 
 Three other camp meetings were held during what we have called the ten months 
 of respite. These were Bug Lawton, in Cheshire, May 15th ; a small one at Wootton, 
 May 22nd ; and the third Mow Camp Meeting, May 29th. These need not detain 
 us from considering what is of much more importance the formal exclusion of Hugh 
 Bourne from the Wesleyan Methodist Society by the Burslem Circuit Quarterly Meeting 
 of June 27th, 1808. The blow was in some measure anticipated. He tells us that as 
 he was on his return journey from "a religious excursion" into Cheshire and Lancashire,, 
 it was painfully borne in upon his mind that he would soon be put out of the Old 
 Methodist communion, and that he would be more useful out than in. He did not rest 
 passive under the impression, but strove and argued against it. Such an event was 
 most unlikely, he reasoned, he being a trustee, having been a considerable giver to 
 the cause, a raiser up of societies, and "vehemently attached to Methodism." These 
 were the grounds he went upon in this inward debate, and with such considerations 
 he sought to get rid of the impression, and because of its intrinsic unlikelihood 
 ventured to conclude it had not a Divine source. Nevertheless the impression persisted, 
 nor had he any peace until he let it sink into his mind and gave it credence, and yielded 
 as with a " Be it as the Lord will." On reaching home he found rumours flying about 
 that his expulsion was intended. Whatever explanation may be offered of this mental 
 conflict, one obvious advantage resulted from it : he had reckoned with the event 
 beforehand, so that its happening found him calm and prepared. 
 
 What was the charge or complaint preferred against Hugh Bourne by the Burslem 
 Quarterly Meeting 1 No doubt the impression has largely obtained that a clear, definitive 
 issue was raised that of H. B.'s insubordination to a circuit prohibition based on a 
 Conference resolution. But there is no evidence for this. On the contrary, there is 
 evidence that much lower ground was taken. In the Clowes' MSS. it is distinctly 
 stated by Clowes himself : 
 
 " I was at the Quarter Day at Burslem when H. B. was put out of Society as 
 a private member, and the charge that was brought against him was for not 
 attending his class. The leader said he had not been at his class for a long time, 
 and they put him away." 
 
 Thus, what nearly all biographers of Hugh Bourne and Connexional historians had 
 surmised, is now established that the ostensible ground of Hugh Bourne's dismember- 
 ment was not incorrigible complicity with camp meetings, or any breach of ordinary 
 
SOURCES AND OKIGIN. 85 
 
 discipline, much less any allegation of immorality or wrong-doing, but the fact of 
 infrequent attendance at his class. He himself has admitted the truth of the charge, 
 and explained why it was true. How could he be present at Norton Class on the 
 Sunday morning when, as a rule, he was pursuing his evangelistic labours miles away ? 
 Yet, in his absence, without being apprised of what was going to be done, or being 
 allowed to plead anything in extenuation, he was dropped. The Circuit Steward, 
 Mr. Walker, we are told, spoke up on behalf of fairness to an absent man who, after 
 all, was more than a private member. Whether any one else did so we are not told. 
 
 Does the new evidence available permit us to regard the action of the authorities 
 more favourably 1 Scarcely. There were two questions involved in the unchurching of 
 Hugh Bourne the question of fact and of right ; whether he had or had not attended 
 his class ; and whether the fact of non-attendance, supposing it proved, was a sufficient 
 ground for expulsion. If, when the fact was proved that H. B. had not been at his 
 class for some time and if his leader were present it would not take long to prove 
 that it were then agreed to rule out all questions of why and wherefore, all con- 
 siderations explanatory and exculpatory, and determine the issue on the simple matter 
 of fact then all that can be said is that such mode of procedure would have been 
 the veriest travesty of justice, although one can easily see that such an easy method 
 of barring out troublesome discussion and getting rid of a troublesome man would 
 have its obvious advantages. If this were the course really taken a thing in itself 
 hardly credible then such a statement as the subjoined is quite beside the mark : 
 
 "As he, Mr. Bourne, definitely rejected the authority of the Leaders and Local 
 Preachers' Meeting they not unnaturally or ungraciously felt driven to disown 
 all responsibility for his acts."* 
 
 This view, we say, is irrelevant it does not fit the facts unless the question of the 
 Tightness or wrongness of the pre-occupation which kept Hugh Bourne from his class 
 were duly considered and adjudicated upon. Doubtless this was the course pursued, 
 and the decision reached was adverse, as we know. This being so, the "natural" and 
 "gracious" course, surely, would have been to make H. B.'s "irregularities," and 
 Revivalistic methods, and especially his persistence in pushing camp meetings, the 
 gravamen of the charge against him and, if sustained, the ground of the disciplinary 
 measures taken. This, we admit (thus agreeing with Dr. Gregory, who wrote according 
 to the evidence available at the time) would have been the natural and logical sequence 
 of the clash between Conference and Camp Meetings which was only part of the bigger 
 clash between primitive and modern Methodism. That this was the real, though not 
 the alleged ground of Hugh Bourne's expulsion may be regarded as confirmed by the 
 President of the Quarterly Meeting himself. Soon after his expulsion Hugh Bourne 
 met Mr. J. Riles in the street, and on inquiring of him the reason of that expulsion, 
 was told " that he had a tendency to set up other than the ordinary worship." 
 
 The best feature of this unhappy episode was the way the victim bore it. On the 
 evening of this fateful day he called upon W. Clowes, and the two attended a meeting 
 of the Tract Mission. But it was not from Clowes' lips he learned the news of 
 
 * The late Dr. B. Gregory. 
 
86 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 his expulsion. Clowes was freshly arrived from the Quarterly Meeting, and one might 
 reasonahly conclude the treatment his friend had received would be the thought 
 uppermost in his mind and the one topic of conversation. His silence is significant, 
 and makes us wonder as to its cause. Was the subject too painful to broach ? If so, 
 we get a glimpse of one of the small tragedies of life. It is not always that "out of 
 the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh." Next day, when the news reached 
 him that he had been put out of the Methodist Society, Bourne simply said, " The 
 Lord's will be done," and was thankful that he had been forewarned and prepared for 
 the blow. He was neither disconsolate nor angry ; fomented no division ; paid his 
 arrears of class money, and went on with his work as though nothing had happened. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 87 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 RAMSOR FOURTH CAMP MEETING AND AFTER. 
 CLOWES, A METHODIST LOCAL PREACHER. 
 
 IROM the time of the Conference declaration against camp meetings to 
 September 4th, 1809 the date of the first Ramsor Camp Meeting the 
 story of Clowes' life belongs to Burslem Methodism, and therefore need not 
 be told here in detail. After the official action taken in 1807 he could not 
 have been a Methodist and an out-and-out Camp Meetinger without compromising himself, 
 and it is clear to us that as yet he was not prepared to incur the penalty of exclusion 
 from the society he loved. Still, even during this period of fifteen months, he has 
 more than an incidental connection with this narrative. Clowes kept up his friendship 
 with various members of the Camp Meeting brotherhood notably with Hugh Bourne, 
 with whom he had frequent intercourse. Often Bourne looked in upon his friend, and 
 long and profitable talks ensued. Clowes notes it as an oddity in his visitor that he 
 would invariably, as though on principle, decline all hospitality ; he would neither bite 
 nor sup, nor, however late the hour might be, would he accept the offer of bed or 
 " squab," but insist upon returning to his own home at Bemersley, At such times the 
 staple of their talk was the deep things of God. Theirs was no caucus, no hole-and- 
 corner meeting. They did not forgather to canvass church affairs, but to seek after 
 mutual edification. Nor, do we find from Hugh Bourne's Journals, that in the give 
 and take of their nocturnal intercourse it was Bourne who was principally the giver 
 and Clowes the receiver ; that to the elder disciple naturally fell the role of teacher, 
 inspirer, leader, while the younger was quite content to sit at his feet. It were a 
 mistake so to conclude ; for the records show that often the younger disciple left his 
 impress on the elder. Thus early did Clowes' atmosphere tell. The animation and 
 readiness of his speech, coupled with the fact of his rich and growing experience, gave 
 him, almost from the beginning, an ascendency over colder and less vocal natures. 
 
 Sometimes, too, Hugh Bourne would lead Clowes' class, and together they made 
 several excursions into Lancashire and Cheshire. Bnt although all this betokens 
 considerable sympathy with the aims and methods of the Camp Meeting Methodists, yet 
 this sympathy and his friendship and company-keeping with Bourne and others like-minded 
 were without prejudice to his standing and expectations as a Methodist. His name 
 did not stand on any of their written plans drawn up for the sake of convenience 
 as did the names of Thomas Cotton and James Nixon. It is reasonable to conclude 
 that to Clowes the idea of the Church as an organisation making claims and conferring 
 privileges appealed more strongly than it did to Bourne. To the latter the Church 
 was more an ideal thing, and even the Methodism to which he had expressed himself 
 
88 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 as vehemently attached was also an ideal. It was Methodism as it had been and as 
 it ought to be again, rather than the particular Methodism of the Burslem Circuit 
 or of the Annual Conference that attracted Hugh Bourne. There are certain entries 
 in his Journals bearing out these views. He records a conversation he had with 
 James Nixon soon after his expulsion : 
 
 " Friday, July 8th, 1808. I went to Tunstall. J. Nixon discoursed with me about 
 being out of the Society. L said, I ought to have had an opportunity to have 
 answered for myself. He said, I should endeavour to come in again. I said, I had 
 left it to the Lord. He said, I should have more privileges. I said, as it was I should 
 have the privilege of doing the Lord's will. He said, if I did that I should be 
 a happy man ; nevertheless, he thought I ought to talk with - - about it, to 
 prevent him acting hastily another time. We then talked of the deep things 
 of religion." 
 
 KAMSOR COMMON. 
 The Site of the First Camp Meeting. 
 
 If James Nixon thought that Hugh Bourne missed many privileges by being outside 
 the Methodist pale and hence should endeavour to get inside once more, we may fairly 
 infer that William Clowes would still more decidedly be of this opinion ; for hitherto 
 his adhesion to camp meetings had not been so close and continuous as Nixon's. This 
 inference is confirmed by a statement Bourne makes in his " History," to which 
 Clowes takes no exception, though he does challenge some other statements made in 
 the same book : 
 
 "Notwithstanding his (W. Clowes') being put off the preachers' plan, his 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 89 
 
 attachment to the Old Methodist Society was strong, and he occasionally gave 
 it as his opinion that H. B. would have more privileges, and might be more useful, 
 if he were in the Old Society. But, in this, W. Clowes soon found cause to change 
 his opinion." * 
 
 It is just here, no doubt, we find the explanation of the fact that after Mow Cop 
 second camp meeting W. Clowes was not present at another for a period of fifteen 
 months ; or to put it in another way out of seventeen camp meetings held from 
 May 31st, 1807, until the establishment of Primitive Methodism in 1811, Clowes was 
 present at five only. There is nothing specially puzzling in the fact as thus stated, if 
 we remember that Clowes' " time " as a founder of Primitive Methodism " was not yet 
 come." He was a convinced and ardent Methodist, who, at the same time, believed in 
 camp meetings. His belief went a long way. It cemented rather than dissolved the 
 friendship he had formed with the promoters of the movement. It emboldened him to 
 speak up in defence of camp meetings when he heard their utility called in question 
 or the motives of their promoters impugned. The Conference pronouncement had 
 made a difference ; but it neither suppressed his convictions nor tied his tongue, though 
 for a time it did avail to keep him from actively participating in what was disallowed, 
 since participation would have meant severance from the Church he loved. This we 
 take to be the meaning of Clowes' statement in regard to the second camp meeting 
 on Mow : 
 
 " I laboured but little at this meeting, but I felt equally interested in its success, 
 and defended it with all my might against its opponents." 
 
 This period of fifteen months in which William Clowes held aloof from camp 
 meetings, while at the same time he held fellowship with camp meetingers, forms 
 a, short chapter this history cannot afford to omit. It bears witness to the fact that 
 Clowes, at any rate, is not chargeable with holding low views of the Church, or lightly 
 esteeming its privileges. If, after this interval of suspense and struggle, during which 
 he, too, felt the pressure of the Conference pronouncement, Clowes did after all put to 
 hazard what was so dear to him, and whole-heartedly throw himself into the new 
 movement, it is a valuable.tribute to the character and urgency of the movement itself; 
 while at the same time it furnishes a guarantee that when the time shall come for the 
 movement to organise itself into a denomination, the claims of the Church as against 
 unchecked individualism will be safeguarded. The union of the Clowesites and Camp 
 Meeting Methodists was to form an amalgam from which neither the Tunstall nor the 
 Bemersley ingredient could be spared. 
 
 W. Clowes has left it in writing that he was present at all the Ramsor Camp 
 Meetings, the first of the series being held on September 4th, 1809. The second, held 
 iive weeks afterwards, is noteworthy to us, because at it Clowes preached from his first 
 text. Exhortations, indeed, he had been in the habit of giving powerful, effective, 
 and acceptable to the people, like the one delivered at Mow Cop first camp meeting 
 but, still, from a homiletic point of view these were nothing more than exhortations, 
 because wanting the formality of a previously-announced text, and essentially hortatory 
 in character, consisting of appeals based on the elemental evangelic facts and declarations 
 
 * " History," etc., Ed. 1835, p. 35. 
 
90 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 of Scripture, as confirmed by personal experience. Perhaps this form of public address- 
 best suited Clowes' modest estimate of the range within which his own powers as yet 
 could safely and efficiently work, while he deemed it more in keeping with his standing 
 that of a recognised exhorter who had not yet attained to the dignity of the plan. After 
 considerable research the facts are still obscure. Probably usage has changed, and the 
 exhorter and local preacher of that time might be separated by a sharper line than now 
 obtains. But, however this may have been, it is certain that Clowes had received some 
 kind of official authorisation to speak in public. Either he had a " note to accompany " 
 an accredited local preacher, or he was empowered to fill a vacancy that might occur, or 
 to conduct cottage services. It is equally certain that when at Ramsor Moor Camp 
 
 RAMSOR COMMON. 
 Eamsor Second Camp Meeting. New Chapel in background. 
 
 Meeting Clowes ventured to announce as his text, " He that hath the Son hath life," he- 
 had at the time no part whatever in what some one has called "the plan-etary heavens." 
 He did not figure there even as a modest asterisk, much less had he the honour of 
 having his name, or the initials of his name, emblazoned thereon. So it was something 
 of an event when on October 9th, 1809, the Methodist class-leader and exhorter preached 
 his first sermon. He did so well, we are told, that " the people encouraged him to go 
 forward." Soon after this- -precisely how soon we know not* he was required to^ 
 
 W. Garner, in his " Life of Clowes," gives October 9th as the date of the trial sermon. But 
 that is, of course, an error, as October 9th was the date of the Eamsor Camp Meeting. " Very 
 shortly after this," says Clowes, ' I was called upon to preach a trial sermon " 
 
SOURCES AND ORK1IN. 
 
 91 
 
 REV. JONATHAN' Kl )MONI)SON. 
 
 preacli his trial-sermon at Tunstall before the superintendent of the Burslem Circuit. 
 
 At the close of the service the Rev. Jonathan Edmondson 
 observed "You have done very well; but you will kill 
 yourself." The non-predictive part of this sentence had 
 weight as coming from one who in the pulpit was said to- 
 be "judicious, pithy, and practical," and who was the 
 author of sermons once widely known. 
 
 It has often been noted as singular that Clowes' trial 
 sermon, the indispensable step to plan-promotion, should 
 have followed hot-foot on his active participation in the 
 Ramsor Camp Meeting. It is singular, and remains so- 
 after all attempts at explanation. Assuming what it 
 seems unreasonable not to assume that at the time of 
 the trial sermon the superintendent was privy to Clowes' 
 proceedings at Ramsor, we cannot but recall how different 
 was the treatment meted out to Hugh Bourne after Norton 
 Camp Meeting. He certainly was not rewarded as Clowes- 
 was by being invited to " go up higher." In his case the- 
 
 utmost that can be said is that "sentence" against what was regarded as "an evil work 
 was not executed speedily." The fact is and herein lies the best available and most 
 concise explanation of the diverse treatment of the two men, and of much besides 
 Clowes was persona yrata to the authorities of the Burslem Circuit and Bourne was- 
 not. The former, as we have seen, was attached, not only outwardly, but by true 
 inward affection, to Methodism in the concrete ; and up to this time the attachment 
 was mutual. He stood well with both ministers and people, and was in a measure 
 popular and successful. And yet, so far as the available evidence goes, the promotion 
 which should have followed the trial sermon was no great one, and was tardily entered 
 upon. We have, in facsimile, a Methodist Plan of the Burslem Circuit for the quarter 
 August 6th October 29th, 1809, on which after the names of the preachers follows 
 the note : 
 
 " X.B. \V. Clowes, Wedgwood, W. E. to be employed occasionally."* 
 
 Of course, being without a figure, no appointments are given to Clowes on this plan. 
 More than this : Herod, while evidently unacquainted with this plan, .states that 
 identically the same note stands on the plan for the succeeding quarter, November 5th, 
 1809 January 28th, 1810. If it be unreasonable to suppose that after having had his- 
 figure with appointments given him, W. Clowes was afterwards reduced to the third 
 part of an N.B., we are shut up to the conclusion that if W. C. ever were a local 
 preacher on " full plan," it could only have been for two quarters, February 4th 
 July 29th, 1810, and before the plan for the second quarter had been worked out 
 Clowes' plan was taken from him. The fact thus elicited is startling, but the evidence 
 for it is strong. Was Clowes' complicity in Ramsor Camp Meeting after all not known 
 when he preached his trial sermon, and does the evidence point to the fact that the- 
 authorities were dubious about him, and yet reluctant to take more drastic measures 1 
 
 * Given by Thomas Church : " Popular Sketches of Primitive Methodism," 1850, p. 34. 
 
92 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Omitting the third Ramsor Camp Meeting, May 21st, 1809, we come to the crucial 
 fourth one of June 3rd, 1810. Prior to this meeting, there would seem to have been 
 a conflict going on in Clowes' mind as to whether he should take an active- part in it or 
 not. Various considerations and opposing motives presented themselves. He wanted 
 
 to attend, but, again in short his mind lay balanced between "yea" and "nay" until, 
 
 harassed by the suspense and anxious to end it, he made known his perplexities to 
 Hugh Bourne and James Crawfoot. The latter had, since November, 1809, been 
 employed as an itinerant evangelist, but, though he had gifts of no ordinary kind, they 
 were not of the camp meeting order, and hence he seldom took part in such 
 services. Ramsor fourth camp meeting, however, was to be an exception. Thus 
 taken into counsel, Hugh Bourne "thought it would be better for Clowes not to 
 attend." There is no sign here of any wish to compromise his friend with the 
 authorities, and detach him from old Methodism. On the contrary, he recognised the 
 delicacy of W. Clowes' position and sympathised with it. But when the appeal was 
 made to Crawfoot, the " old man of the Forest " was ready with an answer that at once 
 made the balance dip. Said he, " 'Tis better to obey God than man." After this 
 conference, his doubts being resolved and his mind made up, Clowes went with his 
 friends to the camp meeting, which, on various grounds, is of note in our history. It 
 was the first held after the refusal of the Burslem Circuit to take over the Stanley 
 Society of ten members, and, therefore, was the first camp meeting held by the Camp 
 Meeting Methodists after they became a distinct community. Then, too, it was the 
 only camp meeting at which Crawfoot and the popular Mrs. Dunnell were present 
 together. If, apart from Hugh Bourne, Crawfoot was the first itinerant preacher of the 
 camp meeting community, Mrs. Dunnell cannot well be denied the distinction of 
 hiving been its first female preacher. She wrought some good, but in the end the 
 
 mischief and trouble she wrought outweighed the good, 
 and she was not numbered amongst the first Primitive 
 Methodists. To a woman in every way worthier than 
 Mrs. Dunnell, was reserved the honour of being file-leader 
 of the goodly array of female travelling preachers. "NVe 
 anticipate a little, but let it be noted here that Sarah 
 Kirkland, of Mercaston, afterwards known as Mrs. 
 Harrison, was, as Bourne tells us, "the first female 
 taken out to labour as a travelling preacher in the 
 Primitive Methodist Connexion. She travelled several 
 years, and was the means of raising the character of 
 female travelling preachers very high." 
 
 Ramsor and its neighbourhood, including Wootton- 
 under-Weaver, Lexhead, Kingsley, and Farley, was from 
 a very early date a favourite and fruitful field of 
 missionary labour, at first as auxiliary to Wesleyan 
 
 Methodism, and then, after the Stanley episode, conducted on independent lines. 
 Here and hereabout were the substantial homes of several families, whose hospitality 
 was freely bestowed, and greatly appreciated by the missionaries as repeated references 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 93 
 
 in the Journals of Bourne and Clowes serve to show. We are continually meeting 
 with the names of the Heatons of Farley, the Sergeants of Kingsley, the Buxtons, 
 the Critchelqws, the Dreacotts, the Salts of Wootton, and, above all, the Brothers 
 Horobin. 
 
 It was Francis Horobin who, on Hugh Bourne's first visit to Ranisor in May, 
 1808, pointed out half a dozen spiritually destitute villages, and promised help 
 a promise which he fully honoured. Of James Horobin, Bourne writes : November 24th,. 
 1810. "This man and his wife have been, and are abundantly kind to me and the 
 cause of God. Oh, may God reward them ; " and of the Buxtons, in the same month - 
 "At Wootton, I felt a love to David Buxton almost beyond measure. Well, in 
 heaven our love will be perfect." 
 
 WOOTTON PAKK FA KM. 
 The Home of David Buxton. 
 
 Who Joseph Salt was and what his relation to the Wootton Society have faithfully 
 been put down for us by H. Bourne in his Journals under date September 18th, 1808 : 
 
 "Mr. Joseph Salt, a respectable farmer, of Wootton, was fully brought to God 
 under Thomas Cotton's ministry. Before this, Mr. Salt had been awakened by 
 a pious young female. [Why this periphrase, O Venerable Founder? Was not 
 the "pious young female" one Mrs. Samuel Evans, better known as "Dinah 
 Morris " 1] Our Wootton people met in the Lexhead and Ramsor class ; but 
 when it was judged proper to have a class at Wootton, Mr. J. Salt was made- 
 leader, and Mrs. Salt was a mother in Israel." 
 
-94 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 If Mrs. Salt was a mother in Israel, Elizabeth Salt seems to have been a fail- 
 daughter of Zion, of whom there were a good many hereabouts, as the Journals testify. 
 
 Writing just after the September, 1811, plan was "out," 
 and like a general casting about in hi* mind to see how 
 many effective troops he could bring into the field, 
 Bourne writes : 
 
 "There are seventeen preachers on this plan, and 
 three at Ramsor. One is raised up at Eocester, and 
 two will shortly be raised up at Cannock Wood. 
 And I suppose the Lord will raise up some women 
 Hannah Heaton, Dorothy Buxton, Sarah Scott, and 
 Sarah Mace. Elizabeth Salt at Wootton bids fair 
 to be useful. So there are nearly thirty in view, 
 as Samuel Simcock has begun." 
 
 Clowes, who was in these parts in 1810, bears a similar 
 testimony to the heads of these house-churches. 
 
 JOSEPH SALT. 
 
 " We did not limit the preaching to one place, but 
 preached from house to house. We found the houses 
 of Brother Crichley (Critchelow) and Brother Buxton 
 very convenient ; in the house of the latter five souls 
 were converted to God. In this house I held a love- 
 feast, which began at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, 
 being most suitable for the country people residing 
 here. No sooner did the meeting commence than 
 tears and bursts of joy took place throughout the 
 lovefeast : great freedom was experienced in speaking 
 of the glorious things pertaining to the Kingdom, 
 and several, in giving expression to their religious 
 feelings, declared that God had made me, His un 
 worthy servant, an honoured instrument in His hands 
 in the salvation of their souls. At the termination 
 of the meeting, Francis Dricott (Dreacott,)* a 
 local preacher, prayed that the Lord would keep me humble, and save me 
 from thinking too highly of myself. I felt thankful for ^the sentiment of the 
 prayer, and responded to it from my heart, Amen and Amen. I, was aware that 
 'God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble,' and that the devil's 
 object is to inflate the hearts of preachers of the gospel with spiritual pride. Alas ! 
 how many have been thus deceived, and have said to their fellow-labourers : 
 'Stand thou by ; I am holier than thou.'" (Clowes' Journals, 100-1). 
 
 For long the Sunday services were held alternately at Lexhead, the home of the 
 Horobins, and at Wootton Park Farm, the home of the Buxtons, and on the death 
 of David Buxton were transferred to George Critchelow's home, where they were 
 
 GEORGE OBITOHELOW. 
 
 ' Proper names are frequently mis-spelled in Clowes' Journals. He evidently had few 
 documents to rely upon, and had to trust to his memory. The form " Draycott " also occurs. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 LEXHEAD FARM. 
 The Home of James Horobiu. 
 
 GEORGE CRITCHELOWS HOU 
 
96 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 continued until the new chapel was built, while the Ramsor week-evening services 
 were held at the house of James Horobin up to the time of his death some 
 forty years ago. Ramsor Circuit has had a long and creditable history. Though 
 Cheadle and part of Leek Circuits have been carved out of it, it is still some 
 twenty-five miles long and sixteen wide. Singular to say, through the greater part of 
 its long history the village which gives its name to this historic circiiit, was without 
 its chapel ; but the difficulties in the way of the accomplishment of this have at last 
 been surmounted and now a neat chapel, opened 1890, ornaments the village. 
 
 As of old the Word of 
 the Ix>rd sounded forth from 
 Thessalonica, so from Ramsor 
 by means of this camp meeting, 
 still further advances were 
 made. Before the same month 
 of June was over both Bourne 
 and Clowes, with Mrs. Dunnell, 
 iinder the direction of the 
 former, were labouring at 
 Boylestone, Rodsley, and 
 Hollington in Derbyshire, 
 where societies were formed 
 with the prospect of still 
 further extension. Ramsor, too, 
 was one of the links in " the 
 chain of circumstances " which 
 led Hugh Bourne to pay a visit 
 to Wyrley Bank and Cannock 
 Wood in South Staffordshire. 
 In response to a pressing 
 invitation from Mr. David 
 Buxton, a native of Stanton 
 near Ramsor, Hugh Bourne 
 walked thirty-four miles 
 through the rain to Wyrley 
 Bank, arriving there on July 
 27th, 1810. It was during 
 this evangelistic tour that 
 Bourne met with John Benton, 
 who was afterwards for several years a successful pioneer missionary. Bourne calls him 
 "an extraordinary man," and he was such if for no other reason than that his sincere 
 piety and zeal were able to triumph over all the disadvantages of illiteracy and natural 
 defects. He had "little grammar and not much command of language," and hence he 
 did not escape reproach and scoffs from both professors and profane. Said a local preacher 
 to him one day after hearing him try to preach at Cannock Common : " You are 
 
 RAMSOR CHAPEL. 
 
SOURCES AND OKIGIN. 
 
 97 
 
 bringing a scandal on the cause of Christ, you have had no learning, you do not 
 understand grammar." Ben ton's most effective answer was given some time after. He 
 was preaching on a Good Friday afternoon from the text, "It is finished." The room 
 was crowded with colliers, and he had got but half-way through his discourse when 
 a large part of the congregation became strangely affected : 
 
 " Some groaned, others shrieked ; some fell from their seats ; and the whole 
 assembly was thrown into consternation : he therefore closed the Bible, and went 
 from his stand to pray for mourners ; and when passing down among the people 
 he saw his friend, the local preacher, standing and looking on with amazement 
 Said Benton to him, ' This is grammar ! ' " 
 
 WYRLEY BANK. 
 
 Where Clowes, Turner, and Steele stood and missioned in 1813. This place is now 
 a considerable village and better known as Cheslyn Hay. 
 
 The reply that came was almost identical in form with that of the astonished witnesses 
 of Christ's wonder-working power : " We never saw it in this fashion." Now, though 
 1 >< 'iiton, Avith his " little grammar and not much command of language," was far from being 
 an Apollos, he was like him in 'that he needed fuller spiritual instruction. He could 
 and did rouse the sinner; but he was at a loss what to do with him when he was 
 roused. He could not complete the work he had so well begun. He had still to learn 
 the secret : how to impart true evangelical peace. So Bourne conversed much with him 
 on such high themes. Together they went to Essington Wood to meet a number of 
 
98 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 inquirers whom Benton had gathered into a kind of class. Bourne " spoke to the 
 people and the Lord made bare His arm ; six souls were immediately set at liberty ; 
 and Benton entered fully into the knowledge of a present salvation. His usefulness 
 after this was greater than it had been before, and it kept increasing." Induced by 
 what he heard, Benton resolved to attend the fifth Kamsor Camp Meeting to be held 
 on May 26th, 1811. His experience there gave the finishing-touches to his spiritual 
 education, and completed his equipment. Says he : "At this meeting I received such 
 a baptism of the Holy Spirit as I never experienced before ; and I felt from this day it 
 was my duty to be given up to the work of the ministry." So for a time we leave 
 Wyrley Bank and Cannock Wood, where already can be discerned the germ of Darlaston 
 Circuit in the Black Country; and we leave John Benton saying, "Here am I, send 
 me ; " and ready to take the place of James Crawfoot, soon to be vacant by his 
 retirement. 
 
 But to return to Ramsor fourth camp meeting, and what we owe to it. Perhaps its 
 chief indirect result was that it gave William Clowes to the movement. Nor must wo, 
 in any balancing of accounts as between James Crawfoot and the Primitive Methodist 
 Connexion, omit to place as a considerable item on the credit side, the fact that but for 
 him William Clowes could not well have been what he now must be a conspicuous 
 figure in this history. Clowes' expulsion was the direct, swift, retributive result of his 
 share in that day's proceedings; and it was the brave, sharp, knot-cutting words of 
 Crawfoot that decided his action. Let the credit item be allowed. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 99 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 CLOWES' EXPULSION". 
 
 |T the June, 1810, Quarterly Meeting of the Burslem Circuit William Clowes' 
 plan was withheld. That is the bare simple fact, soon told a fact we need 
 not labour, since no one disputes it or its cause. We have no circumstantial 
 account of that Board's proceedings except the short account given by 
 Clowes himself, which, on account of its importance, we will reproduce here, as well 
 as one or two items from Bourne's Journals which suggest that it was a time of 
 confusion and trial. These incidental allusions will prepare us for the fuller narrative : 
 
 "June 18th. I stopped with Clowes all night. He has been at Stoke-upon-Trent, 
 and the Lord has made him very useful there ; but the preachers at Burslem are 
 raising up war against him. 
 
 "July 8th. There is much confusion at Burslem. Mr. E rails hard, and many 
 
 of the local preachers. 
 
 " Wednesday llth. I worked at home, and in the evening went to see Clowes. He 
 is going on well, but they have put him out of the plan, and are seeking occasion 
 against him. Nevertheless, he preached at Stoke Chapel last Sunday night. 
 
 Lord, bless him. 
 
 "July 16th. Clowes came to our house, and I spent some time with him, and 
 went with him to Kidsgrove, where he preached from Malachi iii. 6. I stopped 
 with him at Tunstall all night. The local preachers are ashamed of their conduct 
 towards Clowes in putting him out of the plan. O Lord, stand by him and 
 strengthen him, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen." 
 
 And now for the fuller account given by Clowes in his Journal* : 
 
 "About this time, much uneasiness began to show itself among certain parties 
 in the Burslem Circuit on account of the camp meetings, and my attending them. 
 Accordingly, in the June quarter of 1810, my name was omitted on the preachers' 
 plan. This proceeding excited a strong ferment throughout the country, especially 
 amongst religious persons of different denominations, who in strong terms expressed 
 their disapprobation of the preachers in carrying a measure of such an unconstitu- 
 tional and intolerant character ; hence, invitations from all parts of the country 
 flowed in upon me, soliciting me to preach, and offering me every encouragement 
 in the name of the Lord. The travelling preachers in the Methodist New Connexion 
 urged me to preach for them. I preached once in their chapel, and one soul was 
 set at liberty. One of the official persons invited me to join their body ; but 
 
 1 observed I could do nothing as yet, but wait to lay my case fully before the 
 Lord, for Him to direct me in my providential way." 
 
 But this was not the end : only the beginning. More stringent measures were to 
 follow. Possibly, had W. Clowes forsworn his old camp meeting companions and 
 
 H2 
 
100 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 become mute as a Trappist monk, instead of exhorting whenever and wherever he 
 could during the next three months, he might have been forgiven and reinstated. 
 It is much more likely, however, that the inevitable happened; that what we have 
 long foreseen would take place, did take place ; that the authorities deemed that the 
 time had come to purge the Church of the virus of Eevivalism before the whole body 
 should be infected with the distemper, and now that a change of preachers had taken 
 place and a strict disciplinarian was at the head of affairs, the time was thought 
 opportune for effecting the purgation. It was this wider question, we will charitably 
 
 SiO-ISi4-ia>- 
 
 7. - - - SCHOOL: 1534-1376 
 Z.JOHN HANOCOCKS HOUSt AND 5HO' 
 9 POTWORK5 80URNt.NIXOrliC< 
 
 I TUNSTAU CHURCH. 
 
 3 BRUNSATEsintlRi) 
 
 4 SWAN INN. 
 
 5- HEATHS WORKS 
 
 6 BOOtNSHOUSEiWAMHOUSt.M.JAMESNKONSHOUSE 
 
 7. KAN'SHOUSE. tl.JAWES STEItS HOUSt 
 
 8. JOSEPH SMITHS HOUSt. 2Z. CLOWES HOUSt. 
 
 9 SMITH! STABLES. U E WEVOYS HOUSt 
 
 10 THE WINDMILL 
 
 1 1. WESLEYAN CHAPEL' 1789. 
 ll . . . BUILT. I83& 
 12 3CHOCU516. 
 1 3. OLD MANOR HOUSE 
 14 CffDAVtNPOBTS HOUSE 
 
 PLAN OF TUNSTALL, 1811. 
 
 continue to believe, that was really at the bottom of the Tunstall troubles and not the 
 single question of camp meetings. To our founders, Primitive Methodism meant more 
 than camp meetings, and to those who exercised discipline on our founders, camp 
 meetings were only the last most pronounced symptom of that Revivalism, the very 
 name of which was as distasteful to many at the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 as the word Enthusiasm had been to the opponents of the evangelical revival in the 
 century preceding. Such at any rate is our view, and that view is confirmed by the 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 101 
 
 local Methodist historian who lived on the spot through all these stirring times, and 
 in 1843 gave his version of the occurrences when old age should, one supposes, have 
 brought something of the philosophic mind. This writer makes no reference to camp 
 meetings, but he does say : 
 
 "It was very evident their purpose was to form a party upon what they called 
 the simplicity and uniformity of primitive Methodism ; they maintained that 
 Methodism had lost its original character, and its members were conforming to 
 the world in spirit, manners, dress," etc. 
 
 We do not know that any serious exception need be taken to this way of stating the 
 case. If the recovery of " the simplicity and uniformity of primitive Methodism " were 
 indeed the prime aim of our founders, then they cherished no unworthy purpose. Nor 
 was their purpose a futile one though worthy, for all reformations and revolutions have 
 gone the way they took by the way of the recovery of the past. Has not John Morley 
 somewhere noted "Simplicity is the key- word to every revolution with a moral core"? 
 That generalisation the history of both Wesleyan Methodism and Primitive Methodism 
 illustrates. These remarks, while they may have kept us from hearing the conclusion 
 of Clowes' narrative of his " unchurching," may perhaps serve to remind us of the 
 larger meanings and issues involved. Clowes proceeds : 
 
 " At the September visitation my quarterly ticket as a member of Society was 
 withheld. When Mr. Aikenhead, the travelling preacher, came to Kidsgrove to 
 preach and renew the tickets, as the leader of the 
 class I gave him my class-paper to call over the 
 names as usual ; but in calling over the names he 
 passed by my name, which stood first on the paper, 
 and called over the rest in order. In speaking to 
 the people, he rebuked them for their liveliness in 
 their way of worshipping and praising God ; and 
 remarked, he supposed they acted as they had been 
 taught. The night following, the same preacher, 
 who was in a great measure a stranger, having but 
 recently come into the circuit, preached in Tunstall 
 and afterwards called a leaders' meeting. I stopped 
 at the meeting in my official character, and ventured 
 to inquire of it what I had done amiss that my 
 ticket had been withheld by the preacher, and my 
 name left off the preachers' plan ; for no charge had REV- JOHN AIKEXHEAD. 
 
 i 11 v i, T J.L e ("The strict disciplinarian.") 
 
 been officially brought against me. I therefore 
 
 wished to know the reason of such singular proceedings. I was then told my 
 name was left off the plan because I attended camp meetings, contrary to the 
 Methodist discipline, and that I could not be a preacher or leader amongst them 
 unless I promised not to attend such meetings any more. I told the members of 
 the meeting that I would promise to attend every appointment on the plan which 
 should be put down for me, and to attend all the means of grace and ordinances 
 of the Church ; but to promise not to attend any more camp meetings, that I could 
 not conscientiously do, for God had greatly blessed me in these meetings, which 
 were calculated for great usefulness ; and my motive for assisting in them was 
 
PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 simply to glorify God, and bring sinners to the knowledge of the truth as it is 
 in Jesus. I was then told that I was no longer with them ; that the matter was 
 settled. I therefore immediately delivered up my class-papers to the meeting, 
 and became unchurched. 
 
 ' Of my Eden dispossessed, 
 
 The world was all before me where to choose 
 
 My place of rest, and Providence my guide.'" 
 
 THE CLOWESITES. 
 
 The expulsion of Clowes meant virtually the withdrawal of many more. Attraction 
 is a fact in psychology as well as in physics. Some men can never move alone ; 
 whatever their fortunes may be they draw others along with them. Clowes was one 
 
 of such men. "Of his Eden dispossessed" 
 he could not leave its gates unattended. 
 Clowes was the leader of two classes one at 
 Kidsgrove, the other at Tunstall. To some of 
 his members he was as a " father in the 
 Gospel," while to all he had been a faithful 
 instructor and guide. During the following 
 week a goodly number of these waited upon 
 him at his house. Distressed at what had 
 happened, they expressed their unwillingness 
 that the ties binding them together should 
 be severed, and pleaded that he should 
 still continue to be their leader. Though 
 touched by this proof of their attachment, 
 he pointed out to them that he had now no 
 right in them or claim upon them, being as 
 one ecclesiastically dead, and he besought 
 them to choose other leaders, and to leave 
 him to the watchful care of God. They 
 listened, as Ruth listened to Naomi, and like her they remained unconvinced and 
 unpersuaded, meeting each argument and entreaty with her-" Whither thou goest, we 
 will go : where thou lodgest, we will lodge." 
 
 And a lodge a fold where the little flock of thirty or forty might be sheltered and 
 tended was ready to hand. How this had come about must now be told, and the 
 more so, as the story links on to Norton Camp Meeting, and shows how one of 
 the unexpected results of that gathering was to provide a home "an asylum where 
 the camp meeting fathers and revivalists could worship God in their own way."* Being 
 at Tunstall on the Saturday, ready to take part in the Norton Camp Meeting, 
 Mrs. Dunnell received a flattering invitation to take the appointments of the 
 Superintendent in the "Wesleyan Chapel, thus allowing herself to be intercepted, as it 
 
 WILLIAM CLOWES. 
 
 From an Oil Painting in the possession of 
 Mrs. W. Norman of Hull. 
 
 * Walford's " Memoirs of Hugh Bourne." 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 103 
 
 were, en route. True, the Conference was known to be just as much against female 
 preaching as it was against camp meetings, but this time that difficulty was got over. 
 The news that Mrs. Dunnell had failed him was brought to Hugh Bourne at six o'clock 
 on the Sunday morning by E. McEvoy, and the news did not tend to raise his spirits 
 for the day. Later on in the same year, Mrs. Dunnell was again at Tunstall, quite 
 ready to take the pulpit once more as was desired by some, but this time she found it 
 shut against her ; for had not the Conference strong views on the subject of female- 
 preaching 1 This exclusion of Mrs. Dunnell from the Tunstall pulpit gave great offence 
 to those whom she had captivated. Among these non-contents were Mr. Joseph Smith 
 and James Steele. The former was an old gentleman of eccentric habits, who owned 
 considerable property in Tunstall. He had been bred a Methodist, and for twenty 
 years or more had preached much in various parts of Cheshire and North Staffordshire; 
 but on settling down in Tnnstall his zeal had lost its fervency. Yet it was in the 
 
 TUNSTALL WESLEYAN CHAPEL, 1789. 
 
 dining-room of his house that the first Methodist services in Tunstall were held, and hi? 
 family gave the site for the new chapel, concerning which Wesley wrote, April 29th, 
 1790 : ."At nine I preached in the new chapel at Tunstall; the most elegant I have 
 seen since I left Bath." Now Mr. Smith was in such high dudgeon at the treatment of 
 Mrs. Dunnell that he determined to provide a place for preaching in his own house. 
 Hugh Bourne, on the condition, which he pressed, that no class or separate society 
 should be established, fell in with the proposal and procured a licence from the Bishop's 
 court at Lichtield. So in Mr. Smith's kitchen preaching services, "accompanied by 
 extended praying services," had been held on a Friday evening since March, 1808. 
 The plan for these services was drawn up, we are told, by Hugh Bourne ; yet, though 
 R, Bayley, Thomas Knight, J. Bourne, J. Steele, and others, besides J. Crawfoot and 
 Mrs. Dunnell, took their turn at preaching here, strange to say neither Bourne nor 
 W. Clowes had yet officiated. The fact is, whether through his own motion, or as 
 Clowes asserts, at the instigation of others, the old gentleman, although he liked Clowes 
 
104 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 personally, would not suffer him to preach on hi* premises. He might sing and pray, 
 but the line was drawn at preaching; and because his friend was excluded, Hugh 
 ISoiirne. would not plan himself, nor did he preach in the kitchen until November, 1810, 
 when the embargo had been removed. Mr. Smith was, we have said, eccentric, and lie 
 was somewhat autocratic in his whims. He promulged a sort of Public Worship 
 
 JOSEPH SMITH 8 HOUSE. TUX8TALL. 
 The Kitchen of the House was Licensed for Preaching, 
 
 Regulation Act on a small scale, for the due regulation of the prayer meetings carried 
 on in his kitchen, and what was more, he took care to be present himself to see 
 that the regulations were duly enforced. Loud utterance was prohibited ; the 
 expressions " my God " and " send fire " interdicted ; and no suppliant was to repeat any 
 
 petition more than thrice, whether his petition had 
 been answered or not. As a material help towards- 
 decorum, a chest of drawers was put on castors, sup- 
 plied with velvet-covered book-board and swing brass 
 candlestick, and thus ingeniously converted into 
 a movable pulpit. Each one who gave out hymn or 
 engaged in prayer was required to take his place 
 behind the sacred desk. Such was the ideal, but, 
 alas ! like many other ideals it was not fated to be 
 reached. The " camp-meeting fathers " wanted to wor- 
 ship God in their own way, and that way was not 
 Mr. Smith's. On the first evening the new regulations 
 were to come into force, James Nixon and W. Clowes 
 were both in turn called upon to conform. The 
 former stood up and remonstrated, while Clowes, after 
 striking up a hymn, fell on his knees and 'repeated 
 some twenty times the prayer he had first gripped, until " all rose into the faith ; a grand 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 105 
 
 shout of glory followed, and the victory was declared for the faithful." Amid this 
 extraordinary scene the old gentleman stood mute and helpless. After this opening 
 night the dismantled rostrum stood with its back to the wall a piece of furniture 
 nothing more. 
 
 On the morrow of Clowes' expulsion, Mr. Smith was greatly excited, and went about 
 the village making known to all and sundry that ' they had put Billy off the plan ; 
 but he could outpreach them all, and he should preach in his kitchen ' : 
 
 " And so it was ; for Mr. Smith's kitchen became our preaching- place till the day 
 of his death ; and many will have to bless God to all eternity that it became, on 
 many an occasion now well remembered, ' The house of God, and the gate of 
 heaven.' " (Clowes' Journals, p. 86.) " Mr. Smith now invited William Clowes 
 to preach at his house ; and went about to publish it in the neighbourhood. This 
 was a strengthening to W. Clowes' class, as there was constant preaching at 
 Mr. Smith's on Friday evenings ; and they began to look upon it as their proper 
 place of worship." Bourne's History, 1823, p. 33. 
 
 At the time these events happened, or soon afterwards, James Nixon, Thomas 
 Woodnorth, William Morris, and Samuel Barber cast in their lot with the little 
 company meeting in the kitchen, ere long to be known as "Clowesites." In fulfilment 
 of a promise made at Ramsor fourth camp meeting, Clowes visited Ramsor, and in 
 company with Bourne and Crawfoot had a turn in Derbyshire, where Mrs. Dunnell was 
 laboiiring. Clowes notes that perhaps more good was effected in these parts by house 
 to house visitation and prayer than by public services. Many of the people seem to 
 have been as primitive in their notions as the Lycaonians, who thought the gods had 
 come down in the likeness of men ; for it was currently reported there were two men 
 going about the country who could convert anybody, and accordingly the services of the 
 converters were in great demand. Returning for a while to Tunstall to see that all was 
 well, Clowes made a somewhat extensive excursion into Lancashire. He visited the 
 family of the Eatons at London Bridge, " the best-ordered family he had ever seen ; " 
 also Mrs. Richardson, of Warrington, in whose conversion he and Crawfoot had been 
 instrumental. Mrs. Richardson was a West Indian proprietress, and by the act of 
 liberating the slaves in whom she had the right of property, she evidenced the reality 
 of the change wrought in her. But during this mission-tour Clowes made acquaintance 
 with persecution and discomfort as well as with pleasant interiors. Thus he tells how 
 one morning he awoke to find his bed well sprinkled with snow which had blown in 
 through a half-broken window. Then followed breakfast on milk and water porridge, 
 seasoned with the reproaches of a loud-voiced virago, who taunted him with being 
 " after nothing but his belly." No wonder he took a solitary walk after breakfast, and 
 had a sharp attack of home-sickness ! But neither Lancashire nor even Derbyshire was 
 his allotted sphere of labour that lay nearer his home, to which he returned to find 
 a serious proposal awaiting him. This was (December, 1810) that he should give 
 himself wholly to the work of a home missionary. At this time there was depression 
 in the potting industry, so that Clowes was working little more than half-time ; yet in 
 the three or three and a half days to which his labours were restricted, he could still 
 
106 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 earn 1 2s., and trade was "looking up," so that full work in the near future might, 
 reasonably be anticipated. Such were his circumstances, when James Nixon and 
 Thomas Woodnorth, Clowes' brother-in-law, proposed that each should give him five 
 shillings per week that he might be at liberty to open up fresh places and look after 
 those already visited. After much fasting and prayer, with the full acquiescence of his 
 wife whose share in the self-denying arrangement should not be forgotten Clowes 
 agreed to the proposal. To the end he felt towards these two as Moses may be supposed 
 to have felt towards Aaron and Hur when he remembered how they had held up his 
 hands at Rephidim. He has even recorded his opinion that these two brethren should 
 be enrolled amongst the founders of the Connexion on the ground of their self-denying 
 liberality. And certainly, as soon as the distinction between arch-founders and founders 
 is admitted, then James Nixon and Thomas Woodnorth may fairly claim the right to- 
 inclusion among the latter. 
 
 In regard to the time of which we are now writing the beginning of 1811 two 
 facts must be kept quite clear and borne in mind, viz. (1), that the Society, with its 
 headquarters in Mr. Smith's kitchen, was separate and distinct not only from the 
 Wesleyans, but also from any other organisation ; and (2) that Clowes, as a paid home 
 missionary, with this kitchen-church as his base of operations, and with the friends 
 already named as his helpers, missioned and formed societies at several places chiefly in 
 Staffordshire, so that the Clowesites soon had what might be called a circuit, with 
 Tunstall as its head. 
 
 THE EXPULSION OF JAMES STEELE. 
 
 Meanwhile, they were not, ecclesiastically, " the piping times of peace " at TunstalL 
 Sword was handled as well as trowel. There was " heavy war," says H. B., writing in 
 January. Feeling ran high, and the village for at this time it was nothing more was 
 much moved and divided in opinion. It looks almost as if rage had got the better of 
 
 discretion and was striking out wildly when, on April 
 16th, it deposed James Steele. It was no light matter 
 to unchurch such a man, and the needs-be for resorting 
 to that extreme act of discipline should surely have been 
 well considered beforehand. Abundant evidence is forth- 
 coming to show that James Steele was no ordinary man. 
 Local historians and Methodist annalists themselves are 
 at one in their acknowledgment that he was a man of 
 sense and unblemished character, and to whom consider- 
 able deference was paid. They are agreed, too, that he- 
 was a strong man, born to rule and to command, who 
 wherever he might be, would have to be reckoned with. 
 They insist upon regarding him as the man of the new 
 
 JAMES STEELE, TUNSTALL movement. They know there are others who are active, 
 
 but as if by one consent they fix their eyes upon him. 
 
 In their unacquaintance with our Church phraseology they fall back upon an unusual 
 and even foreign word, and speak of him as having been the " directeur " of the young 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 107 
 
 JAMES STEELES HOUSE. 
 
 denomination until his death in 1827, and that then the reins fell, as a matter of course, 
 into the hands of Clowes and the Bournes. Strange that the local and outside estimate 
 
 of what James Steele was to the Connexion in those 
 early days should contrast so markedly so glaringly- 
 with the accepted Connexional estimate of the part he 
 played, and the place he should fill, in our history ! If, 
 locally, he has been over-estimated, Connexionally he 
 has been under-estimated, or, to speak more accurately, 
 the materials for estimating him not being easily avail- 
 able, he has been too much ignored. Though the 
 work he did may remain, built up into the fabric of 
 Primitive Methodism, it cannot now, after this lapse 
 of time, be discriminated from the work of others so 
 as to enable one to say admiringly, " He did this and 
 that." Yet the fact remains, he was one of the early 
 master-builders, yea, one of the founders of the Church 
 we love. 
 
 At the time Mr. James Steele came under discipline he had been connected with 
 Methodism twenty-four years, and superintendent of a large Sunday school twelve 
 years ; he was a local preacher, the leader of two large classes, a trustee and chapel 
 steward. And the reason 1 What had he done or forborne to do ? Well, on Good 
 Friday W. Clowes had led a powerful lovefeast in Mr. Smith's kitchen, and the rumour 
 ran that Mr. Steele had been present. Now, as he was the cousin of Mr. Smith and 
 his bailiff, and in consequence of Mr. Smith's advanced age was much about the house 
 and frequently conducted family worship, there would have been nothing very surprising 
 
 MKS. JAMES STEELE. 
 
108 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 or criminal in his presence there on that occasion though as a matter of fact he was 
 not present. However, he was arraigned on the following Tuesday, not indeed on the 
 specific charge of having been present at the lovefeast, but on the amended and more 
 general charge of having taken part in the worship in the kitchen. A final knock-down 
 blow was dealt on the Sunday following, when he was dismissed from his office of 
 superintendent of the school. A trustee entered the chapel while Mr. Steele was 
 fulfilling his duties and discharged him from his office. He quietly obeyed the 
 
 WOLSTANTON CHURCH (JAMES STEELED BURIAL PLACE). 
 
 injunction and withdrew, turning, as he did so, a tender and sympathetic look on 
 those whom he was leaving. Recovering from their stupefaction, and helped probably 
 by that parting look to comprehend what the withdrawal meant, a large number of the 
 teachers and scholars followed their superintendent into the street. Mr. Steele had 
 nOw to pass through the same experience as Mr. Clowes before him, and with the same 
 result. His counsel both to the members of his classes and the teachers and scholars of 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 109 
 
 the Sunday school that they should 
 let him go quietly and alone, fell on 
 unwilling ears, and was not taken 
 except by a small minority. There 
 was a pause, a short period of seeming 
 hesitancy, while Mr. Steele was sur- 
 veying the situation and making up 
 his mind what to do ; so that for 
 a brief while the space of a few 
 hours or days at most, there were 
 the " Steelites " in addition to the 
 " Clowesites " and Camp Meetingers. 
 But the period of suspense did not 
 last long ; for under date Friday, 
 April 26th, Bourne notes: "I was 
 at Tunstall. James Steele preached 
 in great power. It was a glorious 
 time. I spent much time in con- 
 versation . . . there is much con- 
 fusion." Mr. Steele's adhesion to the 
 nascent society gave it an element 
 of strength and, one may even say, 
 a prestige which was of great value. 
 But what was gain to the new society 
 was a serious loss to the Old Methodist 
 Society ; nor need we be surprised 
 that hereafter efforts should be made 
 to entice Mr. Steele back into the 
 old fold. 
 
 The licensed kitchen, it was plain, 
 could not be stretched to meet the 
 present enlarged requirements ; but 
 during the week Mr. John Boden 
 placed a large room, designed for the 
 stowage of earthenware, at the service 
 of the school and the difficulty was 
 temporarily met. Here, on the 28th 
 April, the first services were held, 
 and soon after it was arranged that 
 the Sunday preaching services should 
 also be held here, to be conducted 
 by the brother who was planned in 
 the kitchen on the Friday evening. 
 
 BODEN S HOUSE AND WAREHOUSE, IN WHICH 
 SERVICES WERE HELD. 
 
110 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Clowes records that "he had the honour and delight, along with Richard Bayley, 
 of opening Sunday preaching in Tunstall." Scarcely, however, had the room been 
 used for services than steps were taken to secure a chapel. This was necessary, 
 as Mr. Boden's room could not long be at their disposal, and was in its turn 
 becoming too small. On May 13th a site was fixed upon; on June llth the Bournes 
 bought the land, and the " writings* were signed;" on July 13th the chapel was 
 opened by James Crawfoot. The size of the building, we are told, was 
 
 "Sixteen yards long by eight wide, inside, and galleried half way. It was 
 finished in a plain manner, the walls were not coated, and it had no ceiling. 
 ['To my opinion a place of worship looks better without a ceiling than 
 with one.' Journals, July 20th, 1811.] It was much approved of on account 
 of its plainness and neat appearance. In the erection of it, the house-form was 
 chosen in preference to the chapel-form, so that, if not wanted, it would just form 
 four houses, according to the plan on which houses are usually built at Tunstall. 
 This cautious method was made use of because it could not be known whether 
 the Connexion would be of any long continuance." Bourne's History, 1823. 
 
 As hereafter the gentlemanly John Flesher was' not above taking off his coat when 
 Sutton Street Chapel, London, was a-building, so we can picture Hugh Bourne, James 
 Crawfoot, and other of the fathers on June llth "breaking ground," and the first-named 
 later making window-cases " as the bricklayer wanted them," for this first chapel in the 
 Connexion. This chapel owed much to the courage and generosity of the brothers, 
 and was actually their private property until 1834, when it was legally transferred 
 to trustees for the use of the Connexion. 
 
 TUNSTALL FIRST CHAPEL. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. HI 
 
 CHAPTER A". 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE METHODISTS, OR THE COMING TOGETHER OF THE 
 CAMP MEETING METHODISTS AND THE CLOWESITES. 
 
 JHURSDAY, May 30, 1811, I ordered Tickets to be printed for the first 
 time." So writes Hugh Bourne in his Journals. The credit of having 
 urged and brought about the use, Methodist fashion, of class tickets 
 mainly belongs to Ramsor Society. The objection that it would cost 
 money was promptly met by Francis Horobin's offer to bear the expense of printing, 
 and after the chiefs had consulted together on the important question involved, 
 the measure was adopted. These class tickets were the sign and seal of the union of 
 the Camp Meeting Methodists and the Clowesites. Unity amongst the different societies 
 now drawn together there may have been before this, but this little piece of printed 
 paper given to each member showed that now union had been consummated and a 
 lowly denomination, with its name PRIMITIVE METHODIST already waiting for it, had 
 unobtrusively slipped into the world. Many thought that this ticket would be the 
 last as well as the first ; that no more would ever be wanted. But, spite of misgivings, 
 from that day to this, quarter by quarter the ticket has continued to appear. 
 
 From the typical examples given of our class tickets, the reader can judge for himself 
 of the artistic character or otherwise of these vouchers of membership, and may 
 trace the somewhat inconsiderable changes that have taken place in their form or subject- 
 matter. Did we write the words " inconsiderable changes " ? The words should be 
 recalled or modified ; for in the course of the years two innovations have been intro- 
 duced one in the nature of an addition, the other of an alteration. Not till 1829 
 and then probably without authority did the ticket bear on its face the reference to 
 the first Camp Meeting and " the first Class formed in March, 1810." This reference to 
 Stanley and its class was unfortunate, because seeming to commit the Connexion to a 
 particular view of its origin, which to say the least rests on a shaky foundation, and 
 because probably pre-dating by twelve months the birth of our denomination. For the 
 substitution of the word " Church " for " Connexion " recently made and by authority, 
 satisfactory as the change is in itself, it'is a pity the change was not made quarter of a 
 century earlier. Perhaps we cannot well get on without the adjective " Connexional," 
 but it was high time that " Connexion " a word so suggestive of a mere mechanical 
 connexion of parts such as the carpenter may achieve by help of nails or, if he be more 
 skilful, by use of dovetail and mortise should be displaced by a higher and more 
 spiritual vocable. 
 
112 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 MAY, 1811. 
 
 But we desire to hear of thee 
 what thou thinkest : for as con- 
 cerning this sect, we know that 
 every where it is spoken against. 
 Acts xxviii. 22 
 
 
 
 H. B. 
 
 
 The Lord bis God 
 [is with him, and the ; 
 shout of a king isj 
 .among them. 
 
 Numbers 23. 21. 
 
 May, 1829. 
 
 Thy throne, O God, is for ever 
 and ever. 
 
 Psalm xlv. 6. 
 U 
 
 Primitive Methodist Connexion, 
 
 First camp meeting held May 31, 1807 
 First class formed in March, 1810 
 
 August, 1829. 
 
 Children's children are the crown of 
 old men; and the glory of children 
 are their fathers. Prov. xvii. 6 
 
 V 
 
 
 . 
 
 Brimiiioe ffletbodist (SburcD. 
 
 First Camp Meeting Held 
 May 31, 1807. 
 
 First Class Formed 
 March, 1810. 
 
 NOVEMBER, I9O3. 
 
 " Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, 
 live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be 
 with you." 2 COR. xiii. 11. 
 
 is at this date a Member of the above Church. 
 
 Minister. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 113 
 
 JUNE. 
 
 JULY. 
 
 AUG. 
 
 SEPT. 
 
 
 1811 
 
 2 
 
 9 
 
 16 
 
 23 
 
 *0 
 
 7 
 
 14 
 
 21 
 
 28 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 18 
 
 2.1 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 If) 
 
 
 Tunstall, 2 and 6 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 1. J. Crowfoot 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2. J. Steele 
 
 Bagnall 10, Badley Edge 6 
 
 13 
 
 15 
 
 n 
 1 
 
 11 
 
 5 
 
 9 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 5 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 6 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 3. J. Bourne 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4. H. Bourne 
 
 Stanly, 2 ; Brown Edge, 6 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 s 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 6 
 
 11 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 If 
 
 6 
 
 5. W. Clowes 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6. R. Bayley 
 
 Ramsor 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 I '2 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 8 
 
 7. W. Alcock 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8. T. Woodnorth 
 
 Lax Edge, 2, Gratten 4, 
 
 
 14 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 la 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 15 
 
 9. E. Macery 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 10. W. Turner 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 11. J. Nixon 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12. Mattisou 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 13. T. Alcock 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 14. T. Hulme 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 15. J. Marsh 
 
 When it happens a preacher does not attend, an endeavour must be made to supply. 
 
 If any other person be present whom the congregation wishes to speak, the wish of 
 
 the congregation must be complied with. 
 
 COPY OF THE FIRST WRITTEN PLAN AFTER THE AMALGAMATION OF THE SOCIETIES, 
 
 JUNE SEPT., 1811. 
 
 [The spelling of the original as given by 
 Peet has been preserved.] 
 
 From Primitive Methodism : A Sketch 
 of the History, Doctrines, etc., of the 
 Primitive Methodist Connexion, by 
 Rev. James Peet, 1867. 
 
 On the authority of Clowes, we learn that a plan showing fifteen preachers arid 
 eight places was drawn up, to begin on June 2nd, 1811. But if such plan be 
 extant it has not come in our way, but we are enabled to give what is said to be a copy 
 of it. What others have called the first written plan, running from September 22nd 
 to December loth, has been secured and, notwithstanding its cryptic spelling and othe.r 
 obvious shortcomings is here given in facsimile. This plan shows seventeen preachers 
 and the same number of places. By the help of this poor plan Ave can see what societies 
 each section brought to the now united body. First of all we are struck with the fact 
 that the societies of which Hugh Bourne was the acknowledged founder and head having 
 place on the plan, are a mere salvage. They very inadequately represent the results of 
 the evangelistic work which the Bournes and their helpers had carried on since 1801 
 On this plan there are really only two of Bourne's places Stanley and Eamsor. There 
 is so little to show for the unflagging and, we might say prodigious, labour of several 
 years that we must conclude either that the labour had proved very unproductive or 
 that other Churches had reaped the fruit. Of course the latter alternative gives the 
 true explanation. It is perfectly clear that if Bourne was cherishing through these 
 years of itineracy the ambition to become a church-founder he had chosen the wrong 
 way to gain his end. He had raised up societies at Harriseahead, Norton, Kidsgrove, 
 
 i 
 
1H 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Tean, and Kingsley and these had been taken over by the Methodists. How much 
 work, and at what an expenditure of time and toil, he had put into the societies of 
 the Quaker or Independent Methodists, and the Society at Rizley that owed its 
 
 existence to Lorenzo Dow ! and yet on the plan for September there is nothing to show 
 for all_this labour; though Rizley will be found on the first printed plan that of 
 1812. We are quite prepared to learn that James Crawfoot, the missionary whom the 
 
SOURCES AND OKIGIN. 115 
 
 Bournes engaged, had instructions to counsel those who professed to have received good 
 under his labours, to join some other Church. In fact, until the middle of 1810 the 
 Bournes and their helpers were like men putting their wheat into other men's harns. 
 Their labours were auxiliary to those of other Churches, in large part consisting of 
 supplying preaching services on alternate weeks, as was the case at Ramsor from 1808 to 
 1810. The refusal of the Burslem Circuit to take over Stanley on the condition of a 
 working arrangement of the kind described ; its determination to have all or none, 
 changed all this. What then precisely was the significance of this Stanley episode ? 
 The question is a difficult and disputed one and must be faced. If it could be settled 
 once for all it would be well. 
 
 We do not enter into the question of the priority of Stanley class over that of 
 Clowes which met in Mr. Smith's kitchen. The fact of this priority is not so assured 
 as many think, but as, from our point of view, nothing of importance hangs on the 
 fact of such priority, we waive the discussion of dates. We may remark, then, the 
 importance of the Stanley episode does not lie in the fact that the members of the 
 snciehj had never belonged to any other Church; since Bourne distinctly says that 
 Mr. Edmondson put it on the plan ; that it had always been his intention to offer 
 Stanley to the Wesleyans, and that he had only been anticipated in this by a forward 
 man one Brindley of Norton. If, then, Stanley were put on the Methodist plan for 
 ever so short a time and then put off, technically at any rate it was a Methodist Society 
 " cut off," as Bourne and Clowes were cut off. 
 
 Nor, again, does the importance of the Stanley episode turn on the fact that the 
 ten members composing it were the nucleus of the Primitive Methodist Church. Certain 
 rather unexpected conclusions will be found to follow from this harmless-looking and 
 generally accepted thesis. A close examination of Bourne's autograph Journals day by 
 day from March 14th, 1810, when Mrs. Dunnell preached the first sermon at Stanley, 
 to May 22nd when the class is found meeting, discloses the fact that between these 
 respective dates Hugh Bourne had never preached at Stanley nor organised a class. 
 Neither does his name nor that of his brother occur in the list of ten members 
 constituting the class of which James Slater was the leader. So that we find ourselves 
 landed in the strange conclusion that if Stanley class were the nucleus of the Primitive 
 Methodist Connexion then its reputed founder formed no part of it. Even if he after- 
 wards joined the Stanley Society (of which there is no evidence), then he joined a 
 Church already founded without him. Such is the pretty dilemma we find ourselves 
 placed in by the acceptance of the current popular view that Stanley was the nucleus 
 of the Primitive Methodist Connexion. The Rev. W. Garner, both in his "Jubilee 
 of English Camp Meetings," and his " Life of the Venerable William Clowes," as 
 also the Rev. John Morton before him, clearly appreciated this dilemma. Says the 
 former : 
 
 " Either the idea of the Stanley class being the base of the Primitive Methodist 
 Connexion must be given up, or the foundership of Hugh Bourne be ignored, 
 or at least doubted. To the former we have no objection ; to the latter we 
 cannot consent." 
 
 That is to say, Mr. Garner being a sensible man, and finding himself led straight to 
 
 i 2 
 
PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 an absurd conclusion by the premise he started from which in this case was the 
 assumption that Stanley class was " the base of the Primitive Methodist Connexion "- 
 will go back on his premise and deny it altogether rather than accept the absurdity 
 its retention would involve. With Mr. Garner's views we find ourselves in complete 
 accord : but there still remains the interesting and not unimportant question " HoV 
 would Hugh Bourne have read the facts under discussion 1 What would have been 
 his behaviour to the Stanley-Connexional-nucleus idea and the dilemma it creates ? " 
 Now, there exists a preface to the General Minutes of 1832 remarkable on many 
 grounds, but chiefly so because it enables us to catch Hugh Bourne's point of view 
 of the period ending in the union of 1811. We omit the first paragraph referring 
 to the raising up of camp meetings, and the last, which glances at our history 
 subsequent to 1812: 
 
 "And in His Providence the Primitive Methodist Connexion rose, undesigned 
 of man. (It did not originate in any split or division from any other community 
 footnote.) It was long composed of two members, Hugh and James Bourne, who 
 continued to expend their property and labours in promoting religion, the fruits 
 falling into other communities, they not being willing to take further care upon 
 them. 
 
 " They visited new places ; and in one of these, Standley, in Staffordshire, they, 
 in March, 1810, raised up a class of ten members. These they attempted to join 
 to the Wesleyans. But their design being frustrated, they, contrary to their in- 
 clinations, were necessitated to take upon them the care of a religious Connexion. 
 This caused trial of mind. But the Lord soon manifested His will, and classes 
 were formed at Ramsor and Wootton, and the work spread in different counties. 
 And toivards the latter end of the same year, a class at Tunstall joined them." 
 
 The two passages we have italicised give us Hugh Bourne's point of view. He 
 believed that he and his brother were " called of God to stand by camp meetings." 
 They represented the Camp Meeting movement, disallowed indeed of men but chosen 
 of God. They embodied and sought to propagate what they deemed to be primitive 
 Methodism, long before Stanley class was thrown on their hands. Quite naturally, 
 William Clowes could not take this high ground, and see things as Hugh Bourne saw 
 .them. So in his friendly strictures on the "History" of 1823, he takes exception to 
 the statement that, towards the close of the year 1810 "a class at Tunstall joined " tin- 
 brothers. To him such a way of putting it seemed an upsettal of facts a picture 
 quite out of drawing. It was like saying that the mountain had come to Mahomet. 
 To him it would seem plain as plain could be that, from the close of the year 1810 
 onwards, everything was moving on Tunstall ; that Tunstall was to be the goal and 
 centre of the combined movement. But then, Clowes had not Bourne's point of view. 
 To the latter, the fact that he now found himself at Tunstall, going in and out among 
 the brethren, was taken as a sign and proof of the advance of the cause he and his 
 brother had stood by so long and sought to further. They had annexed Tunstall ; they 
 had not been absorbed by it. 
 
 Who shall decide between these two views if, indeed, they are really divergent and 
 not reconcilable with each other? For our own part, though strongly holding that, 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 117 
 
 historically and externally, our Church had its birth in the coming together of the 
 Camp Meeting Methodists and the Clowesites, we willingly concede that but for the 
 austere enthusiasm, the ceaseless, dogged labour of Hugh Bourne, there would have 
 been nothing to come together in 1811 no materials out of which to build a 
 denomination. It is to the idiosyncrasies of Hugh Bourne and the course of life 
 pursued by him during the preceding ten years, we must look to find the true inward- 
 ness of the movement. If we would understand the true " evangelical succession " of 
 that movement it is indispensable we should closely watch the doings of Hugh Bourne, 
 since he was the link between the past and the present. Moreover, it may be granted 
 that in the coming together of the sections he played no unimportant part. His 
 incomings and outgoings amongst the various societies were as the motions of a living 
 shuttle, weaving them into one homogeneous tissue. 
 
 But the question still reciirs Wherein lies the importance of Stanley class ? If 
 it was not the nucleus of Primitive Methodism, what then was it 1 The answer must 
 be : that the declinature of Stanley by the old Methodist body marked and inaugurated 
 a more decisive policy towards the camp meeting fathers. Just as Christianity for 
 a time clung to the skirts of Judaism, and early Methodism to the skirts of the 
 Establishment until she shook it off, so did the camp meetingers cling to the skirts of 
 Methodism, and by the same analogy, the time almost sure to come had now arrived 
 when the Mother Church gathered her skirts about her and said, in effect : This kind of 
 thing has gone on long enough, and must now cease. Henceforth if you get any 
 people converted it must be on your own ground, and you must look after them when 
 they are converted, and not hand them over to us.* By so determining, the authorities 
 were simply bringing their procedure into the line of logical consistency with the policy 
 laid down by the Conference of 1807, and partially followed up to the present by the 
 discountenancing of camp meetings, and the dismembering of Bourne, Crawfoot, and 
 Thomas Cotton. Not even does Bourne find fault with this procedure ; nor do 
 we, but rather would we suggest that it might have been an advantage if a thorough 
 understanding of this kind had been arrived at two years earlier ; for then, Bourne's 
 contribution to the amalgamation of 1811 would have been much more considerable than 
 it actually was. 
 
 Thus, as though by the simple pull of a lever, the movement was switched on to an 
 independent line of action. At a stroke, James Crawfoot became the salaried preacher, 
 and the Bournes, Thomas Cotton, F. Horobin, and Thomas Knight, the voluntary 
 preachers of a new Methodist community with its own classes and leaders, its camp 
 meeting agency, and its regular preaching places, not only at Stanley and Ramsor with 
 Wootton, but also at Tean, Calden Lowe, and Lask Edge, all of which places stood on 
 the written plans which the Camp Meeting Methodists drew up for their own use. 
 Nor must it be thought that this transformation of an unattached and irregular move- 
 ment into an organised society was brought about by violent rupture and attendant 
 heart-burnings. It was the result of no " schism " in the proper sense of that much- 
 abused term ; that is to say, there was no riving process, no rending asunder, no "split." 
 
 * " At first the societies which Bourne formed were allowed to go under the protection of the 
 older body." Rev. W. F. Slater, M.A. 
 
118 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Rather was it the result of a clear understanding arrived at, like that between 
 Abraham and Lot an understanding, on the whole, honourably kept by both sides, not 
 only at Stanley, but wherever the societies of the Mother Church and the Camp 
 Meeting Methodists were conterminous. Such is Hugh Bourne's explicit statement 
 with respect to the societies under his care : 
 
 " There was cleanliness of hands on both sides. They did not take one member 
 from us, and we did not take one from them all was pure on both sides. There 
 were various places at which we had laboured once a fortnight, and they had done 
 the same ; but these we left without taking a member, and made our leaving as 
 easy as it could well be ; so in these instances we gave no cause of complaint : nor 
 can we charge the Wesleyans with wrong in making a law to prevent their 
 members from attending the camp meetings." 
 
 Stanley is a good historic name : it sounds well, and is familiar to us from being 
 borne by the noble house of Derby. But the importance of Stanley in our annals was 
 largely an adventitious and a dwindling one; and by 1814 its name disappears from the 
 plan. Yet, two of its ten members should have passing mention. One Samuel 
 Simcock, was a young man of one-and-twenty when he joined the Stanley class, and in 
 June, 1817, his course was run; but he lived long enough to become the leader of two 
 classes, to prove himself a " useful and persevering " local preacher, and to assist in 
 establishing a Sunday School at Hollington in Derbyshire. It takes time, we are told, 
 for myths to grow, and so years after Samuel Simcock's demise, his name became 
 associated with a myth that W. Clowes found it needful to track to its influential 
 source, and to expose. The myth was to the effect that once upon a time Clowes and 
 Simcock unaided and alone had held a camp meeting all through a summer's day ; that 
 Clowes, being " tough as whit-leather," survived, but that Simcock died of that camp 
 meeting. The obvious moral was " Be short in your camp meeting exercises or swift 
 retribution will follow." But it was shrewdly suspected that the particular inference 
 intended to be drawn from the myth was, that W. Clowes had killed Simcock by 
 flagrantly violating the regulations for conducting camp meetings. The myth had 
 grown to such formidable proportions that, at last, in 1833, it invaded Conference, and 
 there had to be met and exorcised. Fortunately for Clowes, he had been a close reader 
 of the magazines from the first, and he remembered Samuel Simcock's memoir in the 
 volume for 1819, wherein it is plainly stated that he did not die of "long preaching," 
 but of pulmonary consumption brought on by overheating himself in a journey he took 
 into Staffordshire to see his mother. It is not every one who attains the posthumous 
 honour of figuring in a mythical story like this. But Samuel Simcock has much 
 worthier and more durable claims to be remembered here, as the interesting memoir of 
 him from the pen of Hugh Bourne bears witness; for we are told: "He was like 
 a fine musical instrument always in tune : a strain of pious conversation flowed from 
 him in all places and upon all occasions ; and his conduct ornamented the Christian 
 character in his own neighbourhood." Clowes also adds his testimony to his character : 
 " With Samuel I was intimately acquainted. With him I often took sweet counsel, 
 and was refreshed in spirit. I admired his piety and zeal in the good cause." 
 Journals, p. 145. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 119 
 
 Mary Slater, to whom Hugh Bourne was first cousin, once removed, outlived all the 
 other members of the original class at Stanley. Her husband was its leader, and in 
 their house the class was formed and met. She survived until December 3rd, 1865 ; 
 and on the day of her interment in Willenhall cemetery, the interest naturally [aroused 
 by this sundering of a link with the past, coupled with the respect felt for the blame- 
 less character of this " old disciple," resulted in giving a semi-public character to her 
 obsequies. 
 
 We come back again to the September Plan, 1811, of the amalgamated societies; for 
 the significance of that ink-faded, ill-spelled document is not exhausted after Ramsor 
 
 branch as even already 
 it may be called and 
 Stanley, have had the 
 recognition their pro- 
 minent mention in our 
 Deed Poll demands. 
 Looking closely at the 
 places and preachers on 
 
 them with those of the 
 
 first printed plan of 1812. 
 
 we notice that though 
 
 John Ben ton's name has its 
 
 place and figure, "Wyrley 
 
 Bank mission has not yet 
 
 been taken over, though 
 
 negotiations for its transfer 
 
 are now afoot, and by 1812 
 
 the names of Cannock and GREYSTONE FARM. 
 
 Cannock Wood will show OLD PREACHING HOUSE, BADDELET EDGE. 
 
 they have proved successful. As for the Derbyshire mission, where we know a good 
 
 work had for some time been going on in several places the plan affords no evidence 
 
 of the fact, the explanation being that clever and crafty Mrs. Dunnell had stolen 
 
 away the hearts of the people and, much to the grief of some, set up for herself. 
 
 But there will be an edaircissement ; her downfall is imminent; the societies will 
 
 return to their first love and allegiance. These matters Avill be adjusted by the time 
 
 the first printed plan appears, and we shall find on its list of places, Hollington, 
 
 Boylestone, Eodsley, Roston, and Rocester all destined to have a history. Another 
 
120 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 omission on this plan is noteworthy : Kizley, in Lancashire, with its twenty members 
 under the leadership of Thomas Webb, does not figure. Yet this society, which 
 owed its existence to Lorenzo Dow, had accepted the overseership of Hugh Bourne 
 and was regarded as 
 one of his societies ; 
 over it he had ex 
 pended a considerable 
 amount of labour and 
 even money, and he 
 had a liking for it 
 and its rather peculiar 
 ways. It is interest- 
 ing, as casting a side- 
 light on the contrasted 
 tastes and bias of 
 Clowes and Bourne, 
 to compare their 
 
 BROWN EDGE P.M.C. 
 
 respective comments 
 on the same proceed- 
 ings of this Rizley 
 society. 
 
 "April 83rd, 1809. 
 Here each one does 
 that which is right 
 in his own eyes. 
 They stand, sit, 
 kneel, pray, exhort, 
 etc., as they are 
 moved. / wax r< /// 
 fond of this way." 
 H. Bourne Journals. 
 
 " From Warrington we went down to Rissley, and found a people very singular 
 in their notions and manner of worship, which we did not at all admire ; neverthe- 
 less, the Lord made us useful among them, as we proceeded in our straightforward 
 manner in preaching a present, free, and full salvation." Clowes' Journals, p. 76. 
 Rizley, along with Five Crosses, will be found at the bottom of the first printed plan as 
 the Lancashire outposts of the denomination. 
 
 To the Clowesite section must be assigned the places standing on the 1811 plan not 
 already named. Authorities are agreed as to the general correctness of this attribution 
 
 OLD PREACHING HOUSE, BROWN EDGE. 
 
SOURCES AND OKIGIN. 
 
 I'll 
 
 though it must be borne in mind there was growingly frequent intercourse and co-opera- 
 tion between the sections. Unfortunately, the Journals of Clowes are sadly wanting 
 in just those details of the twelve months' evangelistic labours of Clowes himself and 
 his colleagues we should like to have. We must do our best with the scant material at 
 hand to represent to ourselves what was going on. Perhaps the combination-views of 
 preaching-houses and chapels inserted here and there in the text may help us somewhat 
 to realise what was the usual order of development in this preparatory period and in the 
 one immediately to follow. At first, a village or hamlet would be " opened " by a 
 service out of doors ; or advantage would be taken of the offer of a cottage or room from 
 some kindly disposed person ; then the services would be held at regular intervals and 
 the cottage would become the recognised preaching-house. As yet the progress made 
 
 LAWTOX HEATH. 
 
 The highest building on the i ight hand of picture is the first preaching room. 
 
 does not carry us beyond this humble stage. "We have not reached the chapel-building 
 era, but we are close upon it how close the unpretentious chapels of our Janus-like 
 pictures serve to show. So, while the chapels anticipate by a year or two what is to 
 come, they indicate that all this pioneer work has not been, and will not be in vain in 
 the Lord ; the rude and feeble beginnings are preparing the way for something better ; 
 the cause will not lack continuity and development. These combination-pictures may 
 render us another wholesome service : they may check the swellings of pride as we 
 look in these days, on the costly, spacious, ornate structures springing up all over our land 
 
122 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 and notice the legend " Primitive Methodist Church " inscribed on their front. Just as 
 Primislaus, the first king of Bohemia, kept his country, shoes always by him, to 
 remember from whence he was raised ; and Agathocles by the furniture of his table 
 confessed, that from a potter he was raised to be the King of Sicily," * so here we have 
 our humble monitors our reminders of " the rock whence we were hewn, and the hole 
 of the pit whence we were digged." 
 
 Some of Clowes' places are in Cheshire, though naturally still more are in Staffordshire, 
 
 within comparatively easy reach of 
 Tunstall. Among the former are 
 Lawton Heath ; Hoggin Row, in the 
 near neighbourhood of Buglawton, 
 where the fourth camp meeting was 
 held May 14th, 1808; Englesea 
 Brook, in the graveyard of whose 
 present chapel lie the mortal re- 
 mains of Hugh and James Bourne 
 and Thomas Russell ; and more 
 distant Coppenhall. These two 
 places said to have been missioned 
 the former by Thomas Wood- 
 north,assisted by "old Sarah Smith," 
 the latter by William Morris will 
 provide the base for future extensive 
 missionary operations. 
 
 Coming now to the Staffordshire 
 places : it is interesting to find 
 Talke on the list, thus early begin- 
 ning its honourable career. "0' 
 th' hill " indeed it is, and enjoys 
 the advantages of its situation, for 
 not only does it command a fine 
 view of Mow Cop, but there also 
 stretches out before the eye England's 
 Vale Royal, which runs through 
 Cheshire to the sea. But fardifferent 
 sights than those of the picturesque 
 or of peaceful industry have occa- 
 sionally [been witnessed here ; for, 
 
 standing as it does in the midst of a populous mining district, colliery disasters on 
 a large scale have now and again carried sorrow into many a home and made havoc 
 of the church. We are anticipating a little, but before 181 3 'is over, Hugh Bourne 
 will have built at his own expense a chapel here, standing on a site now covered by 
 
 HOGGIN ROW, BUGLAWTON, NEAR CONGLETON. 
 
 One of the places on the First Plan. 
 
 * Bishop Jeremy Taylor. 
 
SOURCES AND OK1GIN. 
 
 123 
 
 the present school. Some of the forms which he made are still preserved in this 
 school, which was enlarged in 1857. The present chapel at Talke was erected in 
 1876 at a cost of more than 2,000. 
 
 Cloud, with 'its picturesque name, suggestive of a height that holds commerce with 
 
 the skies, 
 must not be 
 passed over ; 
 for it, too, is 
 on the 1811 
 plan, and is 
 a place in- 
 teresting in 
 many re- 
 gards. He 
 who T-elishes 
 a far-reach- 
 ing prospect 
 
 ENGLESEA BROOK CHAPEL. 
 
 (Interior.) 
 
 will, if he can, make his way here ; 
 for, from its elevation, he can catch 
 sight of the distant Flintshire hills, 
 and discern the unmistakable con- 
 tours of the Shropshire Wrekin, an- 1 
 on the other side the heights of 
 Morridge and Weaver. Antiquaries, 
 too, know the Cloud well; for in 
 the grounds of Mr. Abner Dale, a 
 Primitive Methodist of long stand- 
 ing and influence, are the famous 
 Druidical remains known as the Bride 
 Stones. In the next period we shall 
 have to tell the story of the building 
 of Cloud Chapel, but at the time of 
 which we are writing, the services 
 were held at Woodhouse Green a quarter of a mile off, in the big parlour 
 of a farmhouse wherein the Baptists had been used to worship, until the society 
 became so reduced that the room [[was offered to our evangelists. The other 
 
 [ENGLESEA BKCOK CHAFEL. 
 
 (Exterior.) 
 
124 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 places on the plan, not as yet particularised, must be content to be visually 
 iv presented through the medium of the engravings interspersed in the text. 
 
 Let us now turn for a moment to the seventeen preachers who have their names 
 
 on the plan. With some of them, 
 such as James Nixon and " precious 
 Thomas Woodnorth" (as in one 
 place Hugh Bourne calls him) we 
 have by this time grown familiar. 
 But there are others on the list 
 who must have a word for identifi- 
 cation and remembrance. Amongst 
 these is Richard Bayley, whom also 
 we have met Avith before, as one 
 who since 1807 had taken his turn 
 of preaching in Mr. Smith's kitchen. 
 He shared the fate of William Clowes 
 
 in being expelled from the Old 
 Body, and henceforward he was 
 resolved on sharing his fortunes 
 in the new denomination. We 
 meet with many kindly references 
 to him in Hugh Bourne's Journals; 
 for Richard Bayley was one of 
 those " old companions " with 
 whom his last thoughts were 
 pre-occupied, and whose shadowy 
 forms seemed to be hovering 
 
 TALKE CHAPEL. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 TALKE : THREE OLD FORMS MADE BY HUGH BOURNE. 
 
 THE BRIDE-STONES. 
 
126 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 WOODHOUSE 2REEN PREACHING-HOUSE. 
 Services were held in Parlour. 
 
 BIDDULPH MOOR ROCKS. TROUGHSTONE HILL. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 127 
 
 round. Often, on his return from his long rounds, did Hugh Bourne slip over to 
 Biddulph Moor to refresh himself by a talk with Richard, and they were friends to 
 the last. No. 6 on the plan was quite a character in his way ; and your local 
 annalist likes " characters," and is caught by the odd and whimsical. So one local 
 writer speaks of Bayley as 
 
 " An eccentric old ' Biddle Moor ' man, who used to speak in the broad accent of 
 that peculiar district. A favourite text of Bayley's was : 'Sonner, tharst bin 
 weight u'th bolunce un' fund wonting.' Yet the Biddle Moor man was master of 
 a good deal of rough eloquence in his way. In later years he used to preach in the 
 first Primitive Methodist Chapel that stood where the Hanley Railway stands. It 
 was only a small place of one storey, and was built about 1824." * 
 
 PITT S HILL CHAPEL AND SCHOOL. 
 The original preaching-place was on the site of the present Schools. 
 
 William and Thomas Alcock, whose names stand on the plan Nos. 7 and 10 
 respectively, had their homestead at Latheredge, where the first preachers often found 
 rest and refuge. f William was a protege of Hugh Bourne, and from February 20th, 
 
 * Wedgwood : " Staffordshire Up and Down the County," pp. 6, 7. 
 
 t October 1st, 1819 : " When I left Tunstall on Tuesday, about three o'clock in the afternoon, 
 I had forty miles to travel to my Sunday's appointment. I had not walked far before it began to 
 rain and become very thick, so that night came on by the time I arrived at the house of Mr. Alcock, 
 at Ladder-edge. I stayed with him till the morning." Journal of Sampson Turner. Ladder-edge 
 is probably the correct form, though Latheredge is the form used by H. Bourne in his Journals. 
 
128 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 1809, when the two first met, the Journals make repeated references to young Alcock. 
 His first attempt at preaching in the presence of the camp meeting fathers seemed 
 anything but promising. He made two attempts, and each time became " hard fast " 
 
 soon after giving 
 out his text. Per- 
 haps the text had 
 something to do 
 with his poverty 
 of ideas and abrupt 
 failure of utter- 
 ance, for the text 
 was, " He had no- 
 thing to pay," etc. 
 On standing up 
 after prayer to 
 make yet a third 
 attempt, William 
 Maxfield cried, 
 
 NORTON GREEN PRIMITIVE METHO1JI8T CHAPEL 
 AND SCHOOLS. 
 
 " Tell us your experience." This sen- 
 sible piece of advice was at once acted 
 upon with the happiest results. Falling 
 back upon personal experience, William 
 got " purchase " for a weighty exhorta- 
 tion, and even succeeded before he sat 
 down in gripping his text. Hugh 
 Bourne remarks: "Upon the whole 
 it was a very powerful time. At 
 night I discoursed much with him 
 in order to strengthen his hands and 
 direct him. O Lord, bless him. I 
 believe he will be a useful man." 
 A little later, when he had an un- 
 founded presentiment that his own 
 life would be short, Bourne writes : 
 " If it were God's will I should like 
 to live till F. Horobin and W. Alcock 
 are fairly yoked in preaching." His 
 
 prayer was answered ; his prophecy fulfilled ; his wish gratified. He did live to see 
 his son in the gospel a useful and laborious preacher of the Word. William Alcock 
 
 OLD PREACHING-HOUSE, NORTON GREEN. 
 Here Bourne preached his last sermon. 
 
SOUKCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 129 
 
 
 gave himself more and more fully to the work. In 1818 we find his name standing 
 No. 6 on the Tunstall circuit plan. Then he retired from the ranks and, it is 
 said, located in Derbyshire, and lived to write a few words on the friend of his 
 youth and prime, which found a place in Walford's " Life of Bourne." 
 
 Thomas Alcock, his brother, was spared to become one of the oldest local preachers 
 of the Connexion, and was honoured by his portrait's appearing in the magazine. That 
 portrait is here reproduced, and shows a stalwart form and prepossessing countenance. 
 
 He was associated with the Society at Talke, 
 and was " a man of faith and spiritual power, 
 the memory of whose piety and usefulness is 
 still fresh and invigorating." * 
 
 E. McEvoy and J. Boden have incidentally 
 been mentioned during the course of this 
 history ; f and we catch increasingly frequent 
 glimpses of the former during this time. 
 On Christmas Day, 1810, he, Clowes, and 
 James Bourne, on returning to Macclesfield, 
 were lost; "so they called at an inn and 
 had a most extraordinary time, the power 
 of the Lord came over all." 
 
 About the midsummer of 181 1 James Marsh 
 comes on the scene. Bourne records how Marsh 
 spoke at Ashmore House, the home of the 
 Dakin's, in much power and with wisdom, 
 though he complained of having "a short time." 
 So this poor scrap of a plan has on it the names of some good and true men. We 
 have done what little we could to rescue their names from oblivion, and can only regret 
 that so much of their memorial has been carried down by the time-stream, and is 
 now irrecoveral >le. 
 
 THOMAS ALCOCK. 
 
 KUDIMENTARY ORGANISATION. 
 
 July 26th, 1811, and February 13th, 1812, are dates to be noted and remembered in 
 any history of our origins ; for by the proceedings of those two days the coping-stone 
 and name-plate were put on the newly-raised fabric of the denomination. On the 
 former, we were saved from x Free-Gospelism ; on the latter, we got our distinctive 
 denominational title. 
 
 Yet the extant records of the meetings held on these two days are brief and bald as 
 the first telegraphed summary of some important committee. You have the statement 
 of what was done in its most condensed form. All verbiage has been pruned away ; 
 there is little by way of preface or explanation. Still what little we have suffices, 
 especially as we know the proceedings were marked by unanimity, and the conclusions 
 arrived at nem. con. 
 
 * Rev. J. W. Chappell. f pp. 103, 109. 
 
ISO 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 At the meeting held in Mr. Smith's kitchen on July 26th, two matters were discussed 
 and settled minor and incidental by comparison which may have passing reference. 
 Apparently by direct questioning, agreement was arrived at that preachers should be 
 planned where best received and most likely to be useful, and that when planned they 
 should not be free to pick and choose (^^^^g 
 their appointments, but just go in the 
 fear of God and fulfil them. Then it 
 was asked whether friend J. Boden 
 should be received as a local preacher, 
 and the answer was " yes " ; and accord- 
 ingly his name will duly be found on 
 the September written plan. But the 
 one weighty piece of business, compared 
 with which the other were trifles, and 
 the business which had brought the 
 fathers together, was the question as to 
 the relation hereafter to subsist between 
 preachers and people. Should there be 
 men set apart to the work, and if so, 
 how were they to be supported? By 
 the regular contributions of one or two 
 as heretofore, or by the collective body 1 
 In short, the business to be settled 
 really resolved itself into the question 
 whether Primitive Methodism should 
 
 be, or should not be, a form of Free- 
 
 fosnelis m BUTT LANE CHAPEL, ON THE 1811 PLAN. 
 
 Nor was this question approached in a leisurely, indifferent, academic manner. The 
 men who sat and talked in that kitchen were no doctrinaires, but a number of plain 
 and very serious men, who had met under the impulsion of hard insistent facts, to see 
 what had best be done. Even if the Brothers Bourne could go on providing subsistence- 
 money for James Crawfoot, there was William Clowes and his maintenance to think of. 
 For the simple truth was that James Nixon and Thomas Woodnorth had come to the 
 end of their monetary ability, and, as trade now was, could no longer continue to do as 
 they had done. Even as it was they had pinched and straitened themselves, and even 
 wronged their families to keep William Clowes in the mission-field. What then was to 
 be done ? Truly a kind of crisis had been reached. 
 
 Now, it may seem to us that what wanted doing was obvious enough. But what is 
 clear to us does not seem to have been so clear to the Primitive fathers. In truth, 
 a good deal lay at stake that day. There was the danger lest the denomination should 
 start wrong, and soon find itself swamped in the welter of the lower invertebrate forms 
 of religious life.* The acceptance of the tenet of Free-Gospelism would have arrested 
 
 * "I have no time to write their entomology"! T. P. Bunting on the Band Room Methodist? . 
 Life of Dr. J. Runfiny, p. 276. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 131 
 
 its development, and the possibility of such acceptance taking place must be admitted 
 as having been at least possible. It would have been almost a miracle, considering 
 Hugh Bourne's training and the company he had been largely thrown amongst during 
 the previous ten years, if lie had altogether escaped the infection of Free-Gospelism. 
 He had at this time, to put it mildly, no high views of the ministerial office. Even his 
 most partial biographers admit this, and seek to account for his tendency to undervalue 
 preaching in comparison with praying, to the fact that he had got a ply in this direction 
 by listening to some heedless rhetoric of the popular Samuel Bradburn as far back as 
 July, 1799. Hugh Bourne was generous as we know, and self-denying to a degree, in 
 order that he might have the more to dispense ; but, at the same time, he was 
 scrupulous in taking from others for himself, and reluctant to tax others even for the 
 sake of carrying on the work of God. As time went on, his scrupulosity on this score 
 grew less, but it may be doubted whether it had altogether gone by 1811. "What was 
 true of Hugh Bourne held good also of James Crawfoot. He was rather deeply tinged 
 with Quaker Methodism and, along with some better things, left the " hat whim " as 
 a legacy to our Church. 
 
 So, safely to pass this rock ahead, the Tunstall connection was already an advantage, 
 and there was needed too, not only the pressure arising from the failure of supplies, 
 but also the good common-sense and Christian principle of the two hundred members 
 constituting the societies, who pressed to be allowed the privilege of supporting those 
 who " laboured amongst them in the word and doctrine." It is even affirmed that some 
 good souls had declined uniting with the societies because such privilege was not 
 allowed. Yielding then to the double pressure of the popular wish, and the situation 
 created by the break-down of the financial arrangement hitherto in vogue, the 
 assembled fathers adopted the principle that they " who preach the Gospel should live 
 of the Gospel." One can only express surprise that they did not at once fall back upon 
 the simply sufficient Methodist and early Christian plan of receiving week by week the 
 offerings of the faithful. What was determined, H. Bourne tells us : 
 
 " It was proposed that the circumstances be mentioned to the people, and what 
 they voluntarily gave should be collected by proper persons, and paid into 
 the hands of a steward, and what fell short should be made out by private 
 subscriptions. 
 
 "Question 5. Who shall be appointed Steward 1 ? This was put upon James 
 Steele." 
 
 Thus a beginning was made ; the principle that the minister can claim support from 
 the people, and that the people are under obligation to give it, was recognised, though 
 the principle was fenced, and one may say qualified, by the proviso added at 
 a subsequent meeting held October 14th, to the effect: 
 
 " That all gifts and presents that may be made to the preachers are to be brought 
 to the steward and entered in the books, and be reckoned towards the weekly 
 allowance. So these regulations were fixed.'* 
 
 Nor would Hugh Bourne, though fully devoted to the work of the ministry, at 
 present part with his individual liberty. He would be independent and bear his own 
 charges, and William Alcock, who was largely given up to the work, was of the same 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 I'IMMITJVK METHODIST GHUKCH. 
 
 mind ; so also with John Benton and John Wedgwood when they shall begin their 
 remarkable labours. But we are still in the day of small and feeble things, as we are 
 reminded by another regulation made at the supplementary meeting of October 1 4th, at 
 which Hugh Bourne was not present. It was agreed that James Crawfoot ' be paid 
 10s. 6d. a week for the support of his family," and W. Clowes, for the reason that his 
 house was a kind of "pilgrims' inn," and stood him at a higher rent, was to receive Hs. 
 per week, and at that modest figure it remained for some time. 
 
 THE NAME 'PRIMITIVE METHODISTS' is TAKEN. 
 
 Sometimes during the course of legal proceedings a piece of paper terra-cotta as to 
 colour and a parallelogram as to shape will be put in, and that telegraph-form, with its 
 brief, curt message, may prove a piece of valuable evidence. So having now reached 
 
 ' 
 
 the date of February 13th, 1812, we cannot do better than give from Hugh Bourne's 
 Journals a facsimile of the entry recording what was done on that eventful day. Let 
 the reader's eye for a moment rest on the very curves Hugh Bourne's hand once traced 
 rather than on the angularities of printed type. Looking at this piece of script our 
 founder's hand once penned, we are reminded of Paul's words to the Galatians : " See 
 with how large letters I have written unto you with mine own hand." But in this case 
 the " largeness of the letters "-approaching almost to roundhand "was not the result 
 defective eyesight, but rather of the writer's clear perception at the moment of 
 writing that he was chronicling a notable event and so he was. 
 
SOURCKS AND ORIGIN. 133 
 
 As to the name itself and its appropriateness, one or two remarks must suffice. The 
 right and propriety of taking such a nanie must, of course, be based on the appropriateness 
 of the name, duly considering the conditions and circumstances of the time when it was 
 assumed. Was the name when first adopted an appropriate one? That is the question 
 to be approached in the historical spirit, and not the question so likely when discussed 
 to wound denominational susceptibilities whether the name as a differentiating and 
 descriptive denominational title be appropriate now. Without prejudging this question, 
 or even expressing at present any opinion upon it, we may suggest it to be quite 
 conceivable that a negative answer might have to be returned to the latcer question, 
 and an affirmative answer to the former. The fact is, the two questions are quite 
 distinct, and must be kept distinct. As to the former historical question with which 
 alone we are now concerned. To us it seems our historians hitherto have taken too 
 low ground, and too timid and apologetic an attitude. Unless we entirely misread the 
 facts set forth in this book, the only impression they can make on the candid reader will 
 be that there was but one name for the new denomination, and that 'Primitive Methodist.' 
 
 Briefly to recapitulate : the movement which eventuated in the formation of the new 
 denomination was akin to, and one form of, the Revivalism which was endemic one 
 might say epidemic during the opening years of the nineteenth century ; this movement 
 was the avowed, deliberate, enthusiastic endeavour to return to the spirit and practices 
 (if primitive Methodism ; this movement was in many respects counter and antipathetic 
 to the spirit and policy of the Methodism of the time ; standing thus to each other, 
 a clash and severance were inevitable, unless, indeed, one or the other should greatly 
 modify, and so deny, itself ; the inevitable happened, and the ejected discrepant fragment 
 did not disappear in the void but persisted, and naturally took for its name what was 
 its raison d'etre primitive Methodism. All that the meeting of 1812 did was to turn 
 what had been a fair and honest description into a title, and to write 'primitive' with 
 a capital P. 
 
 To us the gist and crux of the whole matter lies in the admission or non-admission 
 of the position that primitive Methodism and modern Methodism, as terms implying 
 contrasted and conflicting ideals and tendencies, aptly describe what we find really 
 existent and militant in Xorth Staffordshire and Cheshire from 1800 to 1812. If this 
 be admitted then, though the action of the Wesleyan Conference and the Burslem 
 Circuit is explained, and in a measure justified, to the same degree is the taking of the 
 name Primitive Methodist by our fathers also justified. On the other hand, if the fact 
 of this antithesis this clash of ideals, of tendencies and practices be denied, then 
 conclusions of a directly opposite character will follow. Then the name Primitive 
 Methodist must be acknowledged to have been a misnomer because based on a groundless 
 assumption ; but if so, then the Conference and the minor authorities must in turn be 
 accused of having been both blind and deaf to what was around them so much so that 
 they could not tell friends from enemies, or distinguish between what was Methodism 
 and what was not. It would seem to be a somewhat bold proceeding to conclude that 
 both the Wesleyan authorities and the primitive fathers were alike the victims of a false 
 assumption. It were surely more reasonable to believe that neither the one nor the 
 other was so victimised. 
 
134 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 There is a homely saying which affirms that " You cannot both eat your cake and 
 have it." . This is an old saw the modern representatives of both sides in this historical 
 episode would do well to remember. On the one hand, we who vigorously defend the 
 assumption of the name "Primitive Methodist" must be prepared to admit the strength 
 of the Conference case as viewed from its own standpoint. On the other hand, those 
 who carp and cavil and gird at the name " Primitive Methodist " must, to be consistent, 
 accuse the Conference and all concerned of having blundered and muddled the business. 
 As with our cake, we cannot have it both ways. 
 
 A PLAN OF THE PREACHERS 
 
 IN THE SOCIETY OF THE PRIMITIVE METHODISTS 
 
 IN TUNSTALL CIRCUIT. 
 
 
 MAR 
 
 APKIL. 
 
 MAY. 
 
 JUNK. 
 
 
 1812. 
 
 22 29 
 
 5 12 1926 
 
 3 10 1724 :<l 
 
 7 142 
 
 
 Tunstall 2 and 6 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 ;> 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 (i 
 
 ih 
 
 '2 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 PREACHERS' 
 
 Norton 2, Brown Edge 6 
 
 17 
 
 11 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 19 
 
 21 
 
 13 
 
 9 
 
 14 
 
 12 
 
 (> 
 
 In 
 
 2( 
 
 i: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 NAMES. 
 
 Stanly 2, Badley Edge 4 
 
 20 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 l( 
 
 
 1C 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 1 J. Crawfoot 
 
 Bagnal 2, Badley Edge 4 
 
 
 Id 
 
 
 19 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 2: 
 
 2 J. Steel 
 
 Butt Lane 2, Talk o' th' Hill 6 
 
 10 
 
 
 14 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 q 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 3 J. Bourne 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 H. Bourne 
 
 Roggin Row 2, Talk o' th' Hill 6 
 
 
 2( 
 
 
 1C 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 23 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 6 
 
 5 W. Clowes 
 
 Cloud 10 and 2 
 
 8 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 Hi 
 
 
 1! 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 6 R. Bailey 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 W Allfvwk 
 
 Woodhouse Green 10 and 2 
 
 
 '5 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 14 
 
 8 T. Woodnorth 
 
 Whiston 2, Alton 6 
 
 IS 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 2-2 
 
 
 19 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 14 
 
 
 9 E. McEvoy 
 
 Stanton 2, Swincore G 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 2-2 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 14 
 
 ** 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 10 J. Nixon 
 11 H. Mattinson 
 
 Englesea Brook 9, Betley H 
 
 2:5 
 
 12 
 
 20 
 
 14 
 
 17 
 
 11 
 
 9 
 
 Hi 
 
 19 
 
 7 
 
 23 
 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 17 
 
 12 T. Allcock. 
 
 Coppenhall 2, Weston 7 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 19 
 
 11 
 
 20 
 
 IS 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 1 ; > 
 
 16 
 
 71 
 
 g 
 
 13 T. Hulme 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 14 J. Marsh 
 
 Stoke lOi, Cotton Work 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 23 
 
 9 
 
 Hi 
 
 20 
 
 23 
 
 4 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 a 
 
 1C 
 
 17 
 
 !9 
 
 15 
 
 Caldon 10, Wooton 2, Ramsor 6 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 18 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 8 
 
 16 J. Boden 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 [7 S Broad 
 
 Hollington irj.Boylstone 2, Rodsleye 
 
 m 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 .-> 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 18 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 18 
 
 Roston 2, Rocester 6 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 s 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 1 
 
 " 
 
 8 
 
 
 I 
 
 19 H. Wood 
 
 Cannock 2, Cannock Wood (5 
 
 5 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 ~~ 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 - 
 
 IS 
 
 20 S. Simcock 
 21 M. Brown 
 
 Biddulph Moor 2 
 
 Hi 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 19 
 
 (i 
 
 17 
 
 Hi 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 22 J. Buxton 
 
 Rizley ... 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 S 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 23 W. Morns 
 
 
 Five Crosses 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 ' 
 
 " 
 
 IS 
 
 
 ~ ? 
 
 " 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 COP* OP THE FIRST PRINTED PLAN ORDERED TO BE PRINTED BY THE MEETING HELD 
 
 EB. 13, 1812, AT WHICH THE NAMfi PRIMITIVE METHODIST WAS TAKKN. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 135 
 
 Churches have their process of evolution, and the antagonism between the old and 
 new elements that showed itself in 1800-12 was but an incident in this historical 
 process. Further stages have since been reached. What took place near a hundred 
 years ago could not be repeated now. The old antithesis has well-nigh been overcome 
 by a wider spiritual synthesis destined to embrace what is valuable and worth preserving 
 both old and new, and we must adjust our ecclesiastical arrangements to these altered 
 spiritual conditions. 
 
 Meanwhile, the name Primitive Methodist was prepared beforehand for us. We do 
 not need the story of James Crawfoot's expulsion to account for the assumption of the 
 name. It was inevitable. Hugh Bourne may have been drowsy at the time the name 
 was taken, but drowsy or wide-awake it would have been the same. We got our name 
 very much as John the Baptist got his, and presumably the Divine hand was in both 
 name-givings. Their neighbours and kinsfolk wanted the promising child to be called 
 Zacharias ; but the mother said, " Not so ; but he shall be called John." The father 
 took his writing-tablet and wrote, saying, " His name is John." Kinsfolk and neighbours 
 might not like the name. They might object that none of his kinsmen had borne such 
 a name ; but all the same the name was there waiting, divinely authorised, inevitable. 
 It had to be ; or rather, it was already. 
 
136 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SIDELIGHTS ON THE PERIOD 180012. 
 FROM THE "JOURNALS" OF HUGH BOURNE AND W. CLOWES. 
 
 HE account of the sources and origin of the Primitive Methodist Church 
 reached its natural conclusion in the preceding chapter, which left it in 
 possession of a name and rudimentary organisation. Hence it will he 
 expected that we shall at once proceed to trace the course of its further 
 history and development. Before, however, essaying this task, we will linger a little 
 while over the Journals of Hugh Bourne and William Clowes (but especially of the 
 former), tempted by the inducement that we are likely by so doing to become better 
 acquainted both with our founders and the milieu in which they lived and worked. 
 Many incidental matters that could not but be passed over when following the con- 
 secutive narrative can now, that we have reached our first convenient halting-place, 
 be leisurely and profitably regarded. So that however impatient to get on the reader 
 may be, we would not advise the skipping of this chapter ; the pause does not mean 
 retardment. 
 
 Bourne and Clowes both left Journals, so-called, but only Bourne's are really such, 
 those of Clowes, published in 1844, being Journals only in name. Clowes took up 
 the pen as seldom as he could, and when he did take it up, it did not become in his 
 hands the pen of a ready writer, as the hard, scratchy "hand" he wrote remains to 
 tell. His Journals are really autobiographic reminiscences written late in life, apparently 
 from memory and not from written memoranda, so that they are defective in names 
 and dates, and the right sequence and relation of events are not always preserved. 
 Unfortunately, the important period between Clowes' coming off the plan and the 
 amalgamation of 1812 has only fifteen small octavo pages devoted to it. Hence, as 
 will be inferred, it does not belong to the useful class of works of reference, and is 
 unfitted by its defects and very qualities to be in itself a sufficient guide to our early 
 history; but as supplying collateral information and giving a vivid presentation of 
 events elsewhere set forth only in a brief form, it has its distinct value. Moreover, 
 as a work of religious edification it will be found difficult to match it by anything 
 our literature can show. The style in which the Journals is written is easy and 
 flowing, sometimes indeed rising into natural eloquence, and the devout, fervid spirit 
 which breathes in the narrative cannot fail to communicate itself to the reader. 
 
 Hugh Bourne's Journals are just such. From the outset of his religious life in 1800 
 to its close, with but few breaks, he was accustomed to note down in his careful, 
 methodical way the day's doings the people met with, the places visited, the thoughts 
 
SOURCES AND OKIGIN. 137 
 
 that had pre-occupied his mind, even his own significant dreams or those of others are 
 duly though tersely recorded. Each day the Journal is written up, with no idea the record 
 will be seen by any other eye than his own, or some items would surely have been 
 omitted. The psychical no less than the historical value of such a record as this needs 
 no pointing out. What wonder that the Journals have been a well-worked quarry, 
 whence both biographers of Bourne and our Church historians have got their materials 
 -at first or second hand ! for he still remains our chief, and in some cases, our sole 
 authority for certain periods or events in our earlier history. But though Hugh Bourne's 
 Journals have been so largely drawn upon they have never been published in their 
 entirety, and taking into account their voluminousness and intimate character are not 
 likely to be. 
 
 But how to describe the Journals ? To what shall we likan them? Not, perhaps, 
 to the Journals of George Fox or John Wesley, though with each of these they have 
 their points of likeness. Difficult, however, as it may be to class them or find their 
 fellow, we, who are fresh from the minute reading of the MS. volumes occupied with 
 the years 1800 12, pronounce them to be amongst the strangest human documents 
 ever penned, and make bold to affirm that both the psychologist and the religious 
 novelist would find familiarity with their contents of the greatest advantage. Had 
 Professor James only had access to Hugh Bourne's Journals when writing his "Varieties 
 of Religious Experience," it is certain he would have enriched his pages with many 
 a quotation ; and should a second "George Eliot" arise, she might, from the materials 
 lying here, reproduce a picture of lowly religious life in North Staffordshire that 
 might stand a worthy second to "Adam Bede," which deals with the same time, largely 
 with the same class, and almost with the same district. 
 
 It will be expected we shall make good this our estimate, but to do this is difficult ; 
 for the Journals of Bourne are as complex as the man who wrote them, and refuse to 
 be characterised or summed up in a sentence. It is the final impression left on the 
 reader's mind as the combined, cumulative result of the typical extracts given that 
 will be nearest the truth, for then, as by a graduated process, the reader gains his 
 impression in much the same way as he would had he the privilege of perusing the 
 -original Journals themselves. 
 
 The Journals of Hugh Bourne are emphatically religious journals, written by one 
 who felt called to carry on a religious and not a political or social, much less a sectarian 
 propaganda. The great pre-occupation is religion. There is an exaltation, a dead 
 earnestness in the writer which makes itself felt. He is bent on one thing ; he is terribly 
 in earnest to save his own soul and the souls of others. There are few direct allusions 
 to the state of the country at the time, or any evidence that the sense of the wrongs 
 and disabilities from which men suffered burned within him and sought expression in 
 complaints or invective. Of course it would have been impossible for Hugh Bourne, 
 in simply chronicling his own doings and movements during these ten years, not to 
 have made incidental allusions to the state of things prevailing at the time he wrote, 
 or not to have crossed the path of some people whom it is interesting, even after the 
 lapse of a century, to recall. Here, for instance, by recorded dream and prayer and 
 rumour we get a glimpse and hear the murmur of the tumultuous wider world beyond: 
 
138 
 
 I'KIMITIVK METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 " January H't/i, IK 10. Clowes went under the transfiguration. He was exercised 
 about the \mtion. We led class at Mr. Hitchin's of Alpraham, and had a good 
 time nth We came to Thornton. Clowes was exercised about the nation. 
 Mourning and lamentation and woe are at hand. February **A. My brother 
 James told me that W. Handley, a little time ago, told him that he-W. H.-dreamed 
 that a person talked with him, and advised him to have but little business on 
 his hand because that troubles would shortly come. Wm. H. answered that he had 
 only the farm and looking after Mr. Adderley's colliery ; and as to Stonetrough, 
 
 8TONETROUGH COLLIERY AND MOUNDS. 
 
 when it was a little ' gated,' he should only have to go about onoe a week. The 
 person said all business would be at a stand, and that those who had the least 
 business would do the best, and that all who had much to do with banks would 
 be hurt, for banks would be broken. The Lord's will be done." 
 
 "April llth, 1810. ... I went to Warrington, where I heard the dreadful news 
 that there were riots in London. Well, the Most High ruleth ; and the Lord is 
 still a hiding-place." 
 
 We are not allowed to forget that those were the days of imperfect religious toleration, 
 and that the reactionary tendencies at work were threatening still further to abridge its 
 privileges. The very month Stanley Class is formed he hears that the Toleration Act 
 " is about to be broken in part," and that the Methodists are providing against the 
 gathering storm by proposing to make each preacher the nominal minister of a particular 
 church. Sometimes the holding of religious service in a particular dwelling-house has 
 to be put off until a licence can be got, as a precautionary measure against the persecution 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 139 
 
 which menaces. At Rodsley the licence has been secured only just in the nick of time, 
 for the very next day they were to be informed against. 
 
 Very significant as to the manners and morals of the time are the frequent references 
 to the local wakes and their pernicious influence. After spending the day of July 2nd, 
 1810, at Wootton in. visiting, he tells how there was a bear-bait, and how he felt "the 
 spirit of the wake dash upon him like a flood," as though it were one special, favourite 
 way in which the time-spirit " the spirit of the power of the air " manifested itself 
 in those days. 
 
 " I bore the cross awhile till the cloud broke, and the Spirit said that my desire 
 should be granted I felt thankful. At bed-time I wandered towards the alehouse 
 and met with an [earnest seeker of salvation ; I went into Brown's and she was 
 fully born again. Tuesday 3rd. It rained much this afternoon. We prayed for 
 the Lord to restrain the wake ; and I believe the Lord sent rain and thunder on 
 Sunday night, and the rain to-day, to stop it. Glory be to His name for ever." 
 
 The next year he is at Rocester at the time of the wake, sharing the hospitality of 
 the Mace family. They plead with God to restrain the wake, and not in vain, for the 
 bull was sent away from the town, and there were murmurings from the wake-folk 
 " that there had been no mirth." As Hugh Bourne looks out of the window he learns 
 a lesson. He sees a number of men in the back-yard busily engaged in "cleansing" a man 
 who had been fighting. " I watched," says he, " to see their great zeal ; they appeared 
 full of life and eagerness ; they appeared as if fighting battles in their own ininds : they 
 seemed to venture all for Satan. If we had as much zeal for heaven we should surely 
 reach it." 
 
 In the pages of those volumes of the Journals with which we have now to do, there 
 is not a joke, scarcely a gleam of humour, to be found : it were vain to look there for 
 the graces of literary style. Yet, though the writer is so serious and matter-of-fact, 
 and puts things down in the plainest, homeliest, and shortest way, we do meet with 
 occasional obiter dicta worth noting, on account of their quaintness, shrewdness, or 
 " crusty candour." Some of these comments and by-the-way sayings could not well 
 be better expressed or put into fewer words, and one cannot but wonder, coming upon 
 such passages as these, whether after all this plain and rugged style was not deliberately 
 chosen, and perhaps shall be inclined to conclude that " he could an he would " have 
 written just as elegantly as others who have succumbed to the temptation to sacrifice 
 strength and clearness to fine writing. The surmise is partly correct, as one singular 
 entry in the Journals shows. 
 
 November 3rd, 1809. " John Whittaker had talked to me about using the best 
 language, as I had it in my power. He pressed it much. I told him I would 
 
 pray about it I prayed this morning, and was led to adopt the way 
 
 that he recommended. Appearing to be illiterate when I am not illiterate seemed 
 to be quite wrong. O Lord, I beseech Thee direct my soul touch my lips. O Lord, 
 if Thy will be that I should use fine language ; give me a fine flow of eloquence ; 
 touch my lips with a live coal from off the altar. Oh may the love of Jesus flow 
 from my lips in accents mild as the evening dew, and in beauty as the falling of 
 the fleecy snow. Oh let the honey distil from my lips." 
 
140 PRIMITIVE MKTHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 From this quotation we infer that the Lord must soon have made known that His 
 will went counter to John Whittaker's well-meant advice, and that He was against 
 H. B's. " use of fine language ; " for we read of no more aspirations or efforts that way, 
 and soon meet with evidence in plenty that the plain and forceful style of writing was 
 the one contentedly and determinedly chosen. In striking and refreshing contrast with 
 the poetic diction of the above excerpt, we throw together a few samples, culled from 
 these early Journals, of H. B.'s forcible way of putting things, and his aptitude at 
 coining phrases which always remained a characteristic of his style. 
 
 "At Kingsley I had a campaign with* a Deist. He proposed Universalism 
 I said it would not do to go to hell to try if he could not get out again." 
 
 " Mr. Kersham preached. He seemed an endeavouring man, and has no objection 
 to a stir." 
 
 "F. H. is become a good steady pilgrim, and has nearly laid all his whim* 
 aside." 
 
 " My heart was opened, and the Word (spoken by Crawfoot) seemed to soak into 
 me like rain." g 
 
 " Surprise in secret chains his words suspends, 
 
 Just so was my attention chained." 
 
 " R. H. is still compassed with oddities. 
 
 "They rather run wildish. O Lord Jesus, bless and regulate them. 
 is buried in shop-keeping." 
 
 "We called at Portwood, Stockport. I there saw a number of Dr. Coke's ' History 
 
 of the Bible.' It appears to be a badly-written whimsical catchpenny thing 
 
 Dr. Coke has written six large quarto volumes to explain the Bible. He is now 
 writing three more, and Adam Clark is writing a Commentary about as large as 
 Dr. Coke's, and all to.explain the Bible ! So ' they find no end in wand'ring mazes 
 lost.' O Lord, direct my soul into the plain Bible, through Jesus Christ, Amen." 
 
 The last quotation is a good specimen of Hugh Bourne's caustic vein. Very 
 different is the record of the way in which the old year out and the new year in was 
 kept at Delamere Forest 1809-10. Here the words seem artlessly to fall into the 
 simple cadence of poetry. 
 
 Sunday, December 31st, 1809." We went to the watch-night and had a good time. 
 We parted well with the old year, and the new year came in joyfully ; and we 
 covenanted to be more given to the Lord, and I believe the covenant was ratified 
 in heaven." Monday, January 1st, 1810." We began this year happy in the Lord, 
 singing and covenanting to serve the Lord unreservedly." 
 
 Not many " wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble " appear before us 
 as we read in these old diurnals not many whose names figure in the Biographical 
 Dictionaries of the day ; for saints are at a discount there. Yet there were some who 
 came within sight and touch of Hugh Bourne whose characters was saintly and their 
 lives beneficent. Amongst these was Mrs. Samuel Evans, the prototype of George Eliot's 
 immortal "Dinah Morris" and Mrs. Fletcher, the widow of the 'seraphic' Fletcher of 
 Madeley, whose life continued fragrant to the end, which came in December 9th, 1815. 
 Hugh Bourne was occasionally at Wellington and Madeley, and he informs us he, had 
 
SOURCES AND OKIG1N. 
 
 141 
 
 listened to Mrs. Fletcher. He tells too, how he had 
 pressed upon a Mrs. Mitton of those parts, to give herself 
 to labouring for the Lord, but when she set about doing 
 this in right earnest, and began to pray for the people and 
 take their burthen upon her, she was for a period of six 
 weeks plunged into such sore conflict and darkness that in 
 her distress she twice sought out Mrs. Fletcher and laid 
 open her strange case before her and got much light and 
 help from her wise and loving counsel. Here too, duly 
 noted down in the Journals, is an anecdote of Mrs. Fletcher, 
 told to Hugh Bourne by Mr. Eli Hanley of Burslem, as 
 the two were 011 their way to Eccleshall, hard by the 
 palace of the Lord Bishop of Lichfield. 
 
 "On the way Mr. Hanley told me, that being once at 
 Madeley, the bargemen sent a request to Mrs. Fletcher 
 to pray for rain. The River Severn is not made navi- 
 gable throughout, and therefore in time of drought the channel is so shallow that 
 they cannot work. There had then been a long drought. She related the request 
 in the congregation, and said, probably some of them were great sinners, and the 
 Lord was punishing them to humble them. After enlarging a while on this head 
 
 MRS. FLETCHER. 
 
 MADELEY VILLAGE AND CHURCH, 
 
 she said, ' However, we will pray for them.' She then prayed for the Lord to send 
 rain. The congregation firmly believed the Lord would give rain ; and the next 
 morning it rained heavily. E. Hanley had to come home and was much wetted." 
 
142 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 It ia a pleasing thought to a Primitive Methodist that Hugh Bourne was, as recorded 
 in his Journals, on intimate terms with Mrs. Samuel Evans, and that once he took part 
 with her in speaking at a service on Ellaston Green, and that at another time, or times, 
 he was a guest and probably stayed the night at her home in Derby. George Eliot, as 
 we all know, since she herself has told us all about it, found the heroine of Adam Bede 
 in this same Mrs. Evans, her aunt by marriage. The maiden name of Mrs. Evans was 
 Tomlinson and she was born at Newbold, in Leicestershire. She became a domestic 
 servant at Derby, and afterwards found employment in a lace manufactory in Notting- 
 ham meanwhile living according to the course of this world and being fond of dress and 
 pleasure. But she was soundly converted, threw off her gauds and gay apparel, became 
 Quaker-like in her neatness and, it may be added, Quaker-like too in her philanthropy, 
 for in her modest way she emulated the example of Mrs. Fry in visiting the 'sick and in 
 prison.' She caught the contagion of prison-sickness while following her pious labours. 
 She nerved herself to accompany to the scaffold a frail creature who had killed her own 
 baby. While still in the fresh beauty of her youth, Miss Tomlinson carried the 
 evangel to the uplands and into the dales of Derbyshire, thus in the order of providence 
 preparing the way for the advent of our missionaries in these parts. Two of her 
 favourite preaching places were Boston Common and Ellaston Green the former in 
 Derbyshire, and the latter, just over the river Dove, in Staffordshire. Wootton, so 
 frequently mentioned in these pages is in Ellaston parish, and Ellaston Green is the 
 " Hayslope " of " Adam Bede," where George Eliot makes her heroine preacli that famous 
 sermon we have all read ; and, since in those early days Methodism would have none of 
 camp meetings, we will appropriate that open-air service for Primitive Methodism, the 
 more so since as we are about to see, Hugh Bourne and she held together what was 
 practically a camp meeting on Ellaston Green, in 1809. George Eliot's father and 
 uncles were born at neighbouring Roston Common, and one of the brothers, Samuel, 
 an "earnest Methodist, fell in love with the fair young preacheress whom he had heard 
 at Ashbourne, and wooed and won her. This was in 1804. For some little time they 
 lived at Roston, removing thence to Derby and afterwards to Wirksworth. Conference 
 Methodism got to like women-preaching as little as it liked camp meetings ; so when it 
 was proposed probably at the suggestion of Jabez Bunting that Miss Barrett and 
 Mrs. Mary Evans while allowed to take appointments should be indicated on the plan 
 by a simple asterisk, Mrs. Evans declined the proposal, and she and her husband joined 
 the Arminian or Faith Methodists of Derby. But, subsequently, they both returned to 
 the Church of their youth, and they are both commemorated by tablet in the Chapel at 
 Wirksworth, where their last days were usefully and honourably spent. 
 
 And now let us learn what Hugh Bourne has to say of this remarkable woman and 
 of his association with her. 
 
 Sunday, June 25<A, 1809 : I led the class in the morning at Wootton. . . . We 
 were informed that Betsy Evans, Samuel Evans' wife from Derby, would speak at 
 Wootton. He also is a local preacher. She began about two o'clock. Her voice 
 was low and hoarse at first from having preached so much the week past and 
 having caught several colds ; but she got well into the Power. She appears to be 
 very clear in Scripture doctrines and very ready in the Scripture. She seemed to 
 
THE JULPIT^FROM WHK'H DINAH MOUIUM 
 
 rsKD 7 io PKKACF. 
 
 DINAH MORRIS 
 
 WIRKSWORTH CHAPEL, WHERE 
 DINAH MORRIS USED TO WORSHIP AND PREACH. 
 
144 I'RIMITIVE METHODIST CHU15CH. 
 
 speak fully in the Spirit; and from the little I saw of her she seems to be as fully 
 devoted to God as any woman I ever saw. O Lord, bless and establish her. Her 
 husband also spoke. He appears to be an excellent man. O my Father, bless and 
 keep him. My brother James then spoke, and then I went up, so that we occupied, 
 most of the afternoon, and we had, after, a plead with sinners near the ale-house. 
 We had but little persecution, though it was Wake (time).'' 
 
 While at Drayton, in Shropshire, on February 12, 1810, he "felt an impression to- 
 go to Derby" to see his friends, and on March 19 and 21, he acted on that impression. 
 Of his interview with the Evans' on the former date he says little, but of that which 
 took place two days after he speaks more fully, giving the gist of what must surely 
 have been imparted after reserve was thawed and the talk had grown close and confi- 
 dential. Now that ninety years and more have passed there is no need to keep anything 
 back or thinly to veil names behind initials. 
 
 " I came to Derby and had some conversation with Mr. Samuel Evans and his 
 wife. He is an earnest man. She has been and is an extraordinary woman. She 
 has been very near Ann Cutler's experience, but she met with great persecution, 
 especially from Jonathan Edmondson. She lost some ground when entering into 
 the marriage state. She engaged this (sic) in a cloudy day while under persecution. 
 I was much instructed by her conversation. At night I led Mr. Evans' class. It 
 was a good time. There are many of them strong in grace ; yet there was much 
 unbelief." 
 
 A few words must be given as to the evidence afforded by the Journals of the close 
 association of our founders with those other communities of kindred aims and sympathies 
 standing on the outskirts of Methodism that were struggling into independent existence. 
 Church-formation seems to go on in much the same way as world-formation, if 
 what scientists tell us be true. The worlds and Churches to be, at first seem to stand 
 so close together and partake so much of the same character, as to be almost indis- 
 tinguishable one from the other. The process of differentiation is a gradual one, 
 and the attainment of complete separation and independence is the work of time. So 
 it was, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the contiguous counties of 
 Yorkshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, and Cheshire. That common movement we call 
 Revivalism was like the whirling nebulous matter that every now and again throws off 
 a sphere to go on whirling henceforth on its own account. To this fact we have already 
 called the reader's attention, and it is forced upon us again as we read these Journal* : 
 and insistence upon this fact is all the more justifiable, because it has not, we are 
 persuaded, had the recognition its importance demands. Our founders fraternised 
 and co-operated with the Revivalists, the Quaker Methodists, and the Independent 
 Methodists. They helped and were helped by them. The first camp meetings were 
 largely supported and staffed, as to preachers and praying labourers, by these 
 same religionists ; and the obligation thus incurred was paid back in full. These 
 are the facts we cannot but recognise as we read the Journals alike of Bourne 
 and Clowes. 
 
 The origin of the Independent Methodists dates from 1805 ; but it would seem its 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 145 
 
 first Conference was not held until 1807, for just after the Norton Camp Meeting 
 Bourne writes : 
 
 " After the meeting I visited Macclesfiekl again, and was at the house of a friend 
 who was a member of the Independent Methodists. These Methodists had delegates 
 from different parts, and were holding a first Conference ; and one of their main 
 matters was arranging for an interchange of preachers to promote variety." 
 
 Bourne was also present at the next Conference, and evidently took part in the 
 proceedings ; for a discussion having arisen on the subject of the ministry of women, 
 he agreed to draw up answers to certain questions which had been propounded. We 
 all know, without reading the able brief he prepared, what side he would take in the 
 controversy which then so heated and divided men. Though he was no " ladies' man " 
 in the sense usually understood by that phrase, but quite the reverse, he was the 
 convinced advocate and defender of woman's right to exercise her gifts in the public 
 ministry of the Word. Mr. Peter Phillips, to whom he read the written statement he 
 had drawn up, was so struck Avith the ability shown in his presentation of the case 
 that he asked and got leave to send it to the press. 
 
 Of Peter Phillips, the recognised founder of the Independent Methodists (with 
 whom were now associated the Quaker Methodists) we get repeated limpses 
 in the Journal*. Perhaps the most interesting of these is that which lets 
 
 us see a sort of "round table conference" going on 
 in his house, at which were present besides himself, 
 Hugh Bourne, Dr. Paul Johnson, the physician of 
 Lorenzo Dow and hero of Norton Camp Meeting, and 
 a certain Mr. Sigston. This member of the group we 
 judge to have been the Methodist schoolmaster of Leeds, 
 the friend and biographer of Bramwell, and the leading 
 spirit in the troubles rising out of the organ case 
 which led, in 1828, to the formation of the Protestant 
 Methodists. If our surmise be correct this little gather- 
 ing was a notable one. Its purpose was to consider what 
 means should be adopted in order to carry on and extend 
 the revival begun in the district through the agency of 
 Lorenzo Dow, Dr. Johnson, and the Camp Meetineers 
 
 MR. SIOSTON. rp, f ,, e 
 
 Ihe outcome 01 the conference was a book. It was 
 
 resolved to print and circulate as largely as possible the life of Benjamin Abbot, the 
 American evangelist. In connection with the business of preparing and printing 
 this book Bourne says : 
 
 " Thursday, July 28th, 1808. I set out for Leeds. I took this long journey rather 
 at the instance of Warrington friends, in order that the extracts to be added in 
 the life of Abbot might be perfected. I went through Knutsford, Altringham, 
 Manchester, Middleton, Rochdale, Halifax, and Bradford. There are many villages 
 and many Methodist chapels. When I first stepped into Yorkshire, I kneeled 
 down and prayed, and I found that the Lord would be with me in Yorkshire." 
 
146 
 
 I'KIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 MR. WILLIAM DAWSOX. 
 (Known as " Billy " Dawson.) 
 
 He reached Leeds a little before noon the next 
 day.'witn sore feet; heard "Billy" Dawson on the 
 Sunday, and felt himself fully paid for his journey 
 had he done nothing more than hear him ; returned 
 hy coach to Manchester, and walked eighteen miles 
 to Stockton Heath, where a meeting was to be held 
 by Dr. Johnson, who did his very best to convert 
 him to Quakerism but did not succeed. Another 
 short entry lets us see a conference of another kind, 
 in which Peter Phillips and Hugh Bourne take their 
 part. This time it is confined to these two, and 
 both are in grim earnest as they confer : 
 
 "October 3rd, 1809. I had a severe controversy 
 
 with Peter Phillips, he having adopted some 
 
 of Mr. Law's opinions." 
 
 Other prominent members of the Quaker Methodists 
 were Mr. and Mrs. Eaton of Stockton Heath, and 
 .Mrs. Richardson of Warrington. In the published 
 memoir of Mrs. Eaton, it is stated she was led into peace through a conversation with 
 Hugh Bourne. Mrs. Richardson has already been referred to. As her memoirs, 
 published after her death, which occurred in 1848, show, she became eminent as 
 a preacheress. One of the few incidents of this period found in Clowes' Journal* 
 relates to this estimable woman : 
 
 "At Stockton Heath I preached, and also at Warrington, at Mrs. Richardson's, 
 where I had times of refreshing from the presence of the Lorfl. Mrs. Richardson 
 became a speaker amongst us, and was an acceptable labourer in the Lord .s 
 vineyard. At the first establishment of preaching in her house, I was conducting 
 the religious services one evening, when one of the magistrates came in and 
 demanded a sight of my licence. I put my hand into my pocket, and handed it 
 to him. He then said he wanted to see the licence of the house as a place for 
 preaching. One of the people told him it was above. He said, ' I must have it 
 down.' The individual replied, 'It is in heaven.' He then began to swear and 
 order the congregation to disperse ; one man rose to obey the magistrate's order 
 when Mrs. Richardson exclaimed, ' Sit down, my friend, and be quiet. My house 
 
 is my own ; ' and then she cried out in prayer for God to save Justice L . At 
 
 this the magistrate endeavoured to effect his escape, but Mrs. Richardson followed 
 
 him into the street, praying aloud for the Lord to have mercy on Justice L ; 
 
 to convert Justice L , and make him a Methodist preacher. He then told her 
 
 he would send the water engines and blow her windows out ; but she continued 
 to raise such a storm of prayer about his ears, that he hastened his flight, leaving 
 the Bible and hymn book in the street, which he had taken from before me whilst 
 preaching ; he, however, took my licence with him ; but in a few days after I went 
 to him, accompanied by a friend. When he saw us approaching his house, he came 
 out with the licence in his hand, and gave it to me saying, ' Your servant, sir.' 
 He immediately retired into the house, or else I purposed to have given him a 
 lecture on the impropriety of his conduct." (Clowes' Journals, pp. 107, 8). 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 147 
 
 Finally, briefest mention must be made of the Band Room Methodists of Manchester, 
 if for no other reason than to correct the published statement that these secessionists 
 of 1810 from the Methodists, or the better part of them, were absorbed by the Primitive 
 Methodists. The statement is not correct, the fact being that the erstwhile Band Room 
 Methodists merged into the United Free Gospel Churches. The Journals record one 
 visit paid by Hugh Bourne on October 8th, 1809, to these lively people. He saw 
 " many bright faces, and praying George's eyes were so bright he could scarce look at 
 them." But his own keen eyes detected some lightsomeness, and he observes "there 
 is much antinomianism amongst revivalists." 
 
 One thing it is impossible not to feel as we read these Journals in relation to Bourne 
 and Clowes and their fellow-workers they lived amid the marvellous and the super- 
 natural. Wesley chronicles dreams, practised sortilege, and believed in ghosts. Ghosts, 
 indeed, do not figure much, if at all, in these pages, but there are dreams in plenty. 
 They all dreamed, and told their dreams, and sought the interpretation thereof ; for the 
 dreams were regarded as full of religious significance, and as having a close bearing on 
 the day's work and duty. Faith-healing and exorcism were also articles of belief as was 
 telepathy to use the modern term. Now and again they are convinced that some one 
 is just then in need of them, or is praying for them. They believe in the power of the 
 evil one as working in the children of disobedience, and often it is felt to be a serious 
 struggle between the malign power and the power which they can exercise through 
 faith. All alike unfeignedly believe in impressions suggestive impulses like that 
 which said to Philip : " Go and join thyself to this chariot." Often Hugh Bourne's 
 itinerary is modified by its being borne in upon him that he must go yonder and not 
 there. He has wonderful openings into the meaning of Scripture. Occasionally when 
 the testimony of the Lord as borne through human lips is rejected, especially by 
 one who is a professing Christian, the power he had or might have had, is forfeit, and 
 comes upon him who faithfully testified, leaving the other stripped and bare as a blasted 
 oak on the heath. So we might go on accumulating evidence to show that to these 
 fervid Christians the very atmosphere they breathed seemed surcharged with the 
 supernatural. The strange mystical language they used must not be passed over. They 
 spoke of " the spirit of burning," of " being sealed with the spirit," of having " solid 
 weightiness," of being " in the keen cutting power," or " in the binding power," of 
 " drawing the power," etc., etc. No\v it has usually been taken for granted that this 
 strain in the Christian life of our fathers and founders was due to their intercourse with 
 James Crawfoot and his influence upon them. This view we confess to having shared, 
 but closer examination has tended to modify it. It is quite fatal to the view as 
 unmodified, that \V. Clowes quite as much as Hugh Bourne and the rest talked over 
 their deep experiences, and used mystical language of the purest water before they paid 
 their first visit to Crawfoot in 1807. 
 
 In November, 1809, we find James Crawfoot settled in a small homestead in the 
 Forest of Delamere near Brinn, where there was a Methodist cause largely raised and 
 supported by him. He had also begun a monthly service on the Saturday evening at 
 his own Forest home, at which it was not unusual in the midst of the praying and 
 conversation-preaching and recital of experience, for persons to pass into a state of 
 
 L2 
 
14-8 
 
 J'lflMITlVK METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 trance and have visions ; hence the frequenters of these services were widely known 
 as Magic Methodists. As for Crawfoot, lie was a Methodist local preacher in the 
 > r orthvvich Circuit when Hugh Bourne, with the cordial co-operation of his brother, 
 agreed to give him ten shillings a week until Lady Day in order to carrry on evangelistic 
 labours on the Cheshire and Staffordshire sides on alternate fortnights. The fact that 
 Crawfoot was in needy circumstances at this time also weighed with Bourne in 
 making this agreement. Philanthropy joined with evangelistic zeal in sealing the 
 contract. Crawfoot was fifty years of age when he thus became an itinerant preacher> 
 and we gather that almost immediately after this his relations with parent Methodism 
 
 TARVIN VILLAGE AND C'HVKCH. 
 
 very much strained already reached the decisive breaking point. As we have seen, 
 Crawfoot's genius did not lie in the direction of camp meetings, and he took part in one 
 only. Sad to say, the Journals of Hugh Bourne set forth the rise, culmination, and 
 setting of a friendship between him and Crawfoot, and 1813 witnessed the passing of 
 Crawfoot from Primitive Methodist life. Summoned by H. B. to answer certain 
 charges at the Quarterly Meeting at Tunstall he failed to appear, and judgment went 
 by default.' We do not know that it is necessary to go fully into these charges. 
 Probably the fact that during his itineracy Crawfoot had married Hannah Mountford, 
 the long-time faithful servant of the Bournes, the visionary, and as is most likely, the 
 person to whom H. B. himself proposed at a class meeting, may have had something to 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 
 
 149 
 
 do with the breach, especially when we remember that Oawfoot had been understood 
 to be an admirer of the celibate state, and had instilled his purely theoretic views into 
 the mind of his patron. Then the failure of his new wife's health soon after marriage 
 led to his omitting occasionally to take his appointments, which was a dereliction of duty 
 that in Hugh Bourne's eyes hardly any circumstances could extenuate. Probably also 
 Craw foot was easy-going and lax in discipline ; somewhat lax of tongue, too, it is to be 
 feared, and at times carried out of himself by his own popularity. The truth of the 
 matter would probably be found in an amalgam of all these explanations. So, as we 
 have said, 1813 saw the passing of Crawfoot from the plan to the regret of some. 
 "Howbeit a few clave unto him," and it is even said that some small societies called 
 
 TAHVIX CHURCH. CRAWFOOT S BURIAL-FLACK. 
 
 themselves after his name as late as 1831. As for Crawfoot, he died suddenly and 
 triumphantly in 1839, and was buried in Tarvin Churchyard. 
 
 We are now ready for the question : What, Connexionally, do we owe to James 
 Crawfoot ? Along with, and probably as the result of the remarkable and in every way 
 admirable quickened interest now being shown in the men and events of our early 
 history, there are some signs of the beginning amongst us of what we may call 
 a Crawfoot cult. But let us eschew extravagance, and praise with discrimination. 
 We have in another place called Crawfoot " a rustic mystic," and the title is deserved * 
 
150 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the rusticity as well as tin- mysticism must be remembered. Our founders were mystics 
 to begin with ; but Crawfoot modified their mysticism, both for the better and also for 
 the worse. For the better ; because he helped to make it more altruistic and vicarious ; 
 so that they became less wrapped up in their own frames and feelings, and more participant 
 in the spiritual experiences of others. He taught them much concerning the nature of 
 spiritual conflicts. "To explain and illustrate this matter was a main point with 
 J. Crawfoot. His discourse was that in the exercise of faith we made war against the 
 enemy of souls, and must expect him to make war in return ; and if that could not be 
 felt, it would be no wrestling." He taught them all that they expressed in the oft- 
 repeated phrases, " taking the burthen " of others, " exercising faith in 'silence " for 
 others ; and with this clue in hand a discerning reader may find in our Connexional 
 magazines for many successive years, plain proof how firm a hold these teachings had 
 upon the thoughts of its leading minds. 
 
 We are still on with the Journal^ and in them there is preserved a letter written by 
 H. Bourne to Miss Ward, in which the writer shows himself the disciple of " the Old 
 Man of the Forest." One might say he gives us his philosophy of the conflict of 
 personal atmospheres. The whole letter, of which we give but a part, is remarkably 
 accordant with to-day's trend of thought. 
 
 " It may probably be that you may bring more glory to God, and more benefit 
 to mankind, in that line of life than in any other. It will bring you into many 
 people's company, and give you an opportunity of doing much for God. You must 
 look unto the power that worketh secretly the doctrine you were teaching me 
 when you spoke of Lorenzo. You have the fountain in you ; and if you breathe 
 your soul, the power will move upon the people you are in company with. This is 
 
 all by faith Herein is the excellency of the work of faith, it will 
 
 have its effect upon the people either in silence, or when you are doing your 
 worldly business. Thus you may work for God at all times, and in all places, and 
 nothing can hinder you ; and if there be an opening, you may also talk about 
 religion, and offer a present salvation without money or price. But there is one 
 point that you should be well acquainted with, and it is nearly, if not quite your 
 doctrine of two contending powers. As the power of God flows from you upon 
 others, to enlighten, convince, convert, heal, <fcc., so the powers of hell from others 
 will strike upon you to hurt, wound, slay, c. Therefore, when this is the case 
 be not alarmed, nor think you have lost ground, for thin is only bearing the burden 
 of others ; and by faith you will conquer, and they will be very much benefited. 
 If you do not mind this, you will be harassed and tempted that you have lost 
 ground, and your faith will be weakened ; therefore, stand fast and conquer 
 for others. 
 
 When in company with covetous persons, I have been tempted to worldly- 
 mindedness, and in passionate company, to anger and passion ; but I never mind 
 it, / know it is their spirit ;. and if I can conquer it the power of God will mightily 
 return upon them, and hell will be bound." Stockton Heath, April 21st, 1810. 
 
 Our next quotation may be regarded as a concrete example of the taking of another's 
 burden, only in this case the burden is that of a whole city rather than that of a single 
 person. The quotation affords equal proof of the influence of Crawfoot, in first 
 inducing and shaping, and then interpreting certain mystical forms of thought and 
 
SOUKUES AND OKIGIN. 
 
 151 
 
 feeling. One biographer of Hugh Bourne proffers this passage as a " racy " bit surely 
 
 a most unfortunate description. It may be grim, dantesque, quaint as though just 
 lifted from the Journals of George Fox but "racy " ! It is as though one should say 
 of a band of cut-throats that they had behaved in a most "ridiculous" fashion. It 
 seems no lightsome matter standing with Hugh Bourne in that cathedral. The "dim 
 religious light" looks funereal; the Te Deum sounds like a dirge. We too are glad to 
 
 escape, feeling almost persuaded of the 
 doom hanging over the big steeple- 
 house and the city that knows nor- the 
 day of its visitation. 
 
 " I was at Lichfi eld, to get a 
 licence for Mow Meeting, and I 
 went into the minster. After the 
 service began, it ran through my 
 mind, 'Get thee out of this place, 
 and beware of the woman that 
 has the golden cup in her hand, 
 and those that are with her ; their 
 ways are death : sin no more, lest 
 a worse thing come upon thee.' 
 This startled me, as I had before 
 taken delight in their singing of 
 the service. I saw much lightness 
 and sin among the parsons. It 
 seemed like gross idolatry in them to 
 spend their time in such a manner : 
 but then I thought 'The words of 
 the service aregood.' It then struck 
 me, 'These people draweth nigh 
 unto me with their lips,' tfec- 
 I prayed to God that if the im- 
 pression to go out was from Him, 
 it might increase, if not, that it 
 might go away : it increased till 
 I was quite miserable. I then 
 'Escape for thy life,' (fee. They 
 
 LICHFIELU CATHEDRAL. 
 
 thought to go out, and 
 were singing the Te Deum. 
 
 voice came, 
 
 I took my hat as soon as they had done the 
 
 Te Deum, and went out, and the burden was removed. It looked as if judgments 
 hung over that place. I stopped all afternoon in Lichfield, and such a travail of 
 soul came upon me as I never before experienced, it was for the city ; I mourned 
 greatly ; it seemed as if the people had almost sinned out the day of their visitation. 
 I trembled for the place and people ; O my God, have mercy on them. I asked 
 James Crawfoot at the Forest about this. He said it was the sign of the times. 
 It was Jesus Christ travailing in me. I might go twenty times and not have the 
 same travail. I had found myself willing to die for them. He said something 
 would turn up, either the gospel would be introduced, or afflictions would come 
 upon them." 
 
152 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Market Hall. 
 
 OLD LICHFIELD. 
 St. Mary's Church. Town Hall. " Three Crowns," 
 
 Dr. Johnson's Birth-place. 
 
 LICH FIELD EARLY IN 19TH CENTUIIT. 
 
SOURCES AND ORIGIN. 153 
 
 We have intimated that James Crawfoot's influence on our fathers, though undoubtedly 
 great, was not exclusively for good. He deepened their knowledge of the things of the 
 spirit, but he was the means of their becoming acquainted with " vision-work," as 
 Hugh Bourne called it, and this was at the best a very doubtful advantage. To what 
 extent Crawfoot favoured and was responsible for those singular manifestations which 
 earned for the frequenters of the Forest Chapel the title of Magic Methodists we cannot 
 tell ; but there is no evidence that he disapproved of those manifestations. Rather 
 does the evidence seem to indicate that they were received as tokens of the divine 
 favour and accepted as helps to faith, it was on their first visit to the Forest in 1807 
 that Bourne and Clowes got also their first experience of these strange phenomena. 
 Both note what took place ; but, rather singular to say, it is Hugh Bourne who writes 
 most critically and distrustfully, and he is at the beginning much less prepossessed in 
 favour of the Old Man of the Forest and with Forest ways than is Clowes. Here the 
 matter might end were it not that the Journals clearly show that the time soon came 
 when " the visionary power >J was not confined to the Forest, but was claimed to be 
 exercised by some of those who were in closest relations with Bourne, and later on with 
 Clowes. As a rule, they were the most pious and zealous females who had this 
 experience such as Hannah Mountford. Frequently do we meet with the entry : 
 So and so " went into vision." The word "vision " seems fitter than the word trance 
 to designate the character of the experience professed, because however insensible 
 to outward things the person under seizure might seem to be, she spoke, on coming out 
 of her trance, of the revelations vouchsafed. The most common form the revelations 
 took, was to indicate the true order of precedence enjoyed by the heads of the Church. 
 The visionary seemed to see projected on the spiritual plane the transfigured forms of 
 these chiefs. In one hand they bore the trumpet and in the other the cup the emblems 
 of their office. They were not seen standing in a horizontal line, but one above the 
 other, as though mounted on the rungs of an invisible ladder. Great significance was 
 attached to the position they relatively occupied as seen in the vision, because it served 
 to reveal their real status and condition in the sight of heaven and their value 
 to the little society of the faithful on earth. Did the vision show one with his trumpet 
 lying on the ground and his cup held crooked 1 then such a one was in a parlous state. 
 Now, it is easy to see how such visionary power as this claimed to be could be abused 
 to flatter, or to minister to envy or detraction. One or two additional remarks on this 
 strange episode in this preliminary period may be made. 
 
 Whatever view may be taken of this vision-work 'whether it be regarded as the 
 offspring of enthusiasm and delusion, or the result of imposture, or as consisting of 
 genuine psychical and spiritual experience, or as a mixture of some or all of these 
 still we can learn from these diagrams, which profess to be so many bulletins from the 
 spiritual world, what was the current local estimate of those persons in whom we 
 are historically interested. Well, Lorenzo Dow is always the leading trumpeter - } 
 W. Lockwood, of whom we get occasional tidings and glimpses as a noted Wesleyan 
 preacher in these parts, and who will come before us again very shortly, stands high ; 
 so does J. Crawfoot. Clowes is always above Hugh Bourne, and James Bourne, humble 
 soul, is always pretty near the bottom. If this is not the order of precedence in which 
 
154 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 heaven ranged these men, it certainly was the order in which they were ranged by those- 
 who knew and worked with them on earth. Nor does any one not even Hugh Bourne 
 seem disposed to quarrel with the current estimate ; it is accepted and recorded without 
 demur. Whatever one may think of the vision-work these are facts worth noting. 
 
 Hugh Bourne never professed to go into vision himself, though there is abundant 
 evidence to show that, for a time, he believed both in the genuineness and usefulness, 
 of the manifestations, and once he records his inclination to " seek after the visionary 
 power." There are signs, too, that as time went on, the movement deteriorated in 
 character. As the manifestations became more frequent they tended to become more- 
 extravagant and puerile. They reached their height in 1810-11, and after July, 1811, 
 when the last bulletin was issued we hear no more of them. It only remains to express 
 thankfulness that this mysticism run mad did not end in disaster We suspect it was 
 the downfall of Mrs. Dunnell that ended it ; for with her disappearance the visions- 
 disappeared. The heavily-laden atmosphere was purged of its vapours ; the muddy 
 waters ran themselves clear. By the time the establishment of the Primitive Methodist 
 Connexion is completed, in 1812, we seem to have got into a less romantic region, but 
 into one more in keeping with the hard facts and requirements of the time. Hugh 
 Bourne's native sagacity fully asserts itself, and guided and assisted by the resolute and 
 level-headed Tunstall men the work of discipline and edification will get all needful 
 attention. 
 
 How is it that in closing Hugh Bourne's early Journals the words of the Ecclesiast 
 come unbidden to the mind and refuse to quit " All things are full of labour ; man 
 cannot utter it " ? Perhaps, for one reason, because " labour " is Hugh Bourne's chosen 
 word to denote what is done for God. He might "work" in the fields, but he "laboured" 
 in prayer and for souls. Nature might be stingy and reluctant to yield the due returns- 
 of toil, but not so reluctant as the human heart. Our wonder rises as we try to think 
 of the labour performed by our fathers, even in these preparatory years. As for Bourne, 
 he was always on the move. Like Wesley he went to and fro in the earth, though, of 
 course, his movements were confined within much more restricted limits, and were 
 performed almost exclusively on foot. The miles he walked ! In the Biblical sense 
 he was the father of them who walk to their appointments. In these days of rapid 
 and luxurious locomotion it is hard to grasp the truth as to the long weary trudges he 
 was constantly undertaking in all sorts of weather trudges varied by occasional 
 mischances, such as losing the way, or being benighted on unfamiliar roads. No wonder 
 that, even before this period ends, there are ominous signs that his feet were cruelly 
 wronged and that retribution would come. And what Hugh Bourne did the rest of 
 the Camp Meeting fathers were at whiles wont to do, as the following example selected 
 from the experience of James Bourne will show : 
 
 " Mr. James Bourne has risen early on Saturday morning and worked hard on 
 the farm at Bemersley till noon, and then set off to walk to Warrington and 
 sleep which was thirty-five miles ; then rise early on Sunday and go to Rizley in 
 Lancashire, preach three times, besides holding other services, return into Cheshire 
 to sleep ; then start home early on Monday, and go to hoe potatoes in the heigh- 
 fields in the afternoon ; thus doing near two days' labour on the farm besides an 
 abundance of work for the Lord on the Sabbath, and about eighty miles' walking 
 in the space of three days and two nights."* 
 * Thomas Russell : " The Two Brothers; their Love for, and Help to, each other," 1868, pp. 6, 7. 
 
SOURCES A.XD ORIGIN. 
 
 155 
 
 Here is the record of another hard day's 
 work, in which the brothers and their 
 horse were partners : 
 
 "Sunday, July 10th, 1808. Set off 
 (from Kingsley) early to Wootton, 
 about .seven miles, to appoint a meeting 
 for half-past two. I had then about 
 ten miles to go to Tean, and a hilly 
 cross-country road. However, the Lord 
 gave me strength, and I forced my 
 way ; but was very foot-sore, and quite 
 a stranger to the road. I arrived 
 before James Bourne had read his 
 text ; and the power of the Lord 
 laid hold on part of the congregation. 
 J. Bourne had a horse ; so we rode by 
 turns, and forced our way to Wootton 
 in due time, and we had a pleasant 
 meeting. We then set off home (up- 
 wards of twenty miles) and arrived 
 late." 
 
 Hugh Bourne was a working-man during the greater part of the time covered by 
 these Journals. He could not live on his private means, and he would not live on the 
 bounty of others. So we have many entries which show sometimes in an odd way 
 
 JAMKS BOURNE. 
 
 ABBEY FARM, MILTON. 
 
156 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CIIUKCH. 
 
 how lie combined labouring for the meat which perisheth with the higher kind of 
 
 labour. Take the following as samples : 
 
 " I worked at Milton (Abbey Farm, the home of his grandfather), getting the 
 roof of the barn up, and was kept in peace all the day." " Fasted, read, and worked." 
 "Haymaking and studying Greek." "Prayed in the barn while shading." "In 
 the afternoon I was setting up corn after three scythes, and by working quickly 
 1 often got a little time to kneel behind a ' kiver,' which was well for me. I felt 
 nothing in me that desired anything but God." 
 
 His habits were simple, and he was most abstemious that he might the more fully 
 devote himself to his beloved work. Mr. Thomas Steele, the son of Mr. James Steele 
 of Tunstall, who was in a position to know, confirms this : 
 
 "I know he used frequently to walk forty or fifty miles a day, and that under 
 circumstances of self-denial, little practised, or even known by most. He used to 
 put into his pocket two or three hard-boiled eggs, and a little dry bread, in the 
 morning, and during his journey, he would sit down by a well of water and take 
 his humble fare, and then travel on in pursuit of his great object of winning 
 souls."* 
 
 THOMAS STEELE, 
 SON OF JAMES STEELE. 
 
 WIFE OF 
 THOMAS STEELE. 
 (From a miniature.) 
 
 With the almost patriarchal scene thus called up by Mr. Thomasj Steele, of Bourne 
 sitting by the well, ready, as soon as he has rested and eaten his frugal meal, to address 
 himself to the long journey which awaits him, we may fittingly end this Book, which 
 may be called our Connexional book Genesis. 
 
 * Letter quoted in Walford's " Life," vol. i. p. 210. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE 
 AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 JHE book we now begin will deal with the history of our Church from 1811 
 to the year 1843, when, following the superannuation of Bourne and 
 Clowes in 1842, the General Missionary Committee, with its Executive 
 located in London, was established. The period in question practically 
 covers the lifetime of one generation just as, singular to say, the next or Middle Period 
 of our history also does. During these thirty-two years the Connexion underwent great 
 changes, traversed two serious crises, encountered much opposition, and yet at the end 
 had a record of progress to show almost without a parallel. What was the ground it 
 covered in 1811 the first written plans show: in 1843 it had reached almost every county 
 of England, and some in Wales, had penetrated into Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, 
 and the Channel Isles, and had even sent one or two of its missionaries to the United 
 States. The 200 members it began with in 1811 had by 1843 grown to 85,625. 
 
 But the real history of a period like this cannot be confined to a mere chronological 
 narrative setting forth the facts of geographical extension and numerical growth. Such 
 a, narrative only gives materials for history which after all has mainly to do with the 
 interaction of causes, and especially with the play and interplay of mind. Let us, 
 therefore, briefly indicate some of the salient features of the internal and external 
 History of our Church (other than the progress made during this period), which will 
 challenge our attention as we proceed. 
 
 The chief outstanding feature of the period that which gives it its distinctive 
 character, is the part played by leading circuits in the life and work of the Connexion. 
 In the century's evolution of our Church we have had in turn the flourishing and 
 energising of the Circuit, the District, the Church ; just as in the order of 
 Nature, we have " first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." At first 
 the Connexion was co-extensive with Tunstall Circuit. From 1816 to 1818 there were 
 two circuits, Tunstall and Derby (the latter being superseded by Nottingham Circuit 
 in 1817) ; and from 1818 to 1819 there were three Tunstall, Nottingham, and 
 Loughborough. Hugh Bourne may be said to have been the chief unifying bond 
 between the circuits during this rudimentary period. He was appointed superin- 
 tendent of Tunstall Circuit in 1814, and when the other circuits were formed he kept 
 on discharging the duties of the office, holding the quarterly meetings and exercising 
 discipline and oversight in much the same way as does a Presiding Elder of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. When Hugh Bourne's health failed at the 
 beginning of 1819 as well it might, considering the physical and mental strain this 
 general superintendence involved there followed (post hoc, though probably not propter 
 
16() PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 hoc) the establishment of Annual Meetings or Conferences constituted on the repre- 
 sentative principle. The first and not the least important of these, though called only 
 a Preparatory Meeting, was held at Nottingham in 1819. Thus the memorable year of 
 Peterloo may conveniently be taken as marking the end of a sub-period of our history. 
 From this time onwards to 1843 there was little centralisation. The circuits had great 
 powers of initiative and control, and some of them by boldly and wisely exercising these 
 powers acquired great influence. Like the tribes of Israel they had the work assigned 
 them of subjugating the land, and by means of the Circuit Missions, which were so 
 distinctive a feature of the time, quite remarkable results were achieved so remarkable 
 indeed as to start the questions whether we have not lost as well as gained by 
 centralisation, and whether we should not do well to revert in part to the method 
 which was crowned with such signal success in the heroic period of our history. 
 
 But the period before us was one of striking contrasts. If it may rightly be regarded 
 as the Heroic Period of our history since, with the slenderest means and appliances and 
 in the face of difficulties neither few nor small so much was accomplished, it may also 
 with equal truth be regarded as having been the period of the Connexion's Lowliness and 
 Humiliation. Our fathers must surely have divined what was before them when they 
 put on the first class-ticket of the Connexion the words : " For as concerning this 
 sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against." The words were prophetic, and 
 might appropriately enough have served as our motto from 1811 to 1843. It was the 
 " Ranter " period, for by that opprobrious word we were better known than by the 
 name that rightly belonged to us. We know nothing of all this. Even our fathers 
 scarcely came within the range of such experience ; for in the forties the denomination 
 was emerging from the valley, winning a recognised position and seeking to minister 
 to the enlarging needs of those whom it had rescued and elevated and gathered into 
 church fellowship. But their fathers had passed through the valley and tasted of its 
 humiliation. If, therefore, we would denominationally " see ourselves as others saw 
 us" then, it can only be done in the historical way. We must seek to catch the 
 reflection of the current estimate of us and our work found here and there in the 
 cyclopaedias, and other books and serials of the time. These scant references are all of 
 the same cast and tone. If they do not speak against they speak as from a higher 
 elevation downwards. All, whether friendly or otherwise and quite as much when 
 they are friendly as when they are unfriendly take for granted that our work lies 
 amongst "the ruder of the lower class;"* "the neglected and the forgotten " f ; that 
 it is "to labour on the great waste of poverty, ignorance, and crime, whose moral 
 cultivation is to a considerable extent neglected by others." J The fact that later on 
 such statements became traditional and continued to be parroted long after they had 
 ceased to be wholly correct or pertinent does not alter the fact that once they were 
 true to the letter. What all men said about our mission and work, though in different 
 tones and from opposite motives, must have been largely correct. The facts must have 
 been as stated, and could not well have been otherwise. That we had a dispensation of 
 
 * Dr. Evans' " Sketches of all Denominations." 
 t John Angell James, 
 t Dr. John Campbell. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 161 
 
 the Gospel to the veriest of the poor given unto us as a people was accordant with the 
 highest probabilities. It must have been so if we had a right to the name we bore. 
 If we were to make good our claim to have returned to the spirit and methods of early 
 Methodism it was to be expected that the resemblance would not stop here, but that 
 we should be found doing as she then did ministering to the people who were 
 " perishing for lack of knowledge," exciting the same opprobrium and receiving the 
 same treatment. If we inherited her spirit it was meet we should enter into her 
 labours and be requited even as she had been requited.* Even if every line of print 
 referring to us and our work prior to 1843 had been blotted out, any one might have 
 known where to find us ; for where else should we be but at the very foundation-beds 
 of the national life, then so sadly out of course as to threaten ruin to the entire super- 
 structure ? 
 
 As might be expected from what has just been said, the period before us was 
 distinctively the Period of Persecution. Persecution and the period seem indeed exactly 
 to coincide, for the last two cases of the imprisonment of our ministers for preaching 
 the Gospel occurred in 1843. But, though the first period of our history seems sombre 
 enough as we write of its humiliation, its poverty and persecution, we must remember 
 what has been said as to the striking contrasts this period affords. One such contrast 
 emerges here the contrast of joy with tribulation. Our fathers were not, any more 
 than the early Methodists were, men of sad hearts and rueful countenances, and we 
 cannot bring ourselves to think of them as such. Their souls were "full of music," as 
 Clowes said his was. Sometimes they might sing to keep their spirits up, and so we 
 may now and again detect a plaintive note in their music. But nevertheless they made 
 the valley of humiliation resound with their songs, and any one overhearing them 
 might have made the same comment as did Mr. Greatheart when the shepherd-boy was 
 heard singing in the valley : 
 
 " Here little, and hereafter bliss, 
 Is best from age to age." 
 
 "Do you hear them? I will dare to say that these people have a merrier life, and 
 wear more of that herb called hearts-ease in their bosom, than they that are clad in silk 
 and velvet." In truth, the period was pre-eminently one of sacred song. Our fathers 
 sang at their work like Adam Bede ; they sang in prison like Paul and Silas ; and the 
 strains of their camp-meeting hymns floated in the air, and the echoes of those hymns 
 have entered into literature, and to-day we are as it were present with William Howitt 
 " in the dusk of a summer evening, the moon hanging in the far western sky, the 
 dark leaves of the brook-side alders rustling in the twilight air, while the chorused 
 words of ' All is well ! ' ' All is well ! ' come from the camp ground over the shadowy 
 waste with an unearthly effect." t Yes, " All was well ! " 
 
 * ; ' While the successors of the Wesleyan preachers who formerly sought out colliers and miners 
 are now faithfully preaching the Gospel to their well-established societies, the Primitive Methodists, 
 a body already (1842) numbering perhaps 70,000 members, are principally performing the very 
 work, so far as it is performed at all, which Wesleyan Methodism once accomplished." Dr. Durbin : 
 " Observations in Europe." 
 
 t " Rural Life in England." 
 
 M 
 
162 . PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 We shall be ill-advised if we deny or resent or apologise for the statement once so 
 insistently made, that we were the Church for the neglected and the forgotten. The 
 estimate, though it looks like a reproach, is really only the obverse of a compliment. 
 We just turn the medal and lo ! we have something to be glad and thankful for. We 
 see a new meaning in the Apostle's words : " Let the brother of low degree glory in his 
 high estate." When men said that our special mission was to the poor, the ignorant, 
 the degraded, perhaps going the length of intimating that for every Primitive Methodist 
 won there was one drunkard, or profligate, or criminal the less,* they could only 
 conclude that our mission was to do this kind of work because they saw us doing it. 
 They had not, and did not pretend to have, any revelation from heaven as to what our 
 mission was. What was the characteristic and the glory of our early history can be 
 learned from others : they are our witnesses. We were down amongst the Luddites 
 and Levellers, the oppressed and almost despairing agricultural labourers, the miners 
 struggling for the rights of labour and the dues of citizenship. And so our history is 
 also partially written in the history of the time.f We helped the nation to tide over its 
 crises. For all who have written of the period before us have admitted that never was 
 the nation in a more critical condition. They marvel that revolution was averted, that 
 the proletariat, the unfranchised, the victims of industrial changes, heavy taxation and 
 oppressive laws were so patient, and somehow turned aside from unprincipled agitators 
 and chose the path of peaceful reform. They cannot understand it. It was contrary to 
 the precedents of history to what was happening on the Continent. All the omens 
 were unfavourable, and yet a happy issue was found out of all these national troubles. 
 Puzzled to account for this they fall back for an explanation on an abstraction^" the 
 order-loving genius of the Teutonic race;" but even while they are doing this they slip 
 in some such qualifying words as " inspired by Christian teaching," words which one 
 thinks make a considerable'difference, and at once start the question : " Who were the 
 teachers, and how did they bring their teaching practically to bear on the people 1 " If 
 a new ethical spirit and direction were given to the democracy of the time who 
 more likely to have infused that spirit and given the needful impact and guidance than 
 that community which'&en, whatever be the case now, everybody affirmed was in closest 
 touch with the neglected classes ? If it were not so, then all that need be said is that 
 there must be a widespread recantation and wholesale eating of words. 
 
 * Horace Mann. 
 
 t Fairbairn's " Religion in History and in the Life of To-day," pp. 14, 15 might be advantageously 
 referred to in this connection. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 163 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CONSOLIDATION AND THE TUNSTALL NON-MISSION LAW. 
 
 JOHN WEDGWOOD. 
 
 IF we are under the illusion that Primitive Methodism entered at on.ce upon 
 a career of swift and uninterrupted advance, going forth " conquering and 
 to conquer," the illusion will be quickly dispelled ; for, in sober trutli, the 
 first few years immediately succeeding 1811 were not marked by any 
 considerable geographical extension or numerical progress. In a certain way statistics 
 show this, and a partial explanation of the fact will disclose itself as we proceed with 
 our narrative. Our Church, like every other, has not been exempt from seasons of 
 lassitude ; it has had its periods of pause and retardment. So we have yet for a little 
 while to do with the edification of improvement rather than with the edification 
 of enlargement ; to chronicle what the Connexion did towards consolidating and 
 equipping itself rather than follow it in a rapid course of conquest. 
 
 There is an unaccountable break in Hugh Bourne's Journals from February 13th, 
 1812, where he records the taking of the denominational name to February 7th, 1813 ; 
 nor do we get much help from Clowes' Journal because of its lack of chronological 
 arrangement and the absence of dates. In his History Hugh Bourne briefly sums 
 up the year thus : " The work kept enlarging [i.e., within the old area], and the 
 
 Connexion went on in a kind of regular way without 
 much variation throughout the year." Reading this, one 
 is tempted to exclaim, " What ! has the reign of routine 
 begun thus early? Day after day does nothing happen 
 that is startling or worth recording!" Not so. We 
 may be sure if they did no more than fulfil their planned 
 appointments the preachers would find labour enough, 
 and their days would not pass without incident. In 
 proof of this we turn to the Journals of our chief 
 founders where ' the name of a remarkable man one of 
 the men of special type who seem to have been raised up 
 to do a special work is first brought before us, and if it 
 be true that the early part of the year 1813 saw John 
 Wedgwood, a local preacher on trial, then something was 
 being done for the future of the Connexion not only in 
 the Midlands but in the Cheshire region as well. 
 
 As a prominent and lasting memorial of his usefulness 
 in this latter district there stands in Crewe that town of phenomenally rapid growth 
 
 M2 
 
 JOHN WEDGWOOD. 
 
164 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 a goodly building, bearing on its front the inscription, Wedgwood Primitive Methodist 
 
 Chapel, 18fi5. 
 
 i Diligent inquiry has failed to reward 
 
 us with a clear outline of Wedgwood's 
 early life, as seems to have been the 
 case with all previous biographers. The 
 following facts about him, gleaned from 
 various sources, may, however, be relied 
 upon. He was a scion of the famous 
 family to which Clowes also belonged. 
 As a youth he followed the potting 
 business, becoming expert and able to 
 earn good wages as a " thrower." His 
 father lived "near Tunstall," and had 
 houses and land, which, by its richness 
 in minerals, made up for any lack of 
 amplitude or poverty of soil. Being 
 the eldest son, John inherited property 
 which to the end he krew and cared 
 little about managing either in his own 
 interests or, as a trustee, in the interests 
 of others. Still, being in easy worldly 
 circumstances, he was afterwards enabled 
 as a missionary to bear his own charges. 
 Little is known as to the time and 
 circumstances of his conversion. We 
 gather that he occasionally attended the 
 ministrations of his uncle, who was 
 a clergyman ir Burslem ; but, not being 
 a bigot, he went to hear other ministers, 
 and amongst them Mr. Miller, under 
 whose ministry his heart was touched. 
 He seems to have occupied a place 
 midway between Hugh Bourne and 
 Clowes in relation to sinful pleasures, 
 having for them neither the utter 
 distaste of the one nor the relish and 
 addictedness of the other. It is inter- 
 esting to know from his own words that 
 an earlier edition of the same little book 
 which John Smith, the fervid evangelist 
 of East Anglia, was so fond of and 
 
 
 WEUGWOOL) MEMORIAL CHAPEL, CREWE. 
 
 indebted to, had its influence in deepening his conviction, for he writes* : 
 
 * Our engraving is from John Smith's own copy, now in the possession of the Rtv. F. B. Paston, 
 and kindly lent. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 165 
 
 " Oh ! if I had only been mindful of the humbling power I felt when reading 
 Russel's ' Seven Sermons ' and the epitaph in Burslem churchyard, I might very 
 soon have been brought to Christ, and have known the power and felt the blessings 
 of conversion." 
 
 The reading of Paine's " Age of 
 Reason " dropped another baneful in- 
 gredient into his cup of bitterness ; then 
 he fell under the influence of Hyper- 
 Calvinists and was tortured with doubts 
 as to whether he were among the elect. 
 
 EN 
 
 SERMONS, 
 
 VIZ. 
 
 I. Of the Unpardonable 
 Sin against the HOLY 
 GHOST: or, The Sin onto 
 Death. 
 
 II. The Saint's Duty 
 and Exercise : In two 
 Parts. Being an Exhor- 
 tation to, and Direction 
 for Prayer. 
 
 III. The AcceptedTime, 
 and Day of Salvation* 
 
 IV. The End of Time, 
 and the Beginning f 
 Eternity. 
 
 V. Joshua's Resolution 
 to serve the Lord. 
 
 l>ut at last, in 1809, when he was 
 twenty-one years of age deliverance 
 came, and when it did come he let all 
 his little world know about it : 
 
 VI. The Way to Heavea 
 made Plain. 
 
 VII. The Future State 
 of Manj or, a Treatise 
 of the Resurrection. 
 
 - 
 
 J3v ROBERT RUSSEL, 
 
 At Wadkurst, in Sussex. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, CORRECTED. 
 
 Printed 4>y and for TROMAS Wusoj* and So.v 
 
 " Oh what a wonderful change ! 
 What words can express it ! ' My 
 dungeon flamed with light.' I was 
 just like one let out of prison ! My 
 heavy burden was gone ! My soul, 
 before bound with strong chains of 
 sin and unbelief, was now com- 
 pletely free ! Almost frantic with 
 joy, I leaped and shouted aloud, 
 ' Come all ye that fear God, and 
 I will tell what He hath done for 
 my soul.' Some supposed that 1 was 
 boside myself ; but had I not given 
 praise to my Great Deliverer might 
 not the very stones have found 
 a voice to upbraid me for such 
 ingratitude 1 " * 
 
 Evidence as to the particular Church 
 he united with whether even he united 
 with any there is none ; but certainly it is a conjecture one likes to think of as true that 
 the Wedgwood whose name appears with Clowes' in a footnote on the Burslem plans for 
 1809-10, as authorised to take appointments, may be our John Wedgwood f But we 
 have more reliable data at hand as to Wedgwood's early labours among the Primitive 
 Methodists ; for Mrs. Bembridge, writing as late as 1869, records her remembrance 
 of having, as Sarah Kirkland, heard him preach at Mercaston, her home, about the year 
 1812. She says: "We understood that he had met with very much opposition 
 from his friends when seeking the Lord, but that he stood firm through it all. He 
 preached at several other villages round us, was well received, and much good was 
 done." Hugh Bourne also under date, March 12th, 1813, notes that he had called 
 
 * Quoted in " Memoir of the Life and Labours of Mr. John Wedgwood," by a Layman (Thos. 
 Bateman), 1870, p. 44. 
 t See ante p. 91. 
 
 1814. 
 
166 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 MERCASTON FIRST PREACHING-PLACE. 
 
 at Norton and learned that Wedgwood had "preached with good acceptance." By the 
 
 summer of 1813 it is evident the Primitive fathers had learned the value of Wedgwood 
 
 as a camp-meeting labourer since Clowes, who is due at a camp meeting on the borders 
 
 of Staffordshire, naturally thinks it will be well to secure the company and help of this 
 
 new recruit to the cause. He therefore calls at the home of the Wedgwood's on 
 
 the Saturday, and finds John quite characteristically praying aloud in his room for the 
 
 unconverted members of his family, while 
 
 the head of that family is perhaps quite as 
 
 characteristically at the door of his son's 
 
 chamber bidding him be quiet. The rest had 
 
 better be told in Clowes' own words ; to 
 
 condense the narrative would but spoil it. It 
 
 is a vivid travel-picture relating to the highland 
 
 region in the neighbourhood of Leek, and 
 
 has this additional interest for us that it was 
 
 in a lonely farm-house on this same Morridge 
 
 that Joseph Wood, D.D., first General Sunday 
 
 MERCASTON CHAPEL. 
 
 School Secretary, a President of Conference, and Principal of Manchester College, first 
 
 aaw the hght We wHl only add, as we see Wedgwood and Clowes setting out, 
 
 t would have been well, considering where Clowes was going and who was hfc 
 
 mpanion, it ne had taken the precaution of - ~ ' .. . - 
 
 on many a darksome journey. 
 
 with eoa 
 
 on the road 
 
 r 6 } we preached to all that we met 
 
 day began to wear away. I warned John that we ought 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 167 
 
 to hasten on our journey, as we had a large common to pass over. But it was to 
 no purpose ; John's zeal for souls overcame his prudence ; accordingly, as 1 had 
 feared and intimated, we found ourselves utterly lost upon the common in the 
 approaching darkness of the night. We knew nothing in what direction to 
 
 DR. WOOD'S BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 proceed, for we found we were up to the knees in the moss and ling which grow on 
 the moor. We tried to grope our way with our sticks ; but after wandering for 
 some time we came to the edge of a large sheet of water which is called the 
 Blackmere of Morridge. I perceived we were now in considerable danger. I there- 
 fore shouted with all my might, ' Lost ! lost ! lost ! '. 
 Brother Wedgwood wished me to be silent ; for, he said, 
 if anybody heard us that were evil-disposed they would 
 have every opportunity to do us mischief. I thought 
 there was some wisdom in his advice, so I desisted crying 
 out ' Lost.' We went on in a straight line until we came 
 to a stone wall, and then we proceeded along until we 
 came to a gate, over which we climbed, and there Brother 
 Wedgwood lay down, intending to remain all night, as 
 he despaired of finding the way till the morning. But 
 I would not lie down, because the ground was very wet. 
 I therefore began again to cry, ' Lost ! lost ! lost ! ' and 
 in a short time, in the distance, we saw a light, and 
 shortly heard the trampling of feet and the barking of 
 a dog. I shouted again, but no answer was returned ; 
 so we began to conclude that enemies were advancing 
 upon us ; we therefore took to our heels and ran. We 
 soon reached a wall, over which I climbed, and fell down 
 
 CLOWES' LANTERN. . -1,1 j j Wr J J 
 
 a considerable way on the other side, and Wedgwood came 
 
 after me. I arose, and as we ran we heard the dog and some persons pursuing. 
 In a short time we came to another wall ; I tried to get to the top of it, but it gave 
 way and down came the wall and I together. However, we continued our flight 
 until a wall or fence of some sort obstructed us again. I got over it ; but on the 
 
168 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 opposite side there was a deep 
 ditch ; I therefore endeavoured 
 to slide down to the bottom, 
 and was not hurt ; and 
 onwards we ran, totally 
 ignorant whither we were 
 going or what dangers were 
 awaiting us. At last, when 
 nearly exhausted, we, on a 
 sudden, found ourselves in 
 
 BLACKMERE HOUSE. 
 
 this deliverance. We were told 
 by the people that we had 
 certainly escaped destruction by 
 miracle, for the precipices and 
 moss-pits were numerous, and 
 where we first saw the light 
 there was a house the inmates 
 of which bore a very bad 
 
 BLACKMEKK HOUSE, WITH 
 MOOR BEHIND. 
 
 a farmyard. We hastened to 
 the farm-house, and having 
 conversed with the people we 
 found them to be relations to 
 my wife. Never did my heart 
 feel more thankful than for 
 
 
 CANNOCK LANE PREACHING-HOUSE, WHERE 
 SAMPSON TURNER WAS CONVERTED. 
 
 character ; and as we were 
 pursued there was no doubt 
 but that they would have either 
 robbed or murdered us had they 
 caught us" (Clowes' Journals, 
 pp. 112-114). 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 169 
 
 And this was how preachers went to their camp-meeting appointments in the Tunstall 
 Circuit in the period when " things went on in a regular way without much variation ! " 
 
 Later in the same year, July 17th, 1813, Hugh Bourne has jotted down that he set 
 off with John Wedgwood to Cannock Wood for the morrow's camp meeting. They 
 had a journey of thirty-one miles to do in a swelteringly hot day, and yet, though they 
 were much fatigued and tried in mind, fearing there would be few people at the camp 
 meeting, they threw themselves heartily into the prayer meeting of preparation held in 
 the evening and "came into faith." On the Sunday the services opened at eight 
 o'clock, being supported by William Clowes, Bichard Weston, Samuel Simcock, and 
 William Hollins, as well as Hugh Bourne and John Wedgwood. At night Clowes 
 preached at John Linney's, and " had an uncommon time." On Monday the two 
 restepped the thirty-one miles, and Bourne stopped the night with Wedgwood and 
 " laboured much with the family ; " not, he trusts, altogether in vain. We have 
 referred to Cannock Wood the more in this connection because that place was the 
 home of the Turners, so often tenderly referred to in the Journals of our founders. By 
 
 SAMPSON TLKNKK. M KS. SAMPSON TfKNEK (IN OLD AGE). 
 
 the time the camp meeting was held, father, mother, two daughters, and a son had 
 been converted. This son was Sampson Turner, who was to enter the ministry in 1819, 
 and commence a career of usefulness, which was doubled after his happy marriage with 
 Mary Edwards, herself a most acceptable preacheress. Sampson Turner became one of 
 the original members of the Deed-poll, and he and his saintly wife survived " still to 
 bring forth fruit," rich and mellow, in extreme age. 
 
 RULE-MAKING. 
 
 Consolidation in its application to Rules is a compound idea with which in the course 
 of years we have grown familiar. But perhaps the most remarkable instance of rule- 
 making and rule-consolidation that has ever taken place in our annals was that which 
 occurred in 1813-14. The members of the new community did not want to be ruleless 
 or a " law unto themselves." They seemed to fear the " weight of too much liberty," 
 and to long for a freedom regulated by law. Thus as had been the case with the 
 introduction of class-tickets and the payment of the ministry, the movement in the 
 
170 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 direction of rules came from the people themselves. The desire and the demand for 
 the drawing up of rules and regulations for the whole body found expression at the 
 March Quarterly Meeting, 1813. Whereupon a committee consisting of James Steele, 
 E. McEvoy, and Hugh Bourne were instructed to draft a series of regulations and 
 submit them to the Midsummer Meeting. The committee, however, relinquished the 
 task as too heavy for it, and the Quarterly Meeting had to content itself with grumbling 
 that the work assigned had not been done, and to insist that it should at once be taken 
 in hand. When October came there was no further progress to report; whereupon 
 urgency Avas declared, a draft of the rules was ordered to be prepared immediately and 
 read by the preachers to every society, and all objections and suggested improvements 
 to be brought in writing to the next Quarterly Meeting. Thus put upon his mettle, 
 Hugh Bourne seems to have called up his peculiar law-making ability. With 
 
 CIX3UD CHAPEL. 
 
 characteristic earnestness he set to work upon the draft which unmistakably bears 
 the marks of his hand. Not content with this, he visited almost every member of the 
 united societies and made a note of their objections and suggested amendments. The 
 result was laid before the Quarterly Meeting of January 3rd, 1814, and what remained 
 after the brethren assembled had worked their editorial will upon it, was ordered to be 
 printed forthwith and distributed. Of these Rules, v -which were from the people, for the 
 people, and by the people, we feel that Hugh BourneVds perfectly justified in remarking 
 as he does in his History : 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 171 
 
 " It is probable there never was an instance of rules being made in the way these 
 were. They were considered as the work of the whole Connexion ; there being 
 scarce a member but gave his opinion on them before they were completed. And 
 it is not very often that the making of rules is accompanied with so much prayer 
 and supplication to Almighty God." 
 
 Joint productions of this kind, from kings' speeches downwards, are proverbially 
 unsatisfactory. Many minds and many fingers often make a botch. But we are bound 
 to say of these rules so singularly prepared, that they are well drafted, quite remarkable 
 for their agreement with Scriptural principles, are pervaded by a liberal spirit, and lay 
 down a broad basis for a democratic Church in fact, the basis laid down is broader 
 than we have been quite able to cover. This first draft of Rules remains in part 
 a something still to be achieved. We have not space to do more than give one 
 quotation, in which may be seen embedded a sentence from Wesley's sermon on " The 
 Trinity," which left its abiding influence on Bourne. In this single quotation, however 
 
 T. BAYLEY. 
 
 Mil. ABNER DALE, J.P. 
 
 The oldest Member and Official of Cloud. 
 
 may be caught the spirit humane, pitiful, brotherly which, breathes through the 
 whole of the Rules ; and surely it was well and of good omen that this spirit was thus 
 early recognised as the " right spirit " for Church members to have and cultivate. For 
 no other spirit would have availed to inspire and upbear those who had to summon to 
 their fellowship the neglected and outcast of both Church and State. 
 
 " It is therefore the business and duty of every member in every station (3) to 
 have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, without respect of 
 persons. Putting away all bigotry and narrow-mindedness ; not lightly esteeming 
 others on account of difference in opinion ; for ' it is certain that opinion is not 
 religion, not even right opinion.' And God is no respecter of persons ; but in 
 
172 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 every nation, he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with 
 Him; and the Highest is kind unto the unthankful, and to the evil. Therefore 
 walk in wisdom toward them th:it are without, and honour all men, highly 
 esteeming pious people of all denominations ; and endeavour to make this society 
 a blessing unto all people. 'For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which 
 is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister and mother.'" 
 
 CONSOLIDATION : BRICKS AND MORTAR. 
 
 The process of consolidation going on at this time quite naturally and of necessity 
 took a material form, and we have to notice the erection of several chapels ranking 
 
 among the first built in the 
 Connexion. For that reason 
 they deserve brief mention. 
 Tunstall and Talke chapels 
 have already been referred to, 
 as erected in 1811 and 1813 
 respectively ; one at Cloud in 
 the same vicinage was soon 
 to follow. There is indeed 
 a tradition that Cloud can 
 dispute with Tunstall the claim 
 to priority of erection ; but the 
 claim must be disallowed, as 
 the deed which bears the date 
 May 12th, 1815, specifies that 
 on the land given by William 
 Clowes (no relative of the 
 Founder) the parties " are 
 building and erecting, etc." 
 More reliable tradition has 
 handed down the facts that 
 Thomas Bayley begged the 
 money for the chapel in three 
 days, and that the chapel itself 
 was built in three weeks. 
 Cloud shares with Turnditch 
 the distinction of being the 
 oldest ehapel now in use. 
 The last deed of Cloud dating 
 from 1826 has a peculiar 
 clause : 
 
 "It vests the estate 
 in Richard Mitchell, James 
 
 KOCESTER CHAPEL. Shufflebottom, Thomas 
 
 NOW turned into Two Cottages. Bayley, James Bayley, and 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIKCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 173 
 
 KOCESTER CHAPEL DEED. 
 
 (7 
 
 
 
 / 
 
174 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 James Bourne " and all such men as do now or shall at any time hereafter 
 
 reside at Cloud aforesaid or within one mile thereof, who shall be members of 
 the Primitive Methodist Connexion, members on trial always excepted." 
 
 We now turn once more to the Churnet Valley. At the lowest part of the valley 
 between the Churnet and far-famed Dove lies Rocester with its dim memories of 
 Roman occupation and its modem " production of cotton-yarns." When Hugh Bourne 
 first visited Rocester on March 13th, 1811, in company with Mrs. Dunnell, he 
 pronounced it "a wicked place; we had," says he, "no acquaintance; but the Lord 
 opened the way." After its formation the feeble society was harassed by sectarian 
 meddlesomeness. Another denomination had formerly held services in the place, but 
 had discontinued them. A person from Doveridge belonging to this denomination cast 
 a jealous eye on the movements of the new society. He got the ear of the cotton 
 magnate of the place who was over-persuaded to prohibit the holding of services in any 
 house belonging to him, and to threaten with dismissal any of his workpeople who 
 should persist in attending the services. The society reduced to straits resorted to 
 prayer, and in a short time the interdict was removed. But the meddlesome man from 
 Doveridge drew away a part of the society and got possession of the preaching-room. 
 Hu^h Bourne himself tells the story,* and it may parenthetically be observed here that 
 stories of sectarian jealousy and intermeddling of this kind occur with painful 
 frequency in the early annals of our Church. Opposition from professors as well as 
 profane had too often to be reckoned with. But some of the Rocester society remained 
 firm, and amongst them Hannah Woodward, one of the magnate's employees who 
 before had braved dismissal. Through her instrumentality the daughter of Thomas Mace 
 with whom she lodged was converted, and soon the whole of the family. The cause 
 continued to prosper; so much so, that on July 16th, 1813, the deed of a new chapel 
 was executed. As this deed is unique, being probably the earliest which vests 
 a chapel in duly appointed trustees, it is reproduced here. On it will be found the 
 signatures of several persons now familiar to us. 
 
 THE DERBYSHIRE OUTPOSTS. 
 
 At this time, 1813-14, a group of Derbyshire hamlets and villages is Primitive 
 Methodistically the focal point of interest. This district is that which Mrs. Dunnell 
 helped to mission and to wheedle for that is not too strong a word for the influence 
 which that clever but misguided woman exerted upon these honest and hearty 
 Derbyshire folk. The societies of the Derbyshire Mission were alienated from the 
 Camp Meeting Methodists for a time, and are not therefore represented on the 1811 
 plans. But the alienation was but temporary, and on the first printed plan of 1812 we 
 find Hollington, Boylestone, and Rodsley. It is now this region rather than the 
 Churnet Valley that forms on this side the marches of the denomination. Here are 
 planted its outposts, and if advance is made it will be in this direction. As we note 
 the frequent presence of the leaders ; Hugh Bourne organising from Hulland his Tract 
 
 * In a note attached to the Memoir of Hannah Woodward in the Magazine for 1836, Hannah 
 Woodward afterwards removed to the neighbourhood of Hanging Bridge, and became leader of two 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 175 
 
 Society Mission, and starting and equipping Sunday Schools here and there amongst 
 the villages ; as we see enthusiasm rising, catch the hum of preparation, and feel that 
 the religious atniospheie is full of expectation, we may safely prognosticate that while 
 a good deal is already going on much more will shortly happen. 
 
 Boylestone has been mentioned. Now Boylestone is only a scattered village of some 
 two hundred souls, and yet the new evangel found here congenial soil and gripped it. 
 For proof, see that plain, brick chapel with its three windows, the adherents of the new 
 cause built for themselves as early as 1811 ! No denominational name was inscribed 
 on its front, for the good reason that as yet there was no denominational name to 
 inscribe. So "1811" was all the name-plate told, until the primeval chapel was in 
 1846 superseded by a better one. 
 
 To Boylestone also belongs the distinction of having with Hugh Bourne's help begun, 
 on February 27th, 1814, what was probably the first Sunday School in Primitive 
 
 MUGGINTON CHURCHYARD. 
 
 Methodism ; and when in 1844 the parish clergyman refused to have at the National 
 School those children who attended the Primitive Methodist Sunday School, these 
 Boylestone men said: "Very good: then we'll start a day school of our own" 
 which they did. To make it a free school N. Tunstall and Messrs. Morley became 
 responsible for 15 per annum, and Miss Elizabeth Smith of Derby was found willing 
 to do the work for that sum, supplemented as it was by the gifts in kind of 
 the appreciative parents. Such an example of public spirit and adherence to principle 
 it is a pleasure to record. 
 
 Rodsley and Hollington are but two small townships in the parish of Longford, yet 
 
176 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 they stand side by side on the plans of this time, and are of some account in our early 
 annals. It was in a stream near Rodsley perhaps Shirley Brook Clowes found the 
 body of the old man whom, when visiting a few days before, he had urged to go to 
 the preaching service and warned that before " the next time " came of which the old 
 man spoke he might be in eternity. The drowning of " old Ned Carter " of Rodsley 
 in returning from Leek Wake is said to have suggested the drowning scene in " Adam 
 Bede." 
 
 In the neighbourhood of these two places lived and died Hannah Yeomans, one who 
 deservedly holds a place in the gallery of " The Lowly Heroes and Heroines of Primitive 
 Methodism." She lived in a one-storied cottage of two rooms, with a lean-to pantry ; 
 she was a plain, unsophisticated countrywoman, with ruddy face and grey hair ; her 
 garb was of rustic fashion and texture, and she spoke the dialect of the countryside. 
 Yet she kept high company, as her prayers so reverently familiar showed ; and her life, 
 lowly placed though it was, exhaled a fragrance sweet and penetrating as the violet's. It 
 was through her influence that the vicar of the parish and his lady were brought to the 
 discovery that there was something in religion Hannah Yeomans had and they had not. 
 Hannah became Priscilla to this Apollos, whose gifts qualified him for the honourable 
 position of Chaplain to the House of Commons. But the vicar always remembered 
 Hannah Yeomans, and counted it a privilege to pay regular visits to the cottage, and 
 there "prayer was wont to be made." Hannah rests, we are told, in an obscure grave 
 a grave marked by no headstone. More is the pity it should be so. We want some 
 " Old Mortalities " among us ; not to pick the encroaching obliterating moss from the 
 enchiselled lettering, but rather to see to it that our lowly saints shall not lack their 
 stone of remembrance. 
 
 Mercaston and Weston-Underwood have Mugginton for their parish church ; and in 
 its ancient graveyard, with its yew-tree, there lies some " bonnie dust." Sarah Bembridge 
 
 and William Bembridge, her husband; William and 
 Mary Ride ; George Warren, the subject of Rev. J. 
 Barfoot's " Piety behind the Plough ; " John and 
 Robert Beeston ; Edmund Fearns what is mortal of 
 these lies in Mugginton Churchyard. Of the first- 
 named, a few words must be said. To the Connexion's 
 first female preacher calm, modest, capable, tender; 
 pioneer missionary to Derby and Nottingham, and 
 with her husband as true yoke-fellow, one of the 
 foundation-builders of the powerful Hull Circuit to 
 such a woman something more is due than the mere 
 mention of her name. 
 
 Sarah Kirkland was born at Mercaston in 1794. 
 For some years the Wesleyans held preaching services 
 in her father's (Rowland Kirkland) house. One of 
 these services she had cause long to remember, for 
 the preacher, William Bramwell, noticing the presence 
 JOHN BAKFOOT. of children, made special mention of them in his 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 177 
 
 prayers. She was impressed, even to tears, by the prayer of the man of God. But 
 the impression gradually faded ; for the services were withdrawn, to the grievous 
 moral detriment of the place. So marked was the deterioration, and so far did it go, 
 
 that Mercaston came to be known as " Hell 
 Green." In 1811, Hugh Bourne visited 
 Mercaston, and while at Rowland Kirkland's 
 house, as was his way, he spoke to the girl of 
 the home as though she too had a soul that 
 was worth saving. Then at the tea-table 
 he prayed for each and all. The faded 
 impressions were revived ; the habit of prayer 
 resumed ; worldly amusements forgone ; her 
 maiden finery laid aside ; and before long 
 she found peace in her own bed-chamfeer. 
 She received her first class- ticket at the hands 
 of William Clowes, and was led by him into 
 the blessing of full salvation ; was proposed 
 for the plan in September, 1813; took her 
 first appointment at Sutton-on-the-Hill, and 
 had as the fruit of her maiden effort a gipsy- 
 convert belonging to a band just then encamped 
 in the locality. Often after this, when 
 Sarah Avas missioning in the neighbourhood 
 where the roving band happened to be, it is 
 said the gipsy-youth would do the work of 
 a herald for the girl-preacher. Swift-footed, 
 he would traverse the country-side : "A young 
 
 woman is going to preach at . I have heard her." Here he would shortly tell 
 
 what the Lord had done for him through her. "Come and hear her for yourselves." 
 Prior to this date, however, the Kirkland home had been turned into a house of 
 mourning, as the following item from Hugh Bourne's Journals shows : 
 
 "July 14th, 1813. At Mercaston. Since I was there last, Rowland Kirkland has 
 
 died, and his two sons, of the small-pox They were all three buried in 
 
 about a fortnight. Sarah Kirkland thought that the youngest had obtained mercy. 
 The other was brought into liberty by Mary Hawksley and died happy. The old 
 man has been a steady pilg'rim a long time ; he died proclaiming ' Victory ' to the 
 last. His death has made a stop in building the Chapel at Mercaston. [There had 
 been a movement for a Chapel, and Rowland had agreed to provide the site.] How 
 it will be now is not yet known." 
 
 The Mary Hawksley of the foregoing extract was the wife of a soldier away in Spain 
 at the wars. She had been brought into straits through having to quit her mother's 
 home for no other reason than that the kind of religion she had adopted they could not 
 away with. Hugh Bourne once more combined charity with zeal for the furtherance of 
 the gospel. Recognising Mary's piety and her undeveloped gifts for usefulness, he 
 
 SARAH KIHKLANI). 
 
178 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 made her (May, 1813,) a salaried evangelist, working chiefly at first in connection with 
 the Hulland Tract Mission. Doubtless she is the other preacher referred to by Bourne 
 in his History. 
 
 " Two of the preachers raised up by these means [the visiting and praying 
 companies] were women. And one of them, a middle-aged woman, laboured 
 considerably as a travelling preacher. The other a young woman, Sarah Kirkland, 
 . . . laboured at large as a diligent, laborious travelling preacher for a number 
 of years with great credit and success. These were the first women-preachers who 
 laboured regularly in this Connexion." 
 
 So let place be yielded to Mary Hawksley as second female-preacher. Soon we shall 
 have to follow closely the purposeful fruitful movements of Sarah Kirkland. 
 
 WE8TON-UNDERWOO1), FIRST PREACHING-PLACE. 
 
 Weston-Underwood was the home of John Ride, destined to become a laborious 
 missionary in other parts. John was convinced of sin under Eleazar Hathorn, when 
 he missioned Weston, and he at once joined the class as one who had " a desire to flee 
 from the wrath to come and be saved from his sins." One Sunday morning, when 
 returning through the fields from his class, he found what he had been seeking, and in 
 the exuberance of his joy he shouted " Glory ! glory ! ! " and flung his hat into the air. 
 When Sarah Kirkland received her first ticket he too received his. His father became 
 the leader at Mercaston, and William Ride, jun., the leader at Weston-Underwood. 
 Hugh Bourne was always on the look-out for fresh promising labourers. So after a full 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 179 
 
 day's work at Weston-Underwood, Turnditch, and Hulland, on May 18th, 1813, he 
 puts down : 
 
 " I was much drawn out to pray to the Lord to raise up labourers ; and I trust 
 He will do it here as in other parts. I think John Wilson, William Warren, and 
 the two Rides (father and son) ought to labour, even as preachers ; if this be right, 
 they would form a strong ministry, and there are others who I believe might be 
 made useful in a public way. John Ride, for one, I think will be a preacher." 
 
 William Warren, who is mentioned in the preceding extract, and William 
 Hickingbotham deserve a permanent place in the history of Derbyshire Primitive 
 Methodism. Both of them were men of that special type, who, as 
 we have remarked, were raised up to do the work of evangelists in 
 this first period. They were men after the type of Wedgwood, 
 Benton, and John Oxtoby; but while equally eccentric with these, 
 they were probably gifted with a greater degree of rugged eloquence. 
 They were in their element in the street service and on the camp 
 ground. They knew how to address and handle the crowd ; and 
 their ready, homely wit, their quaint and sharp sayings, not only 
 got attention, but were kept in mind, and passed round and handed 
 down. William Warren was employed extensively to conduct 
 MK. w. HICKINGBOTHAM. revival services, and to act as supply for sick preachers as well as 
 in the ordinary work of a local preacher. It should be added he 
 was the father of George W f arren the exemplar of " Piety Behind the Plough." 
 
 The Rev. John Barfoot wrote a sketch of William Hickingbotham under the 
 appropriate title of "A Diamond in the Rough." There were a good many rough 
 diamonds in our first period, and it is well there were, for no other kind would have 
 been of much value. There was a time when William Hickingbotham hated the 
 Ranters, and loved the brutal sports and ways the Ranters hated. The football match 
 of those days was a variety of murder, and Hickingbotham referring to his former 
 addictedness to that bone-breaking amusement was wont to describe it as " Running 
 after wind blown up in a blether (bladder) tied up in leather." The man who could 
 throw off such sentences as these, though couched in the vernacular, was no stolid, 
 slow-witted, inarticulate rustic. There was in him a spark of Promethean fire, as there 
 was in Warren and many more of that type, and it would flash out. In short there 
 was a touch of what we call genius in these men which made their words tell with the 
 people. Just when Hickingbotham was converted we cannot learn, but it was early in this 
 period and during his long life of eighty-five years he preached and visited and 
 reproved at Belper, Wirksworth, Ripley, and the adjacent villages. How he laboured 
 let the following show. It is the Rev. W. Cutts who speaks : * 
 
 "At a missionary meeting I asked William to state to us what he did the day 
 before that is, on Sunday. He rather hesitated, but at length proceeded to say : 
 ' Well, in the first place I came to the chapel at six o'clock, and when I had opened 
 the door I knelt down and thanked God for the honour of lighting a fire in His 
 house.' And mark, old William is eighty-two years of age. ' Then, when I had lit 
 
 * J. Barfoot's " Diamond in the Rough," pp. 85-6. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the fire, I knelt down to pray, and so 1 got two fires lighted at once. After I had 
 waited twenty minutes I rapped at your shutters to remind you it was time to get 
 ready to meet the class. At seven I went into old William's to lead the class, and 
 he came out to the chapel to lead the prayer meeting, and mark, he always holds 
 the prayer meetings and class meetings one hour. He will call upon the members 
 twice or thrice each rather than give over within the hour ; ' for,' he says, ' I never 
 give my master short time, and I will not serve my heavenly Master worse than 
 my earthly master.' ' Then,' he said, ' I came home and had breakfast, and started 
 to take my appointment at Turnditch. I went in the morning, for I had some sick 
 people to visit. Then I had dinner, preached at two o'clock, then had tea, visited 
 some more of the people, preached again, had a prayer meeting (for he always had 
 
 BELPER MAIIKET-PLACE. 
 
 John Benton preached just outside butcher's shop in the centre. 
 
 a prayer meeting), had a bit of supper, started home, and when I got to the top of 
 Shottle, a village two miles from Belper, I jumped and felt young again.'" 
 
 John Harrison finished his short but useful course at Mercaston, July 22nd, 1819, 
 aged 26. Though far gone in consumption, he had on the very day he died attended 
 a camp meeting at Brailsford. John had received a respectable education and possessed 
 good parts and considerable natural refinement as the Journals he has left show. When 
 in 1811 the new community made its entry into these parts, the servants of the 
 Harrisons, like the rest of the folk thereabout, were talking about the doings and 
 sayings of the new-comers, and John made up his mind to hear them for himself. An 
 occasion for doing so soon presented itself ; the preacher, who was John Benton, took 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 181 
 
 his stand under a large tree in Hulland village, and shot forth his arrows. John 
 Harrison was " pricked to the heart," but his conversion did not take place until some 
 time after when he listened to William Warren. The youth was wishful to unite 
 himself at once to the Hulland Society ; but because of his youthful appearance, or 
 from some other Unreasonable reason, some of the members were hesitant about 
 receiving him. But John Wilson the worthy leader was wiser than his flock, as it 
 was fitting he should be ; he brushed the flimsy objection aside, and John was admitted 
 to fellowship. Soon his profiting appeared to all, and his call to the ministry came in 
 1816. He was an acceptable and edifying preacher, and though no son of thunder, like 
 some of his brethren, there was a quiet intensity about his utterances just as effective 
 
 HULLAND CHAPEL AND GREEN THE FIHST OPEN-AIR PREACHING-PLACE. 
 
 in its way as their stormier ministrations. Nor did the smallness of his "make," his 
 youthful appearance, and the general impression he gave of delicacy of constitution, 
 militate against his acceptability; rather did they serve to conciliate his hearers and 
 prepossess them in his favour. 
 
 Enough, we think, has now been said to carry the reader along with us to the 
 conclusion that in 1813-14 these Derbyshire villages were full of vitality and rich 
 in promise. So thought both our founders. 
 
 " We " who are the " we," Mr. Clowes ? " We opened Mercaston, Hulland, 
 Turnditch, and Weston-Underwood. At each of these places much good was done 
 from time to time as we visited them ; indeed, they became much noted in what 
 
182 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 was then called the Connexion " (Journal, 116). "During the spring months of 
 this year, 1813, the work nourished at Mercaston, Hulland, Turnditch, and Weston- 
 Underwood ; and a number of zealous, useful, praying labourers were raised up." 
 (Bourne's History, 1823). 
 
 As to the " we " of Clowes' statement : it must not be overlooked that John Benton 
 and Eleazar Hathorn had been and were still in these parts. It was not merely the 
 Hulland Tract Mission or the powerful ministrations of Clowes when paying his 
 periodic visits, or both these, that fully serve to explain why there was just now 
 so much life and movement at this extremity of the Connexion. Have we not seen 
 Hathorn missioning Weston, and Benton, Hulland ; the former bringing down John 
 Ride as his quarry and the latter John Harrison? 
 
 REV. T. JACKSON (1). 
 
 REV. T. JACKSON (2). 
 
 REV. T. JACKSON (3). 
 
 THE ADVANCE ON BELPER. 
 
 The fit time had now come for an advance, and the event showed the advance was to 
 be made on Belper. Mr. Ride, of that town, Herod tells us, being at a lovefeast led by 
 Benton at Weston-Underwood, invited Benton to mission Belper, promising if this were 
 done to lend his house for a prayer meeting after the holding of the service in the open 
 air. On this basis an agreement was arrived at, the day and hour probably being fixed, 
 and a general plan of operations sketched, which was to include the co-operation of the 
 village societies. But before the decisive day came Benton, it would seem, quietly 
 reconnoitred the ground ; for one day, as three youths were sauntering along to Belper 
 Market Place, loudly talking and indulging in " foolish jesting," a plain man overtook 
 them, halted, fixed them with his eye, and solemnly addressed them 
 
 " Stop, poor sinners, stop and think 
 
 Before you further go ; 
 Can you sport upon the brink 
 Of everlasting woe ? " 
 
 This was Benton. When at close quarters with men he often used this same verse, 
 just changing the pivotal word of the question so as to make it fit the occasion and the 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 183 
 
 particular doings of the person accosted ; and he often used it with such extraordinary 
 effect as to make one wonder that such large results should follow the use of such 
 apparently inadequate means. Goliath falls flat, and all we can see to account for his 
 fall is the slinging of a pehble from the brook. So in this case. The two young men 
 thus abruptly addressed were indeed "stopped" and turned about, and a new direction 
 given to their lives by this verse slung at them in Belper streets. Both when "converted" 
 were to " stablish their brethren," becoming early preachers, and, strange to say, destined 
 to labour together in these parts. One, who tells the story, was Thomas Jackson (1). 
 The figure is wanted to distinguish him from Thomas Jackson (2), who entered the 
 ministry in 1836, and after forty-five years of faithful labour in the Brinkworth District 
 died in London in 1879. His name and worth are handed on by Dr. Jackson, Steward 
 
 TUBNDITCH CHAPEL. 
 Built 181o, and still standing. 
 
 of the Caledonian Koad Circuit. Thomas Jackson (3), of the Working Lads' Institute, 
 we all know and honour, and he, too, is a Belper boy, with memories going back to 
 William Hickingbotham. The other youth smitten by Benton's versicular pebble was 
 William Allcock (2) ; for if we have had three Thomas Jacksons we have also had two 
 William Allcocks, who were for a time contemporaries. * When Belper, after being 
 a branch of Tunstall, became at midsummer, 1821, an independent station, Thomas 
 Jackson (1) was the superintendent, and William Allcock (2) was "called out." He 
 began his labours, May 27th, in the Peak District by preaching at Winster, Bonsall, 
 and Bolehill to large congregations in the open air. On June 1st he preached at 
 Matlock to about a thousand people. Next day he is again at Matlock, when the 
 constable, who had ordered him down the day before, again appears on the scene just 
 as he was finishing his sermon, and made such a din by beating his staff on a watering- 
 
 * It should be observed that in early documents No. 1's name is generally spelled Alcock. 
 
184 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 can, that preacher and people were well-nigh deafened. So they sang a hymn, and the 
 people pushed the constable away. From June 10th to 23rd Allcock was on the 
 Ashbourne side. The treatment he and his colleague Wildbur met with while pushing 
 forward mission work in these parts makes more significant the second resolution 
 passed at the FIRST PRIMITIVE METHODIST MISSIONARY Meetings held at Turnditch and 
 Belper on July 8th, 1821: "That it is necessary that our Missionaries carry the 
 Gospel into the dark and benighted villages in the Peak of Derbyshire." And the 
 gospel ivas carried ; for looking forward into the years to come we can see this country 
 carved out into circuits Winster, Belper, Burton-on-Trent, Ripley, Ashbourne, and 
 Matlock. The reference to this future parcelling out of territory is not the irrelevancy 
 it perhaps looks ; for though we have not yet got Belper missioned, its first two circuit- 
 preachers are selected and laid hold of, and the rest will follow. 
 
 Two or three days after the above incident, what we may call the reconnaissance in 
 force took place. Attended by contingents from Mercaston, Turnditch, and Weston- 
 Underwood, Benton proceeded to Belper. The bridge over the Derwent was crossed, 
 and then the band, singing as it went, moved on to the market-place, where in front of 
 a butcher's shop Benton took his stand and began a service. But the missioners were 
 not to have it all their own way. Opposition was to show itself at once ingenious and 
 nasty. Benton was to be surprised from the rear. A ladder was planted at the back 
 of the premises, and it 'was proposed to cross the roof and pour down confusion upon 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 185 
 
 the head of unsuspecting Ben ton beneath. One mounted the ladder carrying a bucket ; 
 what that bucket held we will not soil our page by telling. But God would not suffer 
 his servant, though he had "little grammar and not much command of language," to be 
 so shamefully mishandled ; for between the eaves and the ladder there occurred a slight 
 retributive mishap, and there never was witnessed, either before or since, a more 
 striking example of poetic justice or confirmation of the scripture " His mischief shall 
 return upon his own head, and his violent dealings shall come down upon his own 
 pate." 
 
 THE "RANTERS." 
 "The Primitive Methodists were called 'Ranters' first in Belper." Belper was our 
 
 I.OXO ROW, BELPER. 
 
 (Showing- the House, the second on the left, where the name ' Ranters ' was first given.) 
 
 Antioch ; the place where others named us, not the place where we named ourselves. 
 There are variants of the story of the giving of this name, slightly differing in details, 
 but agreeing in substance. Other visits of the mission-bands to Belper followed the 
 one described, and they wrought their effects not only in bringing about conversions 
 but in stirring up a good deal of excitement. One evening, after a somewhat protracted 
 meeting, the band passed down the Long Row, singing on its way homeward. " What 
 religion are these people 1 " asked a young woman of Richard Turner, who was standing 
 at his door looking out on the processioners. " I think they must be the Ranters 
 
186 
 
 I'RIMITlVfi METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 I have read about somewhere," was the answer. Next day the factory-girl gave out : 
 " Those people are called ' Ranters.' Richard Turner says so " ; and so, in this foolish 
 way, the name was given and " caught on." It will be observed that the name was 
 no more original than was the word " Methodist," when given to the Wesleys and 
 their Oxford friends. Turner drew on some hazy reminiscences of his reading rather 
 than on any name-giving faculty that belonged to him. Yet we are told he was rather 
 proud of his achievement in nomenclature, and that he lived long enough to share 
 the honour or obloquy of becoming one of the community he had denominated. 
 
 The name is an ugly one both in its raucous sound and in what it suggests. We can 
 afford to smile at it now ; but right on through the first period of our denominational 
 
 BRIDGE OVER THE DERWENT AT HELPER. 
 
 history and far on into the second, it was quite another matter. If it be asked : 
 "Why dwell on all that?" The answer is simple, and we think conclusive. We are 
 not writing of Primitive Methodism as it is now, when it walks, as it were, in silver 
 slippers and is on visiting terms with the best denominations, but of Primitive 
 Methodism as it was regarded in the far past years. As a matter of history we are 
 met by the facts that the name we gave ourselves was disliked by others ; and that the 
 name others gave us was quite as distasteful to us as ours could be to them. It was 
 the name which stuck to us like a burr, as we went through the valley-period of our 
 humiliation. There might be many of our fathers who gloried in the name, and there 
 might be others who, while they did not wear it as a distinction were yet supremely 
 indifferent what name was given them. But there were some, who had a degree of 
 natural refinement and to whom even the suspicion of complicity with what was loud 
 and vulgar was repellant, who bore the daily cross of passing as " Ranters." For this 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 187 
 
 name was as a dirty pellet always handy, for the bigot and the " superior person " to 
 fling, in the hope that it might stick as a stigma and make the stigmatised wince. 
 It is but the sober truth to say that, in this early period, there were those who 
 habitually and on principle, ostentatiously and at every convenient opportunity, in 
 season and out of season, passed by our rightful appellation in favour of the vulgar 
 sobriquet. They would use no other if they could help it. This, we repeat, is part 
 of the history of the time, and as such must be written; and Daniel Isaac's "The 
 Ranters have bawled themselves out of breath," is the short summation of this 
 impleasant side of the history of the name. But there is another side to that history, 
 and a compensatory one. 
 
 Xext to the strangeness of the fact that the name was so far acquiesced in that 
 almost a semi-official sanction was given to it by its appearing as an alternative title 
 on the cover of the Magazine for 1819, and as far on as 1827 on the labels of missionary 
 boxes in Hull, is the seeming strangeness of the assertion that the name positively 
 helped on the evangelistic labours of the Connexion was indeed a factor in its success. 
 Hugh Bourne distinctly affirms it was so, and others, like George Herod, who were in 
 a position to know, confirm Bourne's statement ; and indeed when examined in the light 
 of probability and facts, there is good reason to conclude that the statement is correct. 
 The word " Ranter " really carried with it no suggestion of religious profession or 
 propagandism. It was vague enough for rumour to work upon and to give room for 
 endless surmise. It might mean anything from street-singers to political agitators. It 
 piqued curiosity ; afforded a new topic. When it was noised that the people called 
 "Ranters" had come, or were coming, into a town or village, many had very hazy 
 notions as to who these strange people were or what was their object ; some even 
 suspected that their designs were political, that they were but Radical Reformers 
 under a feigned name, and under that impression sought them out. 
 
 " THE TUNSTALL NON-MISSION LAW." 
 
 The fuller significance of the missioning of Belper to this history needs to be pointed 
 out. That significance is not exhausted by the fact that there we got a name we did 
 not like. Belper was our Antioch in other and more important senses than this. Its 
 missioning, like the partial evangelising of Antioch by them who were " scattered 
 abroad," marked an advance ; yet an advance effected irregularly and unofficially, in 
 disregard rather than in pursuance of, the policy most in favour at headquarters. So 
 close does the parallel hold, that what Bourne says of Benton and his mission-bands 
 would equally apply to the scattered evangelists who carried the gospel to the city on 
 the Orontes 
 
 " But at length a period was put to it (the suspension of missionary labours) by 
 a few enterprising individuals, who again entered upon missionary labours, and the 
 Lord set before them an open door, which has already been a blessing to thousands. 
 It was also attended with a present blessing ; it suffused life, vigour, and zeal into 
 the societies." (History, 1835, p. 52). 
 
188 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Moreover, neither the " pillars " of Jerusalem nor of humbler Tunstall were foolish 
 enough to disavow the unauthorised action of their agents, or decline to take over the 
 new slice of territory unexpectedly offered them. They had to shift their boundary 
 stakes, though they would rather have kept them where they were. The deputy, 
 Barnabas, when he came to Antioch and " saw the grace of God, was glad : " so no doubt 
 Bourne, as superintendent, was secretly glad that Benton had disregarded the "Tunstall 
 Non-Mission Law," and that it fell to his lot to take over Belper and incorporate it with 
 Tunstall Circuit, though some of his brethren did hold that the circuit was already 
 bigger than they could well look after. This taking over took place 
 
 ''''September 9th, 1814. Belper. Ezekiel xlvii. 15. A good time, but I know not 
 what to judge of this place. O Lord, direct Thy people. I then took up Belper 
 and put things in order, and the work soon began to move in other places ; and the 
 people in Derbyshire disregarded the Tunstall law against missionarying (sic.). 
 And, being superintendent, I had additional labour in taking up new places, but it 
 was glorious labour." 
 
 The parallel might be followed still further ; for after Belper was missioned there 
 was a pause while, as at Antioch, the work of edification went on until the call came 
 for a farther advance. In our case the advance was to be to the populous towns and 
 cities lying just beyond these pleasant valleys and uplands ; where the conditions of the 
 new industrial world made life harder than here, and the task of evangelisation more 
 difficult; where just then the haggard operative was liable to fall a prey to lying 
 spirits, and in danger of being goaded by misery to acts of desperation. 
 
 But what was this " Tunstall Non-Mission Law " we have spoken of 1 Not, perhaps, 
 a specific law passed at some one quarterly meeting and confirmed at subsequent ones, 
 so much as it was a prevailing sentiment and steady policy. It was Bourne and Benton 
 who gave this policy the name of " the non-mission law." To Bourne the phrase meant 
 that the breaking up of fresh ground was discouraged ; that missionary operations were 
 suspended for a term of years, and that this policy resulting in, or associated with, 
 a departure from the true method of holding camp meetings brought about consequences 
 nothing less than disastrous. It is not likely that this name was given by those who 
 favoured the policy in question. If they gave it a name at all, the one selected would, 
 we may be sure, be a more plausible and better-sounding one. It would be a name 
 suggesting what the policy aimed to do rather than what it left undone. Probably 
 they would call it " the policy of consolidation," and would be ready to urge and defend 
 it with many and weighty reasons, and not a few wise saws. " Better do a little well 
 than attempt much and fail. Before we enclose and break up more ground let us see 
 that the ground we have is brought under proper cultivation. Look how wide the 
 circuit is, stretching from Boylestone in Derbyshire to Eizley in Lancashire, and from 
 Roggin Row in Cheshire to Wyrley Bank ! Our local preachers are all too few for the 
 work exacted by the plan, and as for the travelling-preachers they cannot be spared for 
 opening fresh places. They are needed to go the regular rounds, and bring the societies 
 under discipline, and carry on the work of edification." In short, the consolidators 
 would appear to have reason and common sense arrayed on their side, as they certainly 
 had the preponderance of opinion ; for, as a general statement, it may be taken as true 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 189 
 
 that this was the policy prevailing until the beginning of 1819 in the Tunstall Circuit. 
 In harmony with this policy, Clowes' labours were restricted within the prescribed 
 limits during these years. True, he made an occasional sally notably one into 
 Nottinghamshire in 1817, and another into Leicestershire the following year when his 
 progress was like that of a flame let loose among the dry stubble. He did so much 
 during these brief missionary excursions that the mere record in his Journals of what 
 he did leaves the impression on his readers that he must have been a missionary at 
 large during the whole of this period. Probably we shall be right in concluding that 
 the part of flaming evangelist would have been much more agreeable to Clowes and 
 better suited to the man than that of round preacher ; and that had he been freer to 
 expatiate, the Connexion would have made greater progress than it did in these early 
 years. 
 
 The results of this cry, " Let us consolidate," were distinctly bad, as they invariably 
 
 are ; for whatever reason and common sense 
 may say in its favour, experience and history 
 prove that the policy which postpones 
 aggression until consolidation is complete 
 never does anything except undo itself. And 
 yet, because reason judges itself competent 
 to pronounce, and experience to the contrary 
 is limited, Churches are always committing 
 the mistake of separating what should never 
 be disjoined. When this is done, and con- 
 solidation is pursued as an end in itself, a 
 process of contraction and hardening sets in, 
 likely to prove as fatal in the result as the 
 solidifying of a vital organ. Things never 
 reached such a pass as this in Tunstall 
 Circuit ; for what we may call intra-aggression 
 missioning within the bounds never 
 entirely ceased. But it is noteworthy that 
 the most considerable additions to the circuit were made in very violation of 
 the policy advocated, and the great revival in the Midlands we have so soon 
 to describe, was not begun or carried on by Tunstall Circuit. Furthermore, those 
 features of consolidation previously touched upon were found chiefly on that side of the 
 circuit where the spirit of aggression the true missionary spirit was most in evidence. 
 We have no wish to exaggerate ; though we do wish to make the facts clear, and 
 to press the obvious moral. It is a pure myth that reverses and small increases are 
 confined to our later history, and that from the beginning it was not so. Even allowing 
 for Hugh Bourne's anxious temperament, which naturally magnified the evils viewed 
 through its medium and made him see crises where others saw none, his estimate of 
 the gravity of the situation is substantially borne out : 
 
 "After some time, it was found that the societies instead of prospering more 
 [by the suppression of missionary labours] prospered less. It seemed as if the 
 
 JOHN BEXTOX'.S COTTAGE, LOWER LANDYWOOD. 
 
190 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUECH. 
 
 blessing of God was in some degree withdrawn from the societies; and there 
 appeared so general a weakening that some thought the Connexion would 
 absolutely break ^"-(History, 1835, p. 51). 
 One of those who resisted the imposition of the non-mission law was John Benton 
 
 who, as we have seen, after the Ramsor camp meeting of 1810, had resolved to give 
 
 himself to the work of evangelisation. Having some houses and land and interest in 
 
 a colliery, he was financially independent. In 1811 he had carried on mission work 
 
 in London with considerable success, and it is said had his pioneer labours only been 
 
 followed up, the Connexion would have gained a permanent footing in London twenty 
 
 years earlier than it did. Benton 
 
 returned for a time to circuit 
 
 work ; but going the round was 
 
 not his ideal either for himself 
 
 or the Connexion. He pleaded 
 
 that "Primitive Methodism should 
 
 be allowed to go through the 
 
 nation, as it was raised up to 
 
 do." As a sincere advocate of a 
 
 forward policy he offered 3 a 
 
 quarter towards a missionary's 
 
 salary, and himself refused to 
 
 be planned. His offer was 
 
 declined, and he declined his 
 
 plan. When it was sent after 
 
 him, it is said he wrote the 
 
 GENERAL COLLECTION 
 
 OF 
 
 AND 
 
 SPIRITUAL SONGS 
 
 
 OR 
 
 following lines at 
 and returned it : 
 
 the back 
 
 CAMP 
 
 AND 
 
 I 
 
 " A plan from God I have to mind, 
 A better plan I cannot find ; 
 If you can, pray let me know, 
 And round the circuit I will go." 
 
 Benton now got a thousand copies 
 
 of a small Hymn-book printed at 
 
 Warrington, with a view to his 
 
 contemplated mission. It was 
 
 soon got ready for the press. 
 
 He took Hugh Bourne's edition 
 
 of Lorenzo Dow's Hymn-book, 
 
 omitted one or two hymns, and 
 
 supplied two or three others of 
 
 his own composing. The latter 
 
 are not exactly metrical gems ; 
 
 they cannot compare with " Hark ! listen to the trumpeters," or " The Lord 
 
 into His garden came." Yet if one takes them, not as poetry, but as evidence of 
 
 REVIVALS. 
 
 EEICESTEK : 
 
 Printed for the Editor, by J. G. Brown; 
 
 AND TO BE HAD 0* JOHN BENTOK. 
 
 1813. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 191 
 
 Benton's own state of mind when he broke the Tunstall non-mission law, they have 
 their value. They have the note of sincerity, and, as we read, it somehow does not 
 seem so strange and unaccountable that the ministrations and words of an unlettered 
 man like Benton should produce such instantaneous and striking effects. Here are 
 two stanzas of Hymn 23 : - 
 
 1. The Lord gave me a special call 
 
 To sound the gospel news; 
 My soul was willing to obey, 
 
 I durst not Him refuse. 
 The wicked world derided me, 
 
 Professors join'd them too, 
 For such an unlearn'd man to be, 
 
 A preacher would not do. 
 
 3. The Lord makes choice of foolish things 
 
 To confound the wise; 
 Though weak the instrument may be, 
 
 The power in Jesus lies. 
 He called me out to go by faith, 
 
 But where I could not tell, 
 Beseeching sinners to repent, 
 
 And 'scape a burning hell. 
 
192 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CIIUKCH. 
 
 Benton chose for his mission certain villages in Staffordshire lying on the borders 
 of the county of Derby. Among these were Warslow, Allstone-Field, Holme End, 
 Fleet Green, Cow-Head, Mill-Dale, Biggin, Butterton, etc. He was aided in the 
 mission by Eleazar Hathorn, who took part in the first camp meeting. The fact that 
 Eleazar had lost a limb was not allowed to be a disqualification, for the loss was more 
 than made up to him by the kindness of the people, who supplied him with a useful 
 nag ; so that he may be regarded as having been the first riding preacher the first 
 of a favoured few. The mission prospered ; so much so, that we find Hugh Bourne, 
 as superintendent, requested to take over "Benton's Circuit," as it was called; and so 
 we have the following entries : 
 
 "October 4th, 1813. We had Quarter-day, and John Benton joined us. This, 
 I think, is of the Lord. 
 
 "October 13th. Came to Boylestone, and saw John Benton ... He gave me 
 directions for going into his circuit, and spoke of the state of the people." 
 
 After the taking over of his circuit Benton and his colleague made a " tour into the 
 interior of Derbyshire," where some time ago we left them. So by a detour we are 
 
 HELPER PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL FIRST HELPER CHAPEL. 
 
 AND SCHOOLS, 1903. 
 
 brought back to Belper, only that on our way we have, we trust, explained how Benton 
 broke the non-mission law and what came of it. As for Belper, the work continued to 
 prosper. Thomas Jackson (1) tells us that at first the preaching and other services 
 were held in his father's house, and in the summer months in the garden at its 
 front. This becoming too small, a large room was rented, which also soon became 
 inconveniently crowded. Now that there was a pressing call to build, the way to do 
 so unexpectedly opened. The largest employer of labour in the town and neighbour- 
 hood was the firm of Strutt, cotton-spinners a firm of long standing and great influence 
 (a scion of this family in 1856 was ennobled under the title of Lord Belper). The 
 Mr. Strutt with whom we have to do showed himself a man of enlightened mind 
 and public spirit one of those captains of industry who, in their dealings with our 
 denomination and other forms of Dissent, contrast most refreshingly with some 
 of the landed proprietors in various parts of the country. Mr. Strutt had not 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 193 
 
 been unobservant of the influence for 'good which the labours of our people had 
 exerted upon many of his work-people ; so that when approached for a site for a chapel, 
 he generously agreed to sell as much as was required at the nominal price of one shilling 
 per yard, and also to provide wood and stone at reasonable rates. To save expense, 
 the wood was drawn on trucks from Mr. Strutt's timber-yard to the site by willing 
 hands. This novel mode of conveyance brought many to their doors, and others, 
 anticipating " Maf eking night," belaboured the human teams with bladders tied to 
 the ends of sticks ! Truly the people of Belper of those days were quite as lively 
 as the people they nicknamed. In September, 1817, Mr. Clowes called at Belper on 
 his way from Nottingham and found the Chapel progressing, and he took part in the 
 opening services. The "writings" were signed April 16, 1818, at Duffield. 
 
194 
 
 I'RIMITIVK MKTHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE MOVE ON DERBY AND NOTTINGHAM. 
 
 this" [the opening of Belper] says Hugh Bourne, "the woik spread 
 to Derby and the adjacent places." But this easy, abstract-method of 
 writing history, although it is so common, scarcely satisfies vis. It is not 
 enough to know the bare fact that Primitive Methodism got to Derby 
 and Nottingham, Loughborough and Leicester ; we also want to know who took it 
 there, and when and under what circumstances ; for if Primitive Methodism did 
 anything or " spread " anywhere it was no abstraction of which this is affirmed, but 
 Primitive Methodism as embodied in certain Primitive Methodists who had their own 
 special features and idiosyncrasies. Who, then, were the Connexion's pioneer workers 
 in Derby, Nottingham, Loughborough, and Leicester the first county capitals and 
 towns of consequence to be entered by the denomination 1 What was the condition 
 of these manufacturing centres when our agents first set foot in them 1 How did they 
 go about their work, and what were the results which followed ? Such are the questions 
 awaiting an answer as clear and complete as the information now attainable will enable 
 us to give. And yet when told, how simple the facts will seem to be ! just illustrating 
 as before the natural play of Christian enthusiasm. We have still to do with a movement 
 dependent much more on individual initiative and enterprise than on official planning 
 and support. 
 
 THE MISSIONING OF DERBY. 
 
 Robert Winfield was a small farmer living at Ambaston, a village seven miles from 
 Derby. Until 1814 he had been a Methodist local preacher, but having in that year 
 
 taken a prominent part in a camp meeting at Mercaston he 
 had been "dealt with," and was now actively identified 
 with the new movement, and already beginning to prove 
 himself a missioner " with a peculiar tact for opening IK-W 
 places." In Sarah Kirkland he seems to have taken an 
 interest almost paternal. Not merely did her orphaned 
 condition appeal to his sympathy, but he seems to have 
 discovered in her capabilities of service he made it his 
 Kisiness to foster and direct. Winfield, we are told, had 
 great faith in female preachers ; nor is this surprising, for 
 his faith was grounded on experience. Mrs. Taft (Mary 
 Barrett) was one of the most successful female preachers 
 of her generation, and it was through her instrumentality 
 that Winfield had. been led to Christ. Two future 
 Wesleyan presidents were amongst her many converts 
 Thomas Jackson and Joseph Taylor; yet, although many 
 
 MKri. TAFT. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 195 
 
 acknowledged the call of Mrs. Taft and others of the sisterhood to preach the gospel, 
 there were others \vho e accepted the manifest election of God with ill-grace, doubtful 
 questionings, or misplaced banter. " God often works by strange instruments," said 
 William Atherton when preaching a funeral sermon on the occasion of the death of 
 President Taylor ; " Balaam was converted by the braying of an ass, and Peter by the 
 crowing of a cock ; and our lamented brother by the preaching of a woman one Good 
 Friday morning."* 
 
 But this convert of Mary Taft did believe in female preaching, and evidently he 
 believed in Sarah Kirkland. His faith in both was justified, for his own daughter 
 lived to become a talented and useful preacher, though in another community, and 
 Sarah Kirkland's progressive steps of usefulness we have to follow. At the invitation 
 of Mi. "Winfield she went, on March 15th, 1815, to conduct a lovefeast at Ambaston. 
 There were some present at this lovefeast from Chaddesden who pressed her to preach 
 at that village on her way home. She consented, and in the overflowing congregation 
 which the novelty of the preacher's sex and youth drew together, were three persons 
 from Derby, who, under the influence of a powerful service and the preacher's 
 personality, besought her to visit Derby the following night. To this she agreed, on 
 the understanding that a suitable room was found for the service. A room is said to 
 have been hired of a barber, who himself made no pretensions to religion, and here 
 Primitive Methodism began in Derby. Soon after this visit a society was formed, 
 having this room for its meeting-place. A second visit to Chaddesden was the means 
 of winning another useful adherent to the infant cause at Derby. While Sarah was 
 conducting a lovefeast, two well-dressed men walking out from Derby, only a mile and 
 a half distant, inquired the cause of the mild excitement pervading the village. " It's 
 a young woman holding a Ranter's lovefeast " was the answer they got. They took 
 their stand by the door and became riveted to the spot, as they heard one after another 
 testifying to the freedom and power of God's grace. One of these behind-the-door 
 hearers was Mr. Robert Stone, who kept a spirit-vault in Sadler Gate, then at that time 
 a locality of ill-repute, who was so much impressed by what he had heard, that from 
 that time he was a changed man. He renounced his trafficking in spirits, and is said to 
 have become a useful local preacher and a supporter of the cause for many years. In 
 confirmation of this, two successive plans for the year 1818 are before us. These show : 
 " 17, R. Stone," with twenty-eight appointments to his credit for the six months. 
 Eight of these are at Derby, four at Loughborough, and two at Chaddesden, where he 
 had so blessedly played the eavesdropper. On what small noiseless pivots human 
 destinies turn ! Only a slimmer evening's saunter, a brief halt by a cottage door for 
 curiosity's sake, and there is " a new creation," affecting the whole life of the man, 
 including his business, domestic, and civic relations ! 
 
 The next event of consequence in regard to Derby to be noted is that in 1816, 
 probably soon after the holding of Mercaston Camp Meeting on June 9th, it was made 
 the head of a second circuit. But it may be asked : " What were the wise men of 
 
 * T. P. Bunting in the "Life of Dr. Bunting" (I. 125), says that he himself heard William 
 Atherton use these words " with all possible solemnity." The story, too, is told in Edinburgh 
 Review, July, 1881. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Tunstall doing to allow such an act of improvidence as this? Why, there was not 
 a society in the proposed new circuit but was of yesterday. All alike had the rawness 
 and inexperience of youth. Not even Belper went with the new circuit. The chick 
 had only just chipped its egg and yet it presumes to begin housekeeping that is the 
 symbol for it." All this is true, and therefore all the more needing an explanation, 
 which when found will not be wanting in significance. What if the wise men of 
 Tunstall allowed Derby to be formed into a circuit fifteen months after the first sermon 
 had been preached in the barber's room rather than that something worse should follow 1 
 What that worse alternative was Walford, the biographer of Bourne, tells us bluntly : it 
 was a possible secession. " It soon appeared there must either be a new circuit or a new 
 Connexion." The " few enterprising individuals," such as Benton and Eleazar Hathorn, 
 when, after the Mercaston Camp Meeting, the revival already spreading began to sweep 
 over Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, were unwilling that they and their converts, 
 who were of the same mind with them, should be under Tunstall Circuit and its 
 non-mission law. And never, one thinks, did the wise men of Tunstall manifest 
 their wisdom more conspicuously than when, instead of resorting to coercive or 
 repressive measures, they allowed the zealous spirits to have their own way in this 
 matter. Thus the formation of the Derby Circuit may be regarded as the continuance 
 and culmination of the mild revolt against the Non-Mission Law, of which the carving 
 out of Benton's Circuit and the missioning of Belper and other places were also part. 
 It seems strange that just when we had thought we had done with the conflict between 
 modern and primitive Methodism the duality should present itself in another form in 
 the contrast and conflict between the two opposing ideals of Consolidation and Aggression. 
 But so it is : by the ever-renewed clash of opposite ideals, each of which contains some 
 element worth preserving, is progress made. 
 
 All our historians, in this following Hugh Bourne, are agreed that the crisis through 
 which the Connexion passed at this time was rendered more acute by a marked falling 
 off in the popularity and success of camp meetings, which at the beginning of 1816 
 began to set in and ever grew more apparent. To Hugh Bourne, so sensitive to 
 everything likely injuriously to affect this mode of service, the change was observed 
 with undisguised apprehension ; and he was not alone in taking an alarmist view of the 
 situation. He pointed out the symptoms of what he regarded as a dangerous decline, 
 laid bare the causes, and anxiously sought for a remedy. Now, allowing that Hugh 
 Bourne was an extremist where camp meetings were concerned, and looked upon 
 everything ecclesiastical, whether belonging to the remote past or the present, from the 
 standpoint of a camp-meeting waggon, it must still be granted that a change had indeed 
 taken place in the character of open-air services. The old method of having a number 
 of short red-hot appeals, interspersed as it were with volleys of prayer a method so 
 natural and suitable to times of awakening and revival had given place to field- 
 preaching of a more formal, ambitious, and edificatory kind. Nor is io hard- to account 
 for the change that every one has noted. It was but another form of that dualism 
 which, as we have just seen, was existing in the rival policies (which ought to have 
 been allies rather than rivals) of consolidation and aggression. The fact is, the junction 
 of the Camp Meeting Methodists and the Clowesites was not so close but that 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 197 
 
 a moderately keen eye might have detected the seam showing the line of juncture ; 
 the union had not obliterated all traces of the characteristic features of each segment. 
 Or to change the figure ; like the river formed of two confluent streams now flowing 
 along the same bed, but rather side by side than mingling their waters, so that by their 
 contrasted colour and other signs you may tell the one from the other so was it with 
 the stream of double origin we call Primitive Methodism. Indeed, we are not sure 
 that after ninety years of movement the two types are not yet distinctly observable. 
 There are still those who pin their faith to " good preaching," and others who think 
 little of it as a means of usefulness. Any way, it was so in 1816. Some of the 
 Clowesites could preach, and would preach, whether within brick walls or, as they 
 would have said, " under the broad canopy of heaven." They had been accustomed to 
 do their best to give good solid Methodist sermons in chapels, and when they got on 
 the camp-ground they tried to do the same. Nor would they be stinted for time, but 
 disdained the conductor's monitory tug behind. Even at Mercaston Camp Meeting 
 a worthy Clowesite grumbled that he had only one hour allowed him ; but Thomas 
 Woodnorth reformed, and afterwards became, Bourne tells us, a first-rate camp meeting 
 labourer. It is not difficult to imagine what results would follow from camp meetings 
 so conducted. "Variety of religious exercises" would be interfered with. Where so 
 much time was taken up in pleaching there would be little time left for praying. 
 However true it may have been of Glasgow, camp meetings would not thus "flourish 
 by the preaching of the Word." Even had Apollos discoursed for an hour at 
 a Staffordshire Camp Meeting he would have been listened to with weariness. The 
 people missed the old variety, the quick interchange of exhortation and song and 
 prayer. There would be wandering eyes, and people moving about, and the buzz of 
 conversation on the outskirts of the crowd ; dwindling companies, too, as the day 
 wore on. We can conceive what happened as though we had been there and seen it all 
 from the conductor's or bystander's point of view rather than from the preacher's. In 
 short, " there were loud complaints from the societies " that camp meetings were on the 
 down-grade, and Hugh Bourne was pained and saddened. Let us just think of him for 
 a moment amid these signs of manifest decline. In 1835 he wrote : 
 
 " Perhaps no other Connexion, for the time, has suffered so much, or been so 
 greatly injured by the long-winded system, as it has been called, the long-preaching 
 and other long tedious exercises." * 
 
 In the preface to the next year's Magazine he remarks : 
 
 " It is found that if a preacher sets forth the Atonement, offers a present 
 salvation, and preaches in part to the children, he may deliver a good body of 
 divinity in a minute and a half or two minutes ; and such sermons, in some 
 instances, produce a better and more lasting effect than sermons do of sixty 
 minutes long ! " (There's for you, Brother Woodnorth !) 
 
 After these extracts, which are perhaps reminiscent of this season of trial, we can 
 sympathise with Hugh Bourne as he noted with dismay the swelling of long-windedness 
 and the decline of the efficiency of camp meetings. 
 
 * Preface to the Magazine for 1835. 
 
198 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 PETEK PHILLIPS. 
 
 It is not for us to pronounce judgments so much as to marshal facts and let the 
 reader draw his own conclusions ; but it is clear, that if long and good preaching, 
 
 according to the canons, had been what was wanted 
 at the beginning of the last century, then there was 
 no need or justification of Primitive Methodism. 
 Simply to have had services outside differing in little 
 or nothing from those held within places of worship 
 would have done little for the moral wastes of the 
 land. Men wanted the bread of life breaking up 
 small and well moistened with prayer. On the other 
 hand, it was well the tradition and practice of good 
 solid Methodist-preaching was not lost in the rush 
 and fervour of evangelism. The Clowesite section 
 were the custodians, and in their modest measure the 
 exemplars, of this tradition. The time would come 
 when it would be called for. 
 
 When things were thus in a bad way light and 
 help came from the old quarter. Peter Phillips, his 
 tried friend, put into Hugh Bourne's hand the Journal of Joshua Marsden, in which 
 he gave an account of a particular camp meeting held near New York. After 
 studying this account, Bourne " sketched out a plan for conducting camp meetings 
 with praying services in companies or circles, and sent copies to different places 
 hoping the system would take." One of these fell into the hands of William Ride, 
 who thereupon determined to hold the Mercaston Camp Meeting, at which Hugh Bourne 
 himself was planned to be present, on this model. The camp meeting duly held 
 June 9th, 1816, was a notable success. John Ride, who was afterwards to be co-apostle 
 with Thomas Russell to Berkshire, began to preach at this camp meeting. 
 
 " John Ben ton became like a man let loose, and the Lord, by means of the 
 Mercaston Camp Meeting, opened out a new line of proceedings ; and it was like 
 a new founding of the Connexion. From the Mercaston Camp Meeting the Lord 
 in His mercy set on foot one of the greatest and most extraordinary religious 
 movements ever known in England." 
 
 But let the sequent lines of our History be preserved. John Benton had broken 
 loose from the Non-Mission Law before this. He did not rush from Mercaston Camp 
 Meeting to mission Belper : that had already been done. What he did get at Mercaston 
 was the call to a wider field of service and a baptism for it. Mercaston Camp Meeting 
 did not begin the mighty revival in the Midlands, but it greatly stimulated it. 'It 
 generated enthusiasm and force, and then liberated them, so that Benton and others 
 sought a wider field and entered on new ground. Thus, as we have seen, one event 
 that can clearly be traced to Mercaston Camp Meeting was the formation of a new- 
 circuit, of which Derby was the head. 
 
 From his Journals we learn that Clowes visited Derby during this early period. He 
 brings in his reference to it just after he has described the missioning of Belper and the 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 199 
 
 opening of the chapel there, and Derby is introduced in such a way as to lead one to 
 suppose that it was visited by him when he made his first visit to Belper in September, 
 1817, or a little later when he took part in the opening services of the new chapel. 
 Probably he did visit Derby and neighbourhood on both these occasions ; for it is clear 
 Clowes has thrown together recollections of visits made at different times and at different 
 stages of the society's progress. He was there when there were difficulties to perplex j 
 when friends were few, and homes and hospitable entertainment not too plentiful. He 
 makes kindly mention of a soldier of the Koyal Artillery, who took him to his quarters 
 in the Armoury. Properly speaking, the Armoury was 'the central part of the Ordnance 
 
 THE GRAVEL PIT, MEKCASTON, WHERE THE CAMP MEETINGS WERE HELD. 
 
 Depot, completed in 1805. It was a room large enough to contain 15,000 stan(l of 
 arms, arranged as in the Tower of London, so as to make a fine and impressive show. 
 On the north and south sides of this central building were the magazines capable of 
 holding 1,200 barrels of gunpowder. The central part still stands in Ambrose Street, 
 off Xormanton Road, and is now used as a brewery, while the magazine on the south 
 side has given place to cottages, and that on the north side to shops fronting the 
 main thoroughfare leading to Normanton. These were Clowes' quarters for the time, 
 and surely rather strange quarters for a preacher of the gospel of peace. At first, he 
 confesses, he felt it rather a trial to have to clamber up into one of the bunks lying tier 
 above tier which had to be his sleeping- place. But says he : "I remembered I was 
 a missionary, and it behoved me not to demur about little matters of convenience and 
 
200 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 THE ARMOURY, DERBY, WHERE CLOWES SLEPT. 
 
 comfort." We regret the name of Clowes' soldier-friend has not been preserved, for he 
 rendered good service to the Derby cause, not only by giving the missionaries bed and 
 board, but by helping in the converting work, and in " the getting up of the chapel " 
 
 THE OLD BARN, DERBY. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 201 
 
 in Albion Street. Clowes' other reminiscences of Derby evidently relate to a time 
 subsequent to this, when the headquarters of the society had been removed from the 
 godless barber's room to the newly-erected chapel. He speaks of the chapel as crowded 
 almost to suffocation soon after the opening of the doors. On one such evening the 
 sight of the chapel-keeper moving about, snuffers in hand, trying to keep the dim 
 gasping candles from going out altogether in the vitiated atmosphere, was taken 
 advantage of by certain unruly members of the congregation bent on creating 
 a disturbance. Clowes cried to God " to still the raging of the enemy." They" rose 
 up and rushed to the door. Had not the chapel-keeper opened the door to let them 
 pass, the power of God, Clowes thinks, would have arrested the disturbers. As 
 it was, they fled, but not before the poor chapel-keeper's head was severely cut by 
 a stone thrown as a Parthian shot by one of the persecutors. The meeting broke 
 up in confusion, and the stone-thrower was brought up before the mayor and 
 committed. Clowes records that he also preached at several places in the vicinity 
 of -Derby, such as "Willington, Boulton, Chaddesden, Draycott, Windley, Burnaston, 
 and Normanton. At these places his labours, along with those of his " coadjutors," 
 were blessed to the conversion of sinners to God. At Normanton, then a suburb now 
 part of the borough, an old barn was acquired for the services at a rental of 
 thirty shillings per quarter, which for more than sixty years was to serve 
 as the home of a society; but in playful irony the Old Barn was dubbed 
 
 and got to be familiarly known as, "The Cathedral." 
 An iron Church, Avith accommodation for two hundred 
 people, is now in use preparatory to the building of 
 suitable premises, for which ample ground has been 
 acquired. 
 
 THE MISSIONING OF NOTTINGHAM. 
 Nottingham was entered by our missionaries in the same 
 unofficial, unostentatious way as Derby. Their coming 
 was not previously announced by bills displayed in the 
 windows or on the hoardings. When they made their 
 actual entry they were not welcomed by the blare of 
 trumpets and beating of drums, or escorted by excited 
 sympathisers. They quietly walked into the town and 
 mingled with the stream of traffic, and made their way 
 to some friendly shelter to be ready for their work on 
 the morrow. We like to think that just in the same 
 natural, informal way the Apostles and first evangelists 
 of the cross made their unrecorded entry into many 
 a town and village of what we now call the nearer 
 East. And yet, if anything, there was a trifle more of 
 deliberation and purpose in the missioning of Nottingham 
 than there had been in the case of Derby. We are 
 fortunate in having a full account of this pioneer visit- 
 
 ALBION STREET, 
 
202 I'KIMITIVK METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 how it was brought about, under what circumstances it was effected, and what were the 
 results which followed written by one who played a leading part in the affair. Sarah 
 Kirkland, late in life, when she was no longer Mrs. Harrison, but had become Mrs. 
 Bembridge, wrote the account in question of which this is the substance. 
 
 It was over the breakfast-table in Mrs. Kirkland's house at Mercaston, where he was 
 planned to preach, that Robert Winfield broached the subject of the missioning of 
 Nottingham. As we know, he had a talent for opening fresh places, but in this instance 
 he proposed that Sarah Kirkland should be the chief missioner. Said he : " If you will 
 consent to go, my daughter and I will go with you and stand by you." Then followed 
 discussion ; for the proposal was a weighty one, and not to be lightly adopted. In the 
 end it was agreed that the attempt should be made, and that the Christmas Day 
 ensuing should be the time for making it. The appointed time came, and the trio 
 found themselves in the famous lace-town. But, surely, Winfield's suggestion that 
 Sarah should open her commission in Nottingham market-place was made without due 
 thought. The girl was barely out of her teens ; she was asked to take her stand in the 
 largest market-place in the kingdom; it was mid-winter; the year was 1815 a lawless, 
 rowdy period, when the people had not become inured, as they have since, to the sight 
 of young women in plain poke-bonnets singing and exhorting in the streets. No, 
 Mr. Winfield, the market-place must not be the auditorium, if you please ! Sarah 
 Kirkland put aside the suggestion as one not to be entertained. The next day (being 
 Christmas Day, as we suppose) they found out a room in the Narrow Marsh, where 
 a small band of secessionists, about half a score in number, with a Mr. Storer for their 
 preacher, had their meeting-place. Here they attended a lovefeast in the afternoon, and 
 at the close readily got consent for Sarah Kirkland to preach the same evening. " An 
 old lady shouted out that she had dreamed of a young woman coming out of Derbyshire, 
 and told before what kind of a dress she wore." Short as was the notice, the room was 
 crowded out. The sight of the disappointed people turning away from the door troubled 
 the mind of a worthy dyer of the name of Sutcliff, who the next day called upon the 
 preacheress. He was full of regrets for the shortcomings of the preaching room. But 
 more : it was the holiday season, and his mind was made up that a more commodious 
 building should be found, even if he had to search the town from end to end and devote 
 a whole day to the search. Meanwhile, pending the outcome of Mr. Sutcliffs search 
 for a roomier room, two or three other services were held in the Narrow Marsh under 
 the same disadvantageous circumstances. The interest already awakened by these 
 services increased rather than abated, and when the last one was held the names of 
 twenty-three persons who had received good during Sarah Kirkland's visit were taken 
 down. Before she left Nottingham Mr. Sutcliff was able to report that he had found 
 a room in every way suitable. It was the middle room of a disused factory in the 
 Broad Marsh, large enough to hold a thousand people, and if Sarah Kirkland would 
 promise to come and open it for worship it should forthwith be got ready. She gave 
 the required promise, and at the opening services this capacious building was crowded, 
 and, what was better still, on the authority of Thomas Simmons (one of Nottingham's 
 representatives to the Preparatory Meeting of 1819), we learn that sixteen persons were 
 converted on this opening day, of whom no less than ten subsequently became local 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 203 
 
 * 
 
 NOTTINGHAM MARKET-PLACE EARLY IN 19TH CENTURY. 
 
 preachers. The rest of the story Sarah Kirkland shall be allowed to tell in her 
 own words : 
 
 "This room was made the birthplace of many souls. The converting work so 
 broke out that it became the talk of the market people, that if they would go to the 
 
 THE FACTORY, BROAD MARSH, NOTTINGHAM. 
 
204 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 room in Broad Marsh they would get converted Now, persecution 
 
 arose, and crackers were let off to annoy the people. These things caused a great 
 stir, and the Mayor of the town came to hear for himself. John Harrison was the 
 preacher ; he had a young appearance, and was a powerful preacher. The Mayor 
 was so well satisfied that he gave orders for protection, and authorised severa 
 young men to keep the peace. One of these was the late David Musson Jackson, 
 who became Governor of "Nottingham House of Correction." * 
 
 The name Isaac gave to the last well his servants dug Rehoboth (i.e., Broad places, 
 Room) would have been a very suitable one to have bestowed on the roomier quarters 
 which the young society acquired in the Broad Marsh. But that name was to be 
 reserved for Leeds, and the mother-chapel of Nottingham was to be known by a still 
 more familiar Scriptural name. Canaan Street Chapel still stands not twenty yards 
 from the spot where the now demolished factory stood in the Broad Marsh. The 
 foundation-stone of the building was laid April 23rd, 1823, by the Mayor (Mr. 0. T. 
 Oldknow), in the presence of a large congregation. It was opened for divine worship 
 towards the end of the same year 1823, the celebrated Dr. Raffles, of Liverpool, being 
 the preacher. In 1828 a gallery on the two sides and end of the building was put in. But 
 whence the name of Canaan Street 1 Did the chapel name the street, or did the street name 
 the chapel 1 If the latter, then Nottingham was more fortunate than some societies we 
 
 ORIGINAL CANAAN STREET CHAPEL, NOTTINGHAM. 
 
 know, whose first chapels were planted in courts or lanes or streets with strange and not 
 very attractive names. The Nottingham early Primitives must have turned the 
 street, in which their chapel stood, into Canaan Street; for as to the people who 
 inhabited this particular district at that time, we shall not be far wrong if we conclude 
 that their thoughts would not be much occupied either with the earthly or the heavenly 
 Canaan. It is not likely, therefore, that the name, Canaan Street, preceded the 
 building of the chapel ; nor did it, if the story cbmmunicated to the writer by the late 
 Mr. Thomas Large be true. The story is that the chapel was built in what might be 
 called a maze of little streets, compared with which the Maze at Hampton Court is 
 simplicity itself. At that time there was no road running through into Broad Marsh, 
 and many people had difficulty in finding the chapel. This was the experience of many 
 of the delegates who attended the Conference of 1826. Some were bewildered by the 
 intricacies of the way and lost valuable time in trying to extricate themselves from the 
 
 * Letter to Rev. J. Barfoot given in the Primitive Methodist Magazine for 1881, p. 227. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 205 
 
 labyrinth. It happened just then that the hymn having for its chorus " Canaan, 
 bright Canaan, I'm bound for the land of Canaan," was quite new and popular, being 
 sung at almost every service. Now, the late John Garner, 'then a young man full of 
 fun and resource, had noticed that the delegates stood much in need of the guiding 
 hand, and he resolved to supply the need. There, hard by, ready to hand, was 
 a painter's ladder. This he borrowed and climbed, and then chalked in large staring 
 Roman capitals the words, " CANAAN STREET " in such a position on the chapel that 
 they could be seen at a distance over the roofs of the lower buildings. To the delegates 
 these chalked letters were as the clue of Ariadne which guided Theseus out of the 
 labyrinth. Before time and weather had obliterated the letters, officers of the corpora- 
 tion came along to name the new streets, and seeing that this one was named already, 
 they took it over, and shortly a pair of iron plates with the name cast on them was sent 
 and fixed. 
 
 Primitive Methodism had a good start in Nottingham. From the beginning it took 
 hold of the people and acquired influence. It was fortunate, too, in securing the 
 adhesion of several men of standing as well as character. Two of these have just been 
 named Thomas Simmons and David Musson Jackson. The latter, like the former, 
 was one of the fifteen who took part in the Preparatory Meeting. The Rev. John 
 Barfoot writes of him : 
 
 " For very many years he was connected with the choir of Canaan Street Chapel 
 . . . and the picture of his fine, portly form standing erect in a prominent 
 part of the singers' gallery by the side of his magnificent double bass violin, which 
 he manipulated with a gracefulness that could not well be surpassed, is still fresh 
 in my recollection." 
 
 During the many years he was 
 
 . Governor of the Nottingham House 
 
 of Correction, Primitive Methodist 
 ministers found (without prejudice to 
 their characters) hospitable entertain- 
 ment at his residence. It is to be 
 regretted that owing to his having 
 during his later years discontinued 
 attending his class he should have lost 
 his membership amongst us, though his 
 attachment to the Church of his youth 
 experienced no abatement. During the 
 early stirring times experienced by the 
 society in the Broad Marsh, another 
 man who was to become a figure of 
 considerable note in the Connexion 
 gave himself Avhole-heartedly to the 
 cause. This was Thomas King. He 
 was a man of more than ordinary 
 THOMAS "KING. intelligence and education, as may be 
 
PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 gathered fn.ni the fact that he had been looked upon by the Wesleyan Methodists 
 as one in every way suitable to serve the Church on the foreign mission field. 
 Born in 1788, Mr. King' was at this time a married man, and was induced by his 
 wife to attend the services in the Broad Marsh. After much thought and prayer 
 he identified himself with the society, receiving his first ticket at the hands of 
 Hugh Bourne. In 1819, when the demand for labourers will become urgent, we 
 shall find anxious discerning eyes directed to Thomas King, and that he will allow 
 himself to be thrust out into the mission field despite the monetary and other 
 sacrifices such a^step will involve. 
 
 Such then was the manner of our introduction into Nottingham. Yet it is but fail- 
 to state that we have quite a different account of our entry into that town, given by no 
 less a person than Hugh Bourne himself. He states that being in Nottingham (no date 
 given) for the purpose of buying Sunday school requisites, he called at the house of 
 Mr. Weston whose wife was a zealous professor of religion. This Mr. Weston was 
 brother of Mr. Richard Weston of Lexhead, near Ramsor, at whose instance the call 
 was made. In the course of conversation Mrs. Weston strongly urged that the 
 Primitives should visit Nottingham. The request being reported Hugh Bourne goes on 
 to affirm : 
 
 "Richard Weston had amain hand in opening the town of Nottingham. My 
 visit might have drawn some attention, and was the means of his being sent for ; 
 but the Lord put on him the main work of opening that town. He laboured 
 much at his own expense with success. R. Winfield made a good impression in 
 preaching, and had a peculiar tact for opening new places ; but John Benton was, 
 for a considerable time, a main staff. He stuck to the mode of bringing talents 
 into action, as opened out at the Mercaston Camp Meeting, and he had great 
 success in opening fresh places. Sarah Kirkland was managing and useful ; and 
 others laboured well." 
 
 Now this statement must at all costs be reconciled with the one already given on the 
 authority of Mrs. Bembridge. It is simply inconceivable that a woman of such 
 transparent sincerity and candour as she was should lay claim to any honour to which 
 she was not entitled. Her statement is : "I was the first Primitive that preached at 
 Nottingham." No words could be clearer or more emphatic. If the interval between 
 Mrs. Weston's invitation to Nottingham and her brother-in-law's visit were too short to 
 admit of Sarah Kirkland's Christmas mission coming in, then it is easier to believe 
 that Mrs. Weston knew nothing of Sarah Kiikland's visit than that Sarah Kirkland 
 did not know she had been preceded by Richard Weston. Nottingham was, even in 
 1815, a considerable town, but we cannot bring ourselves to believe that Richard 
 Weston could "open" Nottingham and leave no trace discoverable by his successor. To 
 us the chief difficulty lies in Hugh Bourne's apparent unacquaintance with the priority 
 of Sarah Kirkland's visit. That difficulty, however, is a slight one compared with the 
 difficulties created by the rejection of Sarah Kirkland's own explicit statement. It 
 may perhaps be said that Hugh Bourne's words "Richard Weston had a main hand in 
 the opening of Nottingham," may be understood to mean that he was quite aware, as 
 superintendent, of Sarah Kirkland's visit, but that he attached little importance to it. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 207 
 
 But this explanation only makes matters worse ; for it implies that not only did 
 Hugh Bourne make light of the priority of her visit, but also failed to perceive its 
 causal connection with all that followed. Better to think Hugh Bourne uninformed 
 than perverse in his knowledge. In short we come to the conclusion that Nottingham 
 and Derby alike may safely rest in the belief that Sarah Kirkland was their founder. 
 
 This is not written in disparagement of Richard Weston, or to lessen our sense of 
 obligation to him on account of his self-denying activities. There can be no doubt that 
 he 'it'if labour much in Nottingham, and "at his own expense" which is the fact of most 
 significance for this history just at this point. R. Weston belonged to the Ramsor 
 district, so prolific of useful men as AVC have seen. He seems to have joined the 
 Connexion some time after its formation, if we may judge by the date when references 
 to him begin to appear in Bourne's Journals. Hence his name stands No. 16 on the 
 Tunstall plan, February April, 1818 ; but No. 5 on the Nottingham plan for the same 
 quarter. There is reason to believe that the few appointments assigned him on these 
 plans by no means represent the work he did, but that like Benton he laboured where 
 
 SOUTH VIEW OF NOTTINGHAM. 
 From the Meadows early in the 19th Century. 
 
 and as opportunity offered. As a trustee Richard Weston signs the deed of Dead Lane 
 Chapel, Loughborough (1818), and is described thereon as a "Dissenting Minister of 
 Ramsor," which means that he had taken out a licence to preach the Gospel, though 
 like Benton and Wedgwood and the Bournes he was in receipt of no salary. He 
 laboured far from his home, and during the week as well as on Sundays, for on 
 May 31st, 1819, we rind him taking part in a week-day camp meeting on Round Hill 
 near Leicester. These details are given because Richard Weston's may be regarded as 
 a typical case : " He laboured much at his own expense." The Connexion could not 
 have spread and rooted itself as it did during this first period of its history had it not 
 been for the voluntary, unpaid, yet almost continuous agency of men like R. Weston 
 and women like Mrs. Hannah Taylor, " who was wont to save as much of her earnings 
 as she could, then go off for weeks as a self- sustained missionary .... and has 
 
208 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 been seen preaching in a Leicestershire village guarded by police, so strong was the 
 feeling against the Ranter pr'eacheress." * The number of such workers, of men and 
 women who were real ministers, though they would not surrender their independence 
 and freedom of movement, was much greater than any one would suspect who does not 
 dig beneath the crust of our official Histories. Our Connexion was indebted for its 
 early extension and up-building to many whose names it is now difficult or impossible 
 to recover. 
 
 An interesting confirmation of this is supplied by the plans of the period. On these 
 you will not find the names of any female preachers not even the names of the female 
 travelling preachers. You wonder at this and cannot but ask " What have they done 
 with Sarah Kirkland and the other godly women who did such good work 1 " After 
 alternately staring at the plan and submitting it to a minute examination, it occurs to 
 you that they must have had an unusual number of special services and collections in 
 those far-past days judging by the capital letters so plentifully scattered over the body 
 of the plan. At once you turn to the references for enlightenment, and turn in vain. 
 Now quite at fault you resume your inspection, when all at once it flashes upon you 
 that these* Roman capitals mean more than collections or special services that they 
 mean the women you are looking for. The key fits. S. K. stands for Sarah Kirkland, 
 M. H. for Mary Hawksley the first and second female travelling preachers of the 
 Connexion. But what particular labourers in the gospel may be indicated by H. P., 
 W. A., and T. B. you cannot determine. The fact is as singular as it is indisputable, 
 and gives rise to reflections as to man's estimate of woman, and as to woman's 
 estimate of herself in those days reflections which cannot be put down here; for 
 we are in danger of forgetting Nottingham in the endeavour to show what manner 
 of men and women they were who missioned Nottingham and the neighbouring towns 
 and villages. 
 
 1818. 
 
 FEB. 
 
 MARCH. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 NAMES. 
 
 PLACES. 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 22 
 
 I 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 W 
 
 29 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 19 
 
 26 
 
 1 H Bomne 
 
 Derby 2 ami 6 
 
 S K 
 
 17 
 
 8 
 
 27 
 
 45 
 
 10 
 
 T 
 
 7 
 
 36 
 
 28 
 
 17 
 
 19 
 
 8 
 
 I W. Clowes 
 3 J. Bnion 
 
 Willrton iNoimanton 6 
 
 WA 
 
 31 
 
 14 
 
 36 
 
 46 
 
 19 
 
 37 T 
 
 8 
 
 17 
 
 31 
 
 36 
 
 8 
 
 46 
 
 4 J. Buxton 
 5 R. Wfston 
 
 Nottingham 2 and 6 
 
 1 
 
 19 
 
 10 S 
 
 26 
 
 T 
 
 SK 
 
 15 
 
 TBL 
 
 26 
 
 18 
 
 10 S 
 
 y 
 
 19 
 
 6 J. Wdgwo<xJ 
 7 W Watren 
 
 J.oujhbotough 2 and 6 
 
 19 
 
 MH 
 
 SK 
 
 17 
 
 42 
 
 9T 
 
 44 
 
 42 
 
 10 
 
 26 
 
 H P 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 8 T. Hunt 
 
 9 J. Hannon 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PART OF THE NOTTINGHAM CIRCUIT PLAN FOR 1818, SHOWING HOW INITIAL LETTERS WERE 
 USED IN THE CASE OF FEMALE PREACHERS. 
 
 NOTE. The above places do not follow in this order on the original plan. Not until after 1818 
 had the circuits their plans on separate sheets. From February, 18 1 7, all the places in the Connexion 
 were on one plan divided into two parts. The Tunstall part of the above plan had sixty-two places 
 and sixty local preachers. The second part consisting of the places in Derby, Nottingham, and 
 Leicester, had on it forty-five places and fifty-one local preachers. There was no week-night plm. 
 Week-night appointments were matter of arrangement. The plan, of which a few lines are here 
 given in facsimile, belonged to Sarah Kirkland, and her name is written on it, though it is not 
 printed on it. 
 
 * Communicated by Rev. S. A. Ban-on. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 209 
 
 Hugh Bourne was at ]S r ottingham on August llth, 1816, and evidently found the 
 work in the factory going full blast. He notes down : " I spoke to a great multitude 
 from Ephesians vi. 19. It was a glorious time ; there has been a surprising work at 
 this place." As a practical man, who carried his carpenter's foot-rule with him in his 
 pocket wherever he went, he is interested in the workshop as well as the work done in 
 it. He takes the dimensions of the preaching room even to an inch, and finds it 
 "contains about two hundred and fifty-three yards six feet. Its length is sixty-eight 
 feet eight inches ; and its width thirty-three feet three inches." 
 
 And now we seem to have reached a point where a pause must be made for the 
 
 OLP MILLS IN NOTTINGHAM FOREST, THE SITE OF THE CHEAT CAMP MEETINGS. 
 
 From a lithograph of the original sketch by Mrs. W. Enfield in the permanent collection of the 
 
 Nottingham Art Museum. 
 
 purpose of taking in, by a sweeping glance, the general significance of what is going on. 
 What does it all mean and portend 1 This : A combined and general movement on the 
 Midlands has already begun. The statement takes, it might seem, a form more in 
 keeping with the chronicling of military operations than the following the course of 
 a peaceful propaganda. Yet the movement was militant, if not military. Opposition 
 had to be met and overcome ; it was a campaign that was intended, though a bloodless 
 one, and the terminology of war best suits its setting forth. We have just seen how the 
 two bases for this aggressive movement have been secured. Derby and Nottingham are 
 
210 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the strategic points from which an advance will be made in different directions. From 
 Derby the base will soon be pushed forward to Loughborough, whence an advance will 
 be made on Leicester and other places on that side. The advance on Yorkshire and 
 Lincolnshire will lean on Nottingham as its base. We have seen, too, something of the 
 men and women tbeir enlistment and preparatory training who will be the leaders in 
 this forward movement. Now they are summoned : the supports are called up. Sarah 
 Kirkland (travelling preacher since Feb., 1816) leaves Staffordshire and Cheshire, where 
 she has been labouring, and goes Nottinghamwards, where the campaign will begin in 
 aood earnest by the holding of a great camp meeting in Nottingham Forest on Whit- 
 Sunday, 1816, when 12,000 people, it is said, will be present. John Benton, after 
 missioning and reinissioning for a time on the borders of the old Tunstall Circuit, 
 experiencing clerical interference at Church Broughton and Abbots Bromley, and 
 
 ABBOTS BROMLEY. 
 The first preacher stood opposite the old house shown in the illustration. 
 
 various minor successes in these parts, will also set off into Nottinghamshire, and 
 John Wedgwood will be summoned to assist. Two other Johns John Heath and 
 John Hallsworth will also be pressed into service, their salary for some quarters being 
 paid by Benton. John Harrison, too, after beginning (1816) his ministry on the 
 Tunstall side, will in 1818 proceed into Nottinghamshire and then into Leicestershire. 
 Besides these, Richard Weston, Robert Winfield, Thomas Jackson, Thomas King, and 
 of "honourable women not a few," will co-operate. Such is the general plan of 
 campaign, and if its general outlines be but grasped it will save us from becoming lost 
 in the multiplicity of detail ; and though we are hurried from town to town and village 
 to village, and seem to want as many eyes as Argus had, or the power to be in several 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 211 
 
 places at once, in order to follow the shifting figures and incessant movement con- 
 tinually going on, still we need not get confused if we only know what is the general 
 "idea," and what will be the outcome of it all. The details will fit themselves into 
 their places. 
 
 But before we attempt to describe in anything like detail the course of the great 
 Revival of 1817-18, it would seem eminently desirable that we should know something 
 of the condition industrial, social, and moral of the counties of Nottingham and 
 Leicester at the time. It will then appear that, alike in the locality it swept and in its 
 opportuneness, there was something providential in that Revival which, as Herod truly 
 says : " Was one of the most remarkable that ever was experienced in the Primitive 
 Methodist Connexion." 
 
 r 2 
 
212 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE LUDDITES AND THE LEVELLERS. 
 THE BACKGROUND OF THE MOVEMENT IN THE MIDLANDS, 1817-19. 
 
 HAT the power-loom, spinning-jenny, steam engine, and the Primitive 
 Methodist Revival are in time closely related is, we believe, not a mere 
 coincidence. At a grave crisis in the industrial and domestic life of the 
 nation Primitive Methodism was instituted." * 
 
 " The entrance of the Primitives into the town of Nottingham was very seasonable 
 or properly timed. For, two or three years previous to their visit, a spirit of 
 dissatisfaction had reigned among the working class, which had proved detrimental 
 to hundreds. The Luddite party had destroyed machinery to a very great amount." t 
 
 The observations just quoted show considerable acuteness, and, we believe, state 
 a fact it is all important for us at this stage to see the bearings of. To describe the 
 goings and doings of our missionaries from 1817 to 1819, irrespective of the industrial 
 and social conditions amid which they worked, would be like cutting out figures with 
 a pair of scissors and calling the result a picture. We must have the secular background 
 or the dramatic nay, the providential appearance of Primitive Methodism in the 
 Midland Counties at this juncture will be missed. Besides, our missionaries were not 
 phantoms, or even men and women so phlegmatic or etherealised as to be free from the 
 human emotions ordinarily experienced by those whose lot is cast in times of crisis and 
 trial. They were men and women of the people who lived and did their work amid the 
 daily excitements of the time, and unless we conceive something of all this, the 
 biographical no less than the historical interest of our narrative will suffer. 
 
 Here, for example, are two short extracts from contemporary Journals, in which, even 
 at this distance of time, something of the original emotion under which the words were 
 written may still be felt : 
 
 " Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires." 
 
 In one of these faded entries we have Hugh Bourne writing on June 10th, 1817, at 
 one end of the district which more immediately concerns us : 
 
 " Came and spoke at Mercaston. . . . To-day I heard that there was a mob 
 beyond Belper, and that two men had been slain." 
 
 * Rev. J. T. Ecob in the Aldersgate. 
 
 t G. Herod: "Biographical Sketches," p. 314. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 213 
 
 Sampson Turner writing at the other end of the same district and period, puts down 
 in his journal : 
 
 "August 17th, 1819. Bro. T. Jackson (1) and I both spoke at Witteningcroft this 
 evening. It was now a time of public animosities concerning Radical Reform, and 
 on our return to town (Macclesfield) at night, we had some difficulty in getting to 
 our lodgings with safety ; but the Lord preserveth the faithful. Much damage 
 was done to people's property which was estimated at 2,000. The scene was truly 
 disheartening to behold so many excellent windows, casements, shutters and 
 doors broken to shivers." 
 
 Now we want to know what all this social unrest this popular tumult and violence 
 means. It means that misery had bred discontent, and that discontent was seeking to 
 avenge itself. Amongst the many causes of this wide-spread misery must be named 
 the long war and the legacy it left of crushing debt and national exhaustion ; the 
 passing in 1815 of the iniquitous Corn Law; the wholesale enclosures of the common 
 lands that had gone on during the war-time ; the heavy taxation ; the succession of bad 
 harvests and the dearness of provisions ; the abuses of a corrupt and expensive 
 government. But over and above this formidable combination of evils there were the 
 far-reaching effects of the industrial revolution now in full swing. In itself this revolu- 
 tion was no evil. In the long result it increased the national wealth and tended to the 
 greater good of the greater number ; but in the meantime, while the transition from 
 handicraft to machinery was being effected, there were inevitably many innocent 
 sufferers from the revolutionary changes brought in. The inventions of Hargreaves 
 and Crompton, with the application of steam, had now largely superseded the spinning- 
 wheel, and Cartwright's power-loom was displacing the hand-loom. The old domestic 
 system in which the weaving was done at home or in sheds hard by, was giving place to 
 the factory-system with its employment of women and even children of tender years, 
 in many cases brought from a distance.* The old independence, the old leisurely 
 way of working, were becoming things of the past. Everything had to be timed 
 to the clang of the factory bell. There was the hurried meal, the rush to the 
 mill; the long hours of monotonous toil in which the man (perhaps formerly 
 his own master) seemed to have become as much a machine as the machine he 
 served. And so the gulf between employers and employed yawned ever wider 
 and hence J. R. Green dates from this very time " the war of classes, the social 
 severance between rich and poor," which, as he observes, still forms the great difficulty 
 in English politics. Men who found themselves flung out of work, or thrust down into 
 the ever-rising stratum of the wage-earning class were in no mood, even had they 
 possessed the ability, carefully to analyse the causes of their own distress. Seeing 
 their own misery reflected in the pinched wan faces of wife and children, some grew 
 bitter and took desperate measures. " There " said they, " are the big factories and 
 the new-fangled machines so fiendishly clever, that inventive skill, backed by capital 
 and enterprise, is multiplying all around ! These are at the bottom of the trouble. We 
 will have our revenge. The hateful machines which take the bread out of our mouths 
 
 * The introduction of steam led to the Cotton Mills Act of 1819 which fixed the working age of 
 children at nine and the working week for them at seventy-two hours ! 
 
214- 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 and are responsible for low wages and depression of trade shall be smashed, and the 
 masters shall learn that if the Government does prohibit workmen combining in order 
 to better their condition it shall not prevent their combining in order to destroy." 
 Such was the deplorable state of things and the equally deplorable state of mind of 
 many in the Midland counties in the year 1811, when the Luddite outrages began. In 
 February of that year, hundreds of stocking-frame makers, owing to trade depression, 
 were employed to sweep the streets and market-places 
 of Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester in order to 
 earn a miserable pittance. The next month hundreds 
 met iu the market-place at Nottingham and came 
 to the" determination to avenge their wrongs ; and 
 that very night the work of destruction began which 
 in the course of four or five years was responsible 
 for murder and the destruction of a thousand 
 
 LEICESTER MARKET-PLACE (TIME OF GEORGE III.). 
 
 frames in the county of Nottingham, and quite as many in the adjoining counties of 
 Derby and Leicester. The name they gave themselves was in one sense fictitious, 
 for there was no one leader or general called " Ludd " whom they acknowledged. Some 
 thirty-five years before, a half-witted lad when told by his father to "square his needles" 
 had in a fit of passion taken a hammer and beaten them into a heap. The witless but 
 passionate youth's name was Ludd or Ludlam. Hence, they whose doings were marked 
 by short-sighted rancour took the not inappropriate name of " Luddites." 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 215 
 
 It was difficult to bring the perpetrators of these trade outrages to justice. They were 
 an organisation as secret as the Ribbonmen or Nihilists, and their confederacy was 
 cemented by a terrible oath. This Luddite oath we venture to give in order that the 
 reader may judge what spirit it was of : 
 
 " I of my own voluntary will, do declare and solemnly swear that I will 
 
 never reveal to any person under the canopy of heaven the names of the persons 
 who compose the secret committee, their proceedings, meetings, places of abode, 
 dress, features, connections, or anything else that might lead to discovery of the 
 same either by word, or deed, or sign, under the penalty of being sent out of the 
 world by the first brother who shall meet me, and my name and character blotted 
 out of existence and never to be remembered but with contempt and abhorrence ; 
 and I further now do swear that I will use my very best endeavour to punish by 
 death any traitor or traitors, should any rise up amongst us, wherever I can 
 find him or them ; and though he should fly to the verge of nature I will pursue 
 him with increasing vengeance ; so help me God and bless me to keep this my 
 oath inviolable." * 
 
 Such was the Luddite oath of initiation, and it is not out of place here, for Luddism 
 did its best to spread what Gospel it had in these parts, and to apply its chosen methods in 
 dealing with the evils of the time. Primitive Methodism and it have to meet in these 
 same parts ; therefore let the reader compare their constitutive documents, drawn up 
 about the same time the one breathing a spirit, " humane, pitiful, brotherly," with its, 
 " Endeavour to make this society a blessing unto all people " ; t the other, with its, " so 
 help me God and bless me," to work havoc, and if need be, to slay my brother. 
 
 The Luddites' usual mode of procedure was as follows : They went about in bands 
 of from six to sixty in number, each with a black handkerchief over his face, and 
 otherwise disguised. Each too was armed, and while some kept watch the rest, 
 provided with hammers and axes, entered the buildings and smashed the frames. Then 
 when the work of destruction was over, " General Ludd " that is, the leader for the 
 time drew off his men, and at a given signal, usually the firing of a pistol, the band 
 dispersed to their homes, removing on their way the handkerchief which disguised their 
 features. 
 
 The outrages continuing, a large force of military was drafted into the district ; two 
 London police magistrates with their officers were sent to assist; an influential secret 
 committee well supplied with money was busy ; but still the work of destruction went 
 on. In 1812 an act was passed making it a capital crime to break a stocking or lace 
 frame. 
 
 The Luddite disturbances were not confined to the Midlands as readers of " Shirley " 
 and "John Halifax" will know. In 1811-12 they broke out in Cheshire, Lancashire, 
 and Yorkshire, where machine-smashing and what was scarcely distinguishable from 
 political pillage went on. In 1813 eight Luddites were hanged at York. The bodies 
 were given to their friends who showed them in the villages as the bodies of martyrs 
 and friends of the people. The venerable Thomas Jackson was then the Wesleyan 
 
 * " Old Stories Eetold " by Walter Thornbury. 
 t See the first Society Rules, ante pp. 171-2. 
 
216 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 minister at Sowerby Bridge, and he was only just in time to prevent the chapel at 
 Greetlund from being taken possession of for a funeral demonstration and harangue, 
 previous to the body of the Luddite being buried in the graveyard of the chapel.* 
 
 But our concern is with the Midlands, and to them we return. For a night-attack 
 on Messrs. Heathcote and Boden's factory at Loughborough, six men were hanged in the 
 Infirmary Square, Leicester, April 7th, 1817. Mr. Heathcote had perfected and 
 patented his improved twist-lace frame, known as the Loughborough Machine (1809), 
 which he had brought into extensive use in a factory he built. The attack was made 
 in the approved fashion by men acting under strict orders armed with pistols and axes. 
 The employees were, on pain of death, required to lie on the floor face downwards while 
 the work of devastation proceeded. No less than fifty-five machines besides much lace 
 were destroyed. All the windows were smashed, and John Asher, the watchman, was 
 shot, though he finally recovered. The midnight attack on Messrs. Heathcote and 
 Boden's factory was a mad act, regard it in whatever light we may. When the law had 
 done its work, there were five widows and seventeen orphans left, when there need not 
 have been one. The mischief wrought was a piece of sheer futility. Its perpetrators 
 could not even plead that they were doing evil that good might come. There was no 
 germ of goodness in it that would avail to make anything else better. To render fifty- 
 five frames so useless that no man could earn any wages by them was a strange method 
 of raising the rate of wages. For in this particular case the grievance sought to be 
 avenged was " working under price ; " it was not, as the Luddite outrages in Yorkshire 
 and Lancashire usually were, the work of exasperated men whose labour machinery had 
 superseded. And yet the leader of this gang of Luddites could fatuously say to the 
 half-dozen terrified prostrate workpeople whom he had surprised " If you know of any 
 frames working under price, if they're one hundred or two hundred miles off, tell us, 
 and we'll go and break them." Nor was the firm of Heathcote and Boden the chief, 
 though they were heavy sufferers by this night's work ; it was rather the town of 
 Loughborough that suffered. For when all was over, Mr. Heathcote in a sense shook 
 the dust of Loughborough off his feet, and removed his manufactory to Tiverton, which 
 town he afterwards represented in Parliament. This was a blow to Loughborough from 
 which it never fully recovered. Up to the night of the raid it had thriven, and the 
 advent of Mr. Heathcote to the town showed the way to still further prosperity. The 
 local historian expresses the opinion that but for this Luddite outrage Loughborough 
 and not Nottingham might have become the seat of the lace trade, and might easily 
 have doubled its population. As it is, though the hosiery trade still flourishes, the 
 bobbin lace manufacture has almost died out. There can, too, be little doubt that 
 night's work was to have a prejudicial effect upon the fortunes of Primitive Methodism 
 in Loughborough. In a way to be described more particularly hereafter, it increased 
 the difficulties of the society. "Then Primitive Methodism had gained a footing in 
 Loughborough by this time ? You have not told us about that ! " No : for the good 
 reason that there is little to tell. Those who could have told us all we want to know 
 have passed away and left no record. Still, by a process of inference we can 
 
 * " Recollections of My Own Life and Times," by Thomas Jackson, pp. 136-7. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 217 
 
 approximately fix the date of its introduction. Loughborough is not found on the 
 plan, February April, 1817, nor any place in Leicestershire. By May, 1818, a chapel 
 had been built, and as early as January of that year, when Hugh Bourne paid his 
 first visit to Loughborough, he found a society already flourishing there. We 
 judge that in the Midsummer, or at the latest in the early Autumn of 1817, John 
 Benton missioned Loughborough. So that if any one wants a convenient date-mark 
 for the introduction of Primitive Methodism into what was to be its third circuit they 
 may find it at a point midway between the grim scaffold scene at Leicester, April, 1817, 
 and the one equally grim, at Derby in November of the same year, to be referred to 
 shortly. The Luddites and Primitive Methodism are closely related in time ; the 
 vanishing of the one coincided with the entrance of the other. So, though our history- 
 books are silent, we know as surely as though we had been there and heard it for 
 ourselves, what the people of Loughborough were talking about in their homes, at the 
 street corners, in the public-houses and factories. If it be true that for six or seven 
 years the Luddites had brought in a veritable reign of terror over a large district in 
 Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire ; if they " had held possession of Loughborough by 
 armed force in defiance of the magistracy and constabulary ; " if they had " even openly 
 coerced judge and jury sitting in the Assize Court of Nottingham ;"* if the factories 
 built during this time were constructed for defence as well as work, being forts armed 
 with blunderbusses as well as factories furnished with frames if all this be true, which 
 there seems no good reason to doubt ; then we may be quite certain that Luddism 
 and the doings and fate of the Luddites would be more than a nine days' wonder. It 
 would for certain be the long-lasting staple topic of conversation and discussion. The 
 movements of the gang previous to the attack on the mill; the biographies of the 
 members of the gang ; the incidents of the night-raid and the story of the men's tardy 
 apprehension ; the drama of the trial, and the part played by judge and counsel, 
 witnesses and prisoners ; the demeanour of the condemned on the scaffold ; the 
 industrial problems associated with Luddism, and the bearing of it all on the present 
 and future prosperity of the town this was what men were rehearsing and dis- 
 cussing according to their individual bias, and with varying ability and volubility 
 when Benton made his entry into Loughborough. It must have been so. To the 
 public mind thus preoccupied our missionary brought a new topic a new interest. 
 "The Ranters are come ! What are they like? Who are they really? What do they 
 do 1 ?" Men had now something else to conjecture and talk about besides "General Ludd" 
 and his doings. Many a group would have its talk broken in upon by the lively hymn 
 our missionary sang, and would stop and listen. Some would follow and wedge 
 themselves into the crowd to learn for themselves what the Ranters were like and what 
 they were after. And some few out of these we know found more than a fresh topic. 
 The word came home with power to -their hearts, or the walls of Dead Lane Chapel 
 would not so soon have been raised. So, though we have no complete story to tell of 
 the introduction of Primitive Methodism into Loughborough, we can with some measure 
 of confidence fill in the background of the story. As for Dead Lane Chapel the 
 
 * " Notes and Queries of Leicestershire." 
 
218 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 mother-chapel of Leicestershire Primitive Methodism though we show its picture here 
 in advance, we Avill tell of its builders and its building in the next chapter. In this we 
 are only putting in the background. 
 
 THE " LEVELLERS." 
 
 "This Luddism was mixed up with the Levelling system." So writes George Herod, 
 and he gives the year 1816 as the date of the admixture. His statement receives 
 striking confirmation from a competent writer, who says : " Soon the riots of the 
 Luddites were lost sight of in the more formidable political riots which marked this 
 period, and make the social history of 1816 little more than a catalogue of disturbances." 
 Who the Levellers were, and wherein they differed from the Luddites, will become 
 
 DEAD LANE PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL, LOUGHBOROUGH. 
 
 18181837. 
 
 clear if a rapid sketch be given of the condition of the country at this time. After the 
 crowning victory of Waterloo the spirit of disaffection previously existent became more 
 widespread, bitter, and rampant. Men had expected so much from the peace, and their 
 condition was worse, and their outlook gloomier' than ever. So discontent tended to 
 become anarchic, and disaffection took more and more a political colour. In the autumn 
 of 1815 the iniquitous Corn Law Bill, designed to keep the average price of wheat up 
 to 80s. per quarter, was passed, despite the vehement protestations of the people. Men 
 were now just in the mood to listen to the devil's gospel, and agitators and public prints 
 were ready to preach it. Many became the avowed followers of one Dr. Spence, who 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 219 
 
 aimed at a general levelling of property. Men began to practise what they heard 
 preached. What had been after all but trade outrages on a large scale, now became 
 insurrectionary spurts preluding a " general rising ; " for this was what men secretly 
 talked of and began to prepare for. They even fixed the date of the rising : it was to 
 be June 9th, 1817 a date of some interest to us as being approximately the time when 
 Primitive Methodism entered Loughborough after its successes in Nottinghamshire. 
 A general rising, too. was what the Government feared, and its hand bore heavily on all 
 overt acts of disaffection. 
 
 But there were many who called themselves " Radical Reformers ; " for sturdy 
 and sane-minded William Cobbett had fastened upon Parliamentary Reform, and 
 energetically advocated it as the one thing needful at this crisis. The provinces 
 followed his lead, and Radical Reform became the watchword. The more excitable 
 Metropolis, however, got out of hand in November, 1817. After a mass meeting at 
 Spa Fields, Islington, shops were pillaged, with the result that the Government took 
 away the right of public meeting. Hampden Clubs had sprung up all over the country, 
 being especially numerous in Lancashire, and the stern repressive measures of the 
 Government exasperated the feeling already bitter enough. Secret drillings on the 
 moors went on, ostensibly for the purpose of ensuring the orderly management of the 
 mass-meetings, which again became legal in 1818, "the darkest year of the century." 
 But the Government believed the intention was to overawe them by a display of force. 
 The leaders, following the example of Birmingham, resolved upon holding a monster 
 meeting to demand their political rights in St. Peter's Field, where the Free Trade Hall 
 now stands. The meeting was held on Monday, August 26th, 1819. Unarmed, the 
 operatives of Lancashire, marshalled by Samuel Bamford, streamed to the rendezvous, 
 where at the centre from open hustings, Orator Hunt, as President, was to harangue 
 the crowd. The magistrates determined to serve a writ upon him for some frothy talk 
 he had indulged in "on the butcheries of Waterloo." The constables and yeomanry 
 Avere soon wedged in the crowd, and to rescue them the order was given for the 
 1 5th Hussars to charge. What followed can easily be imagined : the panic fright, the 
 mad rush, the human welter, the broken limbs and trampled forms. Eleven persons 
 men, women, and children were killed and two hundred wounded. The Sidmouth- 
 Castlereagh Government approved the action of the magistrates, and caused a medal to 
 be struck on which the exploit of the now detested yeomanry was commemorated. By 
 the same Government the repressive measures known as the Six Acts were passed and 
 stringently enforced. Peterloo as in mockery it came to be called, as though it were 
 a contemptible travesty of Waterloo was a decisive victory for the forces of reaction. 
 It put an end to the " Levelling system," and opposed a dam against the Radical 
 Reform Movement, which was not swept away until 1832. 
 
 We have anticipated the dying down of the Levelling system in 1819; but in 
 1817-18 it was still rife in the Midland Counties, and especially in the towns we are 
 concerned with Nottingham, Derby, Loughborough, and Leicester. To cope with it 
 the Government stooped to an odious system of espionage, finding an unscrupulous tool 
 in one Oliver, who was not only a spy and informer, but what we must go to France to 
 find the word for an agent provocateur. He pretended to be a kind of head-centre, 
 
'2'20 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 and in conversation with his dupes at the " Three Salmons " public-house in Nottingham, 
 gave it out that the whole country was ready to rise ; that he himself " could raise 70,000 
 in London. That the people in London would not be satisfied unless Nottingham was 
 
 perfectly secured, for it was the rally ing- 
 point for Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, 
 and Leicestershire ; and that if it was 
 not secured the passage over the Trent 
 would be perfectly stopped to the 
 Northern forces. That they must proceed 
 forward to London as soon as they could 
 raise sufficient men against the Loyalists, 
 and that Nottingham was to be con- 
 tinually occupied by Northern forces in 
 succession." He said further : " London 
 is now quite ripe ; I am sent down to see 
 that all is ready ; they can hardly be kept 
 down in Yorkshire and Lancashire, they 
 are so anxious to begin." * 
 
 And so the infamous creature practised 
 upon his victims until he got them fairly 
 within his toils, and another gruesome 
 scaffold-scene was the end of it all. Here 
 is the bald entry the annalist gives us, 
 which, bald as it is, means so much : 
 
 " November 7th, 1817. Execution 
 of Jeremiah Brandreth alias John 
 Coke, William Turner, and Isaac 
 Ludlam for high treason. These 
 men were the victims of an odious system of espionage, and the crime for which 
 they suffered was occasioned and fomented in a great measure by an infamous 
 man named Oliver, who was employed by the Sidmouth-Castlereagh Government 
 as an agent or spy in the North Midland districts." 
 
 The misguided men were hanged, and afterwards beheaded, in the presence of 7,000 
 military and a vast concourse at the Old Gaol, Friar Gate, Derby (now gone), amid 
 striking expressions of popular sympathy. 
 
 Such was the state of things in the Northern Midlands during the progress of the 
 great revival. From the very nature of the case our missionaries were brought into 
 closest quarters with the prevailing spirit. The gospel of salvation they carried, and 
 the devil's gospel, which is always in its essence a destructive and " levelling system," 
 not only eyed each other at a distance, but closed and grappled. Even if there were 
 not a particle of direct evidence remaining to show this, we know it must have been so. 
 Churches of long standing naturally made it their chief solicitude to keep their people 
 from being "drawn away and enticed" by the lawless spirit abroad, They drew 
 
 * " The Date-book of Remarkable Events connected with Nottingham and its Neighbourhood 
 1750-1850," by J. T. Sutton. 
 
 PKTKKLOO. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 221 
 
 a cordon round the fold and tried to isolate their flock. But as yet our missionaries 
 had no such necessary work to engage them. They themselves were outside the cordon, 
 and any work they did must be carried on within the infected area. They must go 
 right in amongst the people wherever they congregated. They might be probably 
 they were Luddites or Levellers or Radical Reformers in the very act of disseminating 
 their views and trying to make others like themselves. If so, all the better ; the more 
 need they should go. It was a providential " opening " not to be declined, but 
 welcomed. 
 
 The very name our missionaries bore, and what was most characteristic in their 
 
 THE OLD GAOL, FRIAR GATE, DERBY, NOW CONVERTED INTO PRIVATE RESIDENCES. 
 
 methods, furthered the needed contact and helped to make it more fruitful. Hugh 
 Bourne, when referring to the missioning of Nottingham, observes : " The term Ranter 
 greatly assisted in opening new places. If it was given out for a 'Ranter-preacher' to 
 preach, the neighbourhood, and often a part of the country, would usually come 
 together." An old anecdote, that bears on it the stamp of authenticity, affords a striking 
 confirmation of Hugh Bourne's remark : 
 
 "Joseph W was a very wicked man, and usually spent the Lord's Day in 
 
 wandering from one public-house to another. One day he heard a person say that 
 the ' Ranters ' were come to Hill. ' Oh ! ' said Joseph, ' it is only the Radicals 
 
222 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 under a feigned name, I will go and hear them.' And so he did, on the next Lord's 
 Day : he listened very attentively, and thought he heard very little Radicalism. 
 The preacher gave out that he should be glad to meet in class as many as would 
 join him, at a neighbouring house. So, thought Joseph, he will explain his views 
 more clearly, ' I will go ; I dare say he has some private communication to make 
 about a general rising.' So in he went ; the preacher sung, prayed, and gave his 
 experience ; Joseph's eyes be.gan to open, the real object of the preacher was before 
 him, and his own sins were full in view. A cry burst from him : ' God be merciful 
 to me a sinner.' God had pity on him, his soul was converted, he joined our society 
 and became a useful class-leader."* 
 
 Fortunately we have one piece of contemporary evidence as to the successful results 
 of the methods followed by our missionaries in the disturbed period of 1816-19. The 
 
 writer Eev. George Herod was a Nottinghamshire youth at the time, and was himself 
 
 among the fruits of the great revival, soon after becoming a travelling preacher. He 
 writes of what he knew, and as his " Biographical Sketches " has long been out of 
 print, and is now scarce and likely to become more so, we shall for this as well as other 
 obvious reasons, give the very words of his testimony, so that it may be handed down 
 as serving to confirm our contention that Primitive Methodism did a work in the first 
 period of its history for which the nation had reason to be grateful. 
 
 "At this juncture and crisis [industrial and political] the P. Methodist missionaries 
 brought a counteractive influence to bear upon the masses, and in multitudes of 
 instances destroyed the baneful virus of infidelity and insubordination. Having been 
 raised up from among the working classes, and not having received an academical 
 education, and their appearance and dialect being correspondent to those of the 
 disaffected, they generally gained a patient hearing. Their manner of entering a town 
 or village also produced great excitement ; in general the missionary was accompanied 
 with a number of warm-hearted singers, and so soon as they entered the place of 
 their attack they commenced singing down the street, and continued so doing until 
 they arrived at a place of rendezvous ; as nearly every town and village have places 
 where men and youths meet to discuss different subjects, thither the missionaries 
 would make their way. The Spiritual Songs which Lorenzo Dow had brought from 
 America, with the very lively airs to which they were sung, produced a very wonderful 
 effect upon multitudes. Had the preacher with his supporters sung a hymn or psalm 
 in Martin Luther's favourite tune, or one commonly used in a place of worship, it 
 would have been said ' Oh, it's some Methodist preacher ; it is nothing new.' But the 
 course adopted led to a different result. Hundreds, and in some instances thousands, 
 (and especially on a missionary's first visit to a place) were collected together through 
 the novelty of lively singing. 
 
 " The name by which the preachers were designated ' Ranters ' was of itself a 
 topic for general conversation, and in some instances for surmisings. For some time 
 the people had had for a subject of conversation, Luddism and the Levelling system ; 
 and it had not been uncommon to see in the different towns and villages, groups at 
 the corners of the streets, on a Sabbath morning, discussing political subjects ; but 
 Ranterism was a new topic. Hence the novel name was the means of causing the people 
 to give the preacher a hearing. The minds of thousands were also excited with dis- 
 
 * " Anecdotes and Facts of Primitive Methodism," by Samuel Smith, Primitive Methodist 
 Itinerant Preacher, 1872. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 223 
 
 affection towards government. This commenced in the beginning of the year 1816 ; 
 and now when the preacher had collected the people in the open-air by lively singing, 
 they waited in eagerness to hear if he would tell them something new. And when 
 he commenced his fervent and energetic prayer in behalf of the assembled people, 
 deploring their wretched and miserable condition as the result of their transgressions, 
 an influence was often brought on them that caused them to reflect. But especially 
 when he read out his text, and began to portray the character, conduct, and circum- 
 stances of his hearers, his word, by the power of the Holy Ghost often reached their 
 consciences, and many saw the error into which they had fallen, and the danger of 
 mixing up with infidel and political companions, and so forsook them, and became 
 valuable members of society. What thousands were congregated on Nottingham 
 Forest at the Camp Meeting in 1816, and what numbers there were from both town 
 and country that felt the glorious effects of gospel truths ! Many, to our knowledge, 
 became sobered down, and were soon brought into the enjoyment of religion, and 
 became as zealous (if not more so) for the cause of Christianity, as they had been 
 for Luddism or the Levelling system. 
 
 " We could give a number of circumstances illustrative of the great good which 
 was the result of Primitive Methodist missionary labours at this period, but let the 
 following suffice : At a large village, eight miles south-east of Leicester, the Levelling 
 system took deep root in the minds of the working classes, and a sub-committee was 
 formed ; and with their frequent meetings, their correspondence with other places, 
 their drilling for fighting, and collecting for ammunition, scores of families were so 
 reduced as to be almost in a state of starvation. A barn belonging to one of the 
 committee was converted into a store-house for ammunition. .Some time before the 
 general expected rise, one man, possessing an unpleasant feeling against a neighbour 
 who was a farmer, determined to have revenge, and this he sought by one night 
 maiming a number of his sheep, expecting that on the 9th of June, 1817, the general 
 rise would take place, and that then he would be lawless. However, in this he was dis- 
 appointed, the general rise did not take place, but he was apprehended for the crime 
 he had committed, and examined before the magistrates, when he was committed to 
 Leicester gaol to take his trial at the assizes. His trial lasted a considerable time, 
 and the jury found him guilty of the offence. His lordship passed the sentence of 
 death on him. After this his brother felt so indignant against the principal witness, 
 that he came to the determination that if his brother were hanged he would be 
 revenged on this man, by waylaying and shooting him. The execution of the sentence 
 was, however, delayed, and in the interim a Primitive Methodist missionary preached 
 at a village about two miles from the place where the two brothers had resided ; there 
 the one who contemplated homicide heard the gospel, and was awakened to a sense 
 of his situation. The night after, the preacher took his stand in C e,* and in his 
 discourse all the leading men belonging to the Levellers in that village were convinced 
 of sin, of righteousness, and of a judgment to come; and such was their concern for 
 the salvation of their souls that they resolved to hold a prayer meeting in the house 
 of the father of the man who was under sentence of death. When the time arrived 
 (not for a Levellers' meeting, but for what was then vulgarly called a Ranters' prayer 
 meeting), the place was crowded to excess. The meeting was opened with singing, 
 but when this closed there was not one to be found that could pray. However, the 
 individual who had decided to be an assassinator recollected that there was in his 
 
 * The village of Countesthorpe, Leicester 2nd Circuit, answers to description in the text. 
 
"2'24 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 father's cupboard a large book of prayers for every day in the year. He therefore 
 brought it out, and as many as could kneel did, and he read a prayer, and then rose 
 and sang a hymn, and then read another prayer, and in this way they carried on their 
 meeting for a considerable time. But very soon after, the two principal Levellers 
 obtained the remission of their sins, by faith in the blood of Christ, and then they 
 were enabled to pray without a book. Soon after their conversion they became local 
 preachers, and were zealous champions for the Lord of Hosts. One of them, some years 
 ago, died triumphant in the faith. He left a son behind, who in his youth obtained 
 religion, and for some time was a very acceptable local preacher, and then he died 
 happy in God. The brother of the man under sentence of death is still living, and 
 is steady to his purpose ; for nearly eight and thirty years he has maintained his 
 position in society, and on the preachers' plan. His father, who was the proprietor 
 of the barn or storehouse, was also brought into the enjoyment of religion, and many 
 years ago he landed safely, we trust, in heaven. The barn which contained ammu- 
 nition for the Levellers was converted into a place of worship, and in it we dispensed 
 the Word of Life, in our turn, for three years ; a large society existed there, and now 
 they possess a very neat chapel, and have a large Sunday school. From the society 
 one travelling preacher has been raised up. The individual that had the sentence 
 of death passed on him received a commutation of his sentence, and was transported 
 beyond the seas for the term of his natural life." Herod, Biographical Sketches. 
 (Introduction, pp. 12 15).* 
 
 * It must be remembered this was written many years ago. Unfortunately and foolishly the 
 'Sketches" bear no date; but Herod died August 30th, 1862, and the "Biographical Sketches'' 
 would be published in the Fifties. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 225 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE GREAT REVIVAL OF 1817-18. 
 
 CLEARER idea of the course and extent of the Revival of 1817-18 will be 
 gained if, instead of contenting ourselves with mere verbal description or 
 tabulation, we attempt to show in some such graphic way as that adopted in 
 the text, where the revival operated, and what it did towards the enlarge- 
 ment of the Connexion. As yet, we must remember, there was but one .plan for the 
 entire Connexion divided into two parts, therefore not only can we pretty accurately 
 measure the progress made during a given time by ascertaining whether few or many 
 fresh places have been added to the plan, but by locating these places we can also learn 
 in what direction or directions the Connexion is extending itself. Thus, comparing the 
 
 BLIDWORTH 
 
 (HUCKNALL) 
 
 BALDERTQN 
 
 (BULWELL) 
 
 5IBTHORPE- 
 
 SCREVETOM/ 
 'BRiDGFQRD 7 
 
 .5HELFQRD / THDROTDN 
 
 5CARRIN&TDN 
 BI^IGH^M 
 
 RADGLIFFE 
 
 80TTE5FORD- 
 
 (KINOULTON) 
 
 HARBY 5TATHERN 
 
 PLACES IN NOTTINGHAMSHIRE ADDED TO THE PLAN IN NINE MONTHS. 
 
 plan for February April, 1818, with the one for the corresponding quarter of the 
 previous year, we find that it is the jSTottingham Circuit which has had by far the 
 largest increase in the number of its preaching places, and, further, that the great 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 majority of these new pn-arhing places are in Nottinghamshire. Yet we note that the 
 names of Loughborough and three or four other places in Leicestershire stand at the 
 very bottom of the plan, signifying that already in the spring of 1818 the Connexion, 
 after its successes in Nottinghamshire, is beginning to extend itself in that direction. 
 None of the places shown on our rough sketch-map, drawn to scale, are to be found on 
 the February April 1817 plan, except Bui well, Hucknall Torkard, and, of course, 
 Nottingham, which is the base and centre 
 of the whole movement. The remaining 
 places serve to register the gains of the 
 previous nine months' labours. We know 
 other places besides these were missioned, 
 but circumstances either prevented Primi- 
 tive Methodism from rooting itself in them, or 
 as yet its hold was too slender and uncertain 
 to justify their names coming on the plan. 
 The map, then, 
 shows that through- 
 out the year 1817 
 Primitive Method- 
 ism was specially 
 busy in the valley 
 of the Trent from 
 Nottingham to 
 
 [HAMPHILL LANE, BILWKLL. 
 Where Open- Air Services were held. 
 
 WHERE 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODISM 
 COMMENCED 
 AT BULWELL. 
 
 Newark, in the 
 vale of Belvoir, 
 with au extension 
 to Grantham in 
 Lincolnshire; and 
 to the north and 
 west of Notting- 
 ham, in ancient 
 
 Sherwood Forest, as far as Mansfield, though 
 its coming on the plan will be deferred for 
 a time. 
 
 Bulwell, Ilkeston, and Hucknall Torkard, 
 as we have seen, have their place on the 
 1817 plan, and though they were first 
 entered in 1816, before the vigorous concerted 
 
 DALE ON FOREST. 
 
 Where Camp Meetings were 
 
 held for many years. 
 
 movement in Nottinghamshire began, they may still be regarded as the early first-fruits 
 of that movement. Bulwell was missioned by invitation just as Derby was. Sarah 
 Kirkland had attended the famous Whit-Sunday Camp Meeting in Nottingham Forest 
 (June 2nd), when, if we are to believe the liberal estimate given, there were 12,000 
 persons present at the camp meeting, and 1,500 at the lovefeast in the room in the 
 Broad Marsh. She was quietly returning to Derby on the following day, and had got 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 227 
 
 some twelve miles on her journey, when she was overtaken by a man on horseback 
 bearing an urgent message from a Mr. Turner for her to preach at Bulwell, a hosiery 
 town, some four miles from Nottingham, that same evening. She at once turned back 
 with the messenger and preached to some hundreds of people from a cart fixed in the 
 middle of a field. Mr. Turner, it seems, had hoped to get the loan of the Wesleyan 
 Chapel for the service, but his application to the trustees was unsuccessful, and hence 
 other arrangements of a rough and ready character had to be improvised. Amongst the 
 many converts at this service was Mr. Gent, a dyer, who, Herod tells us, fir&t opened 
 his house for preaching, and then in a few weeks got a large room prepared for worship. 
 " Within one month from her visit sixty persons joined the Primitive Methodist 
 Connexion." Probably the room thus " prepared " was the old barn, which continued 
 to be the chapel of the society until about the year 1852. Though this date takes 
 us a little beyond our period, the interesting circumstances which led to the barn's 
 .supersession by a more suitable place of worship may be touched upon.* It was felt 
 the time had more than come for a new departure. The old barn, some twelve feet by 
 thirty, and eight or nine feet to the wall-plates, and looking more like an entry than 
 a chapel, had served its day and generation. But the difficulty was to obtain a suitable 
 site ; for the lord of the manor was also the rector of the parish an ominous conjunction. 
 The Rev. W. Brownson was then the superintendent of Nottingham North, with Charles 
 J. Bodeii for his colleague. On these fell the task of interviewing the rector, and on 
 the society the privilege of praying in the old barn for the success of the mission their 
 ministers were then discharging. Said the superintendent to his colleague, as the two 
 were on their way to the rectory: "I have not much faith. You pray while I talk." 
 Now, a little while before this, Horace Mann, the statistician, had published his report of 
 the various religious denominations as the result of the census of 1851. In it occurs 
 that remarkable passage, in which Mann refers to oiir Church as if it were a kind of 
 prison-gate mission, and the jackal or lion-provider of the Church of England. This 
 strange judgment, as we have already seen, has its distinct historic value, glancing back 
 as it does on the whole of this introductory period, and showing what some well- 
 informed people thought of us and our work. That sentence has often afforded a topic 
 for animadversion in the days that are gone and naturally so. But once at least, 
 handled diplomatically, it served to wring an advantage for the Connexion : it helped to 
 get a site for Bulwell New Chapel. Mr. Boden had Horace Mann's report with him, 
 -and showed the passage to his superintendent as they went along. "That is just what 
 we want " was the comment. During the interview the rector, of course, objected that 
 " the Primitives were opposed to the Church of England." For answer, Mr. Brownsou 
 produced the sentence : 
 
 " They prepare people for the more refined worship of the Church of England, 
 and for every one added to their society the country contains one criminal or 
 immoral person the less." 
 
 * The story has been interestingly told by Rev. C. H. Boden iu his article, " A Momentous 
 Mission," Aldersgate Magazine, March, 1902. The writer and the Connexion generally are under 
 obligation to Mr. Boden for rescuing so many worthy names and deeds from threatening oblivion. 
 
 n 9 
 
228 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUHCH. 
 
 The rector read the sentence thoughtfully, and then remarked : " I was unaware of 
 this. I will think the matter over." The ministers returned to their company in the 
 old barn, and when they announced what could not but be regarded as the success of 
 their mission, we are told that "a great shout of glory went up." Gent (not the dyer 
 aforesaid) stamped his wooden leg and exclaimed, " Glory be to God ! " and the sparkle 
 in Thorpe's eyes spoke volumes. IS T ot many days passed before the rector offered them 
 
 the one site he had to give, 
 which happened to be the one 
 above all others they desired. 
 Thanks, perhaps, to Horace 
 Mann, and still more to the 
 liberal heart devising liberal 
 things, the Bulwell friends 
 were handsomely treated. When 
 they met the rector's steward 
 for the purpose of staking out 
 the land required, he, acting on 
 his liberal instructions, about 
 doubled the quantity they had 
 ventured to mark. 
 
 Later on in the year Sarah 
 Kirkland was again at Bulwell, 
 for Hugh Bourne, who is evident- 
 ly there for the first time, notes 
 in his Journals : 
 
 " Tuesday, August 13th. 
 I was at Bulwell : there 
 has been a strange revival 
 at this place. Our people 
 held a camp meeting last 
 Sunday, and Sarah Kirk- 
 land spoke yesternight ; 
 yet there was a huge 
 multitude." 
 
 Although we cannot always 
 be making it appear by repeated 
 quotations from his Journals 
 
 that Hugh Bourne was quickly on the track of the missionaries, preaching, 
 advising, "looking after the temporal concerns," adjusting disagreeables, and keeping 
 a watchful eye on everything such is the fact to be ever borne in mind. If he is not 
 there at this moment, he has only just left, or is expected to arrive soon. It is not 
 more certain that trade follows the flag, or that the representatives of law and order 
 followed the Roman legionaries, than that Hugh Bourne will follow in the wake of 
 Sarah Kirkland or John Benton in these parts, or wherever they may be prosecuting 
 their mission. Two other brief references to Bulwell not only make this plain, but are 
 of interest on other grounds. 
 
 BULWELL CHAPEL. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 229 
 
 7th. At Bui well. A glorious time. They are doing well here. June 25th. 
 Finished the plan, and brought a heavy luggage for T. Saxton [who has just begun 
 his labours as a travelling preacher] from Nottingham for Tunstall. I came to 
 Bulwell saw Mary Hawkesley and J. Benton. The work is going on well and 
 rapidly ; but there is great opposition in some places by gentlemen, in others by mobs. 
 O Lord, stand by them. I came to Belper excessively hot." 
 
 We are not to conclude from the references to persecution contained in the italicised 
 words of Hugh Bourne just quoted, that he himself had encountered persecution at 
 Bulwell or its neighbourhood. He had no such experience there or thereabout ; nor 
 had Sarah Kirkland. And yet and in this lies the significance of the fact it was in 
 this part of Nottinghamshire where there was the most disaffection amongst the 
 operatives and miners. No : Bourne would write that sentence about persecution by 
 gentlemen and by mobs fresh from hearing Beaton tell something of the rough times he 
 and others had experienced in the vale of Belvoir and the more purely agricultural 
 parts of the county. It is too soon to generalise on the facts as to the persecution of 
 our early missionaries ; it is a long dark chapter as yet barely begun. But even at this 
 point it may be well to advise the reader to note as we pass along, the particular social 
 and industrial character of the localities where persecution showed itself most bitter. 
 Let him be on the alert to answer such questions as these : Was persecution at all 
 conditioned by the avocations of the people, and upon the degree of their subserviency 
 to the influence emanating from manorial halls and snug rectories? Did persecution 
 instinctively follow the plough, and linger about sleepy cathedral closes, and haunt 
 steady agricultural towns 1 On the other hand did it flee from the sound of the pick 
 and the whirring of machinery ? Ample material will be forthcoming before we come 
 
 to the end of the chapter of persecu- 
 tion, to enable the reader to answer 
 these questions for himself. , By 
 that time he may find reason to 
 conclude that there was a closer 
 connection between mobs and 
 gentlemen than Hugh Bourne's 
 words may seem to imply. 
 
 Before the close of this same year 
 1816, and probably also in August 
 Sarah Kirkland missioned Ilkeston 
 in Derbyshire, which at that time 
 was a place inhabited chiefly by 
 colliers, and noted, we are told, 
 for the poverty and the rough- 
 ness and rudeness of the people. 
 When we read what Herod has to 
 say of the manners of the people 
 in 1816, we cannot but recall that 
 almost the same words were used 
 to describe the condition of the 
 
 ILKESTON FIRST CHAPEL NOW TWO COTTAGES. 
 
880 
 
 I'KIMITIVK METHOPJST CHUKCH. 
 
 natives of Muw O>p in 1SOO before the first revival began. He intimates that here- 
 too a stranger passing through the place was in danger of being pelted with filth or 
 with language equally foul. But the missionary was favourably received, and her 
 labours were in the truest sense remunerative. The gospel worked a reformation in 
 'many a life and home, and even when Herod wrote he could state the pleasing fact that 
 few towns within the same time had made greater progress morally and intellectually 
 than Ilkeston. 
 
 Hucknall Torkard, in whose church rest the remains of Lord Byron, was another of 
 the places near Nottingham visited by Sarah Kirkland before the close of 1816. At 
 the time of her visit there existed much destitution amongst the people, and this was- 
 associated with widespread discontent and political excitement. "Levelling" sentiments 
 found favouring conditions in Hucknall, and flourished as in a hot-bed. All this 
 
 HUCKNALL TORKAR1) MARKET-PLACE. 
 
 The place marked X is where our earliest preaching-place was. 
 
 showed the people sorely needed the gospel, and were fit to receive it; for their 
 discontent had its justification, and hence showed it might be turned into " divine 
 discontent," and then they would be ready to welcome the gospel of salvation and hope. 
 Even the "levelling" sentiments that found favour with so many of the people had 
 been adopted as promising deliverance from present evils ; and they who had given 
 ear to an imperfect or false gospel might be glad to exchange it for a better one. So 
 in this manufacturing village, as in so many other places in the Midlands at this time, 
 Primitive Methodism found and used its opportunity. It did not, in the person of its 
 missionary, turn aside to seek a more promising field, for the seemingly unfavourable 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 231 
 
 THE FIRST PREACHING-HOUSF, HUCKNALL TORKAEI). 
 
 conditions showing themselves were really the very whiteness of the field ready] unto 
 harvest. Better Hucknall Torkard, with its destitution and minds saturated with 
 levelling sentiments, than Tythby (likewise in Notts., and an addition to the]1818'plan), 
 a* John Harrison describes it after a visit paid in March, 1817. 
 
 " I walked four miles to Tithby, intending to preach at two, but when I entered 
 the village all the people were going to the church, so I had to wait till the service 
 was concluded. I had a large congregation, but they looked just like what they 
 were, viz., stiff-necked professors, who had the form of religion, but were without 
 
 ' 
 
 THE FIRST CLASS MEETING-HOUSE, HUCKNALL TORKARD. 
 
232 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the power ; 'a fire was kindled round them, but they knew it not ; a flame burned 
 them, yet they laid it not to heart.' I preached from the words of the Lord 
 'The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall 
 condemn it ; because they repented not at the preaching of Jonas ; and behold 
 a greater than Jonas is here.' I felt barren in my soul, yet believers rejoiced : 
 I could not move these formal professors and to all appearance God did not so I left 
 them." 
 
 But at Hucknall many of the inhabitants were "moved" by Sarah Kirkland's message 
 and appeals. A society was formed, which had for its first preaching-room the " Seven 
 Stars " Inn Club-room. This was used only on Sundays. The week-night services were 
 held occasionally in Mrs. Osborne's cottage, Wood Lane, and also in the open-air. 
 Then the " Seven Stars " was left, and a barn on the opposite side of the way was 
 taken. The society grew in numbers until the membership reached between seventy and 
 eighty. On the formation of the Mansfield Circuit, Hucknall was placed on the Mansfield 
 plan, and its prosperity continued until 1838, when it suffered a serious reverse; the 
 story of which must be told in another connection.* Reverting to Nottingham, 
 Hucknall was as recently as 1901 formed into a circuit out of Nottingham III. It has 
 now a flourishing society, and possesses valuable church property. 
 
 It would not have been surprising if Sarah Kirkland had met with opposition in 
 missioning both Ilkeston and Hucknall ; but there is no hint that she had any such 
 experience. Nor can we recall an instance during her more than four years of continuous 
 itinerating in districts differing widely in their industrial character, when she met with 
 insult or rough treatment. Indeed, this statement might be enlarged so as to 'apply to 
 the other devoted female labourers in the first period of the Connexion's history. As 
 a general rule they were treated civilly, and got a fair hearing. Curiosity so keen as 
 for the time to keep under every other feeling ; their defencelessness ; their trustful 
 mien ; their tact and simplicity, and the absence of everything provocative these may 
 serve to explain, in part, the immunity which our early female missionaries as a rule 
 enjoyed in a much greater degree than their colleagues of the sterner and less tactful 
 sex. There were exceptions to this rule of immunity we know ; but where they 
 occurred we may safely infer we have got down to a very low human seam. The 
 general statement made holds good for most districts of the country, and speaks much 
 for the instinctive chivalry of the people when both the times and manners were rougher 
 than they are to-day. 
 
 An incident of a kind, quite common in Sarah Kirkland's experience, occurred at the 
 close of her first service at Hucknall Torkard. A stranger was introduced to the 
 preacher, who had come from Sutton Ashfield. He had heard of the evangelistic 
 successes of the " Ranters " so called, and had come to see and hear for himself. He 
 was urgent that Sarah Kirkland should visit Sutton as soon as possible. The man's 
 appearance was all against him ; for his mouth was so contorted as to give a sinister 
 aspect to his countenance, and probably the disfigurement was also a disablement, and 
 marred his utterance. However, after some hesitancy, the preacher gave the desired 
 promise, and the visit was duly paid. A revival followed, and a large society was 
 
 Communicated by Rev. G. G. Martinda'e. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 233 
 
 formed, which had until 1840 its headquarters in Bedlam Court. In this strangely- 
 named locality the District Meeting of 1838 held its sittings. We are told that the 
 barber who pressed Sarah Kirkland to visit Button Ashfield became the first and a most 
 useful member of the new society there. Herod tells a story of the way in which the 
 barber's malformation arose, which may be taken for what it was worth. When in his 
 godless state he was much annoyed at the sight of a new Wesleyan Chapel that was 
 rising up near his shop so near that people would have to pass his shop to enter it. 
 One day, as he stood surveying it, just before completion, he broke out into imprecations 
 and he was smitten with retribution. He repented and sought forgiveness. 
 
 Mansfield was the next place successfully 
 missioned. Here a good society was raised, 
 and in a few months a large room was taken 
 and fitted up with forms and pews. The 
 society seems to have had a continuous 
 existence from the time of Sarah Kirkland's 
 visit, and to have made some progress during 
 these early years ; for at the Nottingham 
 Quarter Day, March, 1824, the following 
 somewhat unusual resolution was passed : 
 "That Mansfield be a Branch of the 
 Nottingham Circuit for one quarter on trial." 
 Either the period of probation must have been 
 prolonged, or Mansfield and the adjacent 
 societies must have reverted to their old 
 relation to the mother-circuit, since it is not 
 until 1826 it entered upon its long career of 
 circuit independence. 
 
 Amongst other places said to have been 
 successfully missioned by Sarah Kirkland 
 about this time were Cotmanhay, Codnor Park, Kirby, Lambley, Blidworth, Oxton, and 
 Epperstone. She was the first accredited missionary of the Connexion to set foot 
 in East Bridgford, a place that on various grounds deserves fuller reference. Yet East 
 Bridgford is in the Trent Valley, and, therefore, geographically in that part of the 
 county it fell to Benton's lot to mission, and her visit only by a short time anticipated 
 his. This village is of note, as having been the home of several persons of consequence 
 to our history : some became auxiliaries, and greatly helped to extend the revival, while 
 others became adherents of the cause, and locally, or in the wider sphere of the 
 ministry, were to become well known. One of the latter was George Herod. East 
 Bridgford was his boyhood's home, and up to the last he retained a vivid recollection 
 of Sarah Kirkland's first visit, and of the stir it made in the quiet village. She preached 
 in a barn, with a gig for a pulpit; and here young Herod heard her as he sat perched 
 on the big beam that spanned the barn. He had climbed to this point of vantage by 
 he help of two poles leaning against it, and in this way he had, like Zacchseus, obviated 
 the disadvantages of his stature ; for the barn-floor was so packed with people, that 
 
 V 
 
 BEDLAM COURT, LORD STREET, 
 
 FIRST PREACHING-PLACK, SUTTON-IN-ASHFIELD. 
 A District Meeting was held here. 
 
234 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST OHUBCH. 
 
 when he had squeezed himself among them he could see little else but the heads and 
 shoulders of those who were bigger than himself. So he turned the beam into a gallery 
 and the sloping poles into stairs, and from his elevation was able to see and hear 
 everything. Benton's second visit was paid on a Sunday afternoon, when a powerful 
 impression was made on the large company assembled in the open air. The minds of 
 many, hitherto thoughtless or depraved, were stirred into concern ; a revival broke out, 
 and in the course of a few weeks a society of forty members was established. 
 
 Mr. William Lockwood was one of John Benton's hearers that Sunday afternoon, 
 There is no need for us to write "a Mr. Lockwood," as some of our historians have 
 done, as though he were an utter stranger to whom we are now introduced for the first 
 
 STAR LANE, EAST BRIDGFORD. WHERE GEORGE HEROI) LIVED. 
 
 time. Rather may we speak of him as the Mr. Lockwood, whom we heard of in the 
 Staffordshire region in the days gone by ; for is he not the Mr. Lockwood who held 
 high rank in the heavenly bulletins the visionaries published from time to time 1 William 
 Lockwood was accepted as a candidate for the Wesley an ministry in 1800, and as such his 
 name stands on the Minutes for that year next above the honoured name of Benjamin 
 Gregory, the father of the able and liberal-minded late editor of the Wesleyan Methodist 
 Magazine. His first station was Leek, a circuit immediately adjoining Burslem Circuit, 
 and there is conclusive evidence that Bourne knew Mr. Lockwood so well that he could 
 speak of him as " his esteemed friend ; " that Lockwood was in these early days a noted 
 evangelist ; that he believed in camp meetings, and, but for circumstances, might have 
 led the way in holding them; and that, even as it was, his known sentiments and 
 example had kept alive and fed the desire of the Harriseahead Revivalists to have one 
 for themselves. The first time we hear of Mr. Lockwood is in February, 1803. Hugh 
 Bourne has jotted down the notes of a conversation he had with the young preacher 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 235 
 
 who had recently come to the circuit, and who admired the zeal and liveliness of the 
 Harriseahead society, whereupon 
 
 " I told him Mr. Lockwood had been one who had aided in bringing them into 
 that way it being the way he carried on meetings. He said in his journey hither, 
 he slept all night with Mr. Lockwood ; but observed that if he were to exert 
 himself like Mr. Lockwood there would soon be an end to his life." 
 Still more to the point is a passage in Hugh Bourne's History as to the influence 
 unconsciously exerted by Mr. Lockwood in stimulating the desire for camp meetings 
 during the abeyant period of 1806 : 
 
 " There was a report that a meeting had been appointed to be held in the 
 open air, upon one of the hills in the Leek Circuit of the Old Connexion, when 
 
 EAST BKIDGFOK1) OLD CHAPEL. NOW PUBLIC HEADING ROOM. 
 
 a Mr. Lockwood was a travelling preacher there [some years before] ; that it Avas 
 to have been carried on with various religious exercises, and to have continued 
 a whole day ; but that a short time before the day arrived the head -preacher was 
 prevailed on to put it aside ; and this was a cause of grief to many, as they believed 
 it would have been a great means of reviving religion. This had great weight with 
 the Harriseahead people, as they highly respected Mr. Lockwood on account of his 
 having been useful to them in their first revival." (" History of the Origin of the 
 Primitive Methodists," Magazine, 1821.) 
 
 The last glimpse we get of Mr Lockwood in Bourne's early Journals is in 1810, 
 where we have the following entry : 
 
 " September 8th. I went to Biddulph Moor to hear Mr. William Lockwood. It 
 was the opening of the chapel ; there was a great congregation, although it rained : 
 Mr. L. is much in the power. Hannah knew him ; he stands between Mary Dunell 
 and Clowes ; so now we know the fourth preacher." 
 
23G 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 This, it must be granted, is a most singular entry, and suggests a good deal, but it is 
 quoted here simply to show that Mr. Lockwood was in Staffordshire regarded by the 
 Camp Meeting Methodists as one in spirit with themselves ; he was one of the leading 
 trumpeters, so that if now, in 1817, he should put the trumpet to his lips, and for 
 a time throw himself heart and soul into the evangelistic mission of the Primitive 
 Methodists in these parts, it is just what we might expect from what we know of the 
 man and his antecedents. His doing so will serve to give continuity to his life and to 
 our history. Mr. Lockwood is called a well-to-do fanner and Methodist local preacher 
 the fact being that, after his appointment to Newark in 1802, he had married a widow 
 lady of wealth, and settled down on his wife's estate ; so that in the Minutes of 1803 
 occurs the entry : " William Lockwood who has desisted from travelling." His lady, 
 
 whose maiden name had been 
 Salthouse, was a thorough-going 
 evangelical in creed and sent- 
 iment, a great change having 
 taken place in her life as the 
 result of her hearing Rowland 
 Hill preach in the parish church. 
 After this she could no longer 
 continue to worship there, because 
 (to use her own words) "although 
 the clergyman preached the 
 truth he did not know its 
 power." So she built a chapel at 
 her own expense, which was the 
 first Free Church established in 
 the village. In this building the 
 Wesleyans worshipped until the 
 Reform agitation of 1849, with 
 which it seems Mr. Lockwood 
 sympathised. Not choosing to join 
 in this movement the Wesleyans 
 vacated Lockwood's Chapel and 
 built one for themselves. Mr. 
 W. Lockwood, sen., and his wife, 
 were by their own wish buried 
 in the chapel, which was their 
 own private property. Mr. W. 
 
 Lockwood, jun., the son of the preceding, was a farmer and local preacher of some 
 repute. For some years he continued to carry on services duly arranged for by 
 plan, Methodist fashion. This went on until some twenty years ago, when " Lockwood's 
 Chapel " was acquired for the use of the Connexion, and it is still retained for school 
 purposes. Not only did Mrs. Lockwood make provision for public worship and the 
 teaching of experimental religion in East Bridgford, but through her instrumentality 
 
 "LOCKWOOD'S CHAPEL." 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 237 
 
 a day-school was opened, in which free education was given to some fifty or more 
 children by a schoolmaster paid by herself. Mr. and Mrs. Lockwood would never sit 
 for their portraits, having, it would seem, an objection to the practice difficult for us 
 to understand. As a poor substitute for the likeness of this worthy lady her grand- 
 daughter preserves as a sacred relic the Quaker-bonnet she was accustomed to wear.* 
 
 This, then, was the Mr. Lockwood who listened to John Benton on his second visit 
 to East Bridgford, and thus it had come about that the Methodist travelling preacher 
 we knew in Staffordshire had become a man of substance, and almost the squire of 
 the village. As he took part in that afternoon's service he " received a particular 
 manifestation of the spirit of God." The old evangelistic impulse came upon him with 
 renewed force. " He possessed," we are told, " good natural talents, was very courageous* 
 
 KIXOULTOX VILLAGE AND CHURCH. 
 
 and had an independent spirit." These qualities, so essential to a successful missionary, 
 were to receive a fresh anointing for service on that Sunday afternoon. 
 
 -If we wished to show how the Revival affected the villages and towns of Nottingham- 
 shire both at the time and afterwards, and how they in their turn reacted upon the 
 revival, and contributed their quota to the growth of the Connexion, then East 
 Bridgford might stand as the type of such villages and towns, and of the interaction 
 referred to. It is a typical Nottinghamshire village that has just received the evangel 
 brought by the Primitive Methodist missionaries, and is going to pass it on, or better 
 
 * For some of the facts given in this paragraph I am indebted to Rev. T. W. Gooderidge, who 
 obtained them from the granddaughter of Mr. "W. Lockwood, sen. 
 
PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 still to live it. So true is this that, according to the old saying, " From one we may 
 learn all." Taking our stand here, we can compare the features and results of the 
 revival in this quiet Nottinghamshire village with what can be observed in other places 
 in the same district visited by our missionaries, and, for the most part, the comparison 
 will yield resemblances. There is, however, one striking exception : the almost total 
 absence of persecution. In this respect East Bridgfoid presents a contrast to many 
 places in the Trent Valley, the Vale of Belvoir, Rutlandshire, and certain parts of 
 Lincolnshire. Whatever be the explanation, a good deal of persecution attended the 
 introduction of Primitive 
 Methodism into these 
 parts. Indeed, if any 
 were minded to show 
 by means of tints on 
 a map what parts of 
 England they were in 
 which our missionaries 
 met with persecution, 
 and were to graduate 
 
 POST OFFICE, COTC; RAVE. 
 Centre of Village. 
 
 the tint according to the 
 severity of the persecution 
 encountered just as is 
 done to show the compara- 
 tive level of a given district 
 - then the districts in 
 question would have to 
 COTGRAVE - be rather heavily shaded, 
 
 there would be some specially dark patches of colour on certain places much 
 unc stocratic or clerical influence. There was a good deal of this not far 
 
 Bndgford, as we shall see; but in its comparative immunity from persecution 
 i compares favourably with many other places, such as Kinoulton. At this 
 |ce, while Benton was preaching to hundreds of people gathered from far and near 
 dangerous bull was loosed and headed for the congregation, but the beast had more 
 mse than its master, and preferred to take the line of least resistance. On September 1st, 
 m Thomas Jackson (1), who had come to labour in these parts, was shouted out of 
 e village; a fortnight after, while preaching at Cropwell Bishop, the parson of the 
 ordered the constable to put him in the stocks. It so happened that the stocks 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 239 
 
 were broken, and the constable said so. " Ought not the parish to be fined for not 
 having the stocks in proper order?" gaily inquired Jackson. The question irritated 
 the clergyman, who ordered the constable to detain the preacher in custody all night ; 
 and the order was obeyed. At Cotgrave all the pots and pans of the neighbourhood 
 seemed to have been brought into requisition for the purpose of drowning Benton's 
 voice while preaching. At Bottesford, under the shadow of the stately towers of 
 Belvoir Castle, Benton met with a rough reception. As soon as he began worship in 
 the open air the bells of the church were set a ringing, a dog-fight was got up, a big 
 drum beaten, and various instruments blown and clashed. All this babel of sound and 
 confusion failing of its purpose, rotten eggs, filth, and stones were flung at the preacher, 
 who nevertheless stood his ground. 
 
 When, some time after, (April 2nd, 1818) John Harrison entered Bottesford, he was 
 treated in much the same way as Benton had been, save that there is no mention of the 
 instrumentalists, for the beater of the big drum had followed Benton about until he had 
 got converted, and the band by this time had been broken up. Says Harrison, of 
 Bottesford : 
 
 "This place may be called 'Little Sodom,' and I should be surprised if God did 
 not destroy it, was it not for the few righteous souls that are in it. I preached at 
 night, and met with much annoyance from the sinners of this place by their pelting 
 us with dirt andjrotten eggs in abundance, but I came off scatheless." 
 
240 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Yet in spite of High Church influence, Antinomianisra, and mob violence, ajflourishing 
 society was soon gathered. A chapel was erected, and for many years Bottesford has 
 stood as the head of a station. One of its village chapels Thornton has had a strange 
 eventful history, also belonging to the chapter of persecution, but this, if told at all, 
 must be told in a later portion of our history. 
 
 At Shelford, another aristocratic preserve, as we shall see, one after another of our 
 adherents was evicted for allowing services to be held in his house. At Oakham, 
 Thomas Jackson was violently opposed, and even injured, and had to stand his trial at 
 Oakham Castle. So violent was the persecution encountered at this place that 
 ultimately our missionaries had to be withdrawn. What happened at Newark and 
 
 BOTTESFORT) MARKET CROSS. 
 
 Grantham had better be told when AVC come to deal with the work of Lockwood and 
 Wedgwood. 
 
 After this short survey of the district opened up by Benton, inUSIT, so far as regards 
 persecution, the result arrived at is, that on any proposed map of persecution, scarcely 
 any place Benton missioned, unless it be Radcliffe and Whatton, would stand on a white 
 ground. Even Bingham and East Bridgford would show a faint tint. At the former 
 place a large society was formed; but it was under adverse conditions. , "The church 
 party through the influence of the clergyman did their utmost to prevent the Primitive 
 Methodists from having an interest in the place." 
 
 It is a relief to turn from such a survey as this to see in these Nottinghamshire 
 villages a Productive Mecruitiny Ground. In this respect East Bridgford is a good 
 
THK PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 241 
 
 sample of the rest. On the plan, February May, 1818, George Herod's name is found 
 as a local preacher on trial. He was first convinced under Sarah Kirkland, still more 
 deeply convinced under John Benton, soundly converted through the instrumentality of 
 
 ;<.*.> MAIN KOAI), RATCLIFFE-ON-TRENT. 
 
 William Clowes, and in 1819 he began his long and vigorous ministry. He died 
 August 30th, 1862, his last words being: "I rest, I rest, I rest on His arm," and 
 is buried in the quiet graveyard of Christ Church, High Harrogate. When 
 
 George Herod entered the itinerant ranks the 
 work was opening out on every side. Labourers 
 were so urgently needed that such a promising 
 recruit as he was gladly accepted. He was indeed 
 no ordinary man, as the books he has left testify. 
 He had a considerable fund of information, had 
 quite a remarkable acquaintance with our early 
 history although he was not free from bias in 
 the handling of his copious materials and he 
 wrote in a perspicuous and vigorous style. The 
 official memoir very justly says of him : 
 
 "He was one of the first enrolment (sic) of 
 our successful home missionaries, when that 
 work was most difficult and hard, and its 
 temporal remuneration was small, and he 
 exhausted therein one of the best of consti- 
 tutions. His preaching was very energetic and 
 scriptural, and his praying powerful. He was 
 a sound Methodistic divine, and has left behind 
 
 R 
 
 GEORGE HEROD. 
 
242 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 him sterling works in theology and history, printed and in manuscript. He 
 made indelible impressions on every station he occupied as a minister and 
 superintendent, but the real results of the forty-five years of his Primitive 
 Methodistic Christian life, and the forty-three of his itinerant ministry, can only 
 be known in eternity." 
 
 George Herod was a married man when he entered 
 the ministry. He married Miss Elizabeth Parrott, of 
 East Bridgford. She was for many years an acceptable 
 preacher, and for upwaids of fifty years a class-leader, 
 surviving till 1871. Mrs. Herod must be carefully 
 distinguished from the Miss Parrott whom we shall 
 soon meet with labouring in Lincolnshire. 
 
 Kinoulton has been mentioned as a place where both 
 Benton and Thomas Jackson encountered considerable 
 opposition. Probably the soil was found so hard and 
 stubborn that even hardy Primitive Methodism failed 
 to take root there. Yet it is a pleasant glimpse we get 
 of the good which had been effected in that village, as 
 we read in Thomas Jackson's Journals how, when he was 
 surrounded by boys who blew horns and shouted and 
 
 MRS. HEROD (MISS E. PARROTT). . , , , . 4.1, -11 u T 1 n J 
 
 hustled him out of the village, "John Garner and 
 
 James Bonser two youths who had just been converted, protected me. Peace 
 to their shade. Honour to their memory." James Bonser was a Kinoulton lad, 
 and the churchyard contains many memorials to that family. John Garner was a native 
 of Kegworth, but was apprenticed to a shoemaker in Kinoulton, and he tells us how 
 on May 17th, 1817, under a sermon preached by Mr. John Benton, he was truly 
 awakened to a concern for his eternal welfare and was on the next day enabled to 
 believe, and in two months and three days began to exhort. The names of both 
 John Garner and James Bonser are found on the plan, February-May, 1818, and in 
 1819 both entered the ministry. 
 
 These two village youths recruits of 1817 will be heard of again. James Bonser 
 will thrice suffer imprisonment for preaching the gospel before he retires from the 
 ministry in 1825. John Garner, too, will have become a prominent man in the 
 Connexion by 1848, when he will demit the office of General Missionary Secretary, 
 and, with a constitution broken by the privations and brutal treatment endured in the 
 earlier years of his ministry, will seek superannuation. He will live to become one of 
 the original members of the Deed Poll, and to figure no less than six times on the roll 
 of Presidents ; and though this distinction meant less in former days than it does now, 
 it yet serves to show the opinion entertained by his brethren of his business capabilities 
 and their desire to do him honour. 
 
 Besides these two, and those before named, there were other village youths won to 
 the cause during the Revival who were " to endure hardness " and survive to be 
 veterans. One of the earliest-won of these was James Moss, who tells us he was on 
 the same Easter Sunday of 1816 both convicted and converted under John Benton at 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 243 
 
 Whatton. He will begin his ministry of thirty-nine years in 1819. There was 
 Thomas Charlton, a Shelford youth, who began to travel in 1821, and laboured forty- 
 one years in the ministry ; also 'John Oscroft, who on January 4th, 1818, went to hear 
 
 JAMES MOSS, AGED 38. 
 
 THOMAS CHARLTON. 
 
 JOHN OSCIJOFT. 
 
 our first missionaries at Hucknall Torkard. There the Word took fast hold of him, and 
 though his companions got him away to a public-house as men carry off a wounded 
 comrade that he may not fall into the enemy's hands, he was so conscience-stricken 
 
 that strong drink proved no anodyne, and he escaped 
 from his would-be rescuers, and found relief and pardon 
 while making his way home. He was to become one 
 of the leading missionaries in South-East Lincoln and 
 Norfolk. To this roll of names must probably be added 
 John Coulson, of Calow, near Chesterfield, who, religiously 
 inclined from childhood, will be drawn into the revival- 
 movement and become one of the preachers of 1819, and 
 labour thirty-five years. 
 
 The ways and training of the youth of our Churches 
 were not made matters of such solicitude and study eighty 
 years ago as they are to-day, and hence there remains 
 little to tell how these young converts were handled in 
 the brief time that intervened between their conversion 
 JOHN COULSON. and call to the ministry. Fortunately we know the 
 
 most though that is not much of the most eminent of these youths John Garner. 
 There seems to have been within him a spring of fun and frolic which intermittently 
 became active. Once, his brother tells us, when as a lad of fourteen he was on a visit 
 to Clifton at wake-time, he passed himself off among the lads, who were playing on the 
 village green, as a French boy, and succeeded, to his own great enjoyment, in completely 
 mystifying them. In this early delight in mystification the child was but the father of 
 the man. Now and again all through life he would mystify his brethren and no one 
 likes to be mystified. The faces of the mystified bore witness to the short inward 
 debate going on as to whether they ought to smile or frown, and it often ended by 
 their face assuming an air of severity as of one who is about to rebuke a brother for his 
 
 R 2 
 
244; PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 lightsomeness. Perhaps later on in life, John Garner's humour might be in clanger of 
 becoming a little too mordant, so leaving a mark on the memory. But on this we need 
 not dwell : this was not the man in his normal condition. Some of his sallies and 
 escapades are remembered and recounted to this day, and were we to omit all reference 
 to them, the John Garner we are writing about would not be the veritable John Garner, 
 who as a youth no doubt added to the gaiety of some Nottinghamshire villages. Some 
 of his pranks had a practical purpose at the heart of them, like that one in which, in 
 his own characteristic way, he dealt with the charge of non-visitation. Rising at an 
 unearthly hour in the morning, he began his round of visitation by thundering at the 
 door of the chief complainant. Presently we see the good man of the house with 
 a guttering candle in his hand, standing half-dazed and shivering in the passage. " Eh, 
 Mr. Garner, whatever's the matter 1 " " Master, sir matter ! One cannot rest in 
 one's bed for you and your visiting ! How are you getting on in your soul, Brother 
 
 ? Let us pray a few words." And then we can see him chuckling as he departs 
 
 to pay another surprise-visit. 
 
 One safeguard the newly-converted youth of those days had he was expected to 
 attend all the means of grace, and encouraged from the first to " exercise " in public 
 He was not thrust into the background and condemned to silence, and sarcastically 
 bidden to " tarry in Jericho until his beard was grown." This safeguard it was not 
 easy for John Garner to make use of. Whether the opposition at Kinoulton, like that 
 at Oakham, had been so violent as to forbid the establishment of a society, we know 
 not, but certain it is that at this time there was no society there, though the missionaries 
 paid occasional visits to the place. He tells us that 
 
 " On the Sabbath I sometimes went twenty miles to hear a sermon by a Primitive 
 Methodist preacher ; and after I had finished my day's labour it was not uncommon 
 for me to walk eight or ten miles to a meeting, and as no societies were formed 
 within a considerable distance of my residence, I frequently travelled several miles 
 to a class meeting." 
 
 Widow Garner, like Job, was the honoured parent of seven sons and three daughters. 
 Of these the five eldest sons were away from home at this time following their callings. 
 William, the sixth, brave lad, was at Clifton doing his best for his mother and the 
 younger members of the family by working as a " stockinger." Hearing a great deal 
 about the "Ranters," curiosity led him to go on June 17th, 1818, to a camp meeting 
 at Stanton, conducted by John Wedgwood. While looking and listening, picture his 
 astonishment when his own brother John, of whose conversion and recent movements he 
 knew nothing, came to the front of the waggon and announced his text ! He preached 
 from the words, "0 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help." 
 Those who knew John Garner in his prime tell us that he had a magnificent voice, and 
 what was better still, the power of distinct enunciation, so that his voice carried far, 
 and his words were audible even to those on the outskirts of a vast camp meeting 
 assembly. Something of this power must already have shown itself a year after his 
 conversion ; for his brother records that " considering his youth and inexperience he 
 preached a sermon of wonderful fluency and power," and it made a deep impression on 
 his mind, which eventually resulted in his conversion. William Garner will begin his 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 245 
 
 JANE BROWN. 
 
 long and even more distinguished ministry in 1822; and in 1830 James Garner, the 
 seventh son, will follow, and become in his turn departmental officer, President of 
 Conference, and theologian. If the Nottinghamshire Revival of 1817 had done no 
 more than summon forth from their village obscurity and lowly callings such men as 
 
 these, and set them on the road to usefulness 
 and honour, it was worth the toil and perse- 
 cution endured. 
 
 These names by no means exhaust the list 
 of those who, being themselves the fruit of 
 the Revival, were hereafter to scatter the seed 
 of future harvests in other parts. They might 
 not be in the field as long as some of those 
 already named, but as long as they were engaged 
 they did good work. Jane Brown was one of 
 these. As early as September 24th, 1818, 
 Hugh Bourne, when on a visit to Nottingham, 
 records : " Jane Brown begins to travel. 
 I took the opportunity to give her a charge. 
 I trust she will do well." Yes, she will do 
 well ; perhaps helped in her well-doing by 
 Hugh Bourne's charge. Her face and name 
 are both worth remembering, not merely 
 
 The first female that preached in Canaan Street Because she IS fair to look Upon and will be 
 
 Chapel. Her first text was John i. ver. 29. the first f ema i e to preach in Canaan Street, 
 but for reasons much more weighty. Mention, too, may be made of Jacob Wilkinson, 
 who began his life with the century, and entering the ministry in 1822 travelled till 
 1830, when we miss his name from the Minutes. After his retirement from the 
 ministry, he was for a time actively associated with Nottingham and the Circuit, as the 
 < Quarterly Minute Books show, and then he disappears. 
 
 VILLAGE SAINTS. 
 
 It is not away from the purpose of this History, but quite in keeping with it, to notice 
 that the gospel our missionaries carried into these towns and villages not only rescued 
 men and women from vice, but in not a few instances fashioned character to the finest 
 form and issues. It is just here we touch the root of the matter, so far as Church 
 history is concerned. Saints are the Church's chief asset, and if it cannot produce 
 a sufficiency of these it will soon be bankrupt in the estimation of both God and man. 
 It cannot compound for failure in fine character-building by success in fine chapel- 
 building, or lay success in anything else. Both God and the world are saying : " Xever 
 mind your ecclesiasticism. Bring out your best samples of men and women." Under- 
 lying the question whether Primitive Methodism can justify itself historically is the 
 question whether it can justify itself ethically and spiritually. If " wisdom is justified' 
 of her children " so must our Church, like every other, be justified or condemned by 
 the type of character it brings forth and nourishes. It has always seemed to us that 
 the true glory of our Church is to be found in the number of saintly souls it has had in 
 
246 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the lower walks of life ; men and women who in this work-a-day world could win and 
 even extort the acknowledgment : "These, at any rate, are true to their religion ;" who 
 in the open, and not under hot-house conditions, could bring forth the fruits of the 
 Spirit ; saints who held the plough-stilts, or stood at the wash-tub. Thank God ! we 
 have had, and still have, a goodly number of these, and we have not made enough, or 
 as much as we shall make, of them ; for it is the usual fate of saints to be passed over 
 for what is noisy and pretentious. Yet if we only knew it, these " living epistles " are 
 our credentials our denominational title-deeds. 
 
 There were thanks to the Revival some saints such as these, 
 
 " Not too bright or good 
 For human nature's daily food," 
 
 in the towns and villages of the Midlands whom our Church can place on its roll. 
 Dinah Maul and Eliza Eichardson, of East Bridgford, may be singled out just as- 
 Hannah Yeomans, of Rodsley, already has been as fair samples of the peasant or 
 artisan saints whom the Revival directly or indirectly gave our Church. " Saints " we 
 call them, and that without scruple ; for the word wants bringing back into the thick 
 of the world's business. In the right sense, both these lowly and godly women have 
 left a local reputation for saintliness of character, and the claim deserves wider 
 recognition, for as Thomas Arnold has said : " Christianity is ' published ' by the 
 recognition of its saints. Their lives are no delusion, for they have permanently 
 affected men, and they are all based, built on Christ, and are in Him the manifestation 
 of eternal truth among outward things." Dinah was but the wife of a " stockinger," 
 and yet if a plebiscite had been called in the village, where everybody was known to 
 everybody, to decide the question who was the most out-and-out Christian in East 
 Bridgford, it is more than likely that Dinah's name, much to her own surprise, would 
 have come out at the top. Nor would the result have been different if the votes had 
 been counted at the public-house, with the publican sitting as presiding officer. We 
 have classed Dinah Maul wifh Hannah Yeomans, of Rodsley, but her piety was of 
 a stronger and less contemplative type than Hannah's. There was something Amazonian 
 about her saintliness. Her prominent qualities were those of a leading and ruling 
 spirit " an xincommon degree of good sense, patience, decision, force of character "- 
 so that "she swayed the rest according to her will." She championed the Sunday 
 morning prayer meetings, and got the preacher there by having first invited him to 
 breakfast in this showing her womanly tact as well as zeal. She was strong for the 
 Sunday evening procession round the village, at which it was usual for the last week's 
 converts to take a prominent part, so that the procession assumed something of the 
 character of a triumphal one. We think of Paul's allusion to himself as a willing 
 captive swelling the triumphal progress of the victor Christ, as we see Dinah and the 
 preacher at the head of the procession. They have got last Sabbath's convert between 
 them a poor reclaimed drunkard who happened to stray into the service. He, poor 
 soul, goes along with streaming eyes and hands held aloft, while from Dinah's lips there 
 comes forth every now and again her favourite ejaculation, " Bless Him ! Bless Him ! " 
 As the procession moves along, even the innkeepers' wives look on sympathetically as 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 247 
 
 DINAH MAIL AND ELIZA PIOHABDBON. 
 
 they see one who had been a terror to them when maddened with drink now so 
 changed. Tradition loves to tell how Dinah used to pray and sing as few could, and 
 goes on to speak of her as the efficient class-leader and a famous directress of penitents. 
 
 When people were in spiritual dis- 
 tress, still more when life was ebbing, 
 the word would be, "Send for 
 Dinah." "We need no higher tribute 
 than this to the reality of her 
 religious experience and her skill as 
 a physician of souls. Mark them 
 whom the dying want to have near 
 them. In the sincere last moments 
 of life it is the wise virgins they 
 that have oil in their lamps whose 
 presence is sought. 
 
 Dinah had her successor. Eliza 
 Richardson, though "born in one 
 of the four poor labourers' cottages 
 at the top of Trent Lane," was in the succession of the saints, and how this was 
 brought about we learn from her own words, dictated a short time before death to her 
 daughter : 
 
 "I knew the people of God enjoyed something I was destitute of. So I sent for 
 dear Sister Maul and Sister Burrows. They asked me if I would like to be saved. 
 I said that was what I wanted. So we all knelt down on my own little hearth- 
 stone, and then they poured out their souls to God in fervent prayer, and I prayed 
 also ; and oh, what a weight of sin I felt on my poor back ! But the Lord heard 
 and answered prayer, and I felt my load of sin was gone." 
 
 Eliza Richardson's conversion took place in 1843 the year after East Bridgford was 
 made a branch of Nottingham Circuit and her husband's conversion followed soon 
 after. The prophetess has her mantle as well as the prophet, and Dinah's mantle was 
 taken up by Eliza Richardson. She enjoyed unbroken and intimate friendship with 
 Dinah until the latter's death, and then carried on her work. Nature had done much 
 for her ; but grace, the best of developers, quickened and enlarged her natural gifts, so 
 that her ability as a class-leader and organiser became very marked. In her modest 
 home hospitality was dispensed to the servants of God, and all that related to the 
 prosperity of the cause of God lay near the heart of her and her husband, who in 
 extreme age survives. Both showed themselves stalwarts in suffering willingly for 
 their principles. Once their feelings were harrowed by the refusal of the clergyman to 
 read the burial-service over their dead child in the church, because it had not been 
 baptismally regenerated there ! The intolerance of the same clergyman compelled them 
 to send their children to a neighbouring town for their schooling, which entailed a walk 
 of three miles each way. Do you say (i How hard upon the children ! What a piece of 
 superfluous severity ! " So one taking short views might have said at the time ; but 
 now that the fruits of the hardy training have had time to show themselves, it will be 
 
248 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 acknowledged, even by them who had to pass through it, that the training was greatly 
 wise. It was better the parents should choose for their children the daily trudge 
 imposed by conscience than that they should sacrifice their principles to save their 
 children's legs. The children themselves honour them for the choice they made; for 
 a blessing has followed the high-principled choice. One of those little trudgers is 
 to-day not only a leading Primitive Methodist local preacher in the Nottingham First 
 Circuit, but is mentioned as a candidate to contest a Parliamentary constituency against 
 a noble lord of the house of Bentinck. Other instances of firmness in adhering to 
 principle on the part of Mr. and Mrs. Richardson might be given, but let the one 
 already cited, with its lesson for our times, suffice. Eliza Richardson, after a consistent 
 and unbroken membership of fifty years, died in 1893, leaving others to carry on her 
 good work. 
 
 Now, though we have confined ourselves to one village, and to two persons out of 
 that one village, it must not be thought that East Bridgford has given to our Church 
 no other persons worthy of grateful remembrance, or that other villages in these parts 
 visited by the Revival were barren of saintly characters. Either supposition would 
 be utterly wrong. Indeed, as soon as you begin to examine the scanty records yet 
 remaining, or question those whose memory is most far-reaching, you will find that 
 almost every village where Primitive Methodism established itself had in its society 
 some person to whom every one looked up as eminent for goodness, or unflinching 
 loyalty, or length and activity of service. You turn to the Journals of Hugh Bourne 
 and you meet with a record like this one of many similar records which only whets 
 your curiosity to know more : 
 
 "August 16th, 1818. Epperstone at 2. Preached from Ruth. Renewed the 
 tickets. Truly a good time. Miss Lealand, the leader, is a truly pious woman, 
 and of great talents. I rejoiced to see her." 
 
 More and more are we convinced it would be a praiseworthy and pious work to rescue 
 the memory of such as these from oblivion. It could be done by the fixing of tablets 
 in our churches, or, still better, by the publication of local works, in which the story 
 of their lives should be told, not in the conventional way in which the work is usually 
 done, but by an honest attempt at description of character and the recital of authentic 
 facts. Such memorials are not only due to departed worth, but would impress upon us 
 the continuity of our history, and greatly strengthen Connexional loyalty. There is no 
 lack of material, and for our own part we must forbear. One other name, however, we 
 will mention and fit into its place as shortly as possible, because Robert Hutchinson was 
 connected with these parts, and may well stand as the type of the sure and steady, the 
 men who year in and year out are at their posts, and, as we once heard it put, are " like 
 a pump-handle, ready for any one that wants them." 
 
 "We have referred to the disaster which overtook the Hucknall Torkard Society in 
 1838. In that year, while Rev. George Herod, a strict disciplinarian, was superintendent 
 of Mansfield Circuit, a division occurred in the Hucknall Society, most of the divisionists 
 joining the Selstonites. If it be asked : "And who were the Selstonites ? " we answer: 
 The Selstonites were dissidents who split off from the Belper Circuit during the 
 superintendency of Rev. W. Carthy, 1838-9. The occasion of the split was the action 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 249 
 
 of the Quarterly Meeting in increasing the modest stipend of the superintendent from 
 fourteen to sixteen shillings a week, and the fact that the greater number of those who 
 were scandalised at the proposed increase of salary hailed from Selston accounts for the 
 name the divisionists came to bear.* The Selstonites dwindled until the feeble remnant 
 were absorbed in the greater split from Methodism in 1849. 
 In referring to this secession, the late Dr. Gregory quite truly re- 
 marks : "It is a mistake to suppose that the younger Methodist 
 bodies are gifted with unsplittability ; the fact being that the 
 splitting does not make such a resonant report, nor leave such 
 a terrible crevasse." Yes, Primitive Methodism has had its splits, 
 and a good many of them from first to last, but they have been 
 local ones affecting a branch here at one time and there at 
 another. They have been splitlets rather than splits. There has 
 never been one that rived the columnar trunk, or tore off the main 
 arterial branches not one that affected and threatened to rend in 
 
 li r. \ , \> . Ut/Uffl rl 1 . 
 
 twain the entire Connexion. The Selston split was not the 
 
 first in time or in importance. There was one at Nottingham, it would seem, as early 
 as 1821. This we learn solely from the Journals of Thomas Charlton, and history has 
 no more to say about it ; so soon does a vigorous Church recover from her wounds, and, 
 like Nature, obliterate by fresh luxuriant growths the marks of former ravage. Then 
 in 1834, during the superin tendency of F. X. Jersey, Nottingham Circuit passed 
 through its severest crisis. Feeling ran so high that Mr. Jersey was by a section barred 
 out from the pulpit of Canaan Street. There were secessions in the societies, though 
 these for the most part soon died out or were reabsorbed. There was one secession 
 dating from about 1829 or 1830, which received, no doubt, some impetus from the 
 Nottingham one of '34, and has proved more permanent than most others ; for the 
 Independent Primitive Methodists of Bingham and the adjoining villages a Free Gospel 
 organisation which uses our Church Hymnal survive as a memorial of the 
 troubles of that period. Sometimes splits seem to be a kind of self-pruning, and 
 that which has been pruned appears to be none the worse for its enforced 
 amputation, but rather to have gained in vitality by what it has lost in sub- 
 stance ; so we are told that in 1835 the Nottingham Circuit generally was in 
 a he ilthier condition than before, and that there was an increase of 135 on the year's 
 working after all vacancies had been filled up, though it is admitted that Canaan Street 
 had not yet fully recovered from the ordeal through which it had passed. Nor can we 
 forbear saying that the Selston split may stand as a fair type of most of those that 
 have occurred, in this one respect at least it was "much ado about nothing." To 
 command any respect a split must have a decent justification, or else the report it 
 makes in its going off, however resonant, will affect the general trend and final result of 
 things no more than the bursting of our neighbour's pneumatic tyre. So, as we have 
 said, the Hucknall Torkard divisionists cast in their lot with the Free Gospel Selstonites. 
 
 * The Rev. W. Carthy. we believe, published an account of the affair, but our efforts to secure 
 a copy of the pamphlet have proved unsuccessful. 
 
250 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 The seven members, who alone were left, made a gallant stand against adverse conditions. 
 They took the club-room of the " Half Moon " inn for their services, and struggled on. 
 But what could they do ? The feeling in the town, we are told, was against them, and 
 (I. Wood, the superintendent of Mansfield, 1841-2, gave up Hucknall,* but not before 
 appealing to the superintendent of the newly-formed Arnold branch 
 of Nottingham (1841) to take charge of Connexional interests there. 
 The appeal was made to the right man. Edward Morton was born 
 in 1807 at Countesthorpe in Leicestershire, where the Luddites' 
 barn for the storage of ammunition was turned into a place of 
 worship. He became the Primitive Methodist Town Missionary 
 in Nottingham, and laboured indefatigably in furtherance of that 
 forward movement in which "William Antliff and John Brownson 
 were leading spirits a movement which more than repaired the 
 losses sustained in 1834, and resulted in the acquisition for the 
 REV. EDWARD MORTON. Connexion in Nottingham of a second good chapel in another part of 
 the town. This was historic Hockley Chapel, opened by Wesley 
 
 and Dr. Coke in 1783; retained, and thus alienated from the Old Body, by the seceders 
 to the New Connexion in 1797, and made the burial-place of Alexander Kilham, the 
 founder; recovered in 1817 by the Wesleyan Methodists as the result of a Chancery suit, 
 
 mtnflBmmmi 
 
 SMSHS 
 
 111 
 
 HOCKLEY CHAPEL, NOTTINGHAM. 
 
 and in 1839 sold to the Primitive Methodists for the sum of 2,400. Edward Morton, 
 by his extensive labours as a town missionary, prepared the way for this notable 
 advance, and having thus given proof of his powers, he was admitted into the regular 
 ministry, and in 1841 we find him living at Arnold as Branch Superintendent. He at 
 
 * Probably he was in failing health, for he died in 1843. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 251 
 
 once took energetic measures to recapture surrendered Hucknall. He missioned the 
 streets and preached on the green. At the close of the service he inquired for Robert 
 Hutchinson and William Allen. The two were on the spot, and responded to the call. 
 Robert Hutchinson did not fail the missionary in the time of need ; he opened his 
 house for preaching, and it continued to be the preaching-place for the society until 
 1848, when, now increased to thirty members, the society migrated to a room in Allen 
 Street ; and for a period of forty-six years this frame-work knitter, employe and, in 
 later life, pensioner of Samuel Morley, M.P., of Nottingham, filled and fulfilled the 
 offices of Leader and Society Steward. 
 
 We may seem to have mixed up village saints and Church-splits in strange confusion ; 
 
 but there is a closer connection 
 between these than at first may 
 appear. The saints are pre-eminently 
 " the tried," and to have tried men 
 and women you must have trials, and 
 of all trials Church-trials are, as Paul 
 very well knew, the most trying It 
 is those who have been " tried " that 
 are to receive the amaranthine crown, 
 and so the Church should reserve its 
 choicest laurel- wreaths for those who 
 stand " faithful amongst the faith- 
 less ; " who do not desert their post, 
 but calmly go on with their work 
 in the midst of discouragements, 
 unpopularity, and even amid Church 
 broils and secessions. Church-life 
 is not all rapture, or such as to evoke 
 hallelujahs, and fidelity to truth 
 required us to show that, not so 
 long after the great Revival, there 
 were hindrances and reverses, to be 
 accounted for naturally enough, as 
 we shall see, but only serving in many 
 cases to bring out the finest qualities of men. It is not alone of Robert Hutchinson we 
 are thinking or writing ; he is one of a type, and we shall meet him again and again 
 under other names and in other places, and to these life-long, tried, and trusty leaders 
 of local Churches Primitive Methodism owes more than she can tell. 
 
 JOHN WEDGWOOD'S IMPRISONMENT. 
 
 The labours of Sarah Kirkland and John Benton, chiefly in Nottinghamshire, during 
 1817, have been described; but John Wedgwood, followed by William Clowes, also 
 came on the ground, and the part these, along with William Lockwood and others, took 
 in the work of evangelisation must be glanced at. Car Colston Green was a favourite 
 
 ROBERT HUTCHINSON S HOUSE, IN WHICH SERVICES WERE 
 HELD FROM 1841 TO 1848. 
 
252 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 place for the holding of large open-air gatherings. The village stands hard by the 
 Fosse Way the famous Roman road that runs diagonally across the country from Bath 
 to Lincoln. George Herod was present at one of these early gatherings, at which 
 a thousand persons were computed to be present, and he tells how he saw several 
 persons notably a man he knew, some six feet two of stature fall to the ground 
 groaning and writhing under the influence of Benton's prayers and preaching. Another 
 camp meeting, held on the same spot, was attended by some three thousand persons. 
 This is noteworthy to us as showing Mr. Lockwood now fully committed to the 
 revival movement, and rendering good service in stemming opposition from fox-hunting 
 squires and their like-minded spiritual advisers. These gentry were numerous in 
 the neighbourhood, and they watched the progress of the movement with a dislike they 
 
 ROOM, HUCKNALL TORKABD, IN WHICH SERVICES WERE HELD FRDM 1848 TO 1! 
 
 took no pains to conceal. On the afternoon of the camp meeting, Colonel Hildyard, of 
 Flintham Hall, with a number of others, rode up and ordered the assembly to disperse. 
 The people did not disperse, but if anything drew closer together. When after this the 
 Colonel threatened to read the Riot Act, Mr. Lockwood bade the people make way, and 
 so along the living avenue the posse of gentlemen rode right up to the waggon. Having 
 got them there, Mr. Lockwood gave his high-class hearers " a genteel but very cutting 
 address," and the party left the ground somewhat discomfited. The moral effect of the 
 rebuff thus spiritedly administered was distinctly good ; for it was felt that even in 
 priest-ridden Vale of Belvoir the Ranters could and would stand unabashed before 
 squires and parsons, and not tamely yield to intimidation. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 253 
 
 But what brought John Wedgwood on the scene? His imprisonment at Grantham 
 with its associated incidents, stands out distinctly among the incidents of the time, and 
 it was the holding of a famous camp-lovefeast in June, 1817, that led to the summoning 
 of Wedgwood into Nottinghamshire. The idea of holding an immense lovefeast in the 
 open-air had occurred to Mr. John Parrott, sen., when present at the Whit-Sunday 
 Camp Meeting in Nottingham Forest in the previous year. He had been a Methodist 
 local preacher, with strong predilections for revivalistic work, and had felt it his duty 
 to unite with the Primitive Methodists. His name stands No. 21 on the February-May 
 1818 Plan, and No. 5 on that of 1827, and for a number of years he was actively 
 identified with the Nottingham Circuit, but gradually he seems to have suffered 
 
 CAR COLSTON GREEN. 
 Commencement of the Green. 
 
 a change in his views and sentiments. He became dissatisfied with our discipline, 
 and pretty frequent entries in the Quarterly Minute Books in the late twenties, 
 referring to the missing of appointments and other matters, show that he was the 
 cause of trouble, and prepare us for the following final entry : 
 
 "1829, June 14th. That Brother Parrott, senior's, name come off the plan 
 according to his request by the Bingham delegate, because he cannot conscientiously 
 continue among us." 
 
 It is singular that the secretary who penned this minute was Mr. John Parrott, jun., 
 
254 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 of East Bridgford. The Quarterly Meeting of December 30th, 1830, resolved: "That 
 in the opinion of this meeting Bro. Parrott is an eligible person for the itinerant 
 ministry. That testimonials to that effect be sent to the North Shields Circuit which 
 has made application for them." John Parrott was clever ; but his litigious propensities 
 
 marred his usefulness, and sometimes were the occasion of 
 trouble, both to himself and to others. He was converted 
 at the camp-lovefeast which his senior namesake organised. 
 The site of the novel meeting has been very precisely 
 given as "Priest Hill," on the eastern side of Ratcliffe- 
 on-Trent parish, on the side of the high road between 
 Nottingham and Newark, where another road crosses the 
 turnpike a situation spacious and public. Over and above 
 the direct spiritual good effected at this great gathering 
 was the wide interest it was the means of creating. The 
 people who came together were from all parts of the 
 country-side. Many, in order to reach Priest Hill, had 
 walked distances that to us, in these degenerate days of 
 pedestrianism, would seem well-nigh incredible. The 
 return of the people to their homes was like the scattering of brands here and 
 there on the dry prairie ; curiosity, inquiry, and enthusiasm burst into flame simul- 
 taneously at various and separate points of the country-side. The result was and 
 this is the historical importance of the Priest Hill gathering John Benton received 
 
 REV. JOHN PAHROTT. 
 
 PRIEST HILL, RATCLIFFE-ON-TRENT. 
 Site of Camp-Lovefeast. 
 
 urgent invitations to visit so many different places that it was impossible he could 
 accept even the half of them, so John Wedgwood, John Heath, and John Hallsworth 
 were called in to assist, and all entered heartily into the Revival. 
 
 Wedgwood must have lost no time in obeying the summons, for from a comparison 
 of the available data we conclude it would be about the middle of August when he 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 255 
 
 was pulled down from the Market Cross of Grantham, whose fine grey steeple of 
 St. Wolfrau's, towering above the rich red roofs, is familiar to all travellers on the 
 Great Northern Railway. But there is evidence that even before this date Wedgwood 
 must have paid more than one visit to the town. On one of these occasions he took 
 his stand in the open space at the south end of Inner Street; for at the close of the 
 service Mr. Bayley invited him to dinner, and his house became Wedgwood's home on 
 his subsequent visits to the town, and the chair in which he was accustomed to sit has 
 
 GRANTHAM MARKET-PLACE. 
 Wedgwood was taken from the steps of the cross to prison. 
 
 found an honoured place in the vestry of our Grantham Church. A special sacredness 
 must surely have attached to the Market Cross and its vicinity in the estimation of the 
 civic fathers, or else why should that which was allowed at the Town End be sternly 
 put down when attempted in the Forum 1 Any way, as we have seen, on or about the 
 15th of August Wedgwood was marched off by the constables. It was no silent, 
 crestfallen man they dragged to the Guildhall. As far as appearances went, the 
 constables might have been the misdemeanants whom Wedgwood and his friends were 
 
250 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 escorting to prison ; for out of the heart of the crowd, every moment becoming bigger, 
 
 there arose the strains of the 
 hymn 
 
 " Wicked men I scorn to fear 
 Though they persecute me here." 
 
 The hymn with its note of defiance 
 was the triumphant finish of their 
 service. Arrived at the Guildhall, 
 Wedgwood " had to sit in the 
 prisoner's chair with a man to guard 
 him, as though he had been a high- 
 wayman." As he sat there we may 
 be sure he had no self-pity, nor need 
 we pity him. He took it all smilingly 
 and in good heart, and as he cast 
 his eye towards the door where the 
 crowd was surging like a rising tide 
 against a rock, he thought almost 
 gleefully how his arrest was throwing 
 Grantham into commotion and how 
 it would all contribute to the further- 
 ance of the gospel. His attention, 
 however, was soon recalled to his 
 
 own fate as decided by the magistrates : John Wedgwood was committed to take 
 
 ,his trial at the next Quarter Sessions, and meanwhile ordered to be detained in custody. 
 
 Tidings of what had happened were soon 
 
 carried to Mr. Lockwood, who at once put horse 
 
 in gig and drove straight to Grantham. The 
 
 experience of Wedgwood was repeated in his 
 
 case. He took his stand at the Cross and began 
 
 a service, but had not got far on in it, before 
 
 he too was stopped and hurried before the 
 
 magistrates. His mittimus was made out, and in 
 
 due course he would have become Wedgwood's 
 
 fellow-prisoner; but he had no drawings towards 
 
 a prison life. He had his business to attend 
 
 to, and had no intention of exchanging the' 
 
 comforts of his own home for the inside of 
 
 a prison if he could honourably avoid it ; so 
 
 he entered into his own recognisances to appear 
 
 at the next Quarter Sessions, and probably did 
 
 his best to persuade John Wedgwood to do the 
 
 same but in vain. WEDGWOOD'S CHAIR IN GRANTHAM VESTRY. 
 
 INNER STKKKT, (JHANTHAM. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTEKPRISE. 257 
 
 Wedgwood's imprisonment deeply moved the Primitive Methodist community : and 
 little wonder, for there was something in the event and its sequel that appealed to the 
 imagination, and besides, it must be remembered, it was the first instance of the kind 
 that had occurred. John Wedgwood was the first Primitive Methodist to undergo 
 imprisonment; the first of a type of prisoner quite new to 
 that generation prisoners who were always genial in the 
 presence of magistrates whom often they admonished and 
 baffled, who prayed with their fellow-prisoners and exhorted 
 turnkeys as Wedgwood did when in Grantham jail. He 
 was the first of a goodly company of cheerful confessors for 
 Primitive Methodism, and as such he merits recognition. 
 The news of Wedgwood's arrest and commitment naturally 
 excited much interest and concern at Tunstall where he was 
 so well known. Thomas Woodnorth's feelings on the occasion 
 sought poetic expression, as is not unusual when the public 
 mind is greatly stirred by current events. In such times of 
 
 JOHN WEDGWOOD.* .. i j , , 
 
 excitement there are always some who drop, or mount, into 
 
 poetry. So " precious " Thomas Woodnorth was inspired by the event to write some 
 one hundred and seventy lines of verse in rhymed couplets in the heroic metre used 
 by Cowper in " The Task," and by Dryden in his " ^Eneis." But though Woodnorth's 
 verse is better than one might reasonably expect, it is mainly of interest to us as 
 showing what thoughts and feelings were excited in him by the news from Grantham. 
 The event he celebrated lent itself to poetic treatment. The humble herald of 
 the Cross takes his stand under the shadow of the Market Cross, surely the very 
 spot for the delivery of the preacher's message. No fitter place than this town- 
 centre this place of public concourse for the proclamation of the truth that the Cross 
 should be central and dominant in all our social, business, and corporate life. The 
 truths the preacher enforces are just those truths the cross of stone has been bearing 
 silent witness to through all these years, and yet the preacher is dragged down by the 
 agents of municipal authority who ought to have protected him, and, literally, by the 
 way of the cross, is haled to prison. How strange ! and yet it is only another short 
 act in the age-long tragedy : " He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." 
 Some such thoughts as these seem to have been in Woodnorth's mind, struggling for 
 expression as he took pen in hand. Though he writes of Grantham, its "belial 
 throng," and the doings of its " grandees," what has happened there is after all only 
 an incident a picture in little of the great conflict. Grantham's grandees are simply 
 the tools of Lucifer their captain, who is fighting a losing battle against the Lord and 
 His anointed. 
 
 But Tunstall took a practical as well as poetic interest in Wedgwood's concerns. It 
 was decided to free William Clowes from his round of circuit engagements for a time, 
 in order that he might go to Grantham and learn for himself how it fared with 
 Wedgwood. If this first imprisonment had had no other result than this, it would 
 have to be considered historically an event of some importance. To put the fact 
 
 * This is a different portrait from the one given on p. 163. 
 
258 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 strongly : the imprisonment of Wedgwood effected what was tantamount to the 
 liberation of Clowes. It gave him fuller scope for his superb evangelising gifts. For 
 a short time he became again a missionary at large. By this rapid visit to the outlying 
 and promising fields of labour now thrown open, he gained a truer idea of the needs and 
 possibilities of the Connexion ; his own conceptions were enlarged and adjusted to 
 existing facts. If it be true, as we believe it is, that in Primitive Methodism, over and 
 above everything else, there survives and energises something of the distinctive spirit 
 of Clowes, then it was eminently advantageous that just at this juncture the many, to 
 whom Clowes hitherto had been little more than a name, should have the opportunity of 
 
 BUCKMINSTER HALL. 
 
 coming under the influence of his powerful personality. Until they had seen his eye 
 flash, and had their very souls searched by the thrilling tones of his voice when in 
 prayer or ministering the Word, they could not be said to know what Primitive 
 Methodism really was. Good men and women were labouring in these parts ; Hugh 
 Bourne was threading his way amongst the societies, spending himself in their service ; 
 Sarah Kirkland, John Benton, John Wedgwood, John Heath, Robert Winfield, Richard 
 Weston, John Hallsworth, and others were hard at work, but not one of these was 
 equal to Clowes at his best. This good then came out of Wedgwood's imprisonment ; 
 it brought Clowes into contact with the great Revival, and that meant for the revival 
 an added impetus, and for Clowes yet greater zeal and efficiency as an evangelist. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 259 
 
 Clowes left Tunstall on August 29th, and made his way to Nottingham, Avhere he 
 heard rumours that Wedgwood Avas noAv out on bail. Upon this he thought it Avell 
 to learn from Mr. LockAVOod Avhat had really happened. So he proceeded to East 
 Bridgford, and Avas told by Mr. LockAvood that WedgAvood had at last been induced 
 to folloAV his (Mr. L.'s) example, and to enter into his OAvn recognisances to appear at 
 the next Quarter Sessions, or Avhen called upon. Furthermore, CloAves learned that 
 WedgAvood had preached at East Bridgford on the Friday, and was noAv gone to 
 Buckminster, near Grantham, the seat of Sir William Manners, to assist in holding 
 a camp meeting there. It Avas Buckminster Camp Meeting, just about to be held, that 
 brought Wedgwood out of prison. It Avas not Mr. LockAVOod's example or advice, 
 backed by that of the counsel retained for the defence, sloAvly taking effect that brought 
 him to the point of giving bail. If he 'ever did deliberately take the attitude of 
 " passive resistance," refusing on principle to give bail because that might seem to 
 recognise the legality of his arrest, that attitude Avas overborne by the consideration 
 
 that the cause he had at heart Avas suffering by his not 
 altogether necessary seclusion. Labourers Avere scarce, 
 and some anxiety Avas felt on this score as to the success 
 of the camp meeting some time since arranged to be held 
 at Buckminster. Such a consideration as this appealed to 
 Wedgwood. He Avas no lawyer or casuist, but unsophisti- 
 cated, and in some respects simple as a child. He probably 
 felt that the Lord had suffered him to be put in prison, 
 and that he must stay there until the Lord saAv good to 
 let him out. MeanAA 7 hile, he made himself as comfortable 
 as he could under the circumstances. Little Sammy Bayley, 
 aged ten, Avho had helped to sing him to the Guildhall, 
 and Sammy's sister, brought him his breakfast the folloAving 
 morning. Others did the like, so that Avhen a friend Avas 
 about to send him four or five pounds, thinking it might 
 be useful to him, he was told he was not in Avant. So 
 during his incarceration " I felt," says he, " quite happy 
 Avhile I prayed and sung and preached to the prisoners." The Muses visited him too, 
 and he Avrote some prison-rhymes, which found a place in several early editions of the 
 Small Hymn Book.' Perhaps the first verse of " Wedgwood's jingle," as it has 
 irreverently been called, Avill satisfy our readers : 
 
 " At Grantham Cross I did appear, 
 The constables did then draw near ; 
 And from the cross they had me down, 
 But could not take away my crown." 
 
 In this cheerful state of mind WedgAvood was visited, amongst others, by Sarah 
 Kirkland (then labouring in the Vale of Belvoir). " She found him happy in God, 
 and rejoicing that he was counted worthy to suffer imprisonment for the truth's sake." 
 After he had been in durance a little more than a fortnight, he yielded to the solicitations 
 of Benton, and other of his friends, " to come up to the help of the Lord against the 
 
 s2 
 
 MR. SAMUEL BAYLEY. 
 
 Who, as a boy, took Wedgwood's 
 
 breakfast to him iu prison. 
 
260 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 mighty." He gave the required bond, and was liberated in time to take part in 
 Buckminster Camp Meeting, August 31st, 1817. Now Clowes, in a sense liberated too, 
 was at this camp meeting ; for when he had heard all Mr. Lockwood had to tell about 
 Wedgwood, he borrowed the squire's horse and made for Buckminster, though it would 
 seem he held a service somewhere on the way. One who was present tells how he, 
 with others, had walked fifteen miles probably from Clipson in Rutlandshire to be 
 present at what was the first camp meeting they had ever seen. All the morning the 
 people kept coming up, until there was a vast concourse. He lovingly recalls the 
 precise features of that out-door temple which then impressed him : " The meeting was 
 held in a fine broad green lane, sheltered by a beautiful high thorn hedge, with the 
 spreading oaks growing thick therein ; under its shade hundreds stood." Henry 
 Sharman for he it is who writes of his remembrances saw Clowes draw near, make 
 for the centre, and at once throw himself into the service with all his accustomed 
 abandon. How the faces of Benton and Wedgwood and Heath would broaden and 
 brighten as they saw Clowes elbowing his way through the crowd to join them ! To 
 them he was God-sent. Clowes spoke with great power from " Come thou and all thy 
 house into the ark." Young Sharman never forgot the gracious influence which enabled 
 him there and then to close with the divine proffer, and to 
 dedicate himself to the service of God. Though his entry into 
 the ministry was deferred until 1823, the resolve he made on 
 the Buckminster camp-ground was faithfully kept. He travelled 
 with acceptance and success for thirty-six years, beginning his 
 labours in the Isle of Man and closing them in the Isle of Jersey, 
 and died at Norwich April 8th, 1877. 
 
 A notable thing happened at this Buckminster Camp Meeting. 
 During the afternoon Sir William Manners' carriage drove up, and 
 at the close of the service Henry Sharman saw John Benton put 
 HEXKY SHARMAN. hj s Bible and hymn-book into his pocket, get into the carriage, 
 and drive off. How came it about that Benton was found in such high company hob- 
 nobbing with baronets, and having a footman to open the carriage door for him 1 The 
 fact is, it suited Sir William's purpose to champion the cause of the Primitive Methodists 
 at this time. He had a grudge against the Grantham " grandees " and burgesses for 
 rejecting the Parliamentary candidate he favoured, and he meant to be quits with them, 
 and give them a pin-prick here and a side-wipe there as opportunity might offer. One 
 such chance now presented itself. He knew all about the arrest of Wedgwood and 
 Lockwood for preaching at the Cross, and had got a pulpit of stone erected on his own 
 land near the Guildhall. He was now taking Benton to Grantham to " hansel " this 
 pulpit, and to preach for the glory of God, as Benton intended, and for the mortification 
 of the magistrates, as Sir William hoped. It was a strange and unnatural alliance of 
 motives, from which little permanent good was to be expected. Putting together what 
 Clowes and Herod tell us of that drive to Grantham, it was certainly a singular one : 
 
 " As they were going along, Sir William asked the preacher whether or not he 
 and his brethren were inspired men. The preacher replied that his soul was full 
 of glory. Sir William then said that he should like to hear him preach would he 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 261 
 
 have the goodness to preach to his coachman as they proceeded? The preacher 
 replied, that if he would stop the carriage he would preach to the people in the 
 village through which they were passing, through the carriage window ; but 
 Sir William declined that proposal, and drew up the window-blinds." Clowes' 
 Journals, p. 129. 
 
 Benton himself says : 
 
 " I preached to him the fall of man, the restoration by Christ Jesus, repentance 
 and faith, justification and sanctification, the day of judgment, heaven and hell : 
 but while I was setting forth these truths, Sir William appeared rather restless 
 and I have no doubt was very glad when we arrived at Grantham." Herod's 
 
 Sketches. 
 
 On nearing the town the carriage was exchanged for a post-chaise, which carried 
 Benton to the stone pulpit, and a servant of Sir William attended while he ascended 
 the pulpit and preached to a large and orderly congregation. 
 
 Some at least of our fathers seem to have regarded this championing of their cause 
 by Sir William as a chivalrous and righteous act something to be proud of and 
 thankful for. Thomas Woodnorth, for instance, sees no incongruity or violation of 
 principle in the co-operation of political spite with evangelical zeal. In the poetic 
 effusion before referred to Sir William figures as a kind of crusader, so that we should 
 not be surprised to find his cross-legged effigy in the family burial-place. The stone 
 pulpit was in behalf of the Cross : 
 
 " Lo, Grantham's famous pulpit made of stone ; 
 Fraught with good zeal, witness Sir William's hand, 
 The Knight of Buckniinster, who made a stand 
 Against the sons of envy in the fight. 
 To damp their folly and to calm their spite, 
 That monument he raised to Jesus' name, 
 To preach the Crucified and spread His fame. 
 This was an act as brave as e'er was told 
 By daring warriors, who in crimson rolled 
 Their dyed garments on the field of blood. 
 ***** 
 
 'Twas done for God, this makes the action shine 
 More bright than sun o'er equinoctial line." 
 
 This view of the case will not be endorsed now. Looking back upon the episode 
 after all these years, one cannot but feel that it would have been better if Benton had 
 never set foot either in Sir William's carriage or in his pulpit. What did the baronet's 
 ostentatious patronage qf the Primitives for his own ends, and his "pulpit of cut stone," 
 do towards the establishment of our cause in Grantham 1 Let us see. 
 
 Messrs. Lockwood and Wedgwood duly surrendered on their bail at the Quarter 
 Sessions, which came on on October 23rd. Counsel was employed on their behalf, and 
 the jury returned a verdict of " Not guilty," so that the magistrates were beaten, 
 and found themselves, to their chagrin, saddled with the costs. The result was a signal 
 triumph, all the more so since Wedgwood had not taken the precaution to procure 
 
262 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 a preacher's licence before beginning his missionary labours.* There can be little 
 doubt the magistrates were mortified at the result of the trial, and were somewhat 
 cowed by the action of their neighbour, the baronet, and the conviction that they 
 would have to reckon with him as well as with the missionaries. Certain it is that 
 after the trial meetings were held, occasionally at least, at the Market Cross, without 
 interference on the part of the authorities. In proof of this we have the following 
 entry in Hugh Bourne's Journals : 
 
 "Sunday, April 26th, 1818. I got to Grantham in Lincolnshire Camp Meeting. 
 In the afternoon we stood upon the Market Cross, the place where John Wedgwood 
 stood when he was taken up. Thus hath God wrought." 
 
 Probably the acceptance of Buckminster's " chariots and horses," like Israel's reliance 
 on Egypt or Assyria, was of little permanent advantage to our cause at Grantham. If 
 the alliance warded off persecution under legal forms, it did not serve to commend our 
 work to the people of Grantham, whose suspicions were aroused by the aristocratic 
 entanglement ; and so, though there is no evidence that the people were either rowdy 
 or truculent, they did not prove very accessible to the gospel as proclaimed by our 
 missionaries. Be this as it may, it was not until 1835 that a permanent cause was 
 established, though before that date several determined attempts were made, as the 
 official records of the Nottingham Circuit show. In June, 1824, the Circuit Committee 
 is " authorised and requested " to obtain a missionary and send him to Grantham. The 
 December Quarterly Meeting of 1825 had the subject of establishing a mission at 
 Grantham again under consideration, and passed some half-dozen resolutions which 
 raise expectations that something effective will be done. " Missionary meetings are to 
 be held at Bingham, Lambley, Barkstone, and Keyworth, and out of the monetary 
 proceeds of these meetings a mission is to be established. Brother Whitby is to 
 proceed to Grantham, and is authorised to expend ten pounds in 
 the fitting up of the room. Grantham, Billingborough, Aslackley, 
 Edenham, and Eippingale, are together to form the Grantham 
 Mission, and Brother Brame is appointed to labour on it for three 
 months." Then in March, 1826, the Quarterly Board authorises 
 payment for the room, and the balance of the money raised at the 
 missionary meetings is to be " applied to the support of a mission 
 attached to the Nottingham Circuit ; " and there, so far as Grantham 
 entries in the circuit books are concerned, the matter ends. 
 
 After many disappointing failures, the set time to favour Grantham 
 A. WORSNOP. came at i ast- At Midsummer, in the year of the trouble (1834), 
 Nottingham made Bottesford a Branch, and placed at its head Abraham Worsnop 
 a deeply pious, hard-working, successful minister, who, during his ministry of 
 forty-three years, is said to have had an aggregate increase on his stations of 
 twenty-three thousand members. In April, 1835, Bottesford remissioned Grantham. 
 It was hard uphill work. Their principal preaching-place for twenty-one weeks 
 
 * J. Wedgwood took out his licence on September 4th, between his liberation on bail and 
 the Sessions. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 263 
 
 ROBERT PARKS. 
 
 was the Market Cross we know so well. But persistence had its reward, and 
 at length a room was secured, which we take to have been the Old Granary at 
 the Blue Sheep, standing at the corner of Harleston Road and Wharfe Road, since 
 pulled down for the construction of the railway. To assist in the extensive missionary 
 labours undertaken by the Branch, Robert Parks a convert during 
 a recent revival at Barkstone, his native village began his 
 missionary labours, July, 1835.* His first day's work was to 
 mission Barrowby near Grantham, and Wolsthorpe near Belvoir. 
 Robert Parks became one of the best-known ministers in the old 
 Nottingham District (1836-73). He had a clear voice, an imposing 
 presence, and was an evangelical and popular preacher and platform 
 speaker. "We see him now at the start of his ministry " enduring 
 hardness ; " for while in this district he met with a good deal of 
 persecution, travelled long journeys, and preached scores of sermons 
 in the open air. Bottesford and Grantham owed much to Abraham 
 Worsnop and Robert Parks. They were well mated ; for the people in their own 
 homely fashion used to say of them : " Parks shoots the birds, and Worsnop comes 
 along and picks them up, so that between them and the Lord they make a good bag." 
 God's blessing was on hard work. Fresh places were missioned, such as South Sutton, 
 hitherto " destitute of the ministry of reconciliation," and where 
 they were discharged from their regular preaching-house, and had 
 another immediately offered them. At Knipton, too, three miles 
 from Belvoir, they preached three years in the open air before 
 they could obtain a preaching-place. Then a friend, risking all 
 consequences, opened her spacious dwelling. So the work went 
 on until in September, 1835, Bottesford was made a Circuit with 
 226 members, increased by the next year to 300. As for Grantham, 
 the cause at last took root. Before the close of the year it had 
 a nourishing society of seventy members, and we note with interest 
 that one of the first to join the society was Samuel Bayley, who 
 carried Wedgwood his breakfast eighteen years before. Progress was now steady but 
 sure, as is evidenced by the fact that on June 4th, 1837, a commodious chapel was 
 opened by two good men John Brownson, one of the tall pillar- 
 preachers of the old Nottingham District, and John Middleton, 
 a lover of peace, cheerful, conscientious, plodding, whose carefully 
 written MS. Journal it is a pleasure to read. Both Brownson 
 and Middleton were the fruit of Primitive Methodist agency in 
 Derbyshire the one hailing from Brailsford near Turnditch, the 
 other from near Bradwell. 
 
 J. Middleton records in his Journal : 
 
 "At five I preached on the Market Cross, whence we pro- 
 cessioned the town to the chapel. The services through the 
 
 J. MIDULETON. . . i i 
 
 day were full of spirit and life. God was evidently in our 
 midst making our hearts glad." 
 
 * R. Parks was not pledged until 1836. 
 
 JOHN BROWNSON. 
 
264 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 No more appropriate ending of the twenty years' story could we have than this. 
 Grantham Primitive Methodism began at the Market Cross, and, as we have said, 
 by the way of the Cross was it established. The " pulpit of cut stone " soon 
 disappears from history at any rate. Its record is the ephemeral record of Jonah's 
 gourd. What became of it we cannot tell. Whether it found its way to the local 
 museum, or was carried off piecemeal for the construction of local piggeries, or was 
 spirited away in some mysterious manner, history informs us not. Its memorial has 
 perished. But the twenty-one weeks' open-air preaching, chiefly at the Cross, left 
 enduring results : and when Bro. John Middleton, just twenty years after John 
 Wedgwood was pulled down from the Cross, took his stand on the same spot and 
 preached, and then led the procession chapel-wards, both service and procession must 
 surely have partaken of a memorial and thanksgiving character. 
 
 It only remains to be added that after continuing a Branch of Bottesford for some 
 years, in 1864 Grantham became an independent circuit. 
 
 BKAILSFORD PKIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL. 
 
 CLOWES' VISIT TO NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. 
 
 Clowes' mission in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire was, as we have seen, 
 causally as well as chronologically connected with Wedgwood's imprisonment. He 
 crowded an immense amount of work into the short time at his disposal, sometimes 
 preaching several times in the course of a day, and occasionally as early as five o'clock 
 in the morning. Wedgwood was doing the same, profitably filling up the time between 
 his liberation on bail and the holding of the Quarter Sessions, so that the two evangelists 
 sometimes crossed each other's path and held joint services, or one would hold a service 
 in this and another in that part of the same town or village in order to reach the more 
 people. Then they would separate, each going his own way. Of course, Clowes did 
 not overlook East Bridgford. Sooner or later all the Primitive fathers are found 
 there ; for Bridgford was just like one of those quiet villages which, because it 
 happens to lie in the line of advance, will have billeted in its farm-houses or cottages 
 the generals of the successive divisions that pass through it, and make it their temporary 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 265 
 
 quarters. At Bridgford, Clowes preached or at least tried to preach on the green, 
 but had to desist ; for as was remarked at the time, " the devil and the parson sent two 
 of their underlings to interrupt the service by blowing big horns." The interruption, 
 however, had this good result : it induced Mrs. Lockwood, who was present, to place 
 her chapel at the disposal of the missionary and his congregation. Here the service 
 was quietly gone through, and, " best of all," Clowes tells us, George Herod, who had 
 been winged by Sarah Kirkland and brought down by John Benton, was now, through 
 the instrumentality of Clowes, won for Christ and the Church, which by the time 
 he enters the ministry will sorely need and profit by his godly discipline. If 
 Henry Sharman and George Herod had been the sole trophies of Clowes' flying visit 
 to these parts, the visit was worth making. 
 
 Bingham and Ratcliffe were both visited. At Bingham Clowes preached twice in 
 the market-place, at one of the times to as many as two thousand people. At Ratcliffe 
 
 8CREVETON CHAPEL, NEWARK. 
 
 he met with Wedgwood, and after a service at five o'clock in the morning the two took 
 their stand in the open air. Clowes preached first, and then set off to another place 
 four miles off, leaving Wedgwood to finish the service. Clowes remarks, that when he 
 had got a mile on his journey he could still hear Wedgwood's voice as he pleaded in 
 prayer. It is significant in the light of what was to happen, that both Bingham and 
 Ratcliffe thus early appear to have been honeycombed with Free Gospelism. At 
 Ratcliffe, Clowes had an unacrimonious discussion with some advocates of an unpaid 
 ministry, and succeeded in practically converting them ; for they not only extended to 
 him unstinted hospitality, but sent a liberal contribution to the Nottingham Quarterly 
 Board. At Bingham, however, it is curious to find he was not so fortunate. He notes 
 that here one of the leaders of the two classes was a Free Gospeller, and that in the 
 
266 
 
 PRIMITIVE MKTIIODIST CHURCH. 
 
 end a serious disruption took place in the society, some of the members joining the 
 Wesleyans, others going back into the world, while a mere remnant retained their first 
 fellowship. For Free Gospellers to cease to be Primitive Methodists in order to 
 become Wesleyans was surely a piece of inconsistency as great as that of the man the 
 late Rev. Thomas Smith, Governor of Elmneld, used to speak of. He left the Primitives in 
 dudgeon because the Quarterly Meeting had authorised the purchase of a square of 
 druggeting to lie at the side of the preacher's bed and keep his feet off the bare boards, 
 and forthwith joined an opulent Church, whose minister's bedroom was laid throughout 
 with the best Kidderminster ! But there is some reason to believe that Clowes is 
 blending with his own early recollections of Bingham events of a painful nature which 
 occurred some years later events already sufficiently described. There is no evidence 
 
 BINGHAM OLD CHAPEL. 
 
 to show that anywhere near 1817 a disruption, having Free* Gospelism at its root, ever 
 took place. The simple fact that it was at Bingham the first Primitive Methodist 
 Chapel in Nottinghamshire was erected and opened in 1818 by no less a person than 
 Lorenzo Dow, is sufficient to show that for some time after Clowes' visit a flourishing 
 society existed at Bingham. At the same time, it is clear that even in 1817 Clowes 
 was made aware, in an unmistakable and unpleasant manner, of the seed growing secretly 
 which the years would ripen. 
 
 Clowes tells us he also visited Whatton, Sibthorpe, Thurston, Bottesford, Bulwell, 
 Blidworth, Screveton, Calverton, Oxton, Lambley, and Great Cropwell. At most of 
 these places something happened worth chronicling, as was usually the case wherever 
 Clowes went. At Screveton he preached in the open air and joined five to the society. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 267 
 
 A chapel was erected here in 1840. At Lambley, too, he admitted four to membership, 
 preached in the open air, and speaks of Mr. G. Turner " as a succourer of many, and of 
 me also." At Oxton, while he was speaking, a man was arrested as though struck by 
 a rifle bullet, and would have fallen if friends had not caught him in their arms. This 
 man afterwards declared it was one word Clowes uttered that produced this extraordinary 
 effect. From the same meeting another went to his home to pass a night of sleepless 
 wretchedness. He called upon Clowes the next morning, set him on his journey, 
 disburdened his mind as they went on, and then they stopped and prayed together 
 by the roadside until the man found peace in believing. Thus it was wherever Clowes 
 went : so mightily grew the Word and prospered. 
 
 Newark, " the key of the north," was also one of the gains of the Great Revival, and 
 
 as such its name is found on the plan of February- April, 1818. It marked the latest 
 and farthest acquisition in a direction north-east of Nottingham. Clowes and Wedgwood 
 both found their way here at the same time, and both preached at the same hour the 
 one in Northgate and the other in Millgate. Clowes remarks that his congregation 
 was not so unruly as Wedgwood's, and that though good was done by the services, 
 much greater results might have followed had houses only been available for the 
 holding of prayer meetings after the open-air preachings. As the missionaries had 
 not the use even of a private dwelling at this time, we infer that Clowes must be speaking 
 of a very early, if not of the earliest visit to Newark ; and Clowes' reference to the 
 persecution which afterwards showed itself, tends to confirm this view. Whatever 
 may be the case now, Newark was in former times stiff and staunch in its Toryism. 
 
268 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Its ancient castle, in which King John breathed his last, stood and withstood three 
 sieges during the Civil Wars. The castle was not surrendered to the Parliamentarians 
 until the Avar was over ; then it was dismantled, to become the picturesque ruin with 
 which we are now familiar. It would have been a wonder if a town with such 
 a history had given the Primitives any other than a rough reception. Newark, that 
 had kept the forces of the Parliament at bay with its cannon, only acted like itself 
 when it turned its engines of another kind against Mr. William Lockwood, who 
 attempted to preach in the market-place a short time after the visit of Clowes. 
 Mr. Lockwood's purpose had been announced beforehand, so that there had been time 
 for opposition to organise itself. Accordingly, when he began to preach from his gig 
 a man turned a garden-hose upon him, and then the fire-engine was brought out and 
 
 -\K\VAHK MAKKKT-H.ACK. 
 In centre of which Lockwood stood and preached when fire-engine was played upon him in 1817. 
 
 began to play on the preacher. The instigator of this watery form of persecution was 
 the clergyman, who seems to have joined to his other offices that of custodian of the 
 town fire-engine, which was kept on the Church premises. While others worked the 
 manual-engine, a barber was chief fireman, and turned the hose upon Mr. Lockwood 
 while the clergyman from the church to\ver watched the drenching of the intrusive 
 missionary with evident enjoyment. But there was an unexpected diversion in the 
 preacher's favour. Some watermen Avho were standing by thought persecution had 
 gone far enough, and as Mr. Lockwood, with the water running off his person, shouted, 
 " You can't quench the fire within," they took out their clasp-knives and cut and hacked 
 away at the hose until it was rendered useless. The clergyman afterwards brought 
 an action against the watermen for damages, but was nonsuited. The magistrates 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 269 
 
 asked the pertinent question : " Who authorised the taking out of the fire-engine ? " 
 and when informed, they decided that as the clergyman had called the tune it was fair 
 he should also pay the piper. But the story does not end here. Retribution of a severer 
 kind overtook the other chief actor in this incident. The very next occasion the 
 fire-engine was required was when it was summoned to put out a fire which had broken 
 out on the barber's premises ; for he was a manufacturer of fireworks as well as 
 a barber, and while busy with his squibs and crackers an explosion occurred, and he 
 was blown through the shop window, and died of his burns. This judgment by fire, 
 following hard upon persecution by water, made a deep impression upon our fathers. 
 They were not slow to recognise God's hand in the event. John Harrison was at 
 Newark in 1818, and conducted the first Primitive Methodist lovefeast there on April 
 12th. It was held under difficulties ; for the persecutors broke the windows and tried 
 to burst open the door. When the prayer meeting began the preacher went out to 
 expostulate with the disturbers, and " a pious young woman knelt down in the street 
 and commenced praying for them, and she brought upon them a powerful influence ; 
 after this their rage appeared to be appeased." He remarks : " There has been great 
 opposition against us in this town, but some of the ringleaders have had to suffer." 
 The pyrotechnist barber was not the only one who suffered ; for having described 
 his fate, John Harrison goes on to give other instances of retribution on Newark 
 persecutors : 
 
 " A young man in this place, who had annoyed our people very much, had the 
 misfortune to have a stone fall on him, which was computed to be more than three 
 hundredweight, and it crushed him to death. Yesterday another of the ringleaders 
 forged a ticket in order to gain admittance into the lovefeast [of April 12th before 
 mentioned], but he was prevented from entering, and I hear to-day he has met 
 with an accident, and has come home with a broken leg. I hope these things will 
 be a warning to the enemies of the cross in Newark." 
 
 These instances of retribution were far from uncommon, and may be regarded as 
 typical of the period under consideration. No mere theory of " remarkable coincidences " 
 would have satisfied our fathers as sufficiently accounting for them. To these firm 
 believers in an over-ruling providence, it seemed the most natural and proper thing in 
 the world, that the God who was on their side should in a sudden and signal manner 
 vindicate His people, and manifest His displeasure against those who sought to do them 
 harm and hinder their work. They were on the watch for such instances of retribution, 
 and carefully noted them when they occurred. Such was the deliberate opinion of our 
 fathers, and the opinion was shared even by many outsiders ; so that when the great 
 bell of a village church set a-ringing to drown the preacher's voice cracked, the 
 people said : " If they attempt to ring again to oppose the ' Banters ' the steeple 
 will fall." 
 
 Primitive Methodism has had a continuous existence in Newark ever since it was 
 first missioned under the circumstances already described ; but it passed through various 
 vicissitudes before it became, in 1862, the head of an independent station, with Paul 
 Daykin and Benjamin Clayton as its ministers. From 1824 to 1832 Newark formed 
 part of the old Balderton Circuit ; then in 1833 Fulbeck, in Lincolnshire, became the 
 
270 PRIMITIVE METEIODIST CHURCH. 
 
 head of the circuit, and Sleaford became a mission of Fulbeck during the successful 
 .superintendency of Rev. Joseph Middleton (1834-6). He records in his MS. Journal : 
 
 "Sunday, April 5th, 1835. I opened a large schoolroom at Sleaford for public 
 worship. The attendance both afternoon and evening was pleasing, and I had 
 good liberty in dispensing the Word. Thank God there is a good prospect of our 
 obtaining a cause in this wicked town. Mr. Crosby [the missionary put down at 
 Sleaford] is likely to be very useful here and in the villages round about." 
 
 Though it is Newark whose vicissitudes we are following, it is interesting to note 
 that in the Report of the Fulbeck Circuit to the District Meeting and Conference of 
 1836, it is stated that many new and populous villages, such as Ancaster, Welbourn,* 
 Kirkby, Cranwell, A/eby, Navenby, and Faindon, had been opened, and many of the 
 old places, as Balderton, Newark, Rauceby, and others, which had been low for years, 
 had been greatly revived, and the membership which in September, 1834, was 160 had 
 risen to 300 and upwards. " We have no doubt," continues the Report, " that this 
 back settlement of the Connexion will yet become fruitful and yield an abundant 
 harvest." But, adds the document : " We are sorry to say that we have been, and are 
 .still, much opposed by the ministers of the Establishment, but hitherto the Lord hath 
 helped us." Yet another change awaited Newark. It became in the early forties 
 a branch of Sleaford ; for in a document now before us, bearing date November, 1844, 
 the Rev. Samuel Antliff, the preacher of the Newark Branch, supports the application 
 of Sleaford that Newark may be transferred as a branch to Nottingham ; which 
 accordingly was done, and as a branch of Nottingham Circuit Newark remained until 
 1862. In his application Mr. S. Antliff states that Newark has a chapel for which six 
 pounds annual rent is paid ; that Balderton has a rented room, and pays its 'way ; 
 Claypole a rented chapel, and Dodington, Upton, and other places have their piiblic 
 services in dwelling-houses. 
 
 We have thus followed in some detail the fortunes of Newark until it became an 
 independent station, because the recital may serve to show how complicated the history 
 of a single circuit may be. Newark is a good example of a circuit that has had its 
 several aliases during the course of its history. 
 
 At Shelf ord, a village near Nottingham, certain events occurred about this time 
 which must be told in detail. A determined effort was made to oust the Primitives 
 irom the village in which they had succeeded in establishing a vigorous society. The 
 persecution in the last resort took the cruel form of evicting and then levelling the cottages 
 
 * Welbourn had in April, 1836, its case of unsuccessful prosecution for open-air preaching. On 
 pain of losing his farm Mr. Shepherd was reluctantly obliged to withdraw the use of his barn for 
 public worship. Mr. Middleton then took to the open air, and Major Brown ordered him to desist, 
 and on refusal sent for the constable. Mr. Keyworth, the constable, was a sensible man, and scrupled 
 taking the preacher into custody. Mr. Middleton, therefore, gave himself up, but preached again the 
 same evening. The next morning his friend, the constable, drove him to the Justices' Meeting at 
 Sleaford. The case was dismissed, and Major Brown ordered to pay costs. Mr. Middleton returned 
 to Welbourn, and preached in the evening from " Pray for them which despitefully use and 
 persecute you." The whole story is fully and interestingly told in Rev. Joseph Middleton's 
 MS. Journals. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 271 
 
 of those who had had the temerity to lend them for preaching services. But the 
 persistent, protracted persecution for it extended over months using methods worthy 
 of an Irish eviction agent was met hy a resistance just as determined and dogged as 
 itself, and in the end more successful. It was a veritable tug of war ; and now that 
 a similar struggle for principle, though on a more colossal scale, is everywhere going 
 on, it will be well to recall this episode in the history of village Primitive Methodism. 
 It has a good many lessons for these times. It shows that some of our village causes 
 have a history of which we may well be proud ; that they were founded and maintained 
 at much sacrifice by humble stalwarts. If you had talked to them of "the Non- 
 conformist conscience " or of " political Dissenters " they would not have understood you ; 
 but their Protestantism and Methodism was so dear to them that they clung to it at all 
 
 VICKERSTAFF'S COTTAGE, SHELFOKD, 
 Where services used to be held in the cottage on the right-hand side. 
 
 costs. The poet bethought him of village Hampdens : so we have had our village 
 Vickerstaffs and Woodwards 
 
 " . . . . that with dauntless breast 
 The little tyrant of their fields withstood." 
 
 We have had them, and are anxious to keep up the breed, and recent events in the 
 neighbourhood of Wirksworth and elsewhere show that the breed is not extinct. Over 
 the whole of this story is broadly written : " Don't forget your village causes. When 
 tempted to leave them, think what it cost to found such as they." But the story ? 
 Clowes tells it, but he tells it incompletely, as if from partial knowledge or imperfect 
 recollection. But Clowes was at Shelford while the first part of the story was being 
 enacted, and naturally it made a deep impression on him, so that when he came to 
 write his reminiscences he speaks of little else save that he records how a persecutor 
 
272 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 was " uemoved by being drowned in the river ; " and he ends his references to Shelford 
 by this enigmatical sentence : " But I left this place with some hopes ; I resembled 
 a bark tossed with the tempest and exposed to the yawning gulf." 
 
 The cornpletest account we have of the Shelford tug of war is furnished by 
 a contemporary observer with every detail duly noted and in its place so that for 
 result we have a true story with its proper beginning and end. The writer was John 
 Parrott, jun., of East Bridgford, and the narrative, though relegated by Mr. Herod 
 to the foot of his pages and printed in small type,* deserves to be given in extenso here 
 as an authentic document the more so as it is written in a lively and graphic style, 
 giving one a very favourable opinion of the writer's literary ability. Says Parrott : 
 
 STOKE FERRY, RIVER TRENT. 
 
 " Directly after the Camp Lovefeast of June, 1817, an opening presented itself in 
 Shelford a village in the vicinity, displaying some rural beauty, and of some note as 
 the family burying-place of the Earls of Chesterfield, whose hereditary estate stretches 
 far away rouricl the village, in which is only one plot of ground, about some half acre, 
 not belonging to that valuable estate. In this village Tone Joseph Vickerstaff opened 
 his door for preaching. His house stood on a strip of waste land by the roadside 
 leading to Stoke Ferry. Many souls were converted to God beneath its very humble 
 thatched roof, and a living Church sprang up within this domicile of ' stud and mud,'t 
 which faced the rather imposing and substantially built parish church. This upstart 
 (as some designated it) primitive Church gave unpardonable offence to the National 
 
 * Herod : " Biographical Sketches," &c., footnote on pp. 347-50. 
 
 t " Stud, the upright in a lath and plaster wall." W right : " Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial 
 English." 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 273 
 
 
 Church party, and a very hot persecution followed. As a cover to their real design, 
 the enclosure of this waste land was determined on Vickerstaff paying no regard to 
 threats and entreaties to 'turn out the Kanters.' A regular discharge was then sent to 
 him, which produced no more effect ; then came an ejectment ; still the services of 
 religion were continued in his house as usual. Ultimately workmen were sent who 
 pulled the house down, and the family and their furniture were shown the way into 
 the street. 
 
 " This door shut, another was opened in time for the next religious service. Henry 
 Fukes welcomed beneath his thatched roof ' the Ark of God,' and all its attendant 
 blessings, for ' he was a devout man, and feared God with his house.' His domicile was 
 
 of the same material and tenure 
 with that of his friend Vickerstaff, 
 and it stood in the midst of the 
 village, adjoining the orchard, and 
 at the back of the under-steward's 
 house. VickerstafFs had been an 
 eyesore in front of that officer's 
 house. For a short while the in- 
 fant cause was allowed a home 
 herein, and souls were converted, 
 and the Church prospered and 
 multiplied. But the unrelenting 
 spirit of persecution and cruel 
 hatred to dissent soon raged with 
 redoubled fury. The banishment 
 of the people from the village 
 was determined on. Fukes was 
 threatened with the fate of Vicker- 
 staff if he did not 'turn those 
 noisy people out.' Henry heard 
 all with respectful calmness with- 
 out yielding to the intolerant 
 mandate, or wavering in the face 
 of the threatened annihilation of 
 his 'stud and mud' habitation, 
 where he lived rent-free. 
 
 "For a number of years the 
 Wesleyans had had a society in 
 this village, whose preaching ser- 
 vices were held in the house of 
 Mr. Nathan Bailey, a respectable 
 
 farmer of good report. It was now currently said he had received orders to allow no 
 more preachings on pain of being turned out of his farm. Preaching services ceased in 
 that house, and were now confined to the National Church and Fukes' cottage, 'made 
 of unbaken clay and straw-thatched roof.' There, at this period, we often worshipped 
 with delight, amid saving power, streaming glory, and flowing tears, in the closely 
 packed congregation inside, and among those standing without on the high road 
 unable to gain ingress, while the preacher in the nook or the open doorway was 
 pouring forth in simple eloquence the simple truth of God with all the fervour of 
 
 COTTAGE REBUILT ON SITE OF 
 HENRY FUKE8' HOUSE, SHELFORD. 
 
274 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 a heart full of its saving energy and power. It was not uncommon then to see 
 numbers present from East Bridgford, Newton, and other adjacent villages and 
 hamlets ; for the conflict for principle, and the determined retention of the village 
 by this infant cause of Christ, was noised abroad and brought together sympathisers, 
 scoffers, and the curious. 
 
 "As threats proved powerless on pious Henry Fukes, our modern Obed-Edom, 
 a regular discharge was sent to him, but with no more effect. Then followed an 
 ejectment, which was equally unable to make the desired impression ; but one evening 
 afterwards, on returning from his labour as a husbandman, he found the spoilers had 
 pulled down his house, and had turned his pious wife and their furniture on to the 
 high road. God, however, provided them both with shelter and a home in the house 
 of friends ; and although thus plunged into trouble for some time, in the end they 
 suffered no loss. He overruled this wrath of man and made it praise Him. No sooner 
 
 SITE OF WOODWARD'S GAKDEN, SHELFORU. 
 
 was the house of our Obed-Edom levelled with the ground than another door was 
 opened for the Ark of God in the house of Matthew Woodward. His was also 
 'a parish house,' but it stood within a garden, a few paces from the public street, 
 and was withal a much better fabric. Under its roof we have often worshipped, and 
 felt it to be the gate of heaven. 
 
 " No plea could be urged about improving the village streets by removing this house, 
 as had been done in the two former cases ; so that the chasing of the Church from 
 house to house was brought to a standstill. But the persecuting spirit now acted 
 without a mask Woodward was threatened and brought before a bench of justices. 
 Matthew was of unpolished and stern material, and in reply to the threats of these 
 higher powers, said : ' Mine is a parish house, and if you turn me out of it you must 
 find me another ; and as soon as I get into that I shall have the preachings there.' 
 This is said to have given great offence to those sitting professedly to administer 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 275 
 
 justice ; and one of them now swore openly. Woodward seized the moment, and 
 turned it to good account, showed the impropriety and sin of the swearer, and 
 contrasted it with the object and practices of himself and fellow-worshippers. This 
 procured him a hasty dismissal from the council-room, whence he returned home in 
 triumph. It was then said : ' It is of no use tormenting ourselves with these incorrigible 
 Ranters we may pull half the village down and not get them out at last.' 'Then had 
 the Church rest,' and took root and grew. A change of stewards for the estate about 
 this time had also a favourable effect. Mr. Hassell commenced his stewardship in the 
 spirit of religious tolerance much to his credit. 
 
 " Subsequently, the society not being able to obtain a plot of land on which to build 
 a chapel, purchased the waterman's floating chapel at Nottingham, swam it down the 
 river Trent, drew it into Woodward's garden, and there fitted up the amphibious 
 sanctuary and worshipped in it. Many efforts had been made to purchase the 
 fractional part of an acre of land (the only plot in the village not belonging to the 
 earl's estate), but without effect ; nor could the Primitives secure a piece of it, although 
 they often tried. At length, however, in answer to continuous and fervent prayer, the 
 Lord changed the heart of Mr. Girton, the owner of that little freehold. He granted 
 them an eligible building site, on which they soon erected a neat, suitable, and 
 substantial brick chapel ; and there it stands, in the very heart of the Earl of 
 Chesterfield's estate, as a memorable trophy and worthy fruit of prayer, and of 
 indomitable perseverance in the work of faith and labour of love, for the cause of 
 Him of whom it is said, ' the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof.' " 
 
 Mr. Parrott paints no fancy-picture : his narrative receives incidental and independent 
 confirmation from the Journals of both Hugh Bourne and John Harrison. "Writing on 
 February 14th, 1818, the former remarks : 
 
 " At Shelford, the man who takes in the preaching is thrown out of employment, 
 and is likely to be thrown out of the house. O Lord, appear for him and undertake 
 his cause." 
 
 When John Harrison followed some six weeks afterwards, what seemed likely to 
 happen had become matter of certainty, for on March 30th he writes : 
 
 "I came to Shelford, and in this place I found the family, in whose house we 
 preach, under trying circumstances ; they had received notice from the Earl of 
 Chesterfield's steward to quit their house the next week. But in the midst of 
 difficulties they could say with the prophet : ' Although the fig-tree shall not 
 blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines ; the labour of the olive shall fail, and 
 the fields shall yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there 
 shall be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of 
 my salvation.' " 
 
 Probably Vickerstaff was the humble confessor referred to, for the persecution was 
 long drawn out ; and this was but its beginning. A good many years had to pass 
 before the " amphibious " chapel was superseded by the brick building standing on its 
 own freehold ; for 1840 is given in the official documents as the date of the erection of 
 Shelford Chapel. 
 
 We leave Nottinghamshire for a time, glad to know that in the towns and villages 
 Primitive Methodism has entered there are men and women who in the years to come 
 
276 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 may be relied upon to do their best for the Church which has done so much for them. 
 It is almost invidious to select from the number of such, names that even after this lapse 
 of time occur to the memory. We cannot, however, forbear, as we think of the circuit 
 town, mentioning the name of James Barker, who was an early member of Nottingham's 
 famous Circuit Committee, and frequently its secretary, and an able one, as the neat 
 and carefully written records in the circuit books attest ; also John Spencer, given to 
 
 JAMES FAIRER. 
 
 JOSEPH BAILEY. 
 
 DAVID MUSSOX JACKSON. 
 
 hospitality, and the frequent entertainer of Hugh Bourne, who often mentions his 
 name. Mention may also again\be made of David Musson Jackson, as long and close 
 search has at last been rewarded by a discovery of his portrait and the following data : 
 He was born February llth, 1794; made Governor of the House of Correction May 
 30th, 1833 ; died December 12th, 1862. 
 
 As we think of Ilkeston we think of "'.'Friend " Joseph Bailey, as Hugh Bourne with 
 reason called him, who will sign the Conference Journal of 1853 as President. He will 
 also become a deed-poll member,^ and as such attend many Conferences, and by his 
 intelligence and goodly presence and geniality win many friends. 
 
 Thinking of Mansfield, who can forget good Joshua 
 Rouse, wire-worker, model superintendent, logician, and 
 an expert and yet sympathetic examiner of probationers, 
 and a familiar figure at Conferences. So we might go on ; 
 but duty calls us to another part of the mission-field, and 
 we must obey. 
 
 THE GREAT REVIVAL IN LEICESTERSHIRE, 1818. 
 The progress made by the Connexion in the years 
 1817-18 was, geographically, not in one direction only. 
 It was not the result of a linear but of a centrifugal 
 movement. The Connexion grew as a tree grows ; it 
 spread like a series of constantly enlarging water-rings. 
 If you take Nottingham as your centre you will have 
 to keep shifting your circumferential line further and 
 JOSHUA ROCSE. still further back. Progress does not stop in the east 
 
 and north because you want to follow its course in the west and south. It is 
 difficult to describe in words an all-round expansion like this, and yet it must be 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 277 
 
 conceived if it cannot be written. Therefore, although our attention, must now for 
 a time be turned to Leicestershire (with Loughborough as a new centre), we must 
 remember that progress in the direction we have hitherto been following has not 
 rounded itself off and stopped because we cannot for the time attend to it. Unfortu- 
 nately, the official documents of Nottingham Circuit prior to 1824 are no longer 
 available to prove this, and the convenient system of " branches " was not adopted 
 till 1819 ; yet there is abundant evidence of an incidental though unofficial kind to 
 show that while Bourne (and for a time Clowes), Benton, Wedgwood, Heath, and other 
 leaders of the main movement are hard at work in Leicestershire, what may be called 
 a skirmishing movement is going on in Lincolnshire and elsewhere, which will in due 
 time prepare the way for an advance on Lincoln, Boston, Sheffield, Chesterfield, Scotter, 
 Grimsby, Hull, and even more distant Norwich and other places in East Anglia. The 
 story of this advance, however, belongs to 1819 and onwards. We have still to do 
 with the Great Kevival of 1817-18, and with the Plan of February- April, 1818, which 
 marks the beginning and course of that Revival. We have already seen how the 
 places- chiefly in Nottinghamshire which for the first time stand on this plan, register 
 the progress of the Revival in these parts ; and we have also seen by whom and under 
 what circumstances of trial and persecution they were missioned. We have glanced, 
 too, at what the future had in reserve for some of these gains of the Revival, and have 
 seen that by 1843 they had become branches, or even circuits, in their own right. 
 
 These earliest plans are of considerable historical value, because places were, as 
 a general rule, added to them chronologically in the order of their acquisition. Thus 
 almost at the bottom of the plan which ends April 26th, 1818, Ave find Loughborough, 
 followed by Seagrave, Switcherland, and Barrow places in its vicinity. This, of 
 course, means that quite recently a footing had been gained in these places. The very 
 next plan shows that tAvelve fresh preaching-stations have been added, including such 
 well-known names as Quorndon, Sileby Syston, and Markfield. Leicester does not occur 
 on this plan, though it will be found on immediately subsequent ones, so that we can 
 quite distinctly read such facts as these : Towards the close of 1817, Loughborough, 
 Seagrave, and Barrow had been reached ; that for a time our missionaries were shy of 
 entering Leicester, and confined themselves to the evangelisation of the busy villages 
 round Loughborough, and to that fine well-marked district, so rich in natural beauty, 
 historic associations, and under-surface wealth known as Charnwood Forest, recently by 
 the Inclosure Act of 1808 brought under cultivation, and by means of good roads made 
 accessible to the outside world, and its quarries of granite, slate, and limestone exploited 
 to the great advantage of the once secluded inhabitants of the district. All this will be 
 plainer if we give the last and purely Loughborough section of the May-July Plan. 
 
 Then for the purpose of comparison, and to deepen and 'complete the impression thus 
 gained, we give a document of great historic interest a Plan of Loughborough Circuit 
 for 1822. This plan is worth, and will repay, close study. This plan has on it 
 forty -two places situate in five several counties ; for though the bulk of the places 
 are naturally in Leicestershire, the counties of Derby, Notts, Northampton, and 
 Warwick are also represented on the plan by one or more places. What may have 
 been the precise geographical area covered by this plan we have not calculated, but 
 
278 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 LOVE-FEASTS. 
 
 |V B*lraveOct,27. Ml 
 Sirell and Barlofton 
 
 fl i 6 **' *' s n<'eihtt>d 
 
 |S flufrn and Marklielc 
 
 No*. 10. A MSI y, \VK-- 
 
 Jtun and Hmcklry, 
 
 Nov. 17. Loughboro', 
 
 niiilSea^ravcNQv. 21 
 
 Comitesthorpe Dec. 1 
 
 Ratby, Dec. 8. l.eake 
 
 Dec. 15. Thurmnsli 
 
 vi Dec. 15. Mouslcy Dftc 
 
 * ? 29. Keyworth, and En 
 
 derb*i Jan. 5. Croxtoi) 
 
 ? J*u.M. Barrow, Dec. 
 
 LOUGHBOROUGII CIRCUIT. 
 
 Lord's day Plan of the Preachers, 
 
 CALLED 
 
 KtfOWX ALSO BY THR NAME OF RANTERS. 
 "0 Ix>H rerie thy Work".'-* Habakkuk, iii 2^ 
 
 CIRCUIT COMMITTE 
 
 Richardson, Ma 
 ford, Bishop, Jerr 
 C. Jarratt, Attenboro 
 Simons, Skcungton, 
 Richards and Snow. 
 
 NOTE. The Circuit ?) 
 Camirmtcc, meets 
 
 No 
 
 h. 
 
 )ec. 2 and Jan. 6. 
 
 Every person on tin 
 Cumrniuccncjrfeeiius; 
 meet, without a 
 oiiflficient reasn, shall 
 )ay 6d. for each ueg* 
 
 ct. 
 
 1882 & 18*3. 
 
 Warwickshire J 4 , . Z&. 
 . . > Coventry ,. 
 
 Miinn. \ J 6 
 
 N. B. Quarter day t Leictsur, December 9th. Preachers to meei at o 
 o'r.lock. 
 
 SJOIAMENTS. Uarlcston, Nov. 3 Loughborow^hj Nov. 24. Winston, Dec. 8 
 TU.nrinaston, Dec. 15. Hstfiern, Dec. 29. Sutioa, Jan. 12. 
 
 It is roqueted that very Preacher will atten<l his own nppoinimeats, and i] 
 unaMf to s;o he must get it supplied by one whose name is on the Plan.' 
 
 All Lt-Uert t be directed to J. RAVEN, Quorndon, near Lou-hberouah 
 Letters of address Id be Postpaid. 
 
 L. Lbvefeast. S. Sacrament. T. Tickets. p. Prayer meeting. 
 
 PRF.ACIIEV.S 
 
 1 Allcock 
 
 2 Bcllliam 
 
 3 Woolley 
 
 4 Timms 
 
 5 SkeriiiKten 
 C Handford 
 
 7 Bishop 
 
 8 Richardson 
 
 9 Maikhaui 
 
 10 Goodrich 
 
 11 Simpson 
 
 12 Sutton ,* 
 
 13 Willford 
 
 14 Ward 
 
 16 Jarratt 
 
 17 Kichar.ls 
 
 18 Sims. 
 
 19 Palmer 
 
 20 KeudaH 
 
 21 KenMy 
 
 22 Pike 
 
 23 I'hipps 
 
 24 Bailee 
 
 2.5 C. Jarratt 
 
 26 T. Woolley 
 
 27 T. Suttun 
 
 28 Burley 
 
 29 Attenboro 
 
 30 Thornton 
 
 31 Astlc 
 
 32 llalford 
 
 33 Jeffreys 
 
 34 Kerkfaud 
 
 35 Marshall 
 30 Slratll 
 
 37 Ncni 
 
 38 Measures 
 
 40 Wells 
 
 ON TRIAL. 
 
 41 Slack 
 
 42 Barfoot 
 
 43 Webster 
 
 44 Oariwr 
 
 45 liamtury 
 
 EXHORTERS. 
 
 46 Bear* 
 
 47 Mitchell 
 
 48 Geary 
 
 49 Illslon 
 '>0 Loveday 
 il Ueydttn 
 52 J. Hast! 
 
 WOMEN. 
 
 53 R. Sutton 
 54. H. Taylor 
 56' M. 1'eat 
 
 56 11. Si,npoq 
 
 57 A. (leary 
 
 58 R. Tatey 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 279 
 
 some idea of its extent may be gathered from the fact that what was Loughborough 
 Circuit in 1822 has been carved into eleven existing circuits ! No wonder our fathers 
 used the word " circuit " rather than the word " station " in designating their spheres 
 
 LOUGHBOROUGH .SECTION OF THE JNOTTINGHAM CIRCUIT PLAN. ^ Q jj an f or( j 
 MAY-JULY 1818. 44 j Rug 
 
 1818. 
 
 MAY, 
 
 JUNE. 
 
 JULY, 
 
 45. J. Barker 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 46. J. Bonser 
 
 PLACES. 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 17 
 
 24 
 
 31 
 
 7 
 
 14 
 
 21 
 
 28 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 19 
 
 2fi 
 
 An w \\' \ ,. \ 
 
 Loughborough 2 and 6 
 
 19 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 49 
 
 SOT 
 
 40 
 
 L 
 
 SK 
 
 17 
 
 43 
 
 9 
 
 
 22 
 
 47- 1. Woodward 
 48. T Mounteny 
 
 Quorndon 2 ... 
 
 43 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 55 
 
 
 44T 
 
 
 1' 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 P 
 
 49. T. King 
 
 Quorndon 6 
 
 
 44 
 
 
 54 
 
 
 41 
 
 
 56 
 
 
 41 
 
 
 42 
 
 
 50. W. Ashby 
 ON TRIAL. 
 
 Thrusingt. 2, Segrave 6 
 
 9 
 
 54 
 
 56 
 
 66 
 
 P 
 
 42T 
 
 55 
 
 41 
 
 P 
 
 54 
 
 56 
 
 
 43 
 
 51. T. Simmons 
 
 Switcherland 6 
 
 
 55 
 
 
 56 
 
 
 9T 
 
 
 43 
 
 
 42 
 
 
 43 
 
 
 52. J. Garner 
 
 Barrow 2 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 57 
 
 
 9T 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 37 
 
 
 66 
 
 
 53. G. Herod 
 
 Barrow 6 
 
 54 
 
 
 43 
 
 
 41 
 
 
 66 
 
 
 34 
 
 
 44 
 
 
 41 
 
 54. R. Bishop 
 
 Sileby 2 an 1 6| 
 
 42 
 
 57 
 
 9L 
 
 43 
 
 56 
 
 66 
 
 41 
 
 44 
 
 41 
 
 56 
 
 43 
 
 P 
 
 42 
 
 55. E. Frier 
 
 Rai. 10^. Qbo. 2, Sys. 6^ 
 
 41 
 
 43 
 
 42 
 
 44 
 
 9T 
 
 55 
 
 56 
 
 66 
 
 37 
 
 
 42 
 
 41 
 
 55 
 
 56. R. Bent 
 
 Markfield 2, S. Lane 6i 
 
 55 
 
 41 
 
 57 
 
 P 
 
 42 
 
 43T 
 
 9 
 
 55 
 
 12 
 
 P 
 
 41 
 
 - 
 
 57 
 
 57. P. Richardson 
 
 Hoton 2, Burton 6J ... 
 
 32 
 
 
 55 
 
 
 44T 
 
 
 57 
 
 
 43 
 
 
 55 
 
 
 52 
 
 58. J. Slack 
 
 Costock 2 
 
 
 66 
 
 
 55 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 42 
 
 
 44 
 
 
 55 
 
 
 59. W. Doughty 
 
 Mount Snrrel ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 60. W. Ward 
 
 NOTES. The preachers for Loughboro' are: W. Hind, R. Winh'eld, R. Weston, T. King, 
 W. Ashby, J. Skevington, representative tu Preparatory Meeting, Sarah Kirkland, R. Stone, 
 (vid. p. 195), G. Hanford, J. Harrison, W. Dakin. Truly a good plan ! 
 
 Of the few preachers whose names are given above no less than six became travelling preachers, 
 
 of labour ! We need no further evidence to show that the Great Revival in the 
 Midlands left its enduring impress on our history, and that Loughborough has good 
 reason to be ranked among the fruitful mother-circuits of Primitive Methodism : and it 
 was also one of the earliest circuits formed, for if we exclude Derby that in a time of 
 crisis was prematurely made the second circuit, and held that position for a short time 
 only then Loughborough takes the third place in the order of circuit formation. 
 September, 1818, is the date usually assigned for Loughborough's attainment of circuit 
 independence and this assignment of date is made on the authority of a passage in 
 Hugh Bourne's History ; but in his private and contemporary Journals from which, 
 in our judgment, there is no appeal March 23rd is given as the date. On Monday, 
 the 18th, he comes twenty-one miles from Hucknall Torkard to Loughborough, and 
 
280 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 finds the society " flourishing very much." The next day he holds a quarterly meeting, 
 and adds : " It was proposed to make Loughborough into a separate circuit." On the 
 23rd of the same month of March we have the entry : 
 
 " Quarter Day. Hastened to Nottingham. A deal of business. Temporal 
 concerns tolerable ; made arrangements for forming a new circuit ; Loughborough 
 to be the central place." 
 
 Then on September 15th Hugh Bourne records his being at Sileby and making the 
 plan for Loughborough Circuit nearly a week before the Nottingham Quarterly 
 Meeting, when the work was found to be going on well, but " the temporal concerns " 
 to be " very bad." Besides, in another passage from a later Journal Hugh Bourne 
 distinctly says : 
 
 "December 26th, 1818. Set out for Derby ; then to Ashbourne, came to Leek ; 
 stayed at Mr. Alcock's, Latheredge. Monday, March 23rd, 1818. Nottingham 
 Quarter Day Board formed a new circuit in Leicestershire, and made Lough- 
 borough its head. Having to superintend the three circuits caused me a deal of 
 trouble ; and I had a deal of travelling to attend the three quarter days each 
 quarter ; and the travelling was almost uniformly at my own expense ; but then 
 I travelled chiefly on foot ; my feet were often sore, but this I endeavoured to 
 bear patiently. From Nottingham to Tunstall is about fifty-four miles ; from 
 Loughborough to Tunstall about fifty-five miles ; and from Nottingham to 
 Loughborough is about sixteen miles. When we became strong it was almost 
 impossible to prevent improper persons from getting in among us [let this be 
 carefully noted, for its bearing on after events], and this caused serious troubles ; 
 but still the converting work went on rapidly, hardly anything could stand before 
 it. At Nottingham we were blessed with an active leaders' meeting, and I believe 
 it was long the only leaders' meeting we had in the whole Connexion ; and the 
 active Nottingham leaders' meeting attended to the general affairs of the circuit 
 between quarter days. But in September, 1818, they laid before me an official 
 statement to say they would still continue to give due attention to the general 
 affairs of the town of Nottingham ; but it was too heavy upon them, and took up 
 too much of their time to pay attention to the general affairs of the circuit, and 
 this part they must therefore give up into my hands. I was quite in a dilemma ; 
 but at the Quarter Day Meeting, held September 21st and 22nd, 1818, brother 
 Thomas King and others were formed into a committee to arrange the temporal 
 concerns ; and with much entreaty and persuasion I prevailed on this committee 
 to attend to the general concerns of the circuit till the ensuing quarter day. At 
 the Quarter Day, December 21st, 1818, it was found that the circuit, through the 
 exertions of the committee, was beginning greatly to recover itself ; and their 
 attending to general concerns had been so valuable and useful to the circuit, that 
 every one saw the propriety and necessity of appointing a committee for the like 
 purpose for the next quarter. This was the origin of the Circuit Committees 
 a measure which has since become a permanent part of the discipline of the 
 Connexion. Nottingham had made Loughborough into a circuit, and others of its 
 out-stations were becoming large and powerful."* 
 
 * Quoted in Walford's " Life " ; vol. ii pp. 43-4. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 281 
 
 "We have given these extracts from the Journals of Hugh Bourne for various reasons ; 
 chiefly because they do not in the least bear out the idea that Loughborough was 
 formed into a circuit in order to relieve Nottingham from embarrassment, occasioned or 
 heightened by the incompetence of two unnamed preachers who are reflected on in the 
 History. On the contrary, the extracts rather compel the view that the step was taken 
 before the embarrassment was felt, and at the initiative of the Loughborough Society. 
 The step was felt to be a natural one in view of the rapid spread of the Connexion 
 in the locality, and the desirability of having a nearer centre of management than 
 Nottingham. Even amidst the troubles of the Nottingham September Quarter Day, 
 Hugh Bourne could thankfully write : " The Lord has brought among these people 
 some men of talent ; " and Loughborough's bid for circuit independence evidently 
 commended itself to the judgment of these far-seeing men. Incidentally, the last 
 extract is interesting, as giving a clear account of the natural way in which Circuit 
 Committees had their origin. As with other features of our constitution, they were 
 not the outcome of theorising, but of a business-like endeavour to meet a practical 
 difficulty. For years the Nottingham Circuit Committee elected quarter by quarter, 
 wielded considerable power, and, as a general rule, wielded it wisely. The same extract 
 again brings vividly before us the serious view Hugh Bourne took of his office of general 
 superintendent, and how strenuously he set himself to discharge the duties of his office 
 as he understood them. What a real thing his superintendence of the Connexion was 
 at this time, and how much care and labour it entailed ! As we see him with sore, or 
 even bleeding feet, arms and back aching under the load of plans and magazines and 
 school requisites, trudging from place to place to adjust disagreeables, and to deal with 
 the increasing number of " improper " characters, who crept in to disturb the harmony 
 and interrupt the true work of the societies one cannot but admire, and yet be glad for 
 his sake, that by the end of the year the heavy burthen will be somewhat lightened. 
 He was a true bishop overseer ; so much so that the frequency of his visits to a place 
 or neighbourhood becomes a gauge of the importance of what is happening there. 
 "Where most business is going on there the overseer is sure to be. Applying this 
 gauge, and with the Journals before us, we gain another piece of evidence as to the 
 growing importance of Loughborough and the neighbourhood to Primitive Methodism. 
 Hugh Bourne paid his first visit to Loughborough on January 24th, 1818, and he 
 revisited the town at shorter and still shorter intervals during the year ; but it is 
 significant that he did not enter Leicester until September 16th. Between these dates 
 Hugh Bourne is several times at Segrave, Quorndon, Barrow-on-Soar, Sileby, and 
 Loughborough the places which formed the nucleus of the Loughborough Circuit. 
 A glance at the map will show that these were just the places John Benton, Heath, 
 and Wedgwood were likely to take in their way when, towards the fall of 1817, they 
 faced round to begin the self-same work of itinerant evangelisation in Leicestershire 
 they had been pursuing in Notts and Lincoln. They had no tempting railway facilities 
 to modify or determine their choice of locality, and they carried their Master's general 
 commission, so that their itinerant movements were almost as natural as the movement 
 and direction of flowing water. They simply walked on and lifted up their voice, and 
 evangelised in street or on village green ; so that when in January, 1818, Hugh Bourne 
 
282 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 came on his first Loughborough round, it was to prune and water the new and vigorous 
 societies planted by others who had moved on, going further into the country to 
 break up the fallow-ground. 
 
 An incidental verification of these views of our origins, so far as they relate to 
 Barrow-on-Soar, is supplied by the very first article in the first number of the monthly 
 Magazine, 1819. In the memoir of Elizabeth Ainsworth there given, it is stated that 
 she, her mother, and two brothers were religiously awakened under a sermon preached 
 by John Hallsworth at Barrow "about the beginning of the winter" of 1817-18. We 
 should hardly have expected to meet with John Hallsworth, of Mercaston's name as 
 
 BARROW CHURCH. THE FIRST PREACHING-PLACE WAS JUST OUTSIDE CHURCH GATE. 
 
 a pioneer missionary in these parts, as his sphere is supposed to have lain farther east, 
 and chiefly in Lincolnshire ; but the evidence is indisputable, and all the more 
 interesting because unexpected. We may safely conclude that ever since John 
 Hallsworth's visit there has existed a Primitive Methodist Society in good Bishop 
 Beveridge's place of nativity. Bourne visited it on January 26th, 1818, and under 
 rather unfavourable circumstances : for in hurriedly passing out of Loughborough he 
 walked full against a post and hurt himself very much. But this accident did not deter 
 him from preaching, and he " had a glorious manifestation." The converting work was 
 still going on in 1821, as the Journal of Robert Bent shows. Bent's name will be 
 found on the Loughborough Plans in close connection with Bishop, Frier and Pry&r 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 283 
 
 Richardson a most singular collocation of names. The circuit books show that at this 
 time R. Bent was receiving salary as a hired local preacher. Bent records in his 
 Journal how, just as he was finishing preaching at Barrow, a woman fell down and cried 
 for mercy and then another, and as soon as they had found deliverance two men cried 
 earnestly for mercy. * 
 
 Barrow was for a considerable number of years the residence, as it is now the last 
 resting-place of John Mayes, one of the worthies of Loughborough Circuit, whose 
 name deserves to be held in remembrance, not only by Leicestershire Primitive 
 Methodists, but by a still wider circle of his co-religionists. The introduction of his 
 name compels a reference to Woodhouse Eaves Camp Meeting. This notable gathering 
 took place in the twenties, and if tradition counts for anything, "Woodhouse Eaves 
 
 WOODHOUSE EAVES VILLAGE, CHURCH ON THE LEFT. 
 
 Camp Meeting must take its place amongst the half dozen admittedly greatest camp 
 meetings of Primitive Methodism. Those who had been there talked of the glories of 
 that day, and their children still love to tell the story as of something the like of which 
 was never seen before, and will never be seen again. Traditional estimates are not 
 always commensurate with the real historic importance of events. Tradition is apt to 
 be impressed with the big and the grandiose, and has not and small blame to it 
 a very clear perception of the bearing of events. Judged by this severer standard, 
 Woodhouse Eaves Camp Meeting cannot rank with the first and third Mow Hill, or 
 with Norton Camp Meetings, though it may well be allowed to take its place along 
 with Wrekin and Nottingham Forest (1816), Priest Hill and Buckminster Camp 
 
 * Primitive Methodist Magazine, vol. ii., 1821, p. 107. 
 
284 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Meetings as having stirred a wide district and led to something. Its site was admirably 
 chosen, lying as it did within the limits of Charnwood Forest. Its surface was 
 diversified by rock and bosky dell. Here quarries had been opened in the slate-beds, 
 and there the rock thrust itself up into caverned cliff, like the one at the end of the 
 single village street, that since 1837 has been crowned by its picturesque church and 
 parsonage. Within half a mile was Beaumanor, the ancient home of the Herricks, and 
 not far away, in another direction, Bradgate and its spacious park, once the residence of 
 Lady Jane Grey 
 
 " Most gentle, most unfortunate, 
 
 Crowned but to die, who in her chamber sate 
 
 .Musing with Plato, though the horn was blown. 
 
 And every ear and ever}' heart was won, 
 
 And all in green array were chasing down the sun." 
 
 WINDMILL HILL, WOODHOUSE EAVES. (SITE OF CAMP MEETING.) 
 
 But why dwell on these things ? The power to appreciate natural beauty is largely 
 a taste acquired within the last eighty years, and even if it were not so the bulk of 
 those who nocked to Woodhouse Eaves Camp Meeting had something else to think of 
 than the natural beauty and historic associations of their surroundings though these, 
 rich as they were, may have tended unconsciously to idealise the tradition of that day's 
 proceedings which still survives. Scenery cannot save the soul any more than it can 
 satisfy the hungry stomach. It was a Salvation-meeting that M'as held at Woodhouse 
 Eaves ; for our fathers knew both the name and the thing itself long before the 
 Salvation Army was thought of.* Some were bursting to declare the good news, and 
 
 * Resolution of the Nottingham Quarterly Meeting passed September 23rd, 1839: 
 a Salvation Meeting be planned at Stapleford." 
 
 ' That 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 285 
 
 others came to catch the stimulus, and taste the excitement the presence and impact 
 of the crowd would afford. If they did not put it clearly to themselves that it was 
 personal and social salvation they wanted, we may well believe in a dim vague way they 
 hoped that by attending the Ranters' Camp Meeting that day their lives would somehow 
 be lightened and brightened. 
 
 As things went then, Woodhouse Eaves was a convenient centre for a camp meeting. 
 It was four miles from Loughborough, eight from Leicester, seven or eight from East 
 Leake, twelve from Ashby, and eighteen from Nottingham. There were contingents 
 from all these places present. It must have been a vast multitude that came together 
 that day. Tradition, disdaining figures, falls back on hyperbole, and as though it Avere 
 describing the course of some devastating army that " licks up all that is round about 
 
 WOODHOUSE PRESENT CHAPEL. 
 
 as the ox licketh up the grass of the field," it goes on to tell how on the day of the 
 Woodhouse Eaves Camp Meeting the village wells Avere drunk dry, and the food 
 supply gave out ! In sober truth, the company that came together on this great field- 
 day must haA 7 e been immense. It was not difficult to reach the people in Leicestershire 
 during these early years : they had the " spirit of hearing," and the villages Avere fairly 
 populous, so that it was often true to the letter that " listening thousands gathered 
 round." Xothing strikes us more than the size of the congregations John Harrison 
 notes as everyAvhere listening to him during the three months he spent in Leicestershire 
 while the Great Revival Avas in progress ; and though it is easy to over-estimate 
 numbers, Ave cannot think of John Harrison as prone to exaggeration of this kind. 
 At Hoteby, on May 12th, he preached to about a thousand people, who "behaved well," 
 
286 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 and hundreds accompanied him on his way to Leicester. At Queniborough he had 
 three hundred to hear him at half-past five in the morning. At Thrussington some 
 hundreds were gathered together in the street. At Coleorton, Sheepshead, Segrave, 
 Elstone, Whitwick wherever he went it was the same ; there were crowds not 
 hostile, but curious and eager to see and hear. 
 
 The spiritual results of that day's labours it is impossible to tabulate. Three hundred 
 adherents are said to have been won for Loughborough and its village societies, besides 
 the willing captives the more distant contingents took back with them, and the gleanings 
 made by other Churches. John Mayes was one of the substantial gains of Woodhouse 
 Eaves Camp Meeting. When he fell under the power he was carried to one of the 
 praying circles, where, we are told, he remained unconscious for a long time, and then 
 woke up with the language of praise on his lips. When young he worked at a hosiery- 
 frame after his marriage he became a small shopkeeper in Barrow, and such he 
 continued until that day in 1866 when the village was in mourning at his burial. 
 As we read his history* it shows us nothing great, but the greatness of simple goodness 
 
 the cumulative greatness of numberless acts of kindness rendered out of pure love to 
 
 the deserving poor, and those who " suffered in mind, body, or estate." The widow 
 and the fatherless knew him, and respected him ; so did the hard-worked poorly-paid 
 ministers of his own Church. He was their very good friend. John Mayes' methods 
 of doing others a good turn were sometimes peculiar and ingenious. He seems to have 
 read to some purpose the Biblical narrative which tells how Vizier Joseph put his 
 divining cup into his brother's sack, and one might almost imagine this narrative had 
 prompted him to act on the same lines of surprise with the materials his shop gave 
 ready to his hand. He would return the widow's money wrapped up in the pound of 
 sugar or rice her child took home. One day a hard-working local preacher walked two 
 miles to return two half-crowns he had found, to his amazement, in a packet of oatmeal. 
 This J. M. had put into his hand the night before, when the local preacher had looked 
 in on returning from his appointment. Parcels of groceries would sometimes come by 
 the carrier to distant manses just when and where they were needed. Yet, though 
 John Mayes dispensed with a liberal hand, and his books might show a fairly long 
 column of bad debts, his little business prospered. He had friends amongst the 
 well-to-do and highly placed, who appreciated his character. But all this did not 
 spoil him : " He was na pricked-eared," as an old local put it. He did not despise the 
 queer structure that served for purposes of worship in Barrow,t and when a better one 
 was a-building he would, when troubled with insomnia, betake himself there in the 
 small hours to pray. He loved the Church which took him in and sheltered him so 
 long its sanctuaries, its doctrines and practices, its ministers and literature. And all 
 this can be traced back to Woodhouse Eaves Camp Meeting. The poet Wordsworth 
 
 * See Rev. C. H. Boden's article "A Precious Son of Zion," Aldersgate Magazine, 1900, pp. 
 670-3, to which we are largely indebted. 
 
 t This chapel is said to have consisted of two houses thrown into one by Mr. William Cayless. 
 One day in 1818 John Wedgwood being at Barrow took bis stand upon a stone by the side of the 
 churchyard. The rain fell heavily, and Wedgwood asked if any one would afford him shelter. 
 Mr. Cayless, a famous cricket player, responded " I will," and his conversion followed. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 287 
 
 thought the recollections of his visit to Tintern Abbey some years before might have 
 
 " had no trivial influence 
 On that best portion of a good man's life ; 
 His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
 Of kindness and of love." 
 
 For Wordsworth put John Mayes ; for Tintern Abbey put Woodbouse Eaves, and the 
 acknowledgment of indebtedness may stand. 
 
 CAMP MEETINGS AT WAKES AND LANTERN-LIGHTED SERVICES. 
 The Switcherland of the first quarter's plan for 1818 is probably Swithland, now 
 
 THE GREEX, SEGRAVE. 
 Where first Open-air Services were held. 
 
 famed for its woods and slate-quarries, and a popular holiday resort. When our 
 denominational fathers first came this way they found themselves in the midst of most 
 picturesque scenery. Their eyes rested on some of the oldest rocks in England the 
 granite of Mount Sorrel and the compact slate of Swithland and Woodhouse Eaves. 
 They stood not far from the highest land in the Midlands Beacon Hill and Bardon 
 Hill. But though it is interesting, and may help the imagination to know these things, 
 we do not linger, but pass on to Segrave, which, unlike Swithland, has had a permanent 
 cause ever since it was missioned, before the close of 1817, by some one unknown. 
 Hugh Bourne visited it on January 28th, 1818, and has noted in his Journals : "They 
 
288 PRIMITIVE MKTHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 are doing well here." John Harrison soon followed ; on Sunday evening, March 3rd, the 
 
 chapel was crowded from pulpit to doors The chapel referred to was the private property 
 
 of a farmer, and was lent for the occasion ; it was not until 1845 a Connexional chapel 
 
 was built at Segrave. As the first article in the Magazine for 1819 recalls Barrow, so 
 
 the third article in the same number furnishes an interesting reference to Segrave. The 
 
 article in question states that a camp. meeting was held at Segrave on November 8th, 
 
 during the wake or yearly parish feast, and was continued on the Monday, " when 
 
 a novel scene appeared : there were two nearly equal companies ; and they Avere in 
 
 view and within the hearing of each other. One company, or party, was engaged at 
 
 cricket-playing ; and the other in the solemn worship of Almighty God. And this 
 
 striking scene continued nearly the whole of the day." The purpose of the article is to 
 
 show that camp meetings at wakes " have a peculiar beauty and propriety ; " and 
 
 Segrave is instanced as a case in point. " Wakes are seasons of much leisure, and 
 
 camp meetings by their diversity are well calculated to fill up that leisure." Then the 
 
 article closes by laying down rules for providing the needful variety. Xo one but 
 
 Hugh Bourne could have written this piece ; and this is said in the full knowledge that 
 
 the first eight numbers of the Magazine were " edited by a person at Leicester." The 
 
 piece has all the distinctive marks of Bourne's style. "What is more, the view taken 
 
 of camp meetings, and the enthusiasm shown in relation to them, are still more 
 
 characteristic of the man. He had all the tactician's delight in fresh combinations 
 
 and movements that gave promise of effective results.* But of all combinations, the 
 
 camp meeting was Hugh Bourne's favourite tactical formation in presence of the enemy, 
 
 because it afforded scope, such as no other formation afforded, for variety of 
 
 exercises for setting all to work for a common purpose. Moltke himself did not give 
 
 more thought to the strategy of his campaigns than did Hugh Bourne to the ordering 
 
 of camp meetings down to their smallest minutiae. The true military tactician must 
 
 have in him something of the inventor and the artist. He must be endowed with 
 
 a considerable measure of imagination in order to anticipate the chess-like moves of his 
 
 opponent, and to provide against them with the forces at his disposal. So do not call 
 
 Hugh Bourne a matter-of-fact faddist where camp meetings were concerned. Let us 
 
 rather call him a practical idealist a tactician in camp meetings, who honestly believed 
 
 he had come upon the secret of how to deal effectively with the prevalent conditions 
 
 of his time which conditions, be it remembered, may be very different from those 
 
 obtaining now. There is the joy of the discoverer in the zest with which he will 
 
 publish to the world some idea that has come to him an idea that has been found to 
 
 work well on the camp-ground. Such a glad " Eureka " we have in the same first 
 
 volume of the Magazine, in the piece entitled, " On Celebrating Divine Worship in the 
 
 Open Air by Candle-light." During the Leicester campaign of 1818, a camp meeting 
 
 * " The various movements, ingenuities, and improvements that rise when the work of God is 
 proceeding, are admirable. The Conference religious services had a walking prayer meeting, and 
 a walking preaching ; and such things as these may be of service in various instances. The 
 re-missioning processions have much useful variety, and are considerably improved. And the 
 minute, or minute and a half, or two minutes' sermons are not among the least of the improvements." 
 Hugh Bourne : Preface to the Magazine for 1836. 
 
THK PERIOD OF CIRCL'IT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 289 
 
 was held at Hinckley on November 18th. The night was dark, and " a man stood on 
 a bench holding a lantern to light the preacher." This struck out the thought that 
 with some improvements it would be easy to hold meetings in the open-air by candle- 
 light. The experiment was tried on the following Thursday night at Burbage, when 
 a number of lanterns, tied to sticks, were held aloft in different parts of the congregation 
 that no building would have held. " The meeting looked brilliant and dazzling, and 
 the whole had a solemn and striking appearance." There is quite an imaginative glow 
 about the picture of the American Forest Camp Meetings this lantern-lighted service 
 calls up before the mind's eye of the writer : 
 
 " The night-scenes at the American Camp Meetings are grand and sublime. 
 The surrounding darkness : the lights of numerous lamps and lanterns suspended 
 
 PREACHING IN THE OPEN-AIR AT NIGHT WITH THE AID OF ?LANTERNS. 
 
 to the boughs of trees, &c., accompanied by the voice of solemn prayer, powerful 
 preaching, or sacred singing, together with the solemn appearance of the whole 
 assembly, present a scene of sublime grandeur that is not often equalled." (p. !.">.) 
 
 As though by touch of magician's wand we can see and hear it all. Those who say 
 Hugh Bourne had no imagination will have to reckon with this paragraph. Their 
 cheap judgment will split on this piece of " imagination all compact." 
 
 The happy thought that occurred to somebody at Hinckley that dark November 
 night "caught on," and many a scene was to be er acted during the years that were to 
 follow, quite as weird and striking as that chronicled in the first number of the Magazine. 
 Henceforward mere darkness need not deter preacher or congregation. Here, for 
 instance, is a rapid glimpse of a lantern-service got from the journal of one who bears 
 honoured name. John Woolhouse of Hull writes : 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 "September 27th, 1820: Went to Howden and borrowed a lantern and a chair. 
 I hung up the lantern against a wall, and began to sing, pray and preach in the 
 open-air. A large company soon gathered together, and were very serious, except- 
 ing one or two. I had a good time." 
 
 But to return to our immediate subject as suggested by Segrave the tactical value 
 of camp meetings, especially as the deliberately designed counteractive of wakes. 
 What wakes were in those days we have in a previous chapter tried to show,* and there 
 can be little doubt that Hugh Bourne had good reason for regarding them as a favourite 
 and formidable device of the devil. Quite as certainly he believed camp meetings on 
 his model to be the most effective method of counter-attack known to him ; and there is 
 no lack of evidence to show he was right in both opinions. Camp meetings during the 
 time of wakes had been held in Staffordshire with most encouraging results, and some 
 
 THE GREEN, BARLESTONE, WHERE OPEN-AIR SERVICES WERE HELD. 
 
 with the same specific character and purpose, that were held in Leicestershire, proved 
 no less successful. Of such, the one held at Barlestone, in the month of September 
 stands out historically above the rest, and the reference to it here is relevant because 
 the article in which it is described is a continuation of the one before referred to in 
 which Hugh Bourne lays down the principle that "Camp meetings at wakes have 
 a peculiar beauty and propriety." Of that principle Barlestone is intended to supply 
 the illustration and confirmation, as it fully answered its purpose in restraining the wake 
 and also began a considerable revival. 
 
 Primitive Methodism was introduced into the village of Barlestone in the June of 
 this year, but nothing specially remarkable occurred until the holding of this protracted 
 camp meeting that began on Sunday, September 13th, and continued until the following 
 
 * Ante. " To Counteract the Wake." pp. 61-2. 
 
THE PKRIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 291 
 
 Friday. On the Sunday, Pryor Richardson and his inseparable companion, Brother 
 Bishop, took a leading part; on Thursday, Hugh Bourne, R. Culley, and Brother Harcott 
 were present ; and on Friday be it noted as a fact of historical interest no less 
 a person than Lorenzo Dow was at this Barlestone camp meeting. But after giving due 
 weight to all these names, it still remains true that the chief labourer at these services 
 was Ruth Simpson. She was " in labours more abundant." After the Sunday open-air 
 services were closed an adjournment was made to the house of Brother Sutton, and 
 when the prayer meeting ended at one o'clock on Tuesday morning, it was found that 
 sixteen persons professed to have found salvation, and there were still others mourning 
 on account of sin when they reluctantly retired to their homes. The early volumes of 
 the denominational Magazine furnish valuable incidental evidence as to the lasting good 
 accomplished during this wake-week's labours of love ; for they contain the memoirs of 
 several persons whose conversion is directly attributed to the prayers and exhortations 
 
 SEGKAVE. FIRST INDOOR PREACHING PLACE. 
 
 of Sister Simpson. After this we are not surprised to come across the following entry 
 in Hugh Bourne's Journals : 
 
 "Thursday, September 17th. At Barlestone Camp Meeting. A good time. I 
 spoke from John iii. 3. At night meeting ; some saved. Yesterday I saw Ruth 
 Simpson. She stands up to speak with good acceptance. O Lord, be with her ! 
 She appears to be a gracious young woman. To-day I had much conversation with 
 her." 
 
 All this gives us the highest opinion of Ruth Simpson's character and ability and 
 makes us almost resent the fragmentariness of our knowledge concerning her. 
 
 The wake camp-meetings of Segrave and Barlestone are representative of numberless 
 others that took place during this period. That from what we call a tactical point of 
 view, Barlestone camp meeting was a distinct success is proved by the following 
 testimony, and in its influence and results Barlestone is also representative of many 
 
 others : 
 
 u2 
 
292 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 " This Camp Meeting was held at the time of the wake or annual parish meeting. 
 The wake there had been uniformly attended with great improprieties ; and the 
 camp meetings were intended to prevent these improprieties, and to counteract the 
 bad effects of the wake. And, through the tender mercy of God, this was 
 accomplished. Nearly the whole of the inhabitants were constantly engaged in 
 religious exercises until Thursday in the wake-week : by which means, drunkenness 
 and quarrelling were almost set aside, families were comfortable, and the village 
 was peaceable." * 
 
 Neither the wake nor the camp-meeting may have retained just its old influence : the 
 one has not the power to hurt nor the other the power to heal it once possessed. In 
 a sense the poet never meant, it is true ' The old order changeth giving place to new." 
 Battles are not lost or won by employing or misemploying the exact tactics of Marathon 
 or Agincourt ; but warfare remains, and the study of strategy and tactics is more urgent 
 than ever. So in the spiritual warfare, methods may and must change : and our success, 
 as a Church, will depend, not on slavishly imitating the precise methods of Hugh 
 Bourne or any one else, but in seeking to have his spirit of practical idealism, his 
 openness to suggestion, his readiness to adapt his methods to suit current conditions and 
 demands. 
 
 In leaving Barlestone it should be added that in the thirties it became a branch of 
 Leicester Circuit. In the forties it was included within newly-formed Earl Shilton, now 
 known as Hinckley Circuit. Samuel Antliff began his ministry at Earl Shilton. 
 
 PROVIDING FOR THE SUCCESSION. 
 
 The facts as to the introduction of Primitive Methodism into the border villages of 
 Leicestershire, and the after-history of the denomination in these villages, suggest the 
 thought that Carlyle so stoutly insisted on : That history is mainly concerned with 
 the call of select souls to fulfil their vocation, and must largely occupy itself with the 
 recital of what these select souls have done for the many. So true is this with regard to 
 the history of our own Church, that we can best follow that history by marking the 
 series of select souls ; by following up the succession of men and women of fire, who 
 had the zeal and the power to kindle other souls, and who, after they had run their 
 illuminating course, could, like the runners in the Greek torch-race, pass their torch on 
 to others, and so leave the succession sure. 
 
 It was not enough that camp meetings were held that stirred Leicestershire villages 
 into temporary excitement, and were a nine days' wonder ; nor even, as was the case at 
 Woodhouse Eaves, that the concourse should be so vast, and the enthusiasm so great, that 
 the gathering is talked of to this day. It was not enough even that, as at Segrave and 
 Barlestone, camp meetings were held which exerted a wholesome restraining influence, 
 and tended to the softening of manners, or brought men and women to lead " godly, 
 righteous, and sober lives." It was so, and the fact is soon stated, though its 
 implications are vast. For the perpetuity and the spread of the Connexion something 
 more was wanted, and the present position of the denomination in the county prepares 
 
 * Magazine, j\o\. i., pp. 132-3. This is the third piece on Barlestone Camp Meeting in this 
 volume. As we have seen, services were continued on the Friday. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 293 
 
 us to find that this " something more " was supplied. It was needful to secure the 
 future by providing for the succession of men and women who belonged to the true 
 order of evangelists ; who could not stay at home to enjoy religious quietism, but must 
 " run to and fro " to spread knowledge, and to infect others with their own enthusiasm. 
 Even Woodhouse Eaves did in this way take seizin of the future and provide for the 
 succession. From the day that John Mayes was illumined to the day he laid down his 
 torch, and " devout men carried him to his burial " in Barrow Churchyard, there was 
 not wanting a true witness for God in those parts, or a true propagandist of our Church- 
 But even more striking examples of this providing for the succession are supplied by 
 others of these Leicestershire villages, which were opened towards the end of 1817. 
 Take Quorndon. This place was visited by John Heath, who was a native of Derbyshire, 
 and thus, by him, we are linked on to the Revival in Derbyshire of an earlier time. 
 Heath was a man of only slender abilities, but he was very much in earnest to explain 
 and enforce the great verities he understood so well by practical experience. He was 
 a man of much prayer and strong faith, so that we do not wonder at being told 
 " a particular influence attended his preaching." His health gave way under the strain 
 of continuous and arduous labour, and in 1820 he was compelled to retire from the 
 ministry. 
 
 With the materials supplied by tradition we can picture to ourselves the appearance 
 John Heath would present on the day he entered Quorndon in pursuance of his 
 evangelistic mission, and began the service amid an excitement which grew as the service 
 continued. 
 
 " His face, we are told, was short and broad, with projecting lower jaw, strong 
 close-set teeth, through which a loud voice finished its natural climaxes with a hiss. 
 His eyes were strong and piercing. He was a small man, attired in a blue swallow- 
 tail, corduroy smalls, blue stockings, and well-nailed, well-oiled boots." * 
 
 Pryor Richardson, a Rearsby youth, but now a butcher's apprentice at Quorndon, 
 was one of those who heard him ; and at the lovefeast in the Wesleyan Chapel which 
 followed, he underwent a remarkable religious experience. He joined the infant society 
 and became its leading spirit. His zeal and power of utterance soon marked him out 
 for a local preacher, and he became one of the Connexion's best-known and most 
 indefatigable labourers in these parts. Pryor Richardson had as bosom friend one 
 who bore the name of Bishop, and the two, though men of very different type, were 
 often companions in travel and associates in missionary labour. The Pryor and the 
 Bishop got on well together, as is not always the case with the " regulars " and 
 " seculars " of the Romish Church who bear these names. Pryor Richardson, we take 
 it, was intense and somewhat narrow in his views. Honest doubt he could not 
 understand. Anything savouring of scepticism was an offence to him. He believed 
 as firmly in the devil as did Martin Luther or Parkinson Milson, and often talked of 
 his wiles, and recounted his own struggles with the great adversary. He was strongly of 
 the opinion that the hours immediately following conversion were amongst the most 
 
 * Rev. C. H. Boden : " Lowly Heroes, etc." " The Nonconformist Prior," Aldersgate Magazine, 
 1901. pp. 52830. 
 
294 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 critical of life, for that then Satan employs his subtlest devices. Hence he was 
 accustomed to take the new convert to his home for the night in order to ensure his 
 indoctrination and enrolment, and after that he felt much easier in his mind, and had 
 good ground for his assurance. From all this it will be seen Pryor Richardson was 
 what men are accustomed to call an "eccentric." Yes, he was eccentric, as were Crawfoot 
 and Wedgwood, and Bourne and Hickingbotham. They were all more or less eccentric, 
 and the denomination they founded was itself a piece of eccentricity in the current 
 estimate of the world. So Pryor Richardson ran his course until 1856, when the end 
 came, and as he was one of those who helped to make and mould Loughborough itself 
 a missionary circuit we may also claim that he in his measure was one of the makers 
 of Primitive Methodism. 
 
 But though 1856 carries us some way beyond our first period, Pryor Richardson's 
 influence comes down much further than that. At Quorndon in the year 1832, a camp 
 meeting was held at which a young man of twenty-two was sorely smitten. For some 
 weeks he was miserable ; so much so that he had about resolved to throw himself 
 
 into the Soar. But one of the camp-meeting preachers 
 revisited the place, and with the help of preacher and 
 Pryor Richardson, the youth struggled into liberty and 
 joy. Pryor took him home for " confirmation," better 
 than that bestowed by bishop's hand. After some years 
 of useful service in the Loughborough Circuit, John 
 Wightman became town missionary in Nottingham, and 
 did a work of beneficence in many respects similar 
 to that done by the well-known and much-respected 
 Westminster Police Court Missionary, Mr. Thomas 
 Holmes. He died with startling suddenness in the 
 house of a lady on whom he had called. " I deem 
 it a great honour," said she, when condoled with on 
 account of the shock and inconvenience such an event 
 
 JOHN WIGHTMAN. . 
 
 must have involved " I deem it a great honour that 
 
 God should have allowed so good a man to find my home the entrance-gate to heaven." 
 That was on June 4th, 1882, and we may rest assured that the flame he bore, before he 
 passed hence, had lighted other torches. 
 
 Quorndon was also, until the thirties, the home of Phoebe Smith, who rightly takes 
 her place among the noble band of women who graced this early period of our history. 
 She afterwards belonged to the society at Dead Lane, Loughborough, and was "the 
 religious genius of the church." * The mention of Quorndon will at once remind 
 a privileged circle of the famous " Quorndon hunt" f ; to Primitive Methodists the place 
 
 * The phrase is Mr. Tucker's, the Steward of Loughborough Circuit, who is enthusiastic in 
 speaking of Phrebe Smith's good works and the fragrant memory she has left. 
 
 t " Quorn is still the headquarters of the hunt, the horses and hounds being kept here. On 
 these, it is said, that the late Sir E. Sutton spent ten thousand a year, keeping here and at Oadby, 
 about 120 horses." Spencer's " Charnwood Forest," p. 46. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 295 
 
 will ever be associated with the names of Pryor Richardson, Phoebe Smith and John 
 Wightmari. We may add, the chapel at Quorndon was purchased in 1826. 
 
 Illustrations of this "providing for the succession " abound. Almost every pioneer place 
 in the new Loughborough Circuit furnishes its example. Two others may be instanced. 
 During his two months' successful labours in these parts, I ohn Harrison with a young 
 man out of the Vale of Belvoir named George Herod to assist him came to Grooby 
 and preached to about three hundred people. After the service he met those who were 
 wishful " to give in their names," and ten responded. One of the ten was Mr. Thomas 
 Sutton, whose name stands No. 12 on the plan of 1823. Mr. Herod, who knew him 
 well, has recorded this testimony to his character and loyalty : 
 
 " He has been one of the most diligent and laborious local preachers we ever met 
 with. He is always at his post when health permits ; with him there is no 
 parleying about long journeys, dark nights or bad weather. We query whether 
 any local preacher has travelled more miles or preached more sermons the last 
 thirty-five years than Thomas Sutton. Moreover, his house has been a home for 
 the preachers more than thirty years." ("Sketches," p. 358). 
 
 Thomas Sutton was a frame-smith, and had apprentices 
 in his house. The Christian atmosphere in which they 
 lived so influenced some of these youths that they in 
 their turn became decided Christians and adherents of 
 their master's church. Michael Billings, a Leicester 
 local preacher and Sunday school worker of great repute, 
 was one of such apprentices, and there were others who 
 for their lasting good came early in life under Thomas 
 Sutton's quiet but wholesome influence. 
 
 Syston, missioned on January 18th, 1818, affords our 
 final example. By the service on the Green to be 
 described in the next section John Woolley was arrested 
 and brought to God. He was a native of Hathern, but 
 at that time resident at Syston : became a local preacher in 
 
 REV. JOHN WOOLLEY. 
 
 1819, and was called into the ministry in 1822, by his native 
 
 circuit. The wear and tear of the ministry was heavy in those days. Many retired 
 broken in health ; others died early, and John Woolley was one of these ; travelling 
 only eleven years. His last circuit was Fulbeck, where he died July 20th, 1833, after 
 labouring there but one week.* The official memoir says of him : " He possessed good 
 talents, and his piety was of a high order and his conduct remarkably correct." 
 
 SlLEBY AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE FlRST CONFERENCE. 
 
 The reference to the missioning of Syston at once suggests Sileby, the home of 
 George Hanford, who was the chief missioner on the occasion referred to and became 
 
 * Eev. Joseph Middleton preached a funeral-sermon at Fulbeck for Mrs. Sarah Walker, 
 December 15th, 1835. " For many years she had been a mother in Israel. It was under her roof 
 that the late Mr. John Woolley gave up the ghost and went to the immediate and uninterrupted 
 presence of God." MS. Journal. 
 
296 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 President of the first Conference at Hull in 1820. Precisely when and under what 
 circumstances Sileby Avas first entered we are not informed; but it already had, in 1818, 
 a vigorous society, and Hugh Bourne, W. Clowes, J. Wedgwood, and J. Harrison all 
 visited it during the first six months of the year. On March 20th, Hugh Bourne was 
 at Sileby " about a chapel," and the chapel must have been erected soon after, for the 
 second and last number of the Quarterly Magazine (July, 1818) says: "A new chapel 
 has been opened this quarter at Sileby and another at Queniborough, both in Leicester- 
 shire." Hence it appears that Sileby must have run Loughborough pretty close for the 
 honour of having the first chapel in the county. At Sileby, too, the September quarterly 
 meeting of the young Loughborough Circuit was held. The strength and importance of 
 this society was no doubt largely owing to George Hanford's connection with it. As a 
 
 FIRST PREACHING PLACE, SILEBY. 
 
 " lace manufacturer," he must have occupied a fairly good position, and his contributions 
 to the early Magazines and the prominent part he subsequently took in Connexional affairs 
 all indicate that he was a man of considerable ability and force of character. He signs as 
 a trustee of Loughborough new chapel ; is one of the representatives of the Circuit to 
 the Preparatory Meeting of 1819 ; is Piesident of the first Conference ; is at the second 
 and fourth Conferences, and though not expressly named, was probably a delegate to the 
 third, held at Loughborough. He is the second local preacher on the 1823 plan, 
 delegate to the Nottingham District Meeting in 1825, and then he disappears whether 
 as the result of his withdrawal or death there is no evidence to show. Alike in his first 
 appearance and his disappearance there is a singular, and rather disconcerting, abruptness, 
 perhaps accounted for by the paucity of our information. We conjecture he belonged 
 originally to some other Church, and that he transferred himself and his influence to 
 the Primitives on their first appearance in these parts. When we first meet with him 
 he is already a leading spirit, the confidant of Hugh Bourne, a practised speaker, and 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 297 
 
 possessing both the instinct and the qualifications of an evangelist, as his circumstantial 
 account of the missioning of Systori gives sufficient proof. 
 
 Hanford tells us that on Plough Monday, January 12th, he was accosted by some 
 mummers fantastically dressed, who hailed from Syston. They looked for money, but 
 he gave them good advice instead, whereupon they intimated he must be a " Ranter " 
 by his talk. This led him to ask whether they had any " Ranters " at Syston. " No," 
 said they, " and if they ever come there we will kill them.'"' Mr. Hanford's half-formed 
 resolve to mission Syston, which had been encouraged by consultation with one of the 
 ministers, slumbered until the Sunday morning, when, under the stimulus of a tragic 
 incident, it at once matured and took action. A young woman by his side was called 
 out of the chapel because her father had dropped down dead. " If anything is to be 
 done in a transitory world like this, it must be done at once : there is no time to be lost. 
 I will go to Syston this day." So thought so resolved George Hanford. Twenty-six 
 persons of varying degrees of courage went with him. At first they stepped out 
 resolutely and kept well together, but as they got near to the " large, respectable, and 
 populous village " a hymn was struck up ; " one deserted to the right, another to the 
 left : some stopped behind, others ran before ; till they all left but six." The Green 
 reached, George Hanford and his half-dozen stalwarts found hundreds assembled, and 
 the service began with praise and prayer. Presently, amid cries of "Make way ! make 
 way ! " the clergyman, the lawyer, and " a gentleman " a triumvirate familiar to our 
 early missionaries pushed their way to the front, and a colloquy began. From the 
 part he took in this wordy encounter, Mr. Hanford showed that he had other 
 qualifications for the position of premier President besides evangelistic sympathies and 
 gifts. It is scarcely too much to say that he taught the clergyman theology, the lawyer 
 law, and the " gentleman " good manners. With the first he discussed such high 
 themes as " the forgiveness of sins, the witness of the Spirit, and the sensible perception 
 of the love of God in the heart." He joined issue with the second on ceitain points of 
 law relating to the licensing of preachers and places, and wrung from his opponent the 
 rather damaging admission : " This is a point of the law on which I am now not 
 fully acquainted." As for number three of the party if the tradition be correct, which 
 says that this was farmer Parr who threatened to thrust his stick down the preacher's 
 throat by giving him the courtesy-title of a gentleman Mr. Hanford showed an 
 example of good manners. From words they proceeded to pull the preacher about 
 a little, while a " local " standing on an eminence cried : " Mr. Hanford, stand firm ! " 
 
 and then the three went off the lawyer, with a curse, muttering : " Oh he 
 
 knows the law ! " Mr. Hanford preached, and felt very happy. " Every soul seemed 
 inspired with courage, and we sang down the street : ' Turn to the Lord and seek 
 salvation.' " The singing of this hymn was used for the conversion of brother Webster 
 whose memoir is found in the Magazine of 1823. 
 
 Ten days afterwards, Hugh Bourne was the guest of Mr. Hanford, and " conversed 
 much with him about discipline." Considering that the one was shortly to write 
 " A Treatise on Discipline," to which the other, as President of the Conference of 1820, 
 will give his official imprimatur, the discussion was well-timed and appropriate. 
 
 The missioning of Syston led to still farther extension, for, adds George Hanford : 
 
298 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 " The signal power of God that rested upon the people that day induced them to give 
 us pressing invitations to Rearsby, Queniborough, Thurmaston, Leicester, and other 
 places, at which we now have large societies." To Leicester then, the proud capital of 
 the county, we must now direct our attention. 
 
 VILLAGES versus TOWNS. 
 
 Herod, in referring to the Revival which began in Leicestershire under the labours of 
 John Benton, Hallsworth and Heath, and after mentioning several places in that county 
 which profited by the labours of the missionaries, goes on to say : "But Leicester he 
 felt reluctant to enter." Why this reluctance ? if indeed it were really felt. Herod's 
 words should hardly be passed over without remark, coming as they do from one whose 
 testimony as to matters of fact relating to Primitive Methodism in his own particular 
 district at this time, we have every reason to regard as trustworthy. Herod's statement 
 is interesting, not so much because it professes to admit us to the secret workings of 
 Benton's mind the play of feeling, the struggle between preferences and dislikes going 
 on within which had its effect in shaping the course of the evangelistic movement. 
 Even so regarded the statement is interesting. But it may do us the farther service of 
 putting us upon the inquiry whether this " reluctance " to enter upon evangelistic 
 labour in the larger towns and cities, was not in a sense characteristic of the movement 
 as a whole up to this time. Had riot Primitive Methodism hitherto shown itself to be,, 
 in fact and by preference, a rural rather than an urban movement ? The question,, 
 stated thus generally, must be answered in the affirmative. Primitive Methodism was 
 rural in its origin ; it took kindly and naturally to the villages, and lingered amongst 
 them lovingly. Village evangelisation became its habit one might even say its- 
 passion ; so much so that what was its chief distinction and glory had in it the element 
 of danger : it might fail to respond to the demands of the rapidly growing towns, and 
 like Reuben of old, continue to sit "amongst the sheepfolds to hear the pipings of the 
 flock." This temptation the reluctance to adjust itself to the marvellous changes 
 brought about in this industrial age was only tardily overcome. But it lias been 
 overcome, until now the danger lies in an entirely different direction. Formerly the 
 temptation was to neglect the towns in favour of the villages ; now the temptation is to 
 abandon the villages and concentrate on the towns. 
 
 But when we think of the antithesis between town and country as it presented itself 
 about 1820, we must remind ourselves that the contrast was not by any means so 
 striking and glaring eighty years ago as it is to-day. The population of the country > 
 far less in its aggregate then than now, was much more evenly distributed. It was not 
 agglomerated and concentrated in what we call "the great centres." The system of 
 domestic manufacture had not died out, though it was declining, and the whirr of the 
 spinning-wheel and the rattle of the frame could still be heard as you passed along the 
 village street. Towns were more rural and villages more town-like than now. The 
 movement to the large towns had begun, but it had not yet become a rush, leaving the 
 villages depleted and depressed. Towns had not yet fully entered upon that process of 
 abnormal growth which statistics register a growth so rapid that even the middle-aged 
 man who sp3nt his boyhood in one of these progressive towns, when he revisits it after 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 299 
 
 the lapse of years, almost fails to recognise the once familiar spots. If we take the two 
 towns in which we are now specially interested Nottingham and Leicester we shall 
 see that eighty years have had the effect of intensifying the contrast between town and 
 village. In 1801, the population of Nottingham was 28,801, and that of Leicester 
 17,005 ; in 1881 it stood at 186,575 for Nottingham and 122,251 for Leicester. Still, 
 even in the first decades of the nineteenth century the words " town " and " country " 
 represented strongly marked differences other than that of comparative density of 
 population. Amongst these differences those that related to religion were perhaps the 
 most observable. Towns such as Leicester and Northampton, Bristol and Bath, were 
 the strongholds of evangelical piety, both within and without the fold of the Establish- 
 ment. This evangelicalism was very orthodox, very respectable, very correct, ambitious 
 to preserve the proper tone, and quite disposed, in keeping with the spirit bequeathed 
 from the preceding century, to resent the introduction within its borders of a form of 
 Christianity that was fervid and demonstrative and unconventional in character, like that 
 our fathers believed in and practised. Now Mr. Herod, in seeming to explain John Benton's 
 " reluctance " to enter Leicester, tells us that a Methodist preacher had informed Benton 
 " that he would be taken up if he made an attempt to preach there." We do not think 
 
 LEICESTER ABOUT 1800. 
 
 an intimation such as this of what awaited him, would at all have discomposed him or 
 acted as a deterrent had he really wanted to enter Leicester. Of mob-violence or persecu- 
 tion veiling itself under legal forms he would have said: "None of these things move me." 
 But the avowed thorough-going opposition of those who are utterly ditferent from 
 ourselves does not gall us half so much as the sneers and censure of those with whom 
 we are in general agreement and sympathy. So when the Methodist minister went on 
 further to tell Benton how in several stationers' windows in Leicester there was 
 exhibited a caricature of himself " in the act of preaching, with a red handkerchief 
 tied round his head, while a multitude of people surrounded him and stared him 
 in the face " we are not so certain that he would preserve the same equanimity. 
 "Boanerges" Benton was not the typical Eevivalist preacher of some novelists whom 
 we see pictured as a man with lungs of leather and forehead of brass, and no nerves or 
 manners to speak of. Unless we are very much mistaken, he knew his limitations, and 
 was sensitive to his own defects. We think we see indications that he had a modest, 
 if not a low, estimate of his own abilities, and wondered how it was that God had 
 deigned to choose a man like him, with " no grammar and little language," to carry on 
 
300 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 His work. He knew he was not learn i'<l, and that foolish caricature in the Leicester 
 stationers' windows would suggest to him that he had not only to reckon with the open 
 opposition of the ungodly, but with the disfavour of the truly pious and orthodox, who 
 did not want him and his irregularities in Leicester, and would let him know that 
 he was not wanted. What Benton divined, was really in the minds of sincere but 
 prejudiced men, and the prejudice was allowed to distil in speech, and to drop from 
 their pens. It was in Leicester, some time after this, that the Rev. Daniel Isaac, " the 
 Polemic divine," wrote from Leicester in a letter to a friend : " The Ranters have 
 bawled themselves out of breath in this neighbourhood, and I think are losing 
 
 ground They have chanted till the people take no more notice of their 
 
 noise than the Quaker's stillness." * 
 
 Whether facts and considerations 
 like the foregoing help to explain 
 Benton's personal "reluctance" to 
 enter Leicester, while he continued 
 to hang on its skirts and to mission 
 the villages in its neighbourhood, 
 we shall, of course, never know. 
 But whether they do or do not, such 
 considerations, personal to Benton, 
 do not touch or explain that deeper 
 denominational reluctance to fasten 
 and concentrate its strength on the 
 chief towns which marks the course 
 taken by Primitive Methodism in 
 the early years a reluctance that 
 was the outcome of habit and of 
 preference, if not of deliberate 
 policy. The explanation of this is 
 Avhat we want to see a little further 
 into if we can. We have glanced 
 at the towns regarded in their 
 religious aspect ; what of the villages 
 of the same period ? 
 
 We have seen that, relatively, 
 the villages were of far greater 
 importance eighty years ago than 
 they are to-day. That fact does in itself go some way towards explaining and justifying 
 the amount of attention bestowed on their evangelisation. But absolutely, and not 
 merely relatively, their need was greater than that of the towns ; for they had been 
 too much neglected by existing religious agencies. Here and there, especially in the 
 manufacturing villages of the West Riding and other districts, and in East Anglia, 
 the older Nonconformity might be represented ; but in how many hundreds of villages 
 * Petty's History, quoted from Everett's " Life of Rev. Daniel Isaac." 
 
 RUSSELL SQUARE AND THE LOWER END OF WHARF STREET, 
 WHERE OPEN-AIR SERVICES WERE HELD. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 301 
 
 and hamlets throughout the country was there no Baptist or Congregational Church to 
 be seen. The evangelical clergy of light and leading were mainly in the towns. The 
 Church, as by law established, did little for the people of the villages. The Oxford 
 movement was still in the future. It had not yet pervaded the land, planting in almost 
 every village a hard-working clergyman resolutely bent on outworking and outgiving 
 Dissent. Instead of an aggressive, resourceful, ever-active Anglo-Catholicism, there was 
 absenteeism, or the indifference, incompetence, or worse, of those who had " the cure of 
 souls." True, numerous Methodist societies kept piety alive, but even many of these 
 societies had lost somewhat of the old fervour and aggressive spirit, and had not yet 
 gained the new evangelic and evangelistic fervour. The spiritual need of the villages 
 Avas great. A rousing out-door evangelism was called for. The need of the villages 
 was our Church's opportunity, of which it was not slow to avail itself, and the effort to 
 supply the need coincided entirely with the desires, the training, the habits, and the 
 special qualifications of our missionaries, who, Avith scarce an exception, were village-born 
 and village-bred. 
 
 Let us recall the history of Primitive Methodism so far as we have come, and it will 
 be admitted that the narrative given, unless it altogether belie the facts, bears out 
 the vieAV that Primitive Methodism put its chief strength into village work, and had its 
 reward in so doing. The tide of village evangelisation never reached a higher point in 
 the districts with Avhich \ve have been, and shall for some time be, concerned, than in 
 these years. Since then, indeed, the wave has somewhat receded. There were villages 
 and hamlets missioned in these years, and had societies established in them, Avhich were 
 afterwards abandoned. Does any one point to Derby and Nottingham to prove that 
 the towns were not neglected 1 True ; but these examples of successful work in the 
 towns does not invalidate the statement that our Church did, by choice and preference, 
 put its main strength into the Avork then most urgently needed the Avork of village 
 evangelisation. 
 
 THE ENTRY INTO LEICESTER. 
 
 John Benton's reluctance to enter Leicester yielded at last under the force of the 
 assurance that some, at any rate, of the good people of Leicester were anxious that the 
 Primitives should mission the tOAvn, and had preferred their request at the service 
 recently held at Syston. Whether John Benton had been specially asked for or not we do 
 not knoAv ; but he Avas evidently regarded as the best man available for undertaking 
 this important business. Arrangements were accordingly made for the attempt to be 
 made on Sunday, March 1st, 1818, Avhich arrangements became matter of common 
 rumour in Leicester itself and the neighbourhood. Even in taverns and other places 
 Avhere men congregated and gossiped, the forthcoming invasion Avas freely discussed, 
 and opinions condemnatory and othenvise of the Ranters and their proceedings frankly 
 expressed. In proof of this, Ave are told that on the eve of this Sabbath, William 
 Goodrich Avas at the " Pied Bull " public-house, and heard the news there. As this is 
 the occasion of our first meeting Avith a man Avho afterwards became of note in Leicester 
 Primitive Methodism, and who left his impress on our early literature, and made 
 himself felt in our denominational councils, a Avord or two respecting him may not be 
 
302 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 out of place. But what doest thou here, William Goodrich, in the sanded parlour of 
 the " Pied Bull "1 we may well ask ; for we are told that his father had been for many 
 years a faithful and acceptable Wesleyan local preacher, and his mother was now a sainted 
 spirit ; and yet, despite all this, that surely should have given advantage to virtue and 
 prepared the way for grace, he had become a constant frequenter of this same tavern called 
 the." Pied Bull," and much admired there for his open-handedness, his sprightly talk and 
 convivial turn. As he was sitting there on this particular Saturday night, his attention 
 was arrested by a heated discussion two other habitues of the place were carrying on 
 respecting the merits and demerits of some strange people called " Ranters " who had 
 recently visited Syston and Eatby. He learned that they visited the villages, singing 
 lively hymns, preaching sermons in the open-air, and that they drew much people after 
 them ; furthermore, he learned that they were due at Leicester on the morrow, and his 
 
 curiosity was greatly stirred to know 
 more about these exciting and excit- 
 able people. He remarks : 
 
 "I began to inquire into the 
 lives and doctrines of these men, 
 and I soon learnt enough of them 
 to induce me to interpose a word 
 or two in their favour." 
 
 Then comes a passage which curiously 
 reminds one of a certain maid's recog- 
 nition of Peter by the light of the fire, 
 and who, looking steadfastly upon him, 
 said, " This man also was with Him." 
 But he denied, saying, " Woman, I 
 know Him not." So, when William 
 Goodrich spoke up for the miscalled 
 people, 
 
 "The landlady turned and 
 looked at me in a peculiarly 
 striking manner, exclaiming : 
 'And you, Goodrich, will be a 
 Ranter, too, directly ! ' This I 
 denied with all my power, but 
 my heart said a different thing."* 
 
 According to report, and in keeping with the arrangements made, John Benton 
 entered Leicester on the following day, being Sunday, and with him came a goodly 
 number of persons from Thurmaston, Syston and the adjacent villages. They came, we 
 are told, along the Melton-Mowbray turnpike, singing as they came: "Turn to the 
 
 BELGHAVE GATE AND THE OLD CROSS AS IT IS TO-DAY. 
 
 * Quoted in the Memoir of Mr. W. Goodrich by Rev. Robert Parks : 
 .Magazine," 1872, p. 745- 
 
 : Primitive Methodist 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 303 
 
 Lord and seek salvation." Now, just here, unfortunately, authorities differ in their 
 statements as to the precise spot chosen by Benton for opening his commission in 
 Leicester. But William Goodrich, who was there, says and the Leicester tradition 
 accords with his view that Benton and his host made for the old Roman Cross in 
 Belgrave Gate. * Floating traditions blend with sober records in giving us a vivid 
 impression of the excitement the advent of the Primitives created in Leicester that day. 
 The news spread like wildfire " The ' Ranters ' have come ! " From all points the 
 'people came pouring into Belgrave Gate. At one time, Herod tells us, Benton was 
 carried off his feet by the surging crowd. In their excitement men did strange 
 things. One ran out half-shaved to see what was to be seen. Another man, named 
 Farmer, climbed a lamp-post to watch the proceedings, and was pierced to the heart and 
 came down "a new man." "He was a moulder, and shortly after his conversion, 
 a mighty work of God broke out in the foundry, and many of its workmen were brought 
 to the Saviour," All accounts agree that Benton's sermon on " Let me die the death 
 of the righteous, and let my last end be like his," was one of marvellous power ; they 
 are at one, too, in noticing admiringly the rare quality of Benton's voice. It was 
 "stentorian," "ringing," "clear as a clarion, and carrying far." Tradition hints that 
 there was an attempt at opposition one man beating a drum for the purpose of drowning 
 the preacher's voice, but he might have been Benton's own drummer beating the 
 " assembly ; " for the only effect of his drum-beating was to assist in making the con- 
 gregation still larger. Meanwhile, as Benton lifted up his voice like a trumpet, William 
 Goodrich stood there an islanded soul in that vast crowd. After he left the " Pied 
 Bull " he had passed a troubled night, tempered however with resolves to begin to lead 
 a better life. As he stood there in the gutter, heedless alike of the crowd and of the 
 falling rain. " the great transaction " was effected within his soul. 
 
 This notable service was literally the " opening " of Leicester, so far as Primitive 
 Methodism was concerned. From that time it was as though the Lord had said : 
 " Behold, I have set before thee a door opened, which none can shut." Leicester would 
 now be regarded as belonging to the Loughborough Circuit ; and although the plan for 
 May-July was issued in the April number of the quarterly Magazine, too early to 
 admit of Leicester's appearing thereon, yet arrangements would meanwhile be made for 
 supplying it -with preachers resident in the neighbourhood; and soon and frequently 
 the leading missionaries would pay their visits. These visits were looked forward to 
 with high anticipations, and were made the subject of prayer by the new converts, so 
 that we are not surprised to learn that the labours of the missionaries told mightily for 
 .good in the town. Leicester duly appears on the next plan that of August-October. 
 
 * The main authorities for this site are Memoir of William Goodrich, " Primitive Methodist 
 Magazine," 1871 ; Herod's " Sketches," p. 298 ; Petty's " History," p. 75 (who cites Rev. J. Brownson 
 as his authority), and Mr. Thomas Lawrence's " Primitive Methodism in Leicester," p. 5. Other 
 .authorities, amongst which may be named that of Rev. C. H. Boden, name Coal Hill, where the 
 memorial Clock Tower now stands, as the site of this first service, and instead of "an adjoining 
 lamp-post," they make Farmer climb the town pump. As the two sites are separated by no great 
 distance, the question is not of much practical importance, especially as those who differ in their 
 opinions as to the site are in substantial agreement as to what actually occurred. 
 
304 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 The name is found twice over 
 at the very bottom of the plan, 
 without reference to building or 
 street, from which we infer that 
 as yet two public open-air ser- 
 vices were held simultaneously in 
 convenient places; while prayer 
 meetings and class meetings 
 would be held in the houses of 
 friends or adherents. Amongst 
 these regular and occasional 
 open-air preaching stations were 
 Belgrave Gate Cross, Orchard 
 Street, Foundry Square, Frog 
 Island, West Bridge, Russell 
 Square, Coal Hill, Old Hay- 
 market, Turner Street, &c. 
 
 Owing to the regrettable 
 
 FOUNDRY SQUARE, FROM ARCHDEACON LANE. 
 
 Showing a part of St. Mark's Church. 
 
 FOUNDRY SQUARF, FROM BELGRAVE GATE. 
 
 absence of dates, the chronology 
 of the visits of Wedgwood and 
 Clowes to Leicester is difficult 
 to trace ; but it is clear that 
 Wedgwood soon followed Benton. 
 His first service is said to have 
 been held in Foundry Square, 
 near the door of Mr. Bennett, who 
 is described as " a gardener and 
 Sunday salesman." But such a 
 description soon became inappro- 
 priate, for he ceased to be a 
 Sunday trader ; his house became 
 a rendezvous for the young con- 
 verts ; here the first class was 
 formed, of which W. Goodrich 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 305 
 
 was one of the earliest members, and Mr. Bennett and his Avife " got that good which 
 they never lost." 
 
 William Clowes, as we know, made a missionary tour into Leicestershire in 1818, 
 although his account of this mission found in the Journal is strangely mixed with 
 
 THE OLD HAY MARKET. 
 The open space is where the Primitives used to hold meetings. 
 
 1818. 
 
 AUGUST. 
 
 SEPT. 
 
 OCT. 
 
 PREACHERS. 
 
 PLACES. 
 
 2 
 
 9 
 
 16 
 
 23 
 
 iO 
 
 6 
 
 13 
 
 20 
 
 27 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 18 
 
 25 
 
 4. R. Western 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5. J. Wedgwood 
 
 Leicester 10^ and 6 
 
 13 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 13T 
 
 4 
 
 18 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 18 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 18 
 
 13 
 
 13. R. Culley 
 14. J. Skevington 
 
 Leicester 2 and 6 
 
 2624 
 1 
 
 21 
 
 14 
 
 26 
 
 19 
 
 14 
 
 24 
 
 
 26 
 
 17 
 
 5 
 
 
 17 . G. Hanford 
 18. J. Rue 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 j 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 19. T. King 
 
 24. R. Bent 
 
 26. C..Villiers 
 
 LEICESTER'S FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE BOTTOM OP THE PLAN. 
 AUGUST OCTOBER, 1818. 
 
306 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the account of his visit into Nottinghamshire paid the previous year. Clowes' first 
 experience of Leicester and its people, as recorded in the Journal, must have occurred 
 before the end of April, and after the first visit of Wedgwood just referred to.* Once 
 more, as our quotation shows, we find the two labouring conjointly, and once more, 
 curiously enough, Wedgwood, overwrought, wants to lie down while Clowes will 
 go on : t 
 
 " On Sunday we proceeded to hold a camp meeting at Croxton Lane Ends, near 
 Barsby ; here the Word of the Lord prevailed, and many experienced the 
 converting power. From this place we went onwards to Leicester the same 
 evening. As we went through the villages thither, we sang the high praises of 
 our God ; the people flocked after us, and appeared mo^ed with astonishment. 
 When we arrived in Leicester we were very weary, and it was very late at night. 
 In the morning, however, we marched forth and hoisted the gospel standard in 
 Belgrave Gate. It was supposed that about two thousand people gathered 
 themselves together on this occasion. We both preached ; Wedgwood from Job 
 xxii. 21, and I from Rev. iii. 20. Just as I was rising to address the congregation, 
 a person whispered in my ear that an alderman and one of the magistrates were 
 present ; but I did not feel any fear on that account. I felt my soul impressed 
 with a consciousness of higher powers the value of immortal souls, and the 
 necessity which lay on me to cry aloud and spare not, regardless of the trifling 
 distinctions of earthly rank and power. The multitude on this occasion were 
 exceedingly well-behaved ; a deep solemnity reigned over the meeting, and all was 
 still and quiet as if we had been in a chapel. [Be it noted one Mr. Richard 
 Woolhouse, of Hull, was one of Mr. Clowes' hearers at Belgrave Gate.] We 
 terminated our proceedings about twelve o'clock, and at half-past one we held 
 a prayer meeting in Orchard Street, in a friend's house. The gathering together 
 again was very numerous. Vast numbers stood on the outside, many were 
 powerfully affected, and cried for pardoning mercy, and their cries were not in 
 vain. It was supposed that about twenty souls found the Lord and rejoiced in 
 sins forgiven : the prayer meeting continued till six o'clock in the evening. When 
 I came out of the house I found my clothes were as wet as thatch on a very rainy 
 day. After partaking of a cup of tea we set out and walked seven miles to Sileby. 
 We felt ourselves so much exhausted on the way that Wedgwood was inclined to 
 lie down in a meadow, but I opposed this, as we should have endangered our lives 
 by such a course. After a good night's rest and breakfast we departed from Sileby, 
 to walk a distance of seventeen miles : we then took leave of each other, that we 
 might preach at different places." Journal, pp. 139-140. 
 
 We get one other glimpse of Clowes at Leicester during this same spring of 1818 ; 
 for William Goodrich speaks of Clowes' preaching in Orchard Street in the evening, and 
 Mary Hawksley in the morning of the same day. Orchard Street figures a good deal 
 during the beginnings of Primitive Methodism in Leicester. In that street Wedgwood 
 
 * Our data for this conclusion are these : Herod speaks of Clowes' Leicestershire mission as 
 a fortnight's one. Probably it occupied a little longer time than that. At the end of the mission 
 he called at several places in Derbyshire and preached. He mentions, too, the visit he paid to the 
 widow of Samuel Simcock, who was then near death. Hugh Bourne hears of her death on May 3rd. 
 
 t See ante p. 167. 
 
THE PEItlOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 307 
 
 usually stayed when in the town at the house of Mr. John Cross, to whom spiritually 
 he had been of service. In Orchard Street, too, were three other adherents of the new 
 cause Messrs. Pool, Markham, and Andrews whose houses were thrown open for 
 the holding of prayer meetings. The first two became leaders of the second and third 
 society classes, which met in their respective houses, while the last-named is described 
 as " an eccentric character, but a sterling jewel, who lost his status as a Wesleyan in 
 consequence of breaking out into bursts of praise during the time of service." * 
 
 John Harrison spent close upon two months on what may be called the Leicestershire 
 Mission from May 3rd to June 20th and from his Journals we get a vivid view of 
 the eager crowds that followed the missionaries, and hung on their words " like a bee 
 upon a jessamine flower." "We cannot condense without defeating our own object, 
 which is to see the crowds as the writer saw them, and to breathe the very atmosphere 
 of this time of refreshing and Revival, when men's sorely-tried souls were stirred by 
 
 a new hope. As we read, let us try to take in 
 what is said of the mere bulk and numerical 
 strength of the crowds he everywhere met with 
 in this town of but moderate size, as we must 
 reckon it to have been, judged by present 
 standards of populousness. Unless John Harrison 
 wilfully exaggerated, or we have to credit him 
 with a fatal incompetence to estimate numbers, 
 we can come to only one conclusion : that the 
 congregations were quite extraordinary, and that 
 the people must have been hungering for the 
 gospel. 
 
 " May 7th. I preached at Wymeswold, 
 in the street, without much opposition. 
 May 8th. I came to Leicester. . . When 
 I entered the town an influence and 
 thoughts similar to Jonah's came, and 
 I felt as if I should like to take shipping 
 and go to Tarshish. But in the midst of 
 
 my difficulties and temptations the promises supported me ' In Me is thy 
 help ' : ' Lo I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.' . . . 
 I preached at half -past ten on the next morning in Orchard Street, and 
 stood on a table for a pulpit in the middle of the congregation, which 
 consisted of several thousand souls. I never preached to such a number 
 that behaved with such seriousness. At half-past two in the afternoon 
 I was in the open-air in Horsepool Street, and was favoured with a table 
 for my stand. It was computed that I had not less than five thousand of 
 a congregation to hear the Word of Life, although two of our brethren were 
 preaching in other parts of the town. The people gave great heed to the Word, and 
 many scores are seeking the Lord. I gave it out that I should preach in Frog 
 Island at six o'clock in the evening ; and I was again favoured with a table for 
 
 WTMESWOLU CHAl'KL. 
 
 * Letter of William Goodrich, quoted in Bateman's " Life of Wedgwood," p. 76. 
 
 x 2 
 
308 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 a pulpit. When I ascended it, and took a view of ray congregation, I was like 
 Moses ' I did exceedingly fear and quake ; ' for the number of hearers appeared 
 to have doubled. I preached with great liberty, and the Lord was present and 
 precious. It was said that not less than eight thousand were present. Monday 
 10th. I preached near the West Bridge to the largest congregation I ever had. 
 There were many deeply wrought on by the Word and Spirit. When I had 
 concluded, a woman came to me weeping, and gave me a very pressing invitation 
 to go and preach where she resided, which was fourteen miles from Leicester. 
 She said, 'Do come, for we are all sinners.' I told her that was just the class of 
 persons our Lord came to seek and save. On Tuesday, the llth, we held a prayer 
 meeting at one of the friend's houses, when the Lord was pleased to pour His 
 Spirit out, and many souls found peace. In the evening a stranger was expected 
 to preach, but I had my fears he would not come, and that I should have to 
 preach. However, a little before the time a female from Derbyshire came, and we 
 entreated her to take up the appointment. She complied with the request, and 
 I never before heard her speak with so much liberty and power." 
 
 John Harrison was bashful even before his own Journal ; therefore he does not tell 
 us that the " female from Derbyshire " was none other than Sarah Kirkland, who, in 
 less than two months, will become his wedded wife and " a help meet for him ! " Her, 
 too, still bearing the old name, we welcome this way ; glad to know that she bore her 
 part in the Leicestershire as she did in the Nottinghamshire Revival. 
 
 It will doubtless have struck the reader, as it strikes the writer very forcibly in the 
 retrospect, that we have heard and seen very little of persecution while we have been 
 in Leicestershire. True, we heard something like the beating of a drum while Benton 
 was proclaiming the Gospel at the Cross in Belgrave Gate, and we have met with 
 allusions in contemporary Journals to " mild stone-throwing," which we take to mean 
 that stones were sometimes thrown that never seemed to hit any one. We remember, 
 too, the occasion when " the clergyman, the lawyer, and the gentleman " set out with the 
 intention of intimidating George Hanford, and retired feeling that they had not perse- 
 cuted him so much as he had coerced them. The fact is, there was no persecution 
 experienced in Leicestershire worth speaking of. One swallow does not make a summer, 
 nor one snow-flake a snow-storm ; neither does a solitary instance or two of horse-play 
 or outbreak of spite, or bad manners, such as the attempt of the post-boy or farmer 
 (probably bemused with drink) to drive his horses through a quiet, out-door congregation 
 warrant us to write of the persecution met with by the Primitives in Leicestershire 
 in 1818. A chapter under this heading would be as short as the famous chapter 
 on snakes in Ireland: "There are no snakes in Ireland." And thus far there was 
 very little persecution in Leicestershire. How does this absence of the persecuting 
 spirit from Leicestershire contrast with what we saw in Rutland and in parts of 
 Nottingham and Lincoln, where it was continually manifesting itself in the most 
 diversified ways ! The fact is creditable to the county and to be borne in mind. 
 But as yet the full significance of the fact cannot be dwelt upon ; nor are we at 
 present yet prepared to attempt an explanation of this extraordinary difference in the 
 treatment of our pioneer missionaries by neighbouring counties. That explanation must 
 await the accumulation of facts and be reserved until we have seen how it will fare 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 309 
 
 with the propagandists of Primitive Methodism in other parts. We will only again 
 hazard the opinion that in a very true sense Persecution is "racy of the soil"; that, 
 in proportion as men are tied to the soil which is not their own freehold, there 
 are the conditions most likely to be found favourable to the propagation of the 
 persecuting spirit. 
 
 But while persecution as ordinarily and quite properly understood was rarely experi- 
 enced by our pioneers in Leicestershire, they were not unacquainted with it as manifested 
 in less tangible and more subtle forms. They could not and did not escape the reproach 
 of the Cross or the usual fate of those who turn aside from beaten paths. There is 
 much to be met with in life that is not called persecution that is intrinsically of the 
 same character, because it is designed to punish " to let a man know," " to make him 
 feel " to deter or to coerce. It can manifest itself in numberless small but unmistak- 
 able ways in the supercilious look ; in the voice touched with scorn ; even in the curl 
 of the lip, or uplifted eyebrow. We see it in the disgust shown by the tepid soul on 
 
 any display of enthusiasm ; in the displeasure visited 
 upon those who dare to violate some of the smaller 
 conventions whether of social or religious life. 
 
 It was probably the dim perception that he would be 
 leaving the more congenial atmosphere of village-life and 
 be exposing himself to persecution of this unsubstantial 
 bodiless kind which, as we have seen, made Benton 
 reluctant to enter Leicester. Probably there were 
 persecutors in grain of this kind in the county capital, 
 and he was surely one of them to whom incidentally we 
 owe that vindication of our people and of our work by 
 Robert Hall, that broad-minded Christian man and prince 
 of preachers which vindication has become almost 
 a classical piece amongst us and cannot be omitted from 
 this history. 
 
 Robert Hall was at the time Benton entered Leicester 
 
 the minister of Harvey Lane Chapel, to which people from all parts of the country 
 found their way, breaking their journey here and travelling by a subsequent coach 
 in order that they might avail themselves of the opportunity of hearing this eminent 
 divine. Robert Hall, we are told, was on his way to a village where he occasionally 
 preached on a week evening just at the time Benton was preaching in the open-air. 
 He stopped and for a time listened attentively to the preacher, whose zeal he admired 
 as well as the command he evidently had over his congregation. The rest of the story 
 shall ba told in the words of George Herod : 
 
 "An individual who had a taste for decorum, felt himself annoyed with street 
 preaching, and said to Mr. Hall : 
 
 " ' What do you think of the " Ranters," sir 1 Don't you think they ought to be 
 put down ? ' 
 
 " ' I don't know enough of their conduct to say that,' was the reply. ^What do 
 they do 1 Do they inculcate antinomianism, or do they exhibit immorality in their 
 lives ? ' 
 
310 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 " ' Not that I know of ; but they fall into very irregular practices.' 
 
 " ' Indeed ! What practices 1 ' 
 
 " ' Why, sir, when they enter a village, they begin to sing hymns, and they go on 
 singing until they collect a number of people about them, on the village green, or 
 in some neighbouring field, and then they preach.' 
 
 " ' Well ; whether that may be prudent or expedient, or not, depends upon circum- 
 stances ; but, as yet, I see no criminality.' 
 
 " ' But you must admit, Mr. Hall, that it is very irregular.' 
 
 " ' And suppose I do admit that, what follows 1 Was not our Lord's rebuking the 
 Scribes and Pharisees, and driving the buyers and sellers out of the temple, very 
 irregular? Was not the course of the apostles and Stephen and of many of the 
 evangelists, very irregular ? Were not the proceedings of Calvin, Luther and their 
 fellow-workers in the Reformation very irregular a complete and shocking 
 innovation upon all the quiescent doings of the Papists 1 And were not the whole 
 lives of Whitefield and Wesley very irregular lives, as you view such things ? Yet, 
 how infinitely is the world indebted to all these ! No, sir, there must be something 
 widely different from mere irregularity before I condemn.' " 
 
 This dialogue shows us Eobert Hall in a very favourable light. We see a man, 
 highly placed and richly endowed, honestly striving to gain an understanding of the 
 times in order that he may " know what Israel ought to do." At the outset, when 
 confronted with novel methods of evangelisation, he is studious to keep his mind 
 dispassionate and free from prejudice. He will not prejudge the case, or condemn 
 hastily, without the due weighing of evidence. God and time will show. While he 
 thus puts in a plea for suspension of judgment, he is not prepared on summons to 
 pronounce off-hand that this work is of God, and these men the servants of the Most 
 High. Yet he hopes that it may be so, and he will not be surprised if the event 
 should prove that God is in both the men and their work ; for then this much-discussed 
 movement would be seen to be quite in line with other so-called " irregular " movements 
 of the past that were condemned of men but owned of God. 
 
 In all this, Kobert Hall offers a striking contrast with his fellow-citizen and ministerial 
 neighbour, Eev. Daniel Isaac, who was resident in Leicester from 1820 to 1822. What 
 strikes us the most in Daniel Isaac's phillipic against Primitive Methodism is not the 
 splenetic character or bad taste of the outburst, so much as the confused, and one might 
 say, cross-eyed view taken of the progress of the body in his neighbourhood. He says 
 and unsays at the same time and of the same thing. He casts a slur upon camp 
 meetings (" the Ranters have bawled themselves hoarse "), and then immediately goes 
 on to reflect on the wisdom of the Primitives in suffering their zeal for camp meetings 
 to slacken " They have got chapels, and are neglecting field-preaching. We mean to 
 take it up." Here the writer, who begins with a fling at camp meetings, ends by 
 allowing their usefulness, and by preparing us for the historical fact that within a dozen 
 years after the Wesleyan Conference had pronounced against camp meetings, the 
 practice of holding them had been introduced in various parts of the Wesleyan 
 Connexion; so that Hugh Bourne could say as early as July, 1818*: "The utility 
 of camp meetings has so fully appeared to the wise and good, that our respected friends 
 
 * On the cover of the quarterly Magazine, July, 1 818. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 311 
 
 of the old Methodist Connexion have begun to hold them in Nottinghamshire and in 
 Leicestershire." Furthermore, Hugh Bourne states : " It is understood that in 1820 
 their Conference adopted such meetings, only requiring them to be called by a different 
 name."* So that the Conference of 1820 blessed what the Conference of 1807 
 had banned. It could scarcely be expected that Daniel Isaac would look upon the 
 movements of Primitive Methodism with the same unbiassed mind as his great 
 townsman Robert Hall. Nor did he. Yet we are glad to find him a convert to the 
 belief in the utility of camp meetings. 
 
 Robert Hall convinced himself that the Primitives did not deserve to be " put 
 down," but rather helped on. He removed to Bristol in 1826, but so long as he 
 remained in Leicester he continued to be their vindicator, and on one occasion at least 
 showed his kindliness in a practical way by lending his church for the preaching of 
 a funeral sermon by one of our missionaries ; he himself attended the service, and 
 expressed his satisfaction with the sermon he heard. 
 
 As for the other interlocutor in the dialogue we have given, he is of no importance 
 whatever, except as he was one of a type, a representative " man in the pew," one of 
 the many who professed to be shocked at the " irregularities " practised by our fathers, 
 and who half frightened, half angry, put their question : " Don't you think they ought 
 to be put down ? " We wonder how many of our readers know that the question here 
 so timidly put was in 1820 proposed in good earnest to a noble lord, high in office, by 
 a Lincolnshire clergyman. He wrote a letter to the noble lord, in which the latter was 
 adjured by all that was sacred to put down the " vociferating Ranters " and their 
 pestilent and seditious camp meetings. This remarkable open letter was printed in the 
 <.'/ifi*tian Remembrancer, and in the columns of the same Christian publication there 
 appeared a communication from another writer, who observed : 
 
 " That as far as private influence could interfere, it has been exerted on some 
 occasions to prevent their assemblies (i.e., the camp meetings) ; but it is surely 
 desirable that the authority of Government also should in some way interfere to 
 prevent the degradation and debasement of that holy religion, which is so essential 
 to the present and future welfare of the nation." He would welcome any restraints 
 " which would defend pure and undefiled religion from the injuries it sustains by 
 the rude assaults of enthusiasm and fanaticism." 
 
 But let us turn from those who merely looked on the Revival it may be with doubt, 
 or apprehension, or hostility to glance again for a moment at the Revival itself, and 
 at those who were in the midst of it. We can form some idea of the rapid growth of 
 the Church at Leicester under these revival conditions, from what William Goodrich 
 tells us of the society classes. Members were added in such numbers, that soon it 
 became difficult to find experienced leaders. Where were officers to be found for all 
 these volunteers of the rank-and-file continually pouring in ? At one time William 
 Goodrich was the leader of four society classes, the combined strength of which was 
 297. One of these had belonged to Mr. Pool, who on account of failing health was 
 obliged to lay down the leadership. When Mr. Goodrich took over this class there 
 
 * "History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion," 1823, footnote p. 19. 
 
312 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 were one hundred and seventeen members on its roll. But we cease to be surprised at 
 the numerical strength of these classes when we are told that, at one service, twelve 
 or thirteen persons experienced the forgiveness of sin, and at once joined the class. 
 
 All those with whose names and doings we have got to be familiar have by this time 
 been at work in Leicester. Besides Benton, Clowes, S. Kirkland, M. Hawksley, 
 Harrison, and Wedgwood, who laboured much in Leicestershire in 1818, and whose 
 converts, we are glad to learn, are almost invariably distinguished for their seriousness 
 and steadfastness ; we must, in addition, mention Robert Winfield, " whose appear- 
 ance was singular, and his preaching peculiar, so that he drew large audiences 
 every night, and the fruit of his ministry was abundant " ; Richard Weston, too, 
 " Dissenting minister of Ramsor," is much in evidence at Leicester and its vicinity 
 from this time forward, so that one thinks he must either have removed this way or, 
 what is more likely, have become a recognised leading labourer in these parts. He has 
 four appointments at Leicester on the August-October plan. Others who also have 
 appointments are something more than names, as R. Bent, who becomes a hired local 
 preacher, J. Skevington, of Loughborough, a member of the Preparatory Committee, 
 George Hanford, of Sileby, and Thomas King, of Nottingham two other members of 
 the same committee. Yes, they are all here, sooner or later, and it was meet that 
 Hugh Bourne last of all should come to oversee all, and be as it were the visible " sign 
 and seal " of the complete establishment of the Leicester Society. One other thing- 
 only was wanting to round off the Great Revival and make it ideally complete, and that 
 was that Lorenzo Dow should come and give the Revival his blessing. This, too, did 
 really happen, and what might have seemed a wild chimerical idea became a veritable 
 historical fact. Let us, because of the interest that attaches to the man and his 
 appearance in Notts and Leicester at this time, throw into a paragraph a few rough, 
 rapid notes of our own summarising his movements : 
 
 Dow landed in the Mersey on his third visit to England, July 18th, 1818. 
 Hugh Bourne at once hastened to Stockton Heath to meet his friend. Dow spoke 
 at a camp meeting at Tunstall the next day, and at five o'clock on the morning of 
 the 20th Hugh Bourne had his disagreements with L. Dow, probably because the 
 latter was travelling with Dorothy Ripley the Quakeress, who had ' crossed the 
 Atlantic more than a dozen times to preach to the Indians.' The differences, how- 
 ever, were adjusted, or some working arrangement was hit upon, for we find the 
 trio as remarkable a one as was ever brought together afterwards closely 
 associated in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. Before this, however, be it noted, 
 Hugh Bourne preached the annual sermons of the Tunstall Primitive Methodist 
 Sunday School in the Wesleyan Chapel, 'kindly lent for the occasion.'* Next 
 followed a week or two of labour in Lancashire, and then we find our trio in 
 Nottingham, where each one preached. The same week Dow visited Basford, 
 Hucknall, Bulwell, and Lambley. At the last-mentioned place George Herod met 
 the trio with a vehicle to carry them to East Bridgford. En route Dow preached 
 at Burton Joyce and Gunthorpe from his vehicle. At East Bridgford he preached 
 in the open air. At Bingham, September 13th, he and Dorothy opened the new 
 chapel at Bingham. Thence he left for Leicestershire, visiting Sileby, Ratby, and 
 
 aj 
 
 See the Handbill of these Services reproduced, ante p. 60. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 313 
 
 Ansty, and on the 16th and 18th September, he took part in camp meetings at 
 Leicester and Barleston. After this he made again for Lancashire and Ireland, to 
 return in the spring of 1819 to America never to return." 
 
 These notes may have other uses ; but they are mainly designed to show that 
 Lorenzo Dow in 1818 followed the track of the Great Revival. He in his rapid 
 swallow-flight way goes over the same ground we have gone over, and touches at some 
 of the same places we lingered at. He begins with us at Nottingham and ends at 
 Leicester. As the other preceding workers had poured themselves into this revival 
 movement, so now he who had something to do with the origination of the Staffordshire 
 Camp-meeting Movement also traverses the district where its latest and greatest 
 successes have been won, and gives to it something of the quality of his strange 
 personality. 
 
314 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SOME EARLY CHAPELS AND THEIR STORY, WITH OTHER 
 LEICESTERSHIRE MATTERS. 
 
 DEAD LANE, LOUGHBOROUGH. 
 
 |EAD LANE is a good example of a Primitive Methodist Chapel which must 
 have been a busy centre and of considerable note in its time, and yet is 
 not known even by name to any save the smallest number of Primitive 
 Methodists of the present day. This is easily to be accounted for from the 
 fact that, as a building its career was short. Unlike Canaan Street, Nottingham ; 
 West Street, Hull; Bethel, Sheffield; and others that might be named, it was not 
 destined to preserve its identity through change and improvement in form, and privileged 
 to become known as one of the historic chapels of the Connexion. Dead Lane had 
 finished its course by 1837. Could it speak from the grave it might with Jacob say of 
 itself : " Few and evil have the days of my life been and have not attained unto the 
 days of the years of the life" of some favoured structures that yet remain. No con- 
 temporary picture of Dead Lane is known ; the one appearing on an earlier page of 
 this book * has been put together created one might even say from written data, 
 helped out by the recollections of Mr. John Moore, the only member of the Dead Lane 
 society who yet survives, and who at eighty-three years of age can vividly recall the old 
 structure. 
 
 "If this be so, why, then," it may be asked, "trouble to resuscitate such a building? 
 Why not let Dead Lane Chapel remain among the dead and gone edifices of the past ? " 
 The answer is : Dead Lane was the head of the third circuit of the Connexion 
 a circuit at one time extending into five counties ; it was the first Connexional chapel 
 built in Leicestershire; it was built by one member of the Preparatory Meeting, and four 
 others who attended that meeting were either members or trustees of Dead Lane or 
 circuit officials; the third Conference of 1821 was held within its walls, and several 
 district meetings ; Hugh Bourne and the rest of the fathers frequently came here ; such 
 ministers as S. Atterby, J. Garner, W. G. Bellham, W. Allcock, T. Sanders, T. King, 
 J. Brownson, J. Tims, ministered from its pulpit ; and last, but not least, item in the 
 plea for revived remembrance : it was the home of such saintly souls as Phoebe Smith 
 and Hannah Taylor, whose piety and good works would consecrate the memory of any 
 building which sheltered them. We think the plea must be sustained, and that Dead 
 Lane must be ranked as one of the historic chapels of the first period of the 
 Connexion. 
 
 The site chosen for the new chapel was in a street which got its ill-omened name, 
 
 * See ante p. 218. 
 
THE PEPJOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 315 
 
 tradition says, in the time of the great plague, when at first, perhaps, its victims were 
 borne along this way, though in quicker and quicker succession, to the churchyard for 
 burial. The alternative tradition which connects Dead Lane with the former existence 
 of plague-pits may date from a later stage of the visitation when such pits were dug 
 here for the wholesale and more expeditious disposal of the dead. In this connection 
 one cannot but think of another Primitive Methodist chapel which also has a mortuary 
 suggestiveness about its name. We refer to St. Sepulchre Street, Scarborough, which, 
 despite its name, has persisted in living and nourishing under improved conditions, 
 having, as had Dead Lane, a Friends' Meeting House for its near neighbour. 
 
 From Hugh Bourne's Journals it is clear that, at the beginning of the year 1818, the 
 new society at Loughborough had no chapel, nor had it acquired one even at the date 
 when it was elevated to the dignity of a circuit-town. Hugh Bourne and John Wedg- 
 wood " preach abroad " or " in the street " ; but meetings are held in " the room," and 
 Hugh Bourne speaks of being at a prayer meeting " in the coach-yard " which probably 
 means a room in the coach-yard. This is the state of things prevailing as late as Good 
 Friday, March 20th. But it is clear also from the Journals that during this time 
 important business is on foot, and that steps are being taken to supply the need, that 
 must have been keenly felt, of suitable Connexional property to serve as the head- 
 quarters of the movement in Leicestershire. Thus, on January 26th, Hugh Bourne 
 records : " We had a meeting for consultation. They are young at this business " ; and, 
 on the 30th, he writes : " We viewed the intended place of the new chapel at 
 Longhborough." 
 
 By the aid of extant documents we are able to supply the facts at the basis of these 
 allusions. Two plots of land, originally belonging to the Earl of Moira, containing 
 altogether 382 square yards, were acquired by William North. On January 18th, he 
 contracted for the consideration of 95 to build before payment or conveyance 
 a chapel or meeting-house for the use of the people called Primitive Methodists. The 
 course of procedure adopted in this case may not be one with which we are now 
 familiar, but it was by no means uncommon in the earlier days of chapel enterprise. 
 Sutton Bonington, and other chapels, were acquired in this way. 
 
 The William North referred to was one of the famous fifteen of the Nottingham 
 Preparatory Meeting. He was, therefore, no mere outsider employed in this specific 
 work, but one of the most substantial members and officials of the Loughborough 
 Society. The department of Church-work for which he was best fitted, would, we 
 judge, be that of administration, more especially on its financial side ; accordingly, for 
 some years his name is found in the circuit books in connection with its business 
 transactions. Unfortunately, we cannot trace his course beyond the year 1834, as the 
 scribes of those days, when they did their work, had no eye to the probable requirements 
 of the historians of these later days. 
 
 And now, under the direction of William North, the chapel is nearing completion, 
 and arrangements must be made for its formal opening ; and nothing will serve the 
 friend? but some one from London shall be brought down for the occasion. This we 
 gather from a most characteristic non-committal entry in Hugh Bourne's Journals : 
 
 "' April 18th. Here [at Loughborough] they have got acquaintance with the 
 
316 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 London Primitive Methodists. One is to come down and assist to open the chapel. 
 
 Whether this acquaintance be of the Lord or not the event must determine." 
 
 And on April 29th he writes " Saw W. Jefferson the preacher from London [at 
 
 Nottingham.] At night he spoke." 
 
 Of course, the W. Jefferson here referred to could not be " the Thomas Binney of 
 Primitive Methodism," for in 1818 he would have been but thirteen years old. So it 
 seems we have had two William Jeffersons as well as two William Allcocks and three 
 Thomas Jacksons, and the same number of John Parrotts. But the real significance of this 
 entry lies in the quite unexpected evidence it affords of the existence in London at this 
 time of unattached Primitive Methodists. So that it appears there was something 
 to show even yet for John Benton's labours in London in 1811. 
 
 Next came the appointment of trustees for the newly-opened chapel. We learn that 
 it was on June 9th the selection of trustees had to be made ; for John Harrison 
 records : 
 
 Thursday.- "I came to Loughborough, and preached at night in the chapel. My 
 mind was much exercised that we could not have a prayer-meeting after the sermon, 
 on account of a meeting that was called by the leaders and stewards, that the 
 society might choose trustees for the chapel. But it is well to pay attention to 
 such things in their season as saith the apostle ' Let all things be done decently 
 and in order.' " 
 
 The deed of Dead Lane Chapel, executed 27th May, 1819, supplies us with the 
 names of the trustees chosen on the night John Harrison was present, and lamented 
 the supersession of the invariable prayer meeting. The list has its points of interest, 
 and hence may be given here : 
 
 1. Edward Wells 7. Richard Weston of Ramsor, 
 
 2. Pryor Richardson Dissenting Minister 
 
 3. William North 8. William Wells 
 
 4. John Benton 9. Benjamin Dawson 
 
 5. Joseph Skevington t 10. George Handford 
 
 6. Thomas Attenborough 
 
 The deed is in some respects peculiar. It is a deed of Conveyance, a Mortgage Deed, 
 and Declaration of Trusts, all in one. It contains one proviso, which historically 
 possesses most significance for us, as it gives the trustees under certain contingencies 
 the power to sell without having first secured the sanction of any other authority- 
 Conference, of course, as yet there was none. But what were these contingencies ? 
 Just as the building of the first chapel at Tunstall in the house-form argued a measure 
 of doubt in the minds of the builders as to the perpetuity of the Connexion, so this 
 proviso of the Loughborough Chapel Deed remains to show that the men Who signed 
 the deed still felt that all ground for doubt as to the perpetuity of the Connexion had not 
 been removed. They evidently did not believe that all the talk about " putting down 
 the ' Ranters ' " meant nothing, and that under no conceivable set or combination of 
 circumstances could the wish be realised or the threat made good. To us this proviso, 
 drawn up within three months of the drafting of our constitution, and signed by three 
 of the shapers of that constitution, is most illuminative as to what was the condition 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 317 
 
 and apparent prospects of this country in the year 1819 -the year to which we have 
 now come. Let the proviso, with all it suggests, now speak for itself : 
 
 " That in case at any time the laws or statutes of the Realm should prohibit the 
 religious worship of the said Primitive Methodists, or the use of the said Meeting 
 House for these purposes ; or in case it should appear to the trustees for the time 
 being acting in the exercise of the trusts hereby created that there shall be no 
 occasion for the use of the said Meeting House " then the trustees are empowered 
 to sell. 
 
 The time came, unfortunately, when the trustees felt themselves driven to use the 
 powers vested in them, and in 1837 they surrendered the property. This is the 
 unpleasant fact stated in its barest, shortest form. The story is a painful one ; but it is 
 a story of misfortune and trial national and Connexional, as well as local rather than 
 a story of wrong-doing or incompetence. 
 
 When, in 1819, the deed of Dead Lane was executed, there remained a consolidated 
 liability of 250 which John Benton undertook to meet, and he thus became mortgagee. 
 Let it be told to his credit that next to the brothers Bourne, he was in the first years 
 a financial stay and help to the Connexion. He came to the help of Belper Chapel 
 and supplied the means for fitting up the Broad Marsh Room in Nottingham. So now 
 lie finances Dead Lane. Meanwhile, and largely as we saw, as the result of the Luddite 
 outbreak of 1816, the prosperity of Loughborough declined. The hopes cherished in 
 the early years of the century that it was destined to become the chief seat of the lace- 
 trade, and a formidable if not successful rival of Nottingham, were not realised. 
 Moreover, Loughborough fully shared in the terrible national reaction which followed 
 on Waterloo. It was not a large town: in 1821 its population was but 7,494. The 
 society at Loughborough came within the chilling influence of this wave of depression. 
 Few in the society were in easy circumstances or able to render anything but insignifi- 
 cant monetary assistance. Yet again : there is no doubt that the industrial depression 
 national and local in part synchronised with a Connexional one, for it is one of the 
 outstanding facts of our history that the years 1826-$ formed a crisis for the Connexion ; 
 and we have every reason to believe, that in no part of the Connexion was this crisis 
 more deeply felt than in Notts and Leicestershire. Men unaccountably disappear 
 whether by death or secession we are not told, but " David's seat is empty." William 
 North disappears : even George Hanford disappears, we know not why or whither. 
 Now was the time, if ever, one thinks, to sing the plaintive verses of the old hymn : 
 
 " Where are those we counted leaders 
 
 Filled with zeal and love and truth, 
 Old professors tall as cedars, 
 
 Bright examples to our youth ? 
 " Some in whom we once delighted, 
 "We shall meet no more below ; 
 Some, alas, we fear are blighted, 
 Scarce a single leaf they show." 
 
 The causes of this temporary but general decline will naturally have to be investigated 
 when we have reached a farther stage. At present the fact of this decline is simply 
 stated as it served to accentuate the local crisis through which Dead Lane was called 
 
318 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 to pass. As the result of alterations effected in the fabric some twelve years after 
 erection, and of arrears, the entire indebtedness reached 450. No evidence is forth. 
 coming to show that John Benton, as mortgagee, was any other than considerate ; but 
 though successive ministers, and especially Jonathan Tims,* struggled desperately to 
 retrieve the situation, the end came at last ; and John Benton was requested to sell the 
 chapel with all speed. This was, done and Dead Lane was demolished ; but the society. 
 undiininished in numbers, kept together and worked on in lodgings for a few years 
 until, under the superintendency of William Jefferson, in 1848, the present Connexional 
 property in Swan Street was acquired. This takes us into the next period. 
 
 Chapels have very varying fortunes. Some seem to be prosperous from the very 
 
 beginning. The only changes they know are 
 
 ^^^ ~~! changes for the better. Some have had their 
 
 ^^^^^- little romance of stone or brick; others have 
 
 had their vicissitudes it may be their tragedy. 
 The Circuit chest of Loughborough contains, 
 the faded-ink reliquiae of several such stories 
 of struggle and loss besides the one we have 
 told of Dead Lane Here, for instance, is 
 a resolution relating to Sutton Bonington 
 written in September, 1844, passed at a 
 Quarterly Meeting, of which Robert Parks 
 was the president. Though properly it relates 
 to the next period, it may well be given here, 
 as it could not have been written except at 
 the end of a long and wearisome struggle. 
 The entry comes down to us like a message 
 in the bottle desperate mariners flung out to 
 let it be known that their water-logged vessel 
 is about to go under. All is lost ! It is 
 about the most dismal and hopeless resolution 
 we have come across in a Circuit book : 
 " That the District Committee be informed that it is the opinion of this meeting 
 that every effort which the gigantic machinery of Primitive Methodism can put 
 forth has been brought to bear on Sutton (Bonington) such as open-air preaching, 
 revival meetings in the street, band meetings, visiting, etc., for the last three or 
 four years ; but all has proved ineffectual and abortive." 
 
 * Jonathan Tims was called out by the Loughborough Circuit in 1823, and was still further linked 
 to that Circuit by his marriage with Miss Eachel Tacey, whose name will be found in the list of 
 women at the bottom of the 1822 Plan. He has been described as "methodical, industrious, 
 plodding." The mother of John Barfoot was Eachel Tacey's sister. 
 
 As a postscript it may be added that since the story of Dead Lane Chapel, as given in the text was 
 written, a farther reference to Loughborough Circuit and its first chapel has come to light. This is 
 valuable as establishing beyond doubt the view as to the earlier date and cause of the formation of 
 the circuit expressed, ante, p. 281. Hugh Bourne notes on the cover of the quarterly Magazine for 
 April 1818 : " At Loughborough, in Leicestershire, a chapel has been erected in a central part of the 
 town. Our friends here have experienced a loss of 25. Their chapel was covered, when a strong 
 wind arose and blew it down. . . . The work in Leicestershire has been so strong and rapid, that 
 arrangements have been made to form a new circuit, of which Loughborough is intended to be the 
 head." 
 
 SUTTON BONINGTON PHKSKNT CHAPEL. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 319 
 
 And yet this despairing cry was premature. Under the pilotage of Robert Parks the 
 vessel escaped the fate that threatened. Button Bonington Chapel, that in 1844 was in 
 such financial straits that its loss seemed imminent, was preserved to the Connexion, 
 and is now debtless. The chapel was built in 1832 under the superintendency of 
 Thomas King, at which time there were thirty members in society. 
 
 MARKFIELD. 
 
 We turn now to Markfield an ancient village, as its Saxon name the Field of 
 the Mark attests lying seven miles from Leicester, and nine from Loughborough, on 
 the outskirts of Charnwood Forest, and on the edge of the Leicestershire coal-field. 
 
 FIRST PREACHING PLACE, MARKFIELD. 
 
 When it was first missioned during the Great Revival, and visited by Benton ? 
 "Wedgwood, and the rest, it was given up to agriculture. Now the adjoining mines and 
 its quarries of syenite, yielding stone in great request for the paving of streets and the 
 macadamising of roads, give employment to a considerable population. 
 
 The Primitives were bidden welcome to the house of Mr. Hugh Lauder, who with 
 his wife were amongst the first adherents of the society. Mr. Lauder was a stocking- 
 maker, living in a quaint thatched cottage his own property, which was the preaching 
 place until 1823 or 1824. One of the earliest members of the society was Mrs. Esther 
 Read, whose son used to be taken by her to these first cottage preaching services. 
 
320 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUHCH. 
 
 Mr. William Head still survives as the oldest member of the Markfield society. 
 Subsequently, services were held in the house of a Mr. Webster until, in the early 
 twenties, a chapel was built, which continued for no long time to be the home of the 
 society. A trustee named Wildbur, we are told, " got hold of 
 the writings," took possession of the building, and turned it into 
 a public-house ! So says tradition ; and it is certain that the 
 chapel was lost to the Connexion, and perverted to the uses of 
 a licensed house, though it has now been turned into cottages. 
 
 Markfield was the home, though it was not the native place, 
 of another Wildbur, who no doubt belonged to the same clan as 
 the appropriating trustee just named. William, of that name, was 
 originally a Wesleyan, and joined our Church in 1818. He was 
 soon taken out to travel by the Nottingham Circuit, and laboured 
 both on the home branch and on the Lincolnshire and Norfolk 
 Missions. Mr. Petty says : " He was a man of feeble powers and of superficial piety." 
 This severe judgment seems fully justified. Herod also tells us he was a man of weak 
 abilities, and was " much in the habit of neglecting his appointments." We might 
 have passed him by without the mention of his name, in harmony with that conception 
 of writing history which studiously avoids reference to those who cannot be named 
 without seeming to reflect on their character. But those who marred, as well as those 
 who made, helped to make the history what it really is. So it was with William 
 
 MARKFIELD OLD CHAPEL ; NOW COTTAGES. 
 
 Wildbur. He was one of the two alluded to by Hugh Bourne, whose doings and, still 
 more, whose non-doings led to the establishment of the Nottingham Circuit Committee. 
 One good thing Wildbur did was the organisation of a society at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, 
 although it consisted only of some fourteen weeping children. The story is worth 
 telling, both for Wildbur's own sake, and because it also allows us to watch the 
 humble beginnings of Ashby, which became the head of a circuit, formed out of 
 Loughborough, in 1822, the year before Leicester. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 321 
 
 Ashby-de-la-Zouch was first visited by John Harrison and a friend on Saturday, 
 June 16th, 1818. They entered the town singing the usual battle-hymn: "Turn to 
 the Lord," &c., and soon had hundreds of people after them. They had expected arrest, 
 but not a dog moved its tongue against them. The people gave great attention to the 
 Word, and showed the missionaries no little kindness. They left the place as they had 
 entered it, singing the praises of God, and were attended out of the town by more than 
 a hundred people, who could not be persuaded to go back until he had given a promise 
 to come again and preach to them. Evidently acting under instructions, "Wildbur 
 visited the place in July, to test whether those who had received good from the 
 occasional visits of the missionaries were willing to form themselves into a society. 
 The account of what took place on this visit, as found in the first volume of the 
 Mdf/azine, betrays the hand of Hugh Bourne ; and reflects his well-known views with 
 
 regard to youthful piety, and the practical interest he took in all plans and efforts for 
 laying hold of the young " for Christ and His Church " : 
 
 " He spoke much at large on the subject [of joining a society], and showed if 
 there were no prospect of good it would be best to give it up, as there were so 
 many other places which were anxiously waiting for their coming. He put the 
 matter upon issue, saying he should go into a friend's house at hand, and if any 
 came forward to encourage the preaching they would continue to come, if not, they 
 would decline. 
 
 " He went into the house, but neither man nor woman followed : in a few 
 minutes a few children came in with tears in their eyes, requesting to be taken 
 into society. The number increased, and fourteen names were at length entered 
 upon a class-paper. He took the children into a parlour and formed them into 
 
322 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 a circle round him. It was a truly affecting sight to behold fourteen babes in 
 Christ (and comparatively babes in age), weeping upon their knees, while our 
 Brother Wildbore was bearing them up in prayer before a throne of divine mercy. 
 Some of our friends from Coleorton were present, and in going away they visited 
 a family or two, and showed how necessary it was for grown-up people to start for 
 heaven, since children had started on the heavenly course. Next morning (Monday) 
 Brother Wildbore assembled his little flock in the open air, and, forming them into 
 a circle, he prayed with them. Another affecting melting season took place : 
 adult persons became alarmed for the sake of their immortal interests ; the work 
 of God broke out immediately, a numerous society was formed in a short time, and 
 we have the happiness to say, the work still continues to prosper." Magazine, 
 March 1819, pp. 70-1. 
 
 In 1833, while William Antliff was the superintendent of Ashby Circuit, a chapel 
 costing J6450 and seating 250 persons was erected. At that time its membership stood 
 at only twenty-four members; by 1845 it had increased to fifty. In 1842 the end of 
 our period the membership of the circuit Was 510. 
 
 The interesting incident thus recorded must be allowed to stand to the credit of 
 W. Wildbur. What remains to be told is by no means so creditable. In 1821, while 
 on the Norfolk Mission, he became dissatisfied with the Nottingham Committee and 
 made a division in the society at Lynn, carrying off with him some seventy members. 
 But he proved himself as incapable of ruling as of obeying, and the secession came to 
 nothing. 
 
 "Wildbur" or "Wildbore," as the name is spelled in the extract just given, only 
 thinly disguises " Wild boar," and seeing the change brought about by the Markfield 
 bearer of this name, it was, perhaps, natural enough that tradition should so play upon 
 the name as to remind us of the language in which the Psalmist speaks of the Lord's 
 vineyard as wasted by the boar out of the wood. But probably tradition may have 
 been a little hard on Mr. Wildbur. The facts are obscure, but it is likely enough the 
 chapel was in an embarrassed position and that, on the strength of a proviso similar in 
 character to that in the Dead Lane deed giving the trustees power to sell, Wildbur 
 took over the chapel along with its liabilities. We say the facts are obscure, but they 
 are capable of being so construed : and it is certain that at a circuit-meeting it was 
 concluded not to follow up the chapel case. What is much more 
 difficult to understand is why the society thus put to the street 
 should have been deserted by the authorities. With such men as 
 Thomas King (1830-1) at the head of affairs, there must surely 
 have been some reasons unknown to us for apparently casting the 
 society adrift in this way. Still, the members were not lost to 
 the Church of Christ. The bulk of them, we are told, united 
 themselves with the Arminian or Faith Methodists of Derby 
 the community which afforded a temporary home to ' Dinah 
 Morris" and her husband. In 1844 Markfield was revisited by 
 our people, and in 1842, during the superiiitendencv of Thomas 
 
 THOMAS WEBB. l 
 
 Webb, a new Connexional Chapel was erected for the congre 
 Cation and the society of forty members. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 323 
 
 The regulation establishing District Committees was made in 1828 ; but District 
 Building Committees, as distinct from these, are first provided for in the Conference 
 Minutes of 1835. We judge the propriety of establishing a Committee of such a kind 
 had been forced on the attention of the authorities by various warning examples of 
 recklessness and mismanagement. When what has hitherto very largely been an 
 evangelistic movement, carried on in the open-air or in houses and hired rooms, begins 
 to consolidate itself ; when it has to acquire property, and to raise and administer funds 
 for the maintenance and management of such property, then the time will soon come 
 when the need will be felt for some central, independent, expert authority to oversee 
 this important material side of the united societies' work. From an inspection of the 
 Minute Book of the Nottingham District Building Committee, beginning in 1836, it is 
 quite clear that some of the societies and circuits were, in Hugh Bourne's phrase, 
 very young in the business of chapel-building, and much needed the guiding hand. 
 
 
 MAKKFIELD PRESENT CHAPEL. 
 
 Occasionally, leave to build would be asked when leave had already been taken; or 
 a proposal would be submitted, satisfactory in most respects, save that it contained not even 
 the most distant allusion to the delicate subject of ways and means. Sometimes, the 
 Committee would be asked to give its sanction to an application to build that gave no 
 information as to the situation, site, or estimated cost of the building proposed to be 
 erected. We are told that in the time of the South Sea Bubble the public were once asked 
 to come forward and liberally to subscribe its capital in favour of " A certain project to be 
 made known afterwards." This was what the Nottingham Building Committee of 1842, 
 composed of T. Morgan, W. Carthy, J. Spencer, J. Barker, ^and A. Worsnop, at one 
 of their sederunts were virtually asked to do ; and one can conceive the quiet satisfaction 
 with which its secretary transcribed and dispatched the Committee's answer to this 
 singular application : 
 
 Y2 
 
324 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 "To the Boston Circuit, October 18th, 1842. 
 
 " Dear brethren : Be so kind as to inform us where you intend building your 
 chapel. You have not informed us whether it is to be on sea or land, in Lincoln- 
 shire or Norfolk, &c. Say whether it would not be better to place the pews at 
 the end, one above another with about nine inches' rise on a boarded floor ; and 
 say whether one-third of the money cannot be obtained by begging, &c. 
 
 " Yours, &c., A. WORSNOP." 
 
 The somewhat important items of information lacking in the application from Boston 
 Circuit seem to have been supplied without any great loss of time and to have proved 
 
 GEORGE STREET, LEICESTER, WITH GROUP OF OFFICIALS. 
 FROM AN OLD PHOTO CIRCA 1866.* 
 
 satisfactory ; for at the next meeting of the Committee, held a week after the preceding, 
 Boston Circuit was informed that sanction was given for the erection of a chapel at 
 Kerton Skeldyke, in Lincolnshire, to be a solid structure and not a floating chapel. 
 
 GEORGE STREET, LEICESTER. 
 
 Within one year and eight months after John Benton held the first Primitive 
 Methodist service in Leicester, George Street Chapel was opened for worship by James 
 Bourne. The chapel was situated at no great distance from Belgrave Gate Cross, where 
 
 * On the back row, beginning from the door George Hefford is No. 4 ; "William Goodrich, No. 5 ; 
 Rev. C. H. Boden, No. 6 ; and Thomas Mason, No. 8. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 325 
 
 Benton took his stand, and in that thickly-populated quarter where our first missionaries 
 had won their earliest triumphs, so that George Street stood on what Primitive 
 Methodists must ever regard as classic ground. The opening services of that Christmas 
 Day of 1819 marked an achievement and a fresh departure. By dint of toil and 
 God's blessing on faith and prayer, a long-desired object had at last been attained. 
 The services were also in very truth, for the Church, the " opening " into a fuller life 
 and into wider possibilities of usefulness. Right through and beyond this first period 
 of our history, George Street was to be familiarly known in our Zion as the centre of 
 a remarkably live and aggressive Church. On sentimental grounds, perhaps, we may 
 regret that it does not still stand on the same site and bear the old name. True, it may 
 be said to live on in Belgrave Gate Chapel, which is its successor and the inheritor of 
 its traditions, as well as supplying by its name a closer link with the historic first 
 service. All this is so, and yet Belgrave Gate is not the same as George Street ; we 
 cannot claim for Belgrave Gate practical identity with the sanctuary that was such 
 a figure in the early days. A community such as ours, which in the short space 
 of some eighty years passed rapidly through all the intermediate stages between 
 a Revival movement and a fully-equipped Church, changed too fast to leave many 
 unchanged buildings on which sentiment can fasten. The structures that satisfied 
 our fathers ; that suited their purpose, and were such only as they had the means to 
 command, soon became inadequate to enlarged requirements, out of keeping with 
 ampler resources, and objectionable to a developed and more exacting taste. They 
 have been superseded ruthlessly swept away by the march of improvement. Unlike 
 the older Xonconformist denominations, and yet more unlike the Establishment, 
 we have not, and from the very nature of the case cannot have, many buildings that 
 go back even to our not very remote beginnings which stand where at first they 
 stood, and have preserved their identity through all the years. That we have few 
 chapels like "West Street, Hull, is only the loss of our gain the negative condition of 
 rapid progress and advance in social influence. 
 
 Until the erection of George Street, the main centres of our work in Leicester, we 
 are told, were Orchard Street and a chapel in Millstone Lane, formerly belonging to the 
 Wesleyan Methodists, in which John Wesley occasionally preached. This fact shows 
 that the Wesleyans also have gone the way of Connexional progress before us, and that 
 with them, as with us, out-of-date, disused chapels strew the path traversed. The 
 structures which served them in the beginning were vacated for better ones. Like 
 certain crustaceans, they cast their now too-narrow shell and acquired for themselves 
 one better adapted to their size and growing importance. Sometimes, as at Millstone 
 Street and Hockley, we came along and found temporary accommodation in what they 
 had discarded. 
 
 One sentimental advantage, however, the poorer of the Free Churches have over 
 the more opulent ones, or as against the State Establishment. If the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners decide to devote part of their revenue to the building of a district 
 church ; or a millionaire, out of the abundance of his wealth, decides to do the same 
 then a church will rise almost " like an exhalation," or as if called up by the wand of 
 a magician. But such a building will have no history save that which is preserved in 
 
326 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the counterfoil of the millionaire's cheque-book, or in the transactions of the Board of 
 Commissioners. That church has all its history to make. But it is quite otherwise 
 with the churches built by the poor. They have their history to begin with. Not only 
 has the building its story, but almost every brick or stone could tell its tale No better 
 example of the truth of this could be supplied from our history, so far as we have yet 
 come, than the building of George Street. If Dead Lane had its tragedy, George Street 
 had its romance ; one might even say (thinking also of the companion instance of 
 Belper) its touch of sacred comedy. Our local Connexional historian, who naturally is 
 fully conversant with the traditions centring round old George Street, tells us : 
 
 " Unless the members of our first Society had possessed almost supernatural 
 energy, courage, and faith, they could not have triumphed over their difficulties as 
 
 they did To build the Chapel the members practised much self-denial. 
 
 Few of the members were in a position to give any but small sums. Perhaps not 
 one member was able to give five pounds in aid of the Building Fund. Many of 
 the bricks were begged. The methods adopted to secure help were certainly 
 ingenious. Instead of letting out the contract as a whole, an arrangement was 
 made with the builder, which enabled the trustees to find much of the material 
 required. When they had enough money to buy a thousand bricks they would 
 visit a brickmaker and place the order, and having bought one thousand they 
 would beg another, so making the bricks come at half-price. In this way, probably 
 all the brick-yards for miles around were visited, and made to contribute some of 
 the material needed to raise the walls." * 
 
 Who does not know the story of how George Street Chapel got some of its windows ? 
 We have seen Hugh Bourne working at the window-frames of the first Tunstall Chapel, 
 and the Belper Primitives drawing timber through the streets for their intended chapel, 
 but at Leicester the time came when their rising chapel wanted windows, and they 
 had neither windows, wood, nor money to supply them. In this dilemma William 
 Goodrich and another put their case before Squire Day, of 
 Thurniaston. He seems to have been a gentleman of a 
 humorous, if not of a roguish turn, and made a proposal which 
 no doubt was intended as an ingenious device for at once 
 saving his pocket and his credit. " There is an ash-tree 
 lying on my farm. You can have that if you like. Only 
 you must yourselves drag it to Leicester." The squire for 
 
 \ Jfftj^^^l once had miscalculated. His offer was gladly accepted. 
 
 N^fl v/-^ Wy Friends were found in the village willing to lend a helping 
 
 m& hand. The tree was placed on wheels and dragged to Leicester, 
 
 some three or four miles distant. But first the tree was made 
 
 JOHN THORNTON. . , . ~ 
 
 One of the men who drew b th P ul P 1<; and text > as lfc % m front of Squire Day S house, 
 
 the tree. one o f the brethren (we presume W. Goodrich) stood upon it 
 
 and preached from " And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees ; every tree, 
 therefore, which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire." 
 The ash-tree was sold to a builder for 7, and the money went towards putting in the 
 windows of George Street Chapel. Mr. Day, we are told, became the mortgagee of the 
 new chapel, thus showing his good-will. 
 
 * Mr. T. Lawrence : " Primitive Methodism in Leicester : Past and Present." 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 327 
 
 We can form some idea of the 
 burthen of anxiety pressing upon 
 those who were mainly responsi- 
 ble for the erection when we learn 
 that, in addition to monetary 
 anxiety, there was the fear lest 
 the work done during the day 
 should be overthrown in the night 
 by mischievous or unfriendly 
 hands. To guard against this 
 danger, the friends took their turn 
 as night-watchers. Truly George 
 Street was built in troublous times, 
 just as were the second temple 
 and the walls of Jerusalem. 
 One of these volunteer night- 
 watchers was John Briggs, one of 
 the early converts trophies one 
 
 THE HOUSE AT THURMASTOJf, 
 WHOSE OWNER GAVE THE TREE. 
 
 THURMASTON. 
 
 The spot on which W. G. preached, 
 from the tree as pulpit. 
 
 might even say of Primitive 
 Methodist agency in Leicester. 
 "From a drivelling, penniless 
 drunkard," says his memoir, 
 " Christianity raised him to the 
 position of a respectable tradesman, 
 and led him in time to the 
 acquisition of considerable property. 
 From being an associate of the vile 
 and abominable, it elevated him to 
 an honourable status in civil society 
 and to important offices in the 
 Church of God." Not only was 
 John Briggs an efficient class-leader 
 and local preacher, but he became 
 widely known throughout the Mid- 
 lands as a popular temperance 
 advocate. He had a fine play of 
 
328 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 humour and great readiness of speech, so that his services were in great request, 
 and his round ruddy face, and short portly person, became very familiar and welcome 
 to various congregations and audiences. In 1855 he was elected a permanent member 
 of Conference, but held that position only a short time, dying at Euddington, near 
 Nottingham, August 5th, 1856. John Briggs serves to link 
 together the two great Midland towns which rightly have had so 
 much of our attention ; for, some eight years after his conversion, 
 he removed from Leicester to Nottingham. The infant society at 
 Old Eadford found in him an efficient leader ; and it was largely 
 owing to John Briggs that the efforts of the society to secure, 
 a suitable place of worship were crowned with success. Eight 
 years later he removed to Euddington, where also "his services 
 greatly conduced to the preservation and extension of our Con- 
 nexional interests, at a most critical and important crisis in their 
 JOHN BKIGGS. history in that village." 
 
 Let the reader receive a few facts, shortly stated, respecting George Street, gleaned 
 from official documents. The building is stated to have cost 1,500, and to have had 
 on it after completion a debt of 650. The membership, at the time of erection, is 
 given as 500. It is said to have been built during the superintendency of "Mr. Richard 
 Wesson, since deceased." The person evidently referred to is Richard Weston, whom 
 we have already met with several times ; and this item is interesting as confirming 
 what was advanced as probable that even before his name is found on the 
 Minutes he was still fully given up to the work. Resuming our inspection of the 
 documents we learn that in 1825 a gallery was erected at the cost of 150. In 1832 
 two schoolrooms were built at an outlay of 170. In 1838 the chapel roof was raised 
 at a cost of 100. Finally, in 1846, 180 were spent in painting, repairing and flooring 
 the chapel. 
 
 Now these facts may appear dry indeed, but if we could 
 only closely question them we might find that these items, 
 relating to the enlargement or improvement of the fabric, would 
 also yield their story. And it would not be difficult to get into 
 the confidence of these items and extract their story. The 
 first item to wit that relating to the putting in of the gallery 
 would say : Yes : I remember the trustees were in some little 
 difficulty about a loan to meet the expenditure incurred ; but 
 one night William Goodrich and some others were called in by 
 a gentleman who was much disturbed by strange noises, in 
 order that they might investigate the matter. They discovered 
 and exposed the ghost, which was no ghost, and the gentleman 
 and his wife, under a feeling of relief tinged with gratitude, WILLIAM GOODRICH. 
 very willingly lent the trustees one hundred pounds, to be repaid by instalments. * 
 William Goodrich, who is mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, has many 
 
 * See the story with all names fully given, told in the Magazine for 1872, p. 748 and Aldersgate, 
 p. 190. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 329 
 
 claims on our remembrance. We ha.ve seen him at one time a leader of four strong 
 classes ; he took an active part in the missionary labours of the Connexion, having, it is 
 said, Avhile so engaged travelled 28,266 miles and delivered 3,163 sermons; he was an 
 intelligent man, well versed in the Scriptures, and a most acceptable local preacher. At 
 the time of his death which took place November 27th, 1871, with him there passed 
 away the last trustee of the old George Street Chapel. It is also advanced in behalf 
 of W. Goodrich that for a period of some seven or eight months he acted as Editor of the 
 first Primitive Methodist monthly Magazine. Let us see how far this claim can be 
 justified. 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF CONNEXIONAL LITERATURE. 
 
 As early as January, 1818, we find Hugh Bourne "planning a small magazine" and 
 busy writing for it. On March 26th he gets an estimate for the printing from 
 J. Tregortha, a Burslem tradesman. There is disappointing delay : it is not until 
 April 16th he receives at Derby 340 copies, instead of the 2,000 he had expected. 
 !Xext day he' distributes the Magazines and receives 800 more. On the 18th he carries 
 three hundred Magazines and some other things seventeen miles to Loughborough. 
 This Magazine is called "A Methodist Magazine; for April 1818. Conducted by the 
 Society of people called Primitive Methodists. To be published quarterly." It was 
 added at the bottom of the title-page : " Price Twopence ; to be sold for ready money 
 only." This, our first Quarterly, consists of twenty-four pages, six of which are taken 
 up with the Circuit Plans for the quarter. From the somewhat long " Introductory 
 Address " with which the Magazine begins, we can form some idea of the purpose sought 
 to be accomplished by the new venture, and the expectations formed of its probable 
 success. 
 
 " A new channel of usefulness is opening : it appears now to be the will of God 
 that our body should enter upon a Magazine. And there is so peculiar an opening 
 of Providence for its commencement, that it may be begun and carried on almost 
 without any additional burden to the Society. It may, at present, be considered, 
 simply as an improvement in the mode of publishing the plans ; as it will perform 
 the same service, and its circulation and disposal will be the same. A Magazine of 
 this description will be suited to the present state of the body, and if it can be 
 supported, is likely to be useful in every respect. . . . 
 
 "This work is intended to be conducted in a regular series of quarterly numbers; 
 and so soon as it shall be large enough to form a handsome volume, a supplement 
 will be published containing an index and a title-page. The numbers may then be 
 bound and will make a very valuable book ; and in future times, the early volumes 
 will be valuable indeed, as they will in a great measure show the infant movements 
 of the body, with the rise of camp-meetings and other important matters. Such are 
 the views, and such are the prospects with which this Magazine commences." 
 
 Yes : but such were not the views and prospects with which this Magazine ended. 
 The prospectus was one thing; the retrospect quite another. The "handsome volume" 
 of the quarterly never got itself materialised. The venture was not a success. The 
 Magazine did not pay, and Hugh Bourne did. A second number tardily made its 
 
330 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 appearance far on in July. This contains the plans of the three circuits for the ensuing 
 six months, and on its cover there is an intimation that, although the Magazines for the 
 last quarter have not paid their way, yet " so soon as a proper opening shall appear, 
 and a sufficient number of subscribers shall be obtained, it will be expedient to under- 
 take a Magazine on a larger scale." This looks as though the idea of a threepenny 
 monthly Magazine had already presented itself to Hugh Bourne as something eminently 
 desirable. Yet in the autograph letter reproduced he allows the credit of the suggestion 
 
 Yv 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 331 
 
 to " the friends at Leicester," who indeed may well have brought such a proposal before 
 him on some previous visit, to lie fructifying in his mind until November. 
 
 By means of the Journals we are fortunately able to supplement the particulars 
 contained in the letter. E. Culley was the travelling preacher who voiced the desire 
 of the friends at Leicester ; and Joseph Skevington was that Loughborough steward who 
 thought " they had acted rightly," and encouraged them to push forward the business. 
 That night Hugh Bourne wrote a letter to Nottingham on the subject though 
 this one was written to R. Stone of Derby ; on the 26th of the same month he and 
 R. Culley secured two hundred and sixteen subscribers for the intended Magazine. 
 Finally, on January llth, 1819, he put the manuscript of the Magazine and the plans 
 into the hands of the printer. On the Sunday following Hugh Bourne was taken 
 seriously ill, and was removed to Leicester, whence he was taken by his brother James to 
 Bemersley. This illness closed the general superintendency of Hugh Bourne, which 
 had extended over four years ; and one of its minor effects was to render it necessary 
 that some competent person should see the first number of the new Magazine through 
 the press and be responsible for the editing of the successive numbers. Who was that 
 person ? "William Goodrich distinctly affirmed that it was he, and Hugh Bourne states 
 in the preface to the Magazine of 1841 that the first eight numbers were "edited by 
 a person at Leicester." There is no further mention of Robert Culley in connection 
 with the Magazine in which he took so practical an interest. It might be interesting 
 to know why. He is called a travelling preacher ; and as on the Loughborough Circuit 
 Plan ending January, 1819, he i.s planned thirteen Sundays four of them in Leicester 
 he deserves the title, and as given by Hugh Bourne, it was strictly correct. 
 R. Culley was a travelling preacher as was R. Weston. After this we cannot 
 trace R. Culley ; nor is that surprising if he be the Robert Culley who died at 
 Shelton, near Nottingham, on January 8th, and whose memoir appears in the first 
 volume of the Magazine. From the memoir itself we can glean little concerning its 
 subject. It is one of those factless biographies which tell you nothing, and tantalise 
 you as you read, and finally leave you with a sense of injury and vexation. The most 
 striking thing in the memoir is one of the dying man's own sayings : " I have been 
 lost for two or three days, but found myself in the twenty-third Psalm, verse four, 'Yea, 
 though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, etc." 
 If R. Culley had been compelled by sudden illness to relinquish his work and return 
 to his home only to die (and his illness is said to have been of short continuance), then 
 all is clear. With R. Culley gone, who more likely than William Goodrich to undertake 
 the duties of Editor of the new Magazine ? He was intelligent, a man of considerable 
 education, a solicitor's clerk, who later in life when he had become less prosperous in 
 his circumstances, frequently wrote letters for those who were poor scribes. We may 
 safely conclude, we think, that W. Goodrich was the man we are in search of. All the 
 internal evidence is accordant with this view. Each number bears the imprint of 
 "Fowler, High Cross, Leicester." By far the larger part of the matter relates to this 
 district. On the cover it is advertised that preachers' licences can be obtained from 
 W. Goodrich, Leicester. His editorship does not nullify the fact that Hugh Bourne 
 prepared the first number and that there are articles from his pen in subsequent 
 
332 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 numbers. Still, it must be remembered that this venture was after all a private one. 
 There was as yet no Connexional Magazine or officially appointed editor. There could 
 not well be, for as yet no court existed with the requisite power of appointment. 
 
 This Monthly Magazine met with little better success than the Quarterly one. Its 
 publication terminated with the August number; but 1820 came to the help of 1819. 
 At the first Conference Hugh Bourne was appointed editor, and he was desired to 
 complete the first volume. So we have "A Methodist Magazine, published June 1820, 
 intended as a Substitute for September 1819." Tt consists mainly of a Treatise on 
 Discipline and Minutes of the first Annual Meeting. Two other complementary or 
 substitutionary numbers were issued in August and Xovember one from a Burslem 
 the other from a Derby press making vol. I. of our Connexional Magazine which 
 came out to the world under the strange title : "A Methodist Magazine for the year 
 1819, conducted by the Camp Meeting Methodists, known by the name of Ranters, 
 called also Primitive Methodists." Thus did the Magazine struggle into existence. 
 
 Here it may be convenient to chronicle certain facts of a kindred character relating 
 to the changes made in our humble Connexional organs during this first period. At the 
 beginning of 1825, the Magazine was enlarged by twelve pages, and began to be sold at 
 fourpence. In 1830, its size was changed from a 12mo. to an 8vo., and it became 
 a sixpenny Magazine. In the autumn of 1824, a Children's Penny Magazine was 
 started, which in a few months reached a circulation of between six and seven thousand. 
 After an interval of some years, a second chapel was acquired for the use of the 
 denomination in Leicester. It was situated in Alexander Street, but because it stood in 
 that ancient district in which, centuries before, the Dominicans, or Black Friars, had 
 established themselves, it was popularly known as " The Friars." The Friars was 
 a building " with a past." Before its completion it was blown down, and when 
 completed it was burdened with debt. The Independent Methodists, to whom it 
 belonged, were not at peace among themselves, and, finding some difficulty in securing 
 a minister to take the place of the one they had asked to resign, the chapel was sold 
 to the Primitives. But the usual ill-luck of the building seemed to follow it after its 
 change of ownership: a temporary gallery justified its character by giving way, though 
 fortunately the accident does not appear to have resulted in loss of life or limb. The 
 importance of Alexander Street did not lie in the character of the building or in the 
 strength and influence of the society; for in 1834, we are told, its members were but 
 forty-three in number and its quarterly income only 3 6s. It was 
 not what it was, but what it gave the promise of becoming, that 
 made the acquisition of the Friars a notable event. It gave the 
 Connexion a foothold in another part of the town, and provided 
 the nucleus which time and change would develop into the 
 powerful Leicester 2nd Circuit. "The Friars" has gone. Like 
 many another building thereabout it has been demolished to make 
 room for the Great Central Railway. Yet associated with it were 
 some good men like William Key, one of its earliest officials, and 
 long and honourably known in connection with Leicester Primitive 
 Methodism. Here, too, Elijah Jennings was early won for 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 333 
 
 the Connexion, and began his useful course. That course may more fittingly be 
 traced when we come to deal with, a later period of our Connexional history; but 
 however far the stream may have travelled, and however beneficently it may have 
 flowed, it broke out in old Alexander Street. 
 
 Leicester, too, had its season of trouble culminating in a secession. Its experience 
 in this respect was curiously parallel to that of Belper, Hucknall, and especially to that 
 of Nottingham, with which it almost synchronised. And yet, perhaps, the parallel was 
 not so curious after all, as the several troubles are distinctly traceable to identical 
 conditions prevailing about this time. Moreover, the conditions were just such as one 
 would naturally expect to find in a rapidly growing community which is seeking to 
 settle down and organise itself. The analogue to all this is found in those subtle 
 physiological changes which explain the crises through which human beings usually 
 reach adolescence. So our Church had its infantile crises. There was morbific matter 
 of which it had to be purged ; there were adjustments required to which some could not 
 adapt themselves. The truest word the Eev. Daniel Isaac wrote about Primitive 
 Methodism in 1821 was : "They want discipline." Well ; all in good time. They will 
 get what they want at Leicester as they did at Nottingham, only wait a while. George 
 Herod, the strict disciplinarian, was at Leicester 1833-6, and his hand was felt to be too 
 heavy for some who were brought under discipline. A secession of some sixty-five 
 members took place which was known as "the Denmanite split," from the locality 
 of the building which the divisionists made their headquarters. The date is 
 approximately fixed by a resolution of the March Quarterly Meeting of the 
 Loughborough Circuit, 1834: "That we disapprove of any of our preachers going 
 to preach for the divisionists at Leicester or of any of their preachers coming to preach 
 for us." That the discipline administered was wholesome may be inferred from two 
 facts : that some of those who came under it found their way back and became loyal 
 adherents of the cause ; and that the disciplinarian himself left seventy-three more 
 members in the Circuit than he had found in 1833 on entering it. George Herod was 
 followed by Thomas Morgan, whose superintendency of three years was marked by 
 vigour and material and numerical success. We do not stay to note what he did in 
 chapel building and improvement, but must point out the significance of the statement 
 that in 1839 "a third society was raised in the town." We judge the reference is to 
 the missioning of the York Street district, 
 and the establishment of a cause there 
 which, in 1841, resulted in the building 
 of York Street Chapel. Four names are 
 closely associated with this forward move- 
 ment Messrs. Thomas Stevenson, Thomas 
 Lawrence, Samuel Cheeney, and Mrs. T. 
 Lawrence, the wife of the second-named 
 and the mother of our respected African 
 Missionary Treasurer. Though all were 
 worthy, fuller reference is due to Mrs. 
 
 *- -, i i i* 
 
 Lawrence, whose memoir brings before 
 
 THOS. STEVEXSON. 
 
334 
 
 PKIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 us a woman of rare excellence, who by her character and service did much for 
 Leicester Primitive Methodism.* At a time when it meant much to belong to 
 the sect that was "everywhere spoken against," she, when but a girl, united herself 
 with the struggling band Avorshipping in old Alexander Street, and for more than 
 sixty years- she continued loyal to her early choice, dying December 2nd, 1893. 
 
 The formation of Leicester Second Circuit in 1852 ; the building of Curzon Street 
 as an extension or offshoot of George Street in 1860 ; and the supersession of both 
 Alexander Street and York Street, and the building of Nicholas Street in 1873 by the 
 joint societies, are events which, for the sake of giving a complete view, may well be 
 foreshadowed here, though the history of these movements belongs to a later period. 
 
 THE CHARTISTS. 
 
 York Street was built in the thick 
 of the Chartist agitation which, like 
 Luddism, had misery as well as 
 political disability at its root. From 
 this bare statement one might rightly 
 infer that Church-work, both on its 
 spiritual and material side, would be 
 carried on under very difficult and 
 discouraging conditions. If any one 
 should wish to know what was the 
 state of things prevailing in Leicester 
 and the neighbouring hosiery towns 
 of Loughborough and Hinckley at 
 this particular time, let him read 
 "Thomas Cooper's Life." Cooper 
 entered Leicester in November, 1 840, 
 to take up journalistic work in con- 
 nection with the " Leicestershire 
 Mercury." In the discharge of his 
 duties as a reporter he was brought 
 into touch with Chartism, and, by 
 force of sympathy with the suffering and oppressed, he was soon drawn within the 
 vortex of the movement. He found broken-spirited men who, after working a whole 
 week, had only as the net result four and sixpence to live upon, so many were " the 
 petty and vexatious grindings " of which they were the victims. He tells us " the poor 
 framework-knitter was worn down till you might have known him by his peculiar 
 air of misery and dejection if you had met him a hundred miles from Leicester." 
 Thomas Cooper became a follower of O'Connor and the recognised leader, and in 
 many cases the succourer, of the starving Chartists of Leicester. 
 
 We are concerned with Chartism only so far as it affected Primitive Methodism 
 for good or ill. That it did affect it the traditional account of the origin of the 
 * See Memoir by Eev. James Pickett : " Aldersgate," 1895, pp. 941-2. 
 
 YORK STREET CHAPEL, LEICESTER. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 335 
 
 hymn "The Lion of Judah" remains to show. That story 
 
 bears all the marks of authenticity, and it has no point 
 
 except as it afforded another example of successful tactics in the 
 
 warfare the Church has to wage another example of generalship 
 
 retrieving the drooping fortunes of the day. To us the six points 
 
 of the Charter may appear innocent enough ; so much so that one 
 
 finds oneself wondering that all the six points together were 
 
 able to stir men's minds so deeply ; and yet when we transport 
 
 ourselves into the midst of the conditions prevailing in 1840, 
 
 we shall cease to wonder at the enthusiasm evoked by the 
 
 Charter. It was put forward as a new gospel, and was pro- MR8- LAWRENCE. 
 
 claimed as the one thing needful for bringing social salvation to the suffering 
 
 working classes. There was danger lest the Charter should so preoccupy the minds 
 
 of men that there would be no room for anything else ; so excite them that even the 
 
 supreme concerns of religion would stir but a languid interest. Leicestershire Chartism 
 
 had its camp meetings, its hymns, its singing processions, and as our ministers saw their 
 
 congregations distracted and their young people drawn away, it looked as though the 
 
 Primitives were going to be outdone and beaten by their own weapons. Remember 
 
 that Thomas Cooper began, as Joseph Barker ended, a Primitive, and we shall the 
 
 better understand the methods of propagandism he adopted : 
 
 "During the summer of 1842," says Cooper,* "I often led the poor stockingers out 
 into the villages, sometimes on week-day evenings, and thus we collected the 
 
 villagers of Ansty, and Wigston, and Glenn, and 
 Countesthorpe, and Earl Shilton, and Hinckley, and 
 Syston, and Mount Sorrel [all places by this time 
 familiar to us], and inducted them into some know- 
 ledge of Chartist principles. One Sunday we devoted 
 entirely to Mount Sorrel, and I and Beadham stood 
 on a pulpit of syenite, and addressed the hundreds 
 that sat around and above us on the stones of a large 
 quarry. It was a Gwennap Wesley's grand Cornish 
 preaching-place on a small scale. Our singing was 
 enthusiastic ; and the exhilaration of that Chartist 
 ' camp meeting ' was often spoken of afterwards. Now 
 and then, I preached Chartist sermons on Nottingham 
 Forest, where at that time there was another pulpit 
 of rock ; but it was seldom I had meetings there, 
 though I liked the place, the open-air, and the people, 
 who were proud of their unenclosed 'Forest' un- 
 enclosed, now, no longer but thickly built upon. 
 
 "As the poor Leicester stockingers had so little work, they used to crowd the 
 street, around my shop door, early in the evenings ; and I had to devise some way 
 of occupying them. Sometimes I would deliver them a speech ; but more generally, 
 on the fine evenings, we used to form a procession of four or five in a rank, and 
 troop through the streets . . . chanting ' The Lion of Freedom,' which began as 
 follows : 
 
 * The " Life of Thomas Cooper," written by himself, 1872, pp. 174-5. 
 
336 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 " ' The Lion of Freedom is come from his den ; 
 We'll rally around him, again and again : 
 We'll crown him with laurel, our champion to be : 
 O'Connor the patriot : for sweet Liberty ! ' " 
 
 It will be seen from this that, under the leadership of Thomas Cooper, the Chartist 
 movement borrowed the tactics of the camp meeting Methodists. The procession that 
 swept the streets chanting " The Lion of Freedom " produced much excitement, which 
 William Jefferson marked with anxious eye. Were the Primitives to be beaten on their 
 own ground and by methods which they had made peculiarly their own ? Who was 
 Feargus O'Connor that the streets should ring with his hymned praises? William 
 Jefferson was much exercised in his mind at the look of things, but as he lay one 
 
 morning mentally canvassing how best to stem and turn 
 to account the prevailing excitement, a happy thought 
 struck him: he would write a hymn in the same measure 
 as "The Lion of Freedom." The tune could not be beaten 
 but it might be borrowed, as the Israelites borrowed of 
 the Egyptians.* "And it shall," said he, as he sprang 
 from his bed. The hymn was written, and appeared 
 on the plan. It took. The hymn with its well-known 
 refrain was sung in the processionary services, and 
 " The Lion of Judah " was successfully pitted against 
 "The Lion of Freedom" Christ against Feargus 
 O'Connor. 
 
 If Thomas Cooper gained such an ascendency over 
 the pale-faced operatives of Leicester as to be familiarly 
 known amongst them as " the General," an ex-Primitive 
 Methodist travelling preacher acquired similar ascendency 
 over the operatives of Loughborough, and, by virtue of 
 the display of similar qualities. Thomas Cooper and John 
 Skevington were the two most noted and trusted Leicester- 
 shire Chartists, and we now refer to the latter because he 
 has received but scant justice, and deserves Connexional re- 
 habilitation. John Skevington was the son of that Joseph 
 Skevington of Loughborough, who was one of the repre- 
 sentatives of the third circuit at the Preparatory Meeting. 
 Beginning to preach when in his teens, John was known 
 as " the boy preacher," and would have John Garner as 
 his contemporary on the Loughborough plan. Next, he 
 became a travelling preacher, and in 1822-3-4 travelled JOHN SKEVINGTON. 
 
 * Thomas Cooper denied being composer of either words or melody of " The Lion of Freedom." 
 He says " the song first appeared in the columns of the ' Northern Star,' and was understood to be 
 the composition of a Welsh female Chartist. A Leicester working man (Valentine Woolley) first set 
 it to an air (or rather a fragment of the melody of a glee). See letter of Cooper in Appendix to 
 Gammage's "History of the Chartist Movement." So if the Primitives borrowed the tune the 
 Chartists had done the same before them. " The Lion of Judah " is No. 38 in The Mission Hymnal 
 
 W. JEFFERSON. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 337 
 
 successively at Halifax, Barnsley, and Brad-well. He then ceased "to travel," mainly, 
 perhaps, because his lameness rendered the work of the regular ministry difficult, 
 if not impossible. Obviously, his retirement was not due to any decline of zeal, 
 for, back in his native circuit, he filled the offices of leader and local preacher, and, 
 as the books show, his services were in frequent requisition for recording minutes and 
 drafting resolutions of importance for the District Meetings. Unfortunately, however, 
 he was severed from the Connexion in 1836. Into the details of that severance we do 
 not enter ; suffice it to say it was led up to by the troubles of Dead Lane he being trust- 
 treasurer at the time ; further, on reviewing all the circumstances of the case, we are 
 bound to say, he ought not to have been allowed to leave. In 1837, the year after his 
 severance, the People's Charter was formulated and adopted, and John Skevington 
 became a convinced Chartist. For years he had been an ardent " friend of the people." 
 " From early life," he says, " I advocated the rights of the many." By his ready 
 command of telling language, his sympathetic nature, and not less, by the sanity of his 
 judgment, he was fitted to be the leader of those of his fellows who were not equally 
 endowed. At election times, we are told, though he had no vote, he would mount the 
 hustings to voice the grievances of the working classes. We say he was a convinced 
 Chartist, and he was this to the end ; for, as he was consciously nearing the verge 
 of life, he wrote : " As an advocate of the principles of the People's Charter, I found 
 nothing on inspection to condemn in them, nor in my advocacy of the same, but 
 a firm conviction that though a man may be a Chartist and not a Christian, a man 
 cannot be a Christian and not a Chcirtist unless through ignorance."* In 1839 the first 
 great Chartist National Convention was held in London, and the historian of the 
 movement records that: "The democrats of Loughborough sent John Skevington, 
 another veteran in the Radical cause, to represent them."f His enthusiasm in the cause 
 of the Charter, and his personal likings, were shown in his naming his son John Feargus 
 after the idol of the hour. He retained his place in the respect and affections of 
 the men whose cause he championed, for, in 1848, they commissioned Mr. J. Boden 
 (the brother of the Rev. C. H. Boden) to paint his portrait in oils, and this was publicly 
 presented to him by Thomas Cooper. 
 
 Yet, though a democrat, John Skevington was no demagogue. He did not pander 
 to those below him, or only astutely follow where he seemed to lead. He was 
 no Physical Force Chartist, but to the end ranged himself on the side of the advocates of 
 Moral Force. He could, and did, withstand those who hankered after swifter and more 
 violent methods of obtaining their rights. In proof of this, we are told that, during those 
 tumultuary days, the men came to him and said : " Skevington, only speak the word 
 and we will tear up every stone in the Market Place." But that word was never 
 spoken. 
 
 * Where J. S. himself speaks the quotations are from a short MS. account of his views and 
 feelings written when he believed, rightly, that he had not long to live. The same sentiment is 
 found in an eight-page tract : " A Letter by the Rev. John Dudley, and an Answer by John 
 Skevington," Leicester, 1848. 
 
 t Gammage : " History of the Chartist Movement," p. 68. 
 
 z 
 
338 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 After his severance from the Connexion John Skevington did not unite with any 
 other Church as did his wife and family. " Still I revere it," are his words when he 
 writes of the Church in whose ministry he had served. He never drifted into doubt 
 or infidelity as Thomas Cooper did. He never ceased to fear God or forget to pray. 
 Yet, as the years went on, it came home to him that he had lost somewhat the fervour 
 of his first love ; that " he had not always served God as earnestly as he had served 
 men." In his MS. account, he feelingly quotes Hosea ii. 7 "I will go and return 
 to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now." And he did return. 
 In the presentiment of death's stealthy approach, he repented of all his shortcomings 
 and earnestly sought and found the Lord, and in his recovered joy shouted " Glory ! " 
 Then heimweh homesickness came upon him, and he desired to be re-united to the 
 Church of his youth. But alas ! his overtures were coldly received. But another 
 Church welcomed him, and he died a happy death January 4th, 1850, aged 49. 
 
 Now, looking back upon these transactions of John Skevington's life, one cannot 
 but regret that he was not allowed to retain his status as a local preacher and to die in 
 full communion with that Church he had never ceased to love, and to which he turned 
 at last. Because some one blundered, we refuse to be robbed for all time of our 
 Connexional rights in John Skevington and John Benton. We claim them both. 
 Had the former been living now, it is not difficult to predict the line he would have 
 taken. He would have been on the Town or County Council it may be the colleague 
 of John Wilson, Thomas Burt (whom also in his own despite, we claim), Charles Fenwick, 
 H. R. Mansfield in any case, honoured by his own community as resolutely taking up 
 the duties of Christian citizenship. We look upon John Skevington and Joseph 
 Capper to be referred to directly as the first and most striking instances we have so 
 far met with, of men who may, Connexionally, have been a little before their time, but 
 who were only carrying out explicitly those principles of Christian Democracy which 
 from the beginning had been implicit in Primitive Methodism. And this is why we 
 have at some length recalled the story of his life, and tried to vindicate his memory 
 and reclaim him for the Connexion. Primitive Methodism began by being neither 
 avowedly political nor avowedly non-political, but purely evangelistic ; but seminally 
 it had in it the life-principle of a democratic Church. If it grew at all it was sure to 
 grow in much the same way as it has grown, or else we must conclude that all that it 
 has done for the elevation of the miner and the manumission of the agricultural labourer, 
 has been after all of the nature of a sport or misgrowth rather than a natural, legitimate 
 development which is not to be thought of for a moment. Whether it be an organism 
 or an institution that is in question, what it is can best be ascertained by marking its 
 maturer outgrowth its efflorescence and fruitage, rather than its foliation. Little 
 wonder, then, that Primitive Methodism should have grown we speak not of mere 
 size to be a bigger, more comprehensive thing than was conceived of by our fathers, 
 who saw it only in its beginnings, and were not gifted with preternatural insight to 
 divine the Democratic developments that were wrapped up in those beginnings. 
 
 If John Skevington was a little before his time, surely that cannot be said of the 
 attitude taken by our senior founder with regard to the political and social movements 
 of the day. His gratitude to that pious monarch George IV. for having signed the 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 3o ( J 
 
 Act of 1812, his nervous desire that the Connexion should keep on friendly terms with 
 the Government lest camp meetings should be put down these feelings surely 
 culminated and found singular and dramatic expression when Hugh Bourne invaded 
 the Conference Chapel at Tunstall which happened to be his own and demanded 
 the expulsion of a delegate on the ground that he was a " speeching Radical." And 
 because Hugh Bourne was master of the situation he had his way. We can easily see 
 naw, that this act was as irrelevant and futile as the brandishing of Mrs. Partington's 
 mop, or, lest that should seem too undignified a comparison let us say as futile as 
 Canute's rebuke at Gainsboro' to the advancing tide. 
 
 Who the "speeching Radical" at the Conference of 1821 was, cannot now be 
 ascertained. It could not well be John Skevington, who was then but nineteen years 
 of age. But we are not so sure, after all, whether Hugh Bourne had not a hand in the 
 
 keeping out of John Skevington. It may be a mere coincidence, or it may be of such 
 significance as to furnish a clue, that the resolution which was Loughborough Circuit's 
 answer to John Skevington's application for redress and reinstatement, was written by 
 Hugh Bourne himself. But why? Well; if in 1838 Skevington was already 
 a "veteran Radical," he must in 1836 have been for some time known as that most 
 objectionable of characters a "speeching Radical." Hugh Bourne's assured know- 
 ledge of this fact, coupled with his well-known views, and his ascendency in Lough- 
 borough Circuit's councils, may have been largely responsible for the refusal to open 
 the door for readmission. " The door is shut : it is well ; let it remain shut." 
 
 Staffordshire, as well as Leicestershire, had its sturdy Primitive Methodist Chartist, 
 whose story has recently been told with quite remarkable sympathy and graphic skill 
 
 z 2 
 
340 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 by an honoured minister of a sister community who knew Joseph Capper well. * We 
 shall only presume to borrow one interesting quotation from this book. To do more 
 would be unfair to the author, whose book, abounding as it does with information as to 
 the condition of things in Tunstall and Burslem in the Chartist period^ and the 
 kindliest references to the Avork of our own Church, should be read for its own sake. 
 Our single quotation shall introduce us to the Primitive Methodist local preacher, 
 blacksmith, and Chartist whom "an Old Potter" evidently regards as a hero : 
 
 "Joseph Capper was born near Xantwich, in the year 1788. In early life he came 
 to Tunstall, and was destined to make it famous in a famous crisis in his country's 
 history. He had had but little schooling, but he had learned to read his Bible, the 
 sole lesson-book of so many poor people in that day. It has been said that he was 
 almost a man of one book. But this one book happened to be the greatest, even as 
 literature, in our language. Capper seems to have laved its storied pages, its 
 sacred counsels, and its revelation of Divine love. Whatever he was, as man and 
 citizen, as patriot and Christian, he was made so by the teachings of his Bible. 
 His ordinary speech got its quaintness and unction and force from its pages. His 
 imagination was stirred and illuminated by its imagery. Neither the schools nor 
 society had tinctured his strong nature. He was a Bible-made man in every 
 function and activity of his life. He was made, as the humbler Puritans were 
 made, without any knowledge, perhaps, of their literature, excepting probably the 
 " Pilgrim's Progress." He was as stern as the Puritans were in their love of 
 righteousness and their hatred of tyranny. With less of gloom in the tenets he 
 held, he had broader conceptions of liberty. Perhaps this was because of the 
 Methodist leaven which entered early into his life, for we are told he was one of 
 the first converts in the great Primitive Methodist camp meeting held on Mow Cop 
 in 1807. He afterwards became a local preacher in the same denomination. 
 Primitive Methodism at first was a demand for wider liberty in evangelical 
 methods in preaching out of doors. While it cherished all the fervour of the early 
 Methodists, it resented the restrictions of what were believed to be the hardening 
 and narrowing respectability of the parent body of Methodists. Joseph Capper 
 found in the Primitive Methodist Society an atmosphere in which he could breathe 
 more freely and a sphere of labour he loved. He travelled many miles on Sundays, 
 preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was one of the noble band of men in all 
 the Methodist bodies who made heroic self-sacrifices in carrying the Gospel to 
 outlying districts, where, but for their labours, it would hardly ever have been 
 heard, and certainly not heard with the fervour and simplicity with which they 
 preached it. This habit of life was the reason why, in later days, finding the clergy 
 among his bitterest political opponents, he so strongly girded at them and told 
 them to preach for nothing as he did. . . . He was the leading spirit of many 
 Chartist meetings. His vigour was perennial, and, in spite of advancing years, he 
 gave himself to the cause which carried the promise of political redemption " 
 (pp. 143-4 and 146). 
 
 Like John Skevington, Joseph Capper was no believer in, much less an advocate of, 
 violent measures. He was not numbered with the Physical Force Chartists. Yet 
 a vindictive government was not careful of nice distinctions. It was only too glad to 
 
 * " When I was a Child." By an Old Potter. Methuen & Co., 1903. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 341 
 
 avail itself of any chance that offered to strike a blow at Chartism, regardless of the 
 particular tenets moderate or extreme held by its victims. So Capper than whom 
 " no purer and more loyal patriot lived in the Queen's realms," was pounced upon and 
 made to suffer. On Monday, the 14th August, 1842, he spoke with Cooper at an 
 open-air meeting at Hanley, and then went home to his blacksmith's anvil and forge. 
 Though, doubtless, he heard, during the week, of the wild work going on at Hanley, 
 and also at Burslem, where maddened men marched along to the strains of 
 
 " The lion of freedom's let loose from his den ; 
 And we'll rally round him again and again, 
 
 to commit arson and pillage ; yet Capper quietly and sadly went on with his work. 
 But on the Sunday evening, after he had taken part in the services of the sanctuary 
 and family devotions were over, four men broke in upon the peaceful household, and 
 Joseph Capper was led away. He stood two trials for " sedition, conspiracy and 
 rioting," and endured two years' imprisonment in Stafford gaol. He came out of prison 
 broken in health, but unshaken in conviction and unsubdued in spirit, and to be held 
 in respect and reverence until the end, which came January, 1860. His biographer, 
 who has so nobly revived his name and vindicated his character, has written this final 
 word of him : "I have never met a man who did more to enrich England with simple 
 ideals of progress, freedom, and goodness. . . . He was a citizen who saw the 
 greatness and glory of his fellow-country must spring from its freedom, its industry, 
 and its character." Such an estimate as this, unsought, unbiassed, amply justifies us in 
 placing Joseph Capper side by side with John Skevington as men who exemplified and 
 illustrated in a troublous time that sane, balanced, humane yet strenuous Christian 
 democracy which Primitive Methodism tended, and yet tends, to foster. 
 
 We have briefly outlined the course of events until 1842 so far as Loughborough and 
 Leicester are concerned ; but nothing has been said as yet of the mission work under- 
 taken by these two circuits during the same period. For 
 this rapid survey the year 1819 must be taken as the 
 starting point. In the February of this year, John Garner 
 began his labours in the Loughborough his native 
 Circuit, under somewhat unfavourable circumstances ; for 
 Robert Winfield, of whom more anon, had just made 
 a division and the societies were unsettled. John Garner 
 was a valuable acquisition to the ranks of the itinerant 
 ministry, although he was barely twenty years of age. 
 He brought " a comely person, a cheerful temper, agree- 
 able manners, a fine voice, ardent zeal, and a vigorous 
 constitution." Some of these qualities especially the 
 cheerful temper and the vigorous constitution, were soon 
 severely tested. Neither his comely person nor his agree- 
 able manners availed to save the stripling from being 
 JOHN GARNER. the victim of persecution of the very worst kind that 
 
 of personal maltreatment. Indeed, his experience of rough usage 'goes beyond anything 
 
342 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 we have yet had to chronicle, unless it be the treatment Thomas Jackson (1) met 
 with at Oakham, of which we have no details. In the case of John Garner, he 
 himself has left a description of what he passed through at Sow, near Coventry, on 
 the confines of the Loughborough Circuit, where in May, 1819, he had gone to do 
 pioneer work. This moving description ranks as a historical document and calls for 
 preservation. He begins his narrative by saying : 
 
 "At this place (Sow) we had preached several times, but to little purpose, the 
 inhabitants being vile persecutors, and the parish clergyman conducting himself 
 towards us in so vile a manner that prudence forbids it being published. No sooner 
 had I entered the village than stones were flying in every direction. I made haste to 
 the house of Mr. where a few people were assembled to hear the word of life. 
 The mob followed me, surrounded the house, broke the windows, and compelled me to 
 
 SPOT OX RIVER SOW, AT AVALSGHAVE-ON-SOW, NEAR COVENTRY, 
 
 Where Rev. J. Garner was ducked in February, 1819. 
 
 stop the meeting. Seeing no probability of the persecution abating, I was necessitated 
 to expose myself to the malicious rage of the wicked, by whom I was furiously driven 
 out of the village with stones, rotten eggs, sludge, or whatever came first to hand. The 
 friends who accompanied me seeing the madness of the mob, became afraid, and 
 endeavoured to effect their escape by taking a footpath. The rebels followed me out of 
 the village, and some of them seized me ; others propped my mouth open with stones, 
 while some were engaged in attempting to pour sludge down my throat. The cry was 
 
 raised, " Kill the devil ! d him ! " Immediately a man knocked me down, and 
 
 after I had been shamefully beaten with the hands and feet of my enemies, and with 
 divers weapons, I was dragged to a pond, around which they gathered, hoping soon to 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 343 
 
 be gratified with my death. At this juncture of time I had not even a faint hope of 
 ever being rescued from them alive ; hence I committed my body and soul into the 
 hands of the Lord, and most earnestly wished for death to put an end to my sufferings, 
 which were almost insupportable. However, ' the thoughts of the Lord are not as our 
 thoughts, neither are His ways as our ways,' for, contrary to my expectations, He 
 made a way for my escape. One of the vilest persecutors rescued me from the fury of 
 his companions ; and some of them pursued my friends, who had at first escaped. 
 Then the rebels were withdrawn from me. After having walked a few hundred 
 yards, I perceived a woman much affected, tears were rolling down her cheeks ; she 
 kindly invited me into her house, and then assisted in washing my head and face. 
 Being somewhat recovered, through the hospitality of my hostess, I returned, with the 
 assistance of a friend, to walk to Bell Green, a distance of perhaps two miles, and by 
 my kind friends at this place I was cordially entertained and taken care of. They lent 
 me what clothes I wanted ; for my persecutors had also torn my clothes, of a portion 
 of which they afterwards made a scarecrow. After being carefully nursed at Bell 
 Green a few days, I was enabled to attend to my usual labour." 
 
 We have hitherto met with nothing quite so dark as this picture of the reception 
 Warwickshire gave our missionaries in the person of John Garner. And yet, dark as 
 the picture is, its blackness is here and there relieved by gleams of brightness the 
 promise of better things to come. Witness the chief persecutor turned into a protector ; 
 the mother's heart of the woman crying over somebody's bairn as she washes the filth 
 from his comely face and laves his bruises ; the freely offered shelter with bed and 
 board and wardrobe. Nor is the picture without its touch of grim humour, as we see 
 these Warwickshire persecutors, in their severely practical way, making the preacher's 
 torn garments, useless for anything else, do duty to frighten the blackbirds from their 
 currant-bushes. When September came, John Garner left this part of the country and 
 moved off to Tunstall Circuit, as Hugh Bourne and John Wedgwood had done before 
 him, to take his part in the wonderful revival which will make Cheshire another famous 
 Connexional centre. 
 
 Meanwhile, Loughborough Circuit held on tenaciously to this tract of country. In 
 1820 we find William Jefferson (1) labouring on the Welton branch, and then he passes 
 from the stations and we know not what becomes of him. But where is Welton ? 
 It may perhaps help us to locate this village which, until 1841, stood as the nominal 
 head of what began as the Warwickshire Mission, if we say it is a village in 
 Northamptonshire, lying in what may be called the " Naseby country," midway between 
 Daventry, whence Charles I. marched to his last fight, and Market Harborough in 
 Leicestershire. The boundaries of this mission in two counties have been shifting, its 
 very constituents variable, and its fortunes fluctuating, though never mounting high at 
 any period. And yet, though villages and even towns of some size, like Daventry and 
 Lutterworth, have been abandoned, the labour spent on this apparently niggard soil by 
 good men has not been wholly in vain. Parts of the old circuit still remain under 
 other names and in other combinations. John Woolley, Robert Bent and W. G. Bellham 
 were amongst the early workers on the Welton branch. The latter began his labours 
 there in 1823, and met with a rough reception at Daventry. Cries were raised "No 
 bacon preachers ! Church and King for ever ! " They carried him up the street and 
 
344 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 W. G. BELLHAM. 
 
 back again he all the while clinging to the chair on which he had first stood to preach. 
 Then they " Jonathan Barneyed " him ; that is to say, they treated him much in the 
 same way as oranges in a bag are treated, when a couple of costermongers roll them 
 backwards and forwards ; only in this case the bag was represented by a ring of rough 
 men who, when Mr. Bellham tried to get out at one rim of the circle, pushed him back 
 to the other, and he was so battered and hustled that at last he fell, and expected 
 
 nothing else than that he would part with his life under 
 the feet of his tormentors. But the Lord mercifully pre- 
 served him, and he came out of all this " witli the loss 
 of his hat and one lap of his coat ; " nor does he omit 
 to mention that, even here, " the people generally were 
 sympathetic." A society was formed at Daventry, and here 
 most frequently the preacher resided, but the society was 
 never other than feeble. Welton became a circuit in 1824 
 the same year as Leicester but in 1830 its membership, 
 through some cause, had sunk to ninety-three, and it was in 
 contemplation to attach it to Leicester Circuit ; especially 
 as the young man put down to it was just entering the 
 ministry, and wished to be under a superintendent rather 
 than be one himself. But John Brownson was put down 
 for bare-pastured Welton after all, and did his best ; and 
 the reason his very natural wishes were overruled is no 
 doubt to be found in the following letter, which we have pleasure in giving, not only 
 because it affords evidence of the humane, paternal interest taken in young preachers 
 by the General Committee of that day, but also because it casts an interesting sidelight 
 on another honoured name which will come before us that of John Petty. 
 
 " Dear Brethren : Welton Circuit being united with Leicester Circuit arose 
 entirely from the difficulty of its present situation, and from Brother Brownson's 
 reluctance to travel except under a superintendent. But as that reluctance 
 appears now, in some degree, done away, and as he thinks the circuit not hopeless, 
 the difficulties are removed. We have therefore put it down as a circuit separate 
 from Leicester Circuit, and Brother Brownson as preacher. 
 
 "Derby Circuit was once reduced to a similar situation, and G. Appleby was 
 called out to travel in it, and he brought it about, and became a good 
 superintendent. 
 
 " Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, South Wales, was in a manner a complete 
 wreck. And John Petty was called out and sent to it. He was young, and they 
 thought him a mere boy. However, he stopped there, and soon began to bring 
 things about. He laboured there two years and fully brought up the work, and 
 now he is one of the best superintendents in the Connexion. His being so 
 appointed at Haverfordwest, made him expert in the office of superintendent. 
 
 " And we have no doubt of Brother Brownson's being able, with perseverance, to 
 bring up the circuit. We believe him to be of a harmonizing turn, and that he will 
 by degrees succeed in harmonizing the whole circuit. But there is one thing we 
 wish, and that is that he do not labour beyond his strength so as to injure his 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 345 
 
 health ; but that in prayer meetings, after preachings, and at other times, he get 
 others to labour chiefly, he only conducting the meetings. And, too, he must get 
 them to be short in their exercises. 
 
 " In behalf of the General Committee, 
 "DAVID PAISLEY, 
 
 "Assistant Coi'responding Member." 
 Address : 
 
 " ME. CHAMBERLAIN, 
 
 " Grocer, 
 " Market Place, 
 
 " Daventry, 
 
 " Northamptonshire." 
 
 On the Welton Circuit plan for July-October, 1824, we find both Northampton and 
 Coventry. The former had only a temporary place on the plan ; it is not found on the 
 next one, and it was not until ten years later that Northampton became a mission of the 
 powerful Burland Station with James Hurd as its first missionary. The connection of 
 
 Welton with Coventry was longer and closer. The poet tells 
 
 us how he 
 
 " waited for the train at Coventry : 
 He hung with grooms and porters on the bridge 
 To watch the three tall spires ; and there I shaped 
 The city's ancient legend." 
 
 There is a simple Primitive Methodist legend of how W. G. Bellham 
 once shamefacedly walked these streets. He was a young man of 
 twenty-six, and his top-coat was very shabby, so he carried it 
 over his arm in order to hide its imperfections. But thinking 
 that he had allowed pride to get the better of him, he resolved 
 to do penance for his weakness. He retraced his steps, put on 
 
 the shabby coat, and went over the ground again indifferent to prying eyes. When, 
 in 1849, Coventry makes its appearance on the stations as an independent circuit, it 
 will be through the agency, and as part of Tunstall District. 
 
 Besides the five counties that are represented on the 1823 plan, Leicester, the offshoot 
 of j Loughborough, has the credit of breaking ground in a sixth county Oxfordshire. 
 Scarcely had it achieved circuit independence for itself, than it commissioned William 
 Allcock to take his travel-staff and set it up in " the most eligible locality he could 
 find." He fixed upon Witney, the blanket-town, and the surrounding villages, and, 
 certainly, if spiritual destitution constitutes eligibility, his choice could not have been 
 bettered ; for many of the villagers had not heard a sermon for twenty or thirty years, 
 as though they had been living in Patagonia rather than within easy distance, and 
 almost in sight of the spires and towers of Oxford's churches and seats of learning. As 
 we read the story, one cannot but feel that in 1825 some " Oxford Movement" or other 
 was sorely needed to pierce the gross darkness that covered the people. Before the end 
 of the year 1824, W. Allcock had W. Shim well to share his toils and privations 
 literally privations ; for sometimes food was scarce and they had no roof to shelter them. 
 
346 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Yet they persevered. Some notorious sinners were converted, and ere Christmas-day 
 came, the two missionaries were able to report 135 members, of whom ten were local 
 preachers and exhortere. In May of the following year, W. G. Bellham, with three 
 local preachers, set off one Friday to assist at the first camp meeting ever held in 
 Oxfordshire. Preaching on their way, they reached Witney, where a mile and a half 
 out of the town the camp meeting was to be held. The usual processionary service to 
 the ground took place, which for noise must surely have beaten the record ; for forty 
 horns, we are told, were blowing at once as they marched on. The whole town was 
 moved, and hundreds followed the procession. One of the two waggons used as 
 a preaching-stand was upset by the roughs ; yet, despite turbulence and opposition, 
 fifteen or sixteen persons were crying for mercy at one time. Next day, one of the 
 
 brethren stood up in the Market Place to preach, while all sorts of missiles chiefly 
 rotten eggs were flying. 
 
 Being in tolerable force, it was deemed a fitting opportunity to " storm Oxford." So- 
 the same evening (May 24th), they entered the city, and Mr. Bellham stood up against 
 the walls of the City Prison, and the service began in quietude. But presently the 
 gownsmen came out carrying eggs in their handkerchiefs, which were freely applied. 
 One student got himself knocked down by an indignant citizen, and a town-and-gown 
 row ensued. The missionaries were so besmeared with eggs and filth that they " took 
 a wisp of straw to a pump and cleansed themselves as well as they could." The hardly- 
 bestead missionaries found welcome shelter and entertainment in the home of a pious 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 347 
 
 Baptist family. The attempt on Oxford may be said to have failed, but Witney and 
 the villages around received the Gospel. In 1826 Witney stands as the head of 
 a circuit, with John Hallam as its preacher. By 1827, the circuit, with its judicious 
 
 BUTTER CROSS AND TOWN HALL, \VITNEY. 
 
 Where Open-Air Services have been held for many years. 
 
 and every way excellent superintendent, was transferred to the Tunstall District, with 
 
 which we leave it for the present. 
 
 Rugby may be regarded as the heir and representative of Welton Circuit, which 
 Connexionally deceased in 1841. "Rugby Mission" stands con- 
 nected with Nottingham Circuit on the list of stations for 1842 ; 
 and the circumstances which led to our establishment in this 
 town of Public School fame make an interesting story. As far 
 back as the beginning of the second decade of the last century, 
 a blacksmith, named Flavel, lived at Newbold-on-Avon in 
 Warwickshire. He had a wayward, drunken son, who gave 
 him much concern. In his solicitude, he was anxious that the 
 Primitives, of whose doings in Staffordshire and elsewhere he 
 had heard, should visit Xewbold, if haply they might be the 
 means of rescuing his son from his evil courses. He declared 
 that should they come, they should have his horse-block 
 
 to preach from, and any other help he could give. They did come to Newbold 
 
 JOHN HALLAM. 
 
348 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 RUGBY OLD CHAPEL AND MINISTER'S HOUSE. 
 Now turned into three Cottages. 
 
 and did preach from the horse-block but the father " died without the sight." 
 The son, however, respecting whom he was so solicitous, got converted, and his 
 name is found in the list of "Exhorters" on the plans of 1824. He became 
 a zealous local preacher, and wherever he lived at Kewbold, Coventry, Long 
 Lawford made himself useful in the cause. But the years went on, and Rugby 
 continued to defy attack. The chevaux-de-frise of respectability and churchy 
 
 THE PRESENT RUGBY CHAPEL. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 349 
 
 exclusiveness had not as yet been partially levelled by the advent of the railway, 
 and seemed difficult to overcome. ~\V. Flavel saw where the difficulty lay and what 
 was wanted. So in 1839 he took the decisive step of offering to go and live 
 at Rugby, in order that his house might serve as the base of operations. He went and 
 
 W. FLAVEL. 
 
 HY. FLAVEL. 
 
 MRS. MARSOX. 
 
 had his prompt and rich reward, for the first convert was his own son. For years the 
 names of "W. and H. Flavel were on the plan together, and then Henry emigrated 
 to Xew Zealand, where he died in the faith. William FlavePs daughter Mrs. Marson 
 still survives as the oldest member of the Rugby Society. After being a mission Rugby 
 became an independent station in 1881. The first chapel of 1841 was superseded by 
 the present excellent chapel in 1878, and recently the Sabbath school has been greatly 
 enlarged. 
 
 LUTTERWORTH CAMP MEETING SITE. 
 
350 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Lutterworth and Rugby have had very dissimilar histories. While the latter 
 accepted the railway in the beginnings of the railway movement, Lutterworth rejected 
 it. It seems strange that when it was in question to take the London and North 
 Western via Northampton, landowners and graziers should have fought against the 
 proposal, on the ground that the smoke of the passing engine would seriously discolour 
 the wool of the sheep, and that the continuous rush of the locomotive through the 
 meadows would so disturb the cattle as to interfere with the .process of their fattening. 
 So the line was diverted from the course originally marked out for it by the engineers, 
 and was made to pass eight miles or so to the left of Lutterworth. Rugby became Dickens' 
 " Mugby Junction " a noted railway centre, while Lutterworth was left to its bovine 
 sleepiness for a term of years, until the Great Central came along. Lutterworth does 
 not seem to have taken to Primitive Methodism much more kindly than to the railway. 
 Its name stands on the Leicester plan of 1827-8 with the letters 0. T. against it ; 
 which we conjecture to mean " on trial." If so, the trial resulted in failure, for in 
 
 J1ELTON-MOWBRAY. 
 
 Showing the Market Place, where the first Open-Air Services were held. 
 
 1839, during Mr. Morgan's term as superintendent, another attempt was made to 
 mission the town. A camp meeting was held near the spot on which Wycliffe's 
 exhumed bones were burned, and near " the Swift which was to convey his ashes into 
 Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean, so that 
 the ashes of Wycliffe became the emblem of his doctrine which now is dispersed all 
 the world over."* A society was formed, and in 1841 a chapel built, but the cause 
 remained feeble, and, after some years, finally flickered out, and Primitive Methodism is 
 not represented in Lutterworth to-day. 
 
 Melton-Mowbray was missioned by Loughborough. Though Wedgwood had preached 
 at Melton in the open-air in 1818, no permanent society was raised until 1834. In the 
 July of that year Loughborough sent three local preachers to hold two services in the 
 open-air, and by the end of the year there was a society of thirty members in the pork- 
 pie town. " There is a record in the Loughborough Circuit books relating to Melton, 
 which goes to show that the first General Missionary Committee, established by enact- 
 
 * Thomas Fuller. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 351 
 
 ment of the Conference of 1825, was not quite the dead letter it is sometimes thought 
 to have been. The Quarterly Meeting of October 1834 resolved: " That application 
 be made to the General Missionary Committee for a donation of 10 to assist us in our 
 mission at Melton." The application was so far successful that a grant of 6 was 
 obtained. During the year 1835 societies were formed at Nether Broughton, Clawson, 
 and Frisby, and chapels built at Melton and Scalford. The outlook seemed so 
 promising that a preacher was put down to Melton-Mowbray, and in 1836 it became 
 a, separate circuit. In 1842 it had 214 members. 
 
 THE SILENCING OF JOHN BENTON. 
 Three events happened in 1818, or soon after, that have all the appearance of being 
 
 MELTON-MOWBRAT FIRST CHAPEL. 
 Now private house. 
 
 MELTOX-MOWBRAT PRESENT CHAPEL. 
 
 terminal and prelusive of change. These events are of similar character, and have 
 their parallel in the retirement of James Crawfoot just after the establishment of 
 Primitive Methodism in Staffordshire. The reference to these will appropriately close 
 the present chapter, in which the development of Leicestershire Primitive Methodism 
 until 1842 has been sketched. These three events are, (1) the retirement of Hugh 
 Bourne from the office of general superintendent through illness, (2) the discontinuance 
 of John Benton as a labourer in the mission field, and (3) the separation of Robert 
 Winfield. 
 
 The first event has already been touched upon in another connection. Here it is 
 referred to because it ended the system of giving unification to the Connexion which 
 had obtained since 1814. Hugh Bourne was now almost wholly given up to Tunstall 
 
352 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Circuit, and though Nottingham had its Circuit Committee, and Leicestershire was not 
 without its capable officials, there was left " a gap in discipline " which the Preparatory 
 Meeting of 1819 was intended to supply. As to the separation of R. Winfield, 
 growing out of his refusal to accept his appointment to Hull that will more 
 appropriately be dealt with in our next chapter. 
 
 The retirement of Benton must detain us a little while. Had he died, or emigrated, 
 or seceded, our task would have been a simpler one. But he lived for thirty-eight 
 years after his retirement ; and yet he became in a sense dead to Primitive Methodism. 
 This is the fact that needs explanation. We are not specially prepared for this retire- 
 ment by anything we have met with or observed. We might, possibly, have predicted 
 the retirement of Crawfoot ; scarcely that of Benton. The event comes upon us 
 somewhat as a surprise, and we are almost ready to bring in the verdict Silenced by 
 the visitation of God. 
 
 ROUND HILL CAMP MEETING SITE. 
 
 In the month of May, 1818, two months after the opening of Leicester a great 
 camp meeting was held at Round Hill a popular site for such gatherings. With 
 characteristic precision Hugh Bourne thus describes the position of Round Hill. "It 
 is an elevated piece of ground, about three and a half miles from Leicester, and is 
 situated at the junction of the Roman Fosse Way with the Melton Turnpike Road." 
 Time and place were favourable for a large gathering ; and there was one. From every 
 direction people came, on foot and in vehicles of all kinds, until it was computed there 
 were ten thousand persons present. The meeting was well supported by preachers and 
 praying labourers. The morning service had been powerful, yet marked by decorum. 
 At noon the converting work broke out, and the cries for mercy were loud and 
 continuous. Benton was in great force ; and as he spoke on " the great day of God's 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 353 
 
 wrath," and the feelings of some of the people were much wrought upon, a panic 
 ensued. This is how we prefer to state what really occurred. Herod says that 
 a gentleman's horse that was right in the midst of a mass of people began to rear and 
 " squeal " ; that some thought the day of judgment in very truth had come ; others that, 
 like Korah and his crew, the Primitives were offering unhallowed fire, and that the 
 earth was about to open and swallow them up ; that some fell upon one another in 
 heaps, while others fled, not daring to glance behind them. It is a strange and, one 
 cannot but think, an over-coloured picture of what really happened. There was a panic 
 that is clear ; and it is the very peculiarity of panic fear that it can give no reasonable 
 account of itself or of what is done under its influence. We may never know what 
 the people thought or whether, indeed, they thought at all. But there was panic fear 
 and confusion, a human welter, danger to life and limb ; and Benton did the only right 
 
 COSTOCK FARM-HOUSE, THE RESIDENCE OF MR. W. WOODROFFE. 
 
 thing under the strange unforeseen circumstances. He lifted up his voice and spared 
 not. He shouted until he seriously injured his larynx some say, less probably, he 
 burst a blood-vessel. Whichever it was, it is evident he seriously injured himself; 
 for on the 25th May, Hugh Bourne, who is at Wyrley, writes : " Heard yesterday that 
 John Benton was still unwell perhaps dangerously." 
 
 Assuming injury to the larynx, the medical prognosis agrees with the evidence 
 available as to the course of events that followed. Benton lost his voice for a time 
 probably for a considerable time. On August 8th, Hugh Bourne called at Costock and 
 notes " John Benton's voice is low ; he cannot preach." He may not have been able 
 to speak above a whisper for some months, but he did not permanently lose his voice 
 for there is the evidence afforded by his own family, and of those still surviving who 
 in their youth heard him, that he frequently preached, and that his voice regained 
 
 A A 
 
354 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 something of its old power. This evidence is quite sufficient: but it finds additional 
 confirmation from his signing himself on the deed of Dead Lane as "Dissenting 
 Minister," whereas, in 1837, he is described as "Farmer." 
 
 The former description would seem to imply that, if in 1819 he were not actually 
 preaching, he had not yet relinquished the purpose of doing so, regarding it still as his 
 main business in life ; whereas the later description would best be explained by 
 concluding that in 1837 he had ceased his missionary labours in order to enjoy a restful 
 eventide. The frequent change of residence that marked the earlier years is also 
 confirmatory of the view that he was still missioning. Again, there is before us one of 
 his hymn books, printed by W. Ordoyno, Cross Street, Nottingham, bearing the date 
 1834, which contains the notification: "These hymns are the private property of John 
 Benton, having originated from him ; therefore this is to warn all people against printing 
 them." This piece of evidence, also, fits in with the view that after recovering his voice 
 Benton resumed his old course of life. 
 
 On the other hand, the evidence is equally indisputable that, after July, 1818, John 
 Benton's name never stood on a Primitive Methodist plan, and that he was never 
 officially active in our Church. Yet there is not, as far as we know, a shred or particle 
 of reliable evidence to prove that he fomented a division or set up another community. 
 He financed Dead Lane fifteen months after his retirement ; its pulpit Avas open to him ; 
 and his relations with that Church seem to have been forbearing and friendly to the end. 
 There is no hint of any breach of friendship with his former colleagues ; on the contrary, 
 H. Bourne was occasionally his guest. 
 
 But the strongest evidence is that supplied by Benton's own family, in that his own 
 wife and son who both outlived him, died in communion with our Church. John Benton 
 was married to Miss Elizabeth Woodroffe, December 3rd, 1817, she being then thirty- 
 seven and he thirty-four years of age. Miss Woodroffe was the daughter of a well-to-do 
 yeoman farmer of Costock, whose social standing rather than his gentle blood is indicated 
 by the word "Gent." inscribed on his tombstone, and who, if not in circumstances of the 
 greatest affluence, was yet able to give or bequeath a thousand pounds to his daughter. 
 His marriage with the staid daughter of such a house has in it a touch of romance. John 
 Benton might be the first, though certainly not the last, of the early preachers to take 
 a wife from a good home against the consent of parents or guardians to share the 
 inevitable privations of his migratory life. In this case we cannot add to share his 
 poverty ; for in a worldly sense John Benton was as well off' as Elizabeth Woodroffe, 
 though he was probably less refined in manner and speech, and had still less of the 
 tincture of learning. She was his convert, won, it may be, about the time when 
 Loughborough was missioned, from which town Costock was not far distant. 
 Acquaintance speedily ripened into friendship, and friendship into a still warmer 
 sentiment. But, as was not unnatural, the father disapproved of the match. He was 
 a staunch, old-fashioned Churchman, accustomed to be waited upon and to have his own 
 way, and now, that he had turned his three score years and ten, it was not likely he 
 would readily consent for his daughter who had become necessary to him to be carried 
 off by an itinerating Primitive Methodist. The old man's refusal to sanction the 
 marriage was all that was needed to turn what might have seemed a prosaic event into 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 355 
 
 a romantic episode. Elizabeth Woodrofie had made up her mind : so she rode on 
 a pillion behind John Benton to Broughton Sulney where the marriage was solemnised ; 
 nor have we any reason to believe that either of the contracting parties ever repented 
 of that day's doings, or that the wife grew tired of the inconveniences incident to their 
 manner of life. Her husband was ever her hero; "she worshipped the ground he 
 trod." Let it be noted that it was after his marriage, and when the shadow of 
 bereavement rested on his home, that John Benton missioned Leicester ; and when 
 Round Hill camp meeting stopped him he was in the full career of missionary work. 
 Mrs. Benton, as the saying is, " made a good Primitive." She encouraged her husband 
 in his work, and herself occasionally conducted house-services. To the end she 
 exemplified that plainness in dress that characterised the old Primitives. Mrs. Benton 
 survived her husband some years, dying October 13th, 1862 ; her son, W. J. Woodroffe 
 Benton, was for some time the steward of Loughborough Circuit, and died (1889) in 
 communion with our Church. Are the facts thus related compatible with the belief 
 that John Benton headed a schism or that he even identified himself with some 
 other community 1 
 
 No wonder that Humour with her many tongues should voice contradictory opinions 
 
 respecting the facts of which it had 
 but a partial knowledge ; that now it 
 should say that, like W. Lockwood, 
 John Benton had married a rich wife 
 and settled down, and then again should 
 assert that, like Robert Winfield, he 
 had gone off with some grievance in his 
 mind and set up for himself. Both 
 these statements cannot be true together; 
 and in point of fact neither of them is 
 true. The only theory that explains all 
 the facts, so far as diligent research has 
 recovered them, is that John Benton 
 ended, as he began, by being an un- 
 attached Primitive Methodist. When 
 he had so far regained his voice as to 
 be able to preach, Primitive Methodism 
 was fast organising itself. With that 
 necessary inevitable process John Benton 
 had little understanding or sympathy. 
 He reverted more strongly to his old 
 position ; more than ever he became an 
 individualist ; and as we watch his 
 reversion we are reminded of the Avords 
 of Dr. R. W. Dale : 
 
 " The Evangelical movement 
 encouraged what is called an 
 AA 2 
 
 BENTON 8 TOMB, BARROW-ON-SOAB. 
 
356 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 undenominational temper. It emphasised the vital importance of the Evangelical 
 creed, but it regarded almost with indifference all forms of Church polity that 
 were not in apparent and irreconcilable antagonism to that creed. It demanded 
 as the basis of fellowship a common religious life and common religious belief, 
 but was satisfied with fellowship of an accidental and precarious kind. It cared 
 nothing for the Church as the august society of saints. It was the ally of 
 Individualism." 
 
 John Benton was not one who could lend much help in the harmonisation of the ideas 
 of the Church and the Evangel, which harmonisation was very much needed in 1819. 
 John Benton did not try to harmonise them. John Wedgwood had something of the 
 same temperament and cared little for the business side of Church life ; but in 1819 he 
 was transferred to the Cheshire Mission of Tunstall District, and threw himself heart 
 and soul into the revival movement. Here he found his true vocation and he ended by 
 becoming for a short time at least a salaried and duly recognised minister. But 
 John Benton never did adapt himself to the changing conditions. Temperament, 
 training, habit, all conspired to make and keep him an individualist. Yet, he was too 
 much an individualist to be able to become an avowed undenominationalist. If he 
 were any 'ist at all, he continued to be a Primitive Methodist. Such his own people 
 declared him to be, but they likewise said : " he would not be under any one." He had 
 once declared he got his plan from God and would take no other. Many John Bentons 
 would have rendered the crystallisation of Primitive Methodism impossible ; for all that, 
 he was a good man whom God had remarkably owned, and of whom we may and ought 
 to speak with respect and gratitude for the pioneer work he did. If perplexed by his 
 later attitude, let us remember Christ's words : " He that is not against us is on our 
 part." John Benton died in peace, February 5th, 1856, and his mortal part lies in the 
 graveyard of Barrow-on-Soar. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 357 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INTRODUCTION OF PRIMITIVE METHODISM INTO HULL. 
 GENERAL FORECAST OF EVENTS UNTIL 1824. 
 
 |IIE movements of Primitive Methodism necessarily appear more complex, and 
 hence more difficult to follow, the further we get from its beginnings and 
 the more widely 'it extends itself. Still, for some little time to come, we 
 may proceed with our narrative, having a tolerably clear idea of our 
 direction and what we are likely to meet with on the way. It may conduce to the 
 desired clearness if we give a brief outline which subsequent chapters will fill up of 
 the course of events up to and after the Conference of 1824. 
 
 Hull was reached in January, 1819, and, at midsummer of the same year, Hull 
 became the fourth circuit of the Connexion. It looks as though it had been written in 
 the book of destiny, or were the result of some pre-established harmony, that King 
 Edward's town on the Hull and Huniber should be won for the Connexion. Like the 
 Trent, Primitive Methodism had been steadily making for the sea through all these 
 years. It had its source in the Trent country, and like that river, was formed of two 
 branches which effected their junction at Tunstall. Like the Trent it made its way 
 through Staffordshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire, and when we left it in the 
 last-named county, it had got as far as Newark. It is a generalised historic fact so 
 true and graspable as materially to aid the memory that up to this time, Primitive 
 Methodism had done its main work in the country watered by the Trent and its 
 affluents. Not even excepting Leicester, all the chief towns that we have followed* 
 Primitive Methodism into, stand either on the Trent or on one or other of its tributaries. 
 The onward striving which carried our missionaries as far as Newark, was not likely to 
 end there, any more than the water which flowed from Biddulph Moor or Mow into 
 Trent was likely to stand still when it got to Newark. We expect the seaward 
 movement to continue, and to find our missionaries at Gainsborough, the next 
 considerable town on Trent, and then at Hull, Barton, and Griinsby. The expectation 
 is fulfilled to the very letter. Gainsborough was entered late in 1818, and Hull and 
 Grimsby in 1819 ; and the Preparatory Meeting signalises the approximate completion of 
 the movement, and shows that the country from Trent-source to the sea had been 
 traversed. At that meeting the representatives from the four circuits Tunstall, 
 Nottingham, Lough borough, and Hull attempted to give some cohesion and unity to 
 the various societies which had been established between Mow and Hull on the line of 
 the Trent. 
 
 These and similar facts are chronicled in the Minutes of Conference for 1820 and 
 still more in those for 1821. It is to these annual Minutes we have now to look to find 
 the gains of the year registered, just as heretofore we had to look to the circuit plans, 
 
358 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 only now the unit of gain is the circuit instead of a society. At the first Conference of 
 1820, the Connexion was reported to consist of eight circuits, the additional ones the 
 increment on the year's working being Scotter, Sheffield, Darlaston, and revived 
 'Derby. So that after Hull, we have to glance at the introduction of Primitive 
 Methodism into these places and neighbourhoods, Scotter, be it remembered, representing 
 Gainsborough, which was first a branch of Nottingham. Prior to the Tunstall Conference 
 of 182.1, several new circuits had been formed, and as the principle of direct circuit 
 representation to the annual meeting still obtained three delegates from each circuit 
 
 YORKS 
 
 LINCOLN^ 
 
 A/ford 
 o 
 
 /fofffctsj/e 
 
 o 
 
 Sp/'/sfiy 
 
 MAP OF SCOTTER DIST. 1521. 
 
 there should have been upwards of forty delegates to that Conference. This was the 
 Conference from which Hugh Bourne got the "speech ing Eadical" expelled. The delegates 
 assembled were unable to cope with the difficulties of stationing, and business was 
 brought to a dead-lock. H. B. had not been appointed a delegate to the Conference 
 held in his own chapel, and like Achilles had retired sulking to his tent. But his hour 
 of triumph came. Being brought to a stand, the delegates sent for Hugh Bourne to 
 help them out of their difficulties. He did so in a way that proved his possession of 
 statesmanlike qualities. What was tantamount to district meetings were created on the 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 359 
 
 spot by the delegates of contiguous circuits resolving themselves into committees and 
 proceeding to station their preachers by mutual arrangement. The committee-stage 
 over, the whole meeting made the necessary adjustments. As early therefore as 1821, 
 the original system of direct representation of circuits to the annual meeting broke down 
 under its own weight. It was plain that if circuits continued to be formed as rapidly 
 as they had been, it would soon be impossible on the score of expense, if for no other 
 reason -to continue to send three representatives from each circuit. So the arrangement 
 improvised by Hugh Bourne was henceforth adopted : circuits were grouped into 
 districts, and the direct representation of circuits was henceforth limited to district 
 meetings, which court alone was to have authority to send district representatives to the 
 annual meeting. In 1821, then, circuits were first grouped into districts. But not then or 
 in either of the two following years was a workable system of grouping hit upon. It was 
 only in 1824 that the whole Connexion was formed into four districts which should be 
 empowered to send nine delegates to Conference, irrespective of any addition or loss of 
 circuit during the year. This was the principle of representation that obtained until 
 the numerical strength of a district was made the basis of representation the system 
 at present in vogue. The four districts created were Tunstall, Nottingham, Hull, and 
 Sunderland, and out of these all the existing districts have been carved. In order that 
 facts of the same class may be kept together, how one district was evolved from another 
 may be shown from the case of Norwich District. In 1824, Norwich, Fakenham, Lynn, 
 and Cambridge are included amongst the circuits constituting Nottingham District ; in 
 1825, these circuits, with the addition of Yarmouth and Up well, form the Norwich 
 District. Manchester District was formed in 1827 and Brinkworth in 1833, so that at 
 the close of the period with which we are now dealing 1842 the Connexion was 
 a Heptarchy a federation of seven districts. 
 
 But to return to the important year of 1821 and the district arrangements then 
 formulated : the new districts created at this time were Scotter and Sheffield. The 
 former included Grimsby and Lincoln, and it is interesting to note that to these three 
 circuits the whole of North and Mid Lincolnshire was assigned, with the exception of 
 Barton, which belonged, as it still belongs, to Hull District. This old Scotter District, 
 then, may be considered to represent the present Grimsby and Lincoln District, the 
 creation of recent years. Though the latter was in great part formed out of Hull 
 District, with which it stood connected so many years, it had, as we shall see, its origin 
 in the labours of missionaries sent out by Nottingham ; so that its separateness from 
 Hull is a reversion, and justified historically as well as geographically. Sheffield, too, 
 with Barnsley as its one circuit, was made a district, showing that pioneer work was 
 being pushed on in this part which would soon result in Chesterfield, Halifax, 
 Wakefield, and other towns appearing on the roll of circuits. Nottingham alone stands 
 without any new circuit to its credit, but some of its many branches will soon become 
 independent. Tunstall, with Darlaston, Macclesfield and Manchester, attached to form 
 the Tunstall District, show that the mother-circuit has, in good earnest, resumed the 
 work of aggression, and Burland, Oakengates and Ramsor are branches almost ripe for 
 independence. H\ill District comprises Pocklington, Brotherton and Hutton Rudby 
 (soon to be superseded by the better-known Brompton), wherein we may discern the 
 
360 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 promise not only of the present Hull District, but also of Sunderland and the Leeds and 
 York Districts. From these facts we may gather that, until 1824, we have to watch the 
 progress of circuit propagation, and even after the country has been allotted among the 
 four districts Tunstall, Nottingham, Hull and Sunderland as though with a view to 
 the four points of the compass, we shall find that the relative advance of the several 
 districts will very largely be conditioned by the work done by the prolific mother- 
 circuits which do not take rank as districts, of which Scotter and Burland may be taken 
 as the type. 
 
 W. CLOWES' ENTRY INTO HULL. 
 
 Hull may be called the Thessalonica of Primitive Methodism. It was the first sea-port 
 reached by the accredited agents of the denomination ; and though its population, at 
 the time of their entry, was but 42,000,* yet it was already a mart of nations, and a busy 
 
 '.'. ': ., :" ' ' 
 
 SOUTH-EAST VIEW OF KINGSTOX-OX-HULL. 
 
 distributing centre, from which, as from Thessalonica of old, the word of the Lord was 
 to sound forth, not only in the East Riding of Yorkshire, but also in Northumberland 
 and Cornwall, Cumberland and Kent, London, both sides of the Solent, and the United 
 States. Such a record of early missionary achievement on the part of one circuit, is 
 quite enough in itself to lend perennial interest to the questions relating to the origins 
 and success of Hull Primitive Methodism. But when to its missionary record there is 
 added its later and equally remarkable chapel-building record, such questions become 
 doubly interesting, and almost press for an answer. In their search after causes and 
 explanations, the thoughts of many thus shape themselves : Hull has long been spoken 
 of as the "metropolis of Primitive Methodism." You yourself have just called it our 
 Thessalonica, and elsewhere have likened it to Venice, the city-state, that once set fleets 
 and armies in motion. We do not deny the fitness of such comparisons ; we only want 
 
 * The estimate given needs an explanation. The population of Hull, in 1821, was 28,591. But 
 it would be incorrect to regard this as the population at that time of the area which now constitutes 
 Hull. Sculcoates, Drypool and part of Sutton are now included in Hull, but this was not the case 
 in 1821. The area which now constitutes Hull would contain about 42,000 persons in 1821. This 
 information has been kindly communicated through the Rev. C. G. Honor. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 361 
 
 to know the facts which explain, and are supposed to justify, their use. Let us turn 
 then to the facts, in which, perhaps, lies, latent, the explanation desired. 
 
 Primitive Methodism had a good start in Hull, a town which, ever since the 
 days when King Charles tried in vain to wrest it from his Parliament, had been the 
 stronghold of evangelical religion and liberal sentiment ; so that the genius loci may be 
 said to have smiled upon our advent. Moreover, Primitive Methodism went to Hull by 
 invitation, and found auxiliaries ready to help for a time, while some were even ready 
 to give themselves permanently to the movement which they had welcomed. These 
 facts strikingly illustrate, and are best explained by, what was strongly insisted upon in 
 an earlier part of the history the prevalence during the earlier years of the nineteenth 
 century of Revivalism, which was not so much an organised system as it was an impelling 
 spirit a tendency and aspiration. There were some in all the Churches but more 
 
 especially in the mother-Church of 
 Methodism who had sympathy with 
 ardent aggressive evangelism, and 
 who found neither sufficient scope 
 nor encouragement in the societies 
 to which they belonged. So had it 
 been in Staffordshire ; so was it to 
 be in Yorkshire in both Hull and 
 Leeds. Primitive Methodism grew 
 out of Revivalism, and as it had 
 drawn to itself sympathisers and 
 helpers like Winfield in Derbyshire, 
 and Lockwood in Notts, so had it 
 already attracted the attention, and 
 won the sympathy, of an ardent 
 band of Revivalists in Hull. 
 
 Amongst these were Mr. R. and 
 Mrs. H. Woolhouse, who had much 
 WOOLHOCSE'S FACTORY, HULL. to do in introducing Primitive 
 
 Methodism into Hull. It is said they were both class-leaders in the Wesleyan 
 Methodist body. Mrs. Woolhouse was evidently a woman of much zeal and of 
 considerable ability for public labour. Mr. Woolhouse was a sack and sail-cloth manu- 
 facturer, carrying on business in an old factory, still said to be standing, the end of which 
 abuts on North Street near Garden Street. The requirements of his business frequently 
 called him to visit Nottingham and other towns in the Midlands. One such visit was 
 paid to Nottingham in 1817, when he chanced to meet Mr. R. Winfield in the Market- 
 place. The latter was quite full of the revival which had begun under Sarah Kirkland's 
 ministry, and he gave Mr. Woolhouse a pressing invitation to go and hear her. He 
 went and received much good, and caught the contagion of the revival. He observed 
 to Mr. Winfield that " he should like the Primitives to visit Hull ; that he and his 
 wife were class-leaders in the Methodist Connexion ; that Mrs. Woolhouse had a great 
 
362 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 desire to preach, but that she had no encouragement from the people at Hull, and that 
 he believed she would be in her element if she had the privilege of attending such 
 meetings as those in Broad Marsh." On his return, Mr. Woolhouse told his wife what 
 he had heard and seen and felt amongst the people (vulgarly) called " Ranters." The 
 information was deeply interesting to her. Her curiosity was excited to know more, 
 and she determined to visit Nottingham at the first opportunity. The opportunity 
 soon presented itself, and before the end of 1817 Mrs. Woolhouse, accompanied by 
 Miss Healand, went to Nottingham. They engaged lodgings that they might remain 
 some time, so as to form a correct opinion of the religious movement going on. They 
 threw themselves heartily into the work, and were abundant in labours. Having seen 
 a considerable number converted both in town and country, they returned to Hull and 
 spoke at large respecting the great work the Primitives were carrying on. The classes 
 led by the Woolhouses experienced the benefit of this visit. 
 
 Mr. Herod in his "Sketches" tells us that in the summer of 1818 Miss Healand, in 
 company with the celebrated Ann Carr, the Revivalist, paid a second visit to 
 Nottingham. They laboured at camp meetings and at other open-air services, and saw 
 much good effected. On their return to Hull it is said they commenced to preach both 
 in town and country, and that great results followed. According to Mr. Herod they 
 united with the Primitive Methodists, and for two or three years were very successful 
 in the converting work. Miss Healand was subsequently married to a Wesleyan 
 minister. As to the other members of this group of preaching and praying women, 
 Miss Carr and Miss Williams while zealous, were irregular in their movements and, as 
 we shall see, subsequently made a division in our Leeds societies. 
 
 The next stage in the evolution of events was reached when Mrs. Woolhouse 
 personally appeared before the Nottingham December Quarterly Meeting of 1818, to 
 urge that a travelling preacher should be sent to Hull. This she did, not only in her 
 own name, but in the name and on behalf of the other members of the Revivalistic 
 
 sisterhood already referred to. Mrs. Woolhouse also asked 
 that the two young men who accompanied her might be 
 constituted travelling preachers. This request was granted, 
 but as John Hutchinson and Samuel Atterby were at that 
 very time members of the Methodist Church, they had 
 first of all to be received as members, then made local 
 preachers, and lastly appointed travelling preachers. This 
 quick dispatch of the necessary formalities clearly shows 
 that in December, 1818, there was no Primitive Methodist 
 Society existent in Hull. Of the two travelling preachers 
 thus expeditiously made, Samuel Atterby was to render 
 the more effective service. He was a native of North 
 Somercotes in Lincolnshire, and was a shoemaker by trade. 
 He travelled for a considerable number of years with 
 credit to himself and with advantage to the community 
 he served. Plain in his mode of preaching, and in his 
 general habits, he yet knew how to lead souls to Christ. He was distinguished 
 
 SAMUEL ATTERBY. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 363 
 
 for an even peaceable disposition, largely induced by careful Christian culture ; for he 
 himself has left it on record that he early formed the resolution that neither men 
 nor circumstances should disturb the patience of his soul. John Hutchinson also 
 laboured with acceptance and usefulness for a few years, but trouble of some kind 
 overtaking him, he severed himself from our Church and joined the New Connexion. 
 
 Mrs. Woolhouse was favourably listened to when she pleaded for the sending of 
 a missionary to Hull, and at a subsequent stage of the proceedings Robert Winfield was 
 appointed. He was present when the appointment was made, and was understood to 
 acquiesce and to agree to enter upon his important duties in three weeks' time. But 
 at this same long Quarterly Meeting, Hugh Bourne preferred a series of charges of 
 a vexatious, if not of a serious character against Eobert Winfield. One of these was 
 that he had got an edition printed of the "Hymns and Spiritual Songs" Lorenzo Dow 
 had brought over, and was making merchandise of them. There were other complaints 
 of a like sort. At the close of the discussion, though each party appeared to be 
 satisfied, there seems to have been left a sense of ^injury rankling in Winfield's memory ; 
 for a day or two after the meeting he sent a letter to Mr. King declining the mission. 
 Instead of going to Hull he went into Leicestershire, and, whether intentionally or not, 
 was the means of that unsettlement of the societies in the Loughborough Circuit 
 amidst which John Garner began his itinerant labours. He seems to have had the 
 design of founding a distinct denomination, and was so far successful in carrying out 
 his purpose, that a community, some thousands strong and employing several travelling 
 preachers, was the result of his labours. His talented daughter itinerated as preacheress, 
 and became very popular. But Mr. Winfield's gift for converting sinners was much 
 greater than his gift for governing saints, and his sect the "Revivalists" was at last 
 brought into confusion and disruption. He took refuge with the New Connexion and 
 remained with them until his death. 
 
 The letter of declinature was addressed to Mr. King, and came to hand on the 
 Friday of the same week in which the appointment had been made. Mr. King 
 remarks : " I took his letter to the prayer meeting in the evening, held in the long- 
 room, and at the close desired the local preachers and class-leaders present to remain, 
 when I laid Winfield's letter before them, and they decided that some person should go 
 to Tunstall Quarterly Meeting to be held the following Monday." But who was to go ? 
 Mr, King could not ; for he had spent four days that week at the Quarterly Meeting, 
 and there was work waiting for him to do which was as good as ten shillings a day to 
 him. So he went in search of some one who could discharge the duty of delegation, 
 and at eleven o'clock at night he engaged Thomas Simmons, who went to Tunstall and 
 secured Mr. Clowes as a missionary for Hull in behalf of Nottingham Circuit ; whence 
 it will appear that Hull Circuit- with all that came of it was the joint protege of 
 Nottingham and Tunstall. 
 
 Mr. Clowes arrived in Hull on Friday, the 15th January, 1819. If, as was most 
 likely, Nottingham Quarterly Meeting was held from the 10th to the 15th December, 
 a month or so would intervene between the appointment of Mr. Winfield and the 
 arrival of Mr. Clowes. Was any one sent to Hull during this month to labour there 
 until the missionary should arrive 1 The answer is that, though no one was officially 
 
364 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 sent, as a matter of fact, Jane Brown went to Hull unofficially, and preached both in 
 the town and in the adjoining villages, prior to the arrival of Mr. Clowes. She, it 
 ought to be said, had been appointed by the Nottingham Circuit to labour in South 
 Lincolnshire. While there she had formed an acquaintanceship with Mr. George 
 Nicholson, and it was under his escort, and probably at his suggestion, that she made her 
 way to Hull. The late Mr. John Brown, who was a native of 
 Hessle, remembered Jane Brown's visit to Hessle; how she 
 stood upon his stool while preaching ; and how he accompanied 
 Mr. Thompson and eight or nine others to Hull on the following 
 Sunday to hear her preach in the old Penitentiary near High 
 Flags, Wincolmlee. Moreover, Mr. Clowes recognises, and even 
 Mr. King does not deny, the priority of Jane Brown's unofficial 
 labours in Hull. The former records that the first Sabbath he 
 spent in Hull, Jane Brown preached in the afternoon, while 
 he, himself, preached morning and night. So let us unite with 
 
 Mr. Clowes in giving due recognition to Jane Brown's pioneer, 
 JOHN BROWN, " 
 
 IJULL though it may have been unofficial and stop-gap work in Hull, 
 
 as we have recognised Sarah Kirkland's pioneer labours in Derby and Nottingham. 
 
 The George Nicholson who is mentioned above and became the husband of Jane 
 Brown, figured very prominently as a revivalist through the greater part of the first half 
 of the last century. He was a native of North Lincolnshire, belonging to a family that 
 filled a very good position in life ; but George thought little of worldly prospects, and 
 preferred preaching to farming. When our Church was providentially called into 
 existence, he had much sympathy with its spirit and enterprise. Though a Wesleyan 
 local preacher, he cast in his lot with the Primitives, and in companionship and toil 
 with kindred spirits such as John Oxtoby, Robert Coultas, and others became 
 remarkably useful as an itinerant revivalist. There can be no question but that during 
 his life he saw many hundreds brought to Christ. In the end he was again more 
 closely identified with the Wesleyan Methodists, but during the Reform agitation of 
 1850 he joined the Wesleyan Reformers in Louth. In this community he laboured till 
 the time of his death, which took place about 1856. Mr. Nicholson was the first 
 person interred in the Louth cemetery. 
 
 Mr. Clowes, as we have said, entered Hull on Friday, January 15th, 1819. He had 
 been three days on his journey, but he is silent as to the route he took, and recounts 
 no incidents that may have diversified his journey. His thoughts were divided between 
 the endeared home and friends he had left, and the arduous post of duty that awaited 
 him. Arrived in Hull, he at once made his way to the residence of Mr. Woolhouse. 
 What followed, Mr. Clowes shall himself tell us : 
 
 "As soon as I entered the house, Mrs. Woolhouse and John Oxtoby, commonly 
 called ' Praying Johnny,' fell down upon their knees and returned thanks to God 
 for my safe arrival. This act of devotion was very encouraging to me, and 
 became a prelude to greater things. On the very day of my entering into Hull 
 I preached in the evening in an old factory in North Street. Vast numbers of 
 people attended, many influenced by curiosity, others with an intention to create 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 365 
 
 disturbance, having heard of the arrival of the ' Ranter preacher ' : however, God 
 was present in my first effort to make known the riches of His mercy, and the 
 wicked were restrained, so the meeting terminated in peace and quiet. On the 
 day following, I took a walk down to the pottery by the Humber-side, where 
 I had worked upwards of fifteen years before, when I was in the old olive tree, 
 which is wild by nature; but I found the working of the pottery had been 
 discontinued. I, however, entered the place, and proceeded to the room in which 
 I formerly laboured, and kneeled down and praised God for the great change He 
 had wrought in me. I then returned, and took a walk up and down the streets 
 and lanes in which I had formerly wrought folly and wickedness. It brought to 
 my recollection the time and place when captured by the press-gang, and other 
 circumstances of dissipation and riot. Oh, what gratitude filled my soul when 
 indulging in the contrast ! instead of reckless and brutal conduct, throwing the 
 reins upon my passions, neither fearing God nor regarding man, I am now a sinner 
 saved by grace, and a missionary of the cross." Journal, pp. 146-7. 
 
 Mr. Clowes had another reason for thankfulness as he musingly perambulated these 
 streets : he had honourably paid the debts contracted during the period of his wildness 
 and excess, and could look any one in the face as he passed along without fearing to 
 encounter the glance of an unsatisfied creditor. "How majestically he walks!" said 
 a man who heard him at the Old Factory. " Yes ; and his conduct is as straight as his 
 walk ! " was the reply of one who knew whereof he affirmed. * 
 
 " PRAYING JOHNNY " AND OTHER PREPARERS OF THE WAY. 
 
 One of the first and most pressing duties that called for Mr. Clowes' attention on 
 beginning his Hull ministry, Avas to meet those who were desirous to be united in 
 Church-fellowship, to form them into classes, and to bring them under "principles of 
 discipline in conformity Avith the general character of the Primitive Methodist 
 Connexion." Accordingly, at the close of his first Sunday evening's service in the Old 
 Factory, Samuel Atterby, the newly-made travelling preacher, being present, he formed 
 two classes, set leaders over them, and appointed a society steward. Again, the 
 following Tuesday evening, in the same way he formed a society at Hessle, where " the 
 prospect bore a cheering aspect." Such records as these are worth pondering. Those 
 gathered in were not the converts of the day, but the fruit of labours of other days. 
 Where Clowes was, the converting work always went on ; but in this case, it looks as 
 though the ready-ripe fruit had got to be housed before CloAves could give full proof of 
 his evangelistic ministry. He had to garner others' fruit before he had time to gather 
 his own. Another fact of similar import worth following up because of the explanation 
 it yields is, that John Oxtoby was found waiting to welcome Clowes, and that he 
 already was known as "Praying Johnny." Where and when had that name been 
 bestowed? We have not met with John Oxtoby before, and yet his bearing such 
 a name implies a Christian experience of some length, and of such a character that it 
 had struck the public mind. It was not "Praying Johnny" who called himself by 
 
 * " Rev. William Clowes in Hull. A Souvenir," by Eev. Henry Woodcock. 
 
366 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 that name, we may be sure. It was a section of the religious public, familiar with 
 Oxtoby's work and ways, which noted the characteristic and marked it by the name. 
 Now, the explanation of these facts will serve to reconcile the traditionary account of 
 the state of things existing at the time of Clowes' entry into Hull, with the current 
 historical account. Tradition tells of fully .organised Primitive Methodist Societies 
 flourishing at the time William Clowes first set foot in Hull : our biographies and 
 histories write as though he entered on virgin soil, that he began from the very bottom, 
 and, as though, in this case, we have to do with that rarest of all things in nature an 
 absolute beginning. Thus sharply put, neither of these views as to our origins in Hull 
 is correct ; the true view will be found in a combination of the truth in each. The late 
 Mr. John Brown, a native of Hessle, was a thorough-going traditionalist and stoutly 
 maintained that there was a society at Hessle before there was one in Hull. There is 
 nothing antecedently improbable in this assumed priority; on the contrary, were it 
 proved it would simply be another illustration of Primitive Methodism's early 
 predilection for village evangelisation. But the view is untenable. There was no 
 organised Primitive Methodist Society at Hessle or anywhere else north of the Huinber, 
 prior to William Clowes' arrival as the duly appointed missionary ; but there was 
 material waiting asking, one may say to be organised, and, as we have seen, to this 
 work of organisation William Clowes immediately addressed himself. It was not 
 virgin, but prepared soil Clowes entered upon ; but he fenced it round, and wrought in 
 it, and planted and watered it, until, God giving the increase, it became as the garden 
 of the Lord for fertility. This view fits all the assured facts. It does not detract from 
 the honour due to William Clowes, who was not second to any man as a breaker-up of 
 the fallow ground ; while it redounds, not less but rather more, to the credit of Hull 
 as compelling us to see in them "a people prepared of the Lord." Instruments of such 
 preparation were the band of earnest women already named, one of whom Ann Carr 
 was invited by the Hull Quarterly Meeting, of 1820, to enter the itinerant ministry. 
 By their occasional visits to Nottingham these women found refreshment and such 
 stimulus as enabled them on their return to persevere in their chosen mode of Christian 
 service. Yet more avowedly and of set purpose was Jane Brown a preparer of the 
 way of Clowes, by her three or four weeks' unofficial labours in Hull and the neighbour- 
 ing villages. John Oxtoby, too, in his own way and measure, was another preparatory 
 worker. We left him in Mrs. Woolhouse's kitchen, and we will now show how he 
 came to be there as the welcomer of Clowes, and how he got his name of " Praying 
 Johnny." 
 
 Little Givendale, a hamlet near to Pocklington, claims to be the birthplace of John 
 Oxtoby, though he was brought up at Warter. He was born in 1767, so that he would 
 be fifty-two years of age when William Clowes came to Hull. Misled, no doubt, 
 by some self-accusatory references of Oxtoby's, some accounts allege that he led 
 a boorish and profane life before his conversion. But so far from this having been the 
 case, he was a good liver, and so regular a church-goer that when, through sickness of 
 soul rather than of body, he was missed from his accustomed place, the clergyman called 
 to see what had kept his model parishioner from church. The clergyman pooh-poohed 
 the idea that nought ailed Oxtoby but his sins, and promised to send a bottle of wine 
 
THE PEKIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 367 
 
 that would soon put him right. Then he read the prayers for the visitation of the sick, 
 and went his way, having done his poor best to " minister to a mind diseased." 
 
 Oxtoby found salvation amongst the Methodists, and soon became a " general family 
 visitor." At Warter, then a benighted place, he at first met with much opposition in 
 going from house to house. But nowise deterred by this, he went on visiting and 
 praying wherever he could gain admittance, until in the end he was everywhere 
 welcomed. Did he but pass a house without calling, the inmates would cry after him, 
 asking "What they had done that he did not call and pray with them." Soon the 
 people at Warter wanted a chapel, and Oxtoby gave the land required for the purpose, 
 and ten pounds towards the building fund. And yet he was not a man of means, as 
 commonly understood. He was only an agricultural labourer; but, being a bachelor 
 
 with few wants, and frugal and thrifty 
 in his habits, he was able, even out of 
 his small wages, to accumulate savings, 
 and, like Hugh Bourne and John Benton, 
 be master of his own movements. 
 
 Some time after his conversion (which 
 took place about 1804) Oxtoby obtained 
 the blessing of entire sanctification. Now 
 his usefulness was redoubled, and his 
 efforts to do good took a wider range. 
 But he must always have a colleague, 
 and so we find him in association now 
 with Robert Coultas of Acklam, another 
 " devoted, antique, and capricious man," 
 going on religious excursions as a rustic 
 evangelist; and then, in 1818, taking 
 part with George Nicholson a man of 
 much larger mental calibre in a great 
 revival in North Lincolnshire, which no 
 doubt prepared the way for the success of 
 
 Thomas King and his colleagues in the 
 immediately following years. Still more 
 important is it for us to know that on leaving Lincolnshire, Oxtoby, still in conjunction 
 with Nicholson, laboured at North and South Cave, Newbakl, Elloughton, and other 
 villages in the neighbourhood of Hull. Oxtoby must have heard of the Primitives 
 and their doings when in North Lincolnshire, for they Avere already at work in the 
 county, and as near as Gainsborough and Scotter ; and in Hull he was evidently 
 acquainted with Mrs. Woolhouse and her circle, to say nothing of George Nicholson 
 and his friend Jane Brown. No more is needed to explain his welcome of Clowes, and 
 the fact that he at once cast in his lot with the new community and became Clowes' 
 auxiliary, accompanying him on his mission to Swanland, Elloughton, Brantingham, 
 Ellakar, and North and South Cave, at three of which villages Oxtoby had recently 
 laboured in conjunction with George Nicholson. 
 
 VILLAGE CHURCH AND ELM-TREE UNDER 
 WHICH OXTOBY HELD MEETINGS. 
 
368 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 But the man ? We should like to " see him in his habit as he lived," and to know 
 the man as well as the circumstances of his life. Take, then, a pen-and-ink likeness of 
 Oxtoby, which, though imperfect, is accurate as far as it goes. Picture to yourself 
 a man a little below the average height, broad-set, features a little sharp, his garb plain 
 and unpretentious to a degree, brown coat, small-clothes and gaiters, chocolate necker- 
 chief, and unclerical hat, his hair seeming to belong to one living in a world where the 
 coiffeur is unknown, and all the arts of perfumery and adornment have still to be 
 invented. The marks of care and taste in " outward adorning " are to him symptoms of 
 worldly pride and vanity, to be shunned, spurned, and denounced. 
 
 Intellectually, Oxtoby must be acknowledged to have been a man of slender abilities ; 
 nor were his obvious deficiencies compensated, as they sometimes are, by a pleasing 
 manner or natural eloquence. Such a man was not likely to make his mark as 
 a preacher ; nor indeed was he a '' pulpit preacher " when he became acquainted with 
 Clowes, but only a "conversation preacher"; and though he soon ventured to use his 
 talents, such as they were, in the pulpit, yet, beginning so late in life, he never shone in 
 the pulpit and it would have been almost a miracle if he had shone. Like his friend, 
 R. Coultas, he contemned carefully prepared sermons, designating them " paper-pellets," 
 aad he committed himself to a text, trusting to the Divine Spirit to aid him in what he 
 should say. 
 
 Many are the stories preserved by tradition revealing the mingled simplicity and 
 shrewdness of Oxtoby 's character. On one occasion Mr. Flesher, inclined to a little 
 innocent banter, asked Oxtoby "why the results of their preaching were so different. J> 
 " Oh," said John, " thou leads the people to the tree of knowledge, and I leads them to 
 the tree of life." It is scarcely possible to conceive two good men so dissimilar in all 
 respects as John Flesher and John Oxtoby. One was a Sevres vase ; the other an 
 earthenware jug; but in this case our Connexional Chrysostom met with a retort which 
 was not wanting in appositeness and point. Another story belongs to the time when 
 Oxtoby and his friend Nicholson were co-workers in Lincolnshire. One day they were 
 at Kirton Lindsey, and, while sitting in the house of a friend, Nicholson was singing 
 in a low key, " Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it," etc. " You do not sing, Oxtoby ! " 
 said Nicholson. " No ; and I am not going to sing that," replied Oxtoby ; " if I were to 
 sing that I should tell the Lord a lee (lie) ! I none feel prone to wander, not I. My 
 heart is fixed." Pascal, in his "Thoughts," tells us that even a philosopher may argue 
 a little incoherently if a fly be buzzing at his ears. ' So small a thing as that may disturb 
 that sovereign understanding which gives laws to cities and kingdoms. It would seem 
 we have another illustration of the greatness and weakness of man in the case of Oxtoby, 
 for there were times when the normal action of his faith was disturbed by small 
 things. On one occasion, at North Cave, he was seeking to lead a person into a state of 
 salvation when R. Coultas came near and placed his hand on Oxtoby's shoulder. The 
 person did not find a conscious pardon. In the evening Oxtoby said : " Brother Coultas, 
 don't put thy hand on my shoulders any more when I am praying with inquirers : that 
 person would have been saved but for thee." 
 
 Yet there must have been something nay very much in Oxtoby to account for 
 what he achieved and the hold he has on the heart and imagination of our people. Our 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 369 
 
 history affords no better illustration of the striking contrast there may be between the 
 earthen vessel and the treasure it holds. We are jealous lest we should be so 
 pre-occupied with the oddity of the vessel as to overlook the preciousness and divinity 
 of its contents. We may dwell as much as we choose on the commonness of the clay, 
 the plainness and even grotesqueness of the vessel's pattern, if we only go on to the 
 Psalmist's blessed "nevertheless,"* and clearly recognise that this saved agricultural 
 labourer had in a remarkable degree the gifts of faith and prayer. Were there no other 
 
 A STREET IN NORTH CAVE. 
 
 incident in Oxtoby's life than that which shows him wrestling and prevailing with 
 God on behalf of Filey, he would stand confessed a spiritual giant though it may be an 
 intellectual weakling. We cannot help but smile at Oxtoby sometimes, but Oxtoby 
 on Muston Hill is no more a subject for cheap pleasantry than Jacob at Peniel, but 
 rather a sight to be regarded with silent reverence. 
 
 The New Testament recognises the truth that Christ has dispensed 
 a variety of gifts to His Church. One of these is the gift of faith. 
 Oxtoby's faith gave reality and life to the doctrines which he pro- 
 claimed. His creed might consist of but few articles, but these 
 his faith vivified, so that they no longer lay "bedridden in the 
 dormitory of the soul." He was, too, a man possessed by the prayer- 
 spirit. The Eev. Samuel Bottomley, one of our early worthies, 
 a man of sober speech, and who knew him well, says : " He 
 generally spent six hours each day upon his knees, pleading 
 earnestly with God on behalf of himself, the Church, and sinners, 
 whose salvation he most earnestly desired." 
 
 "John Oxtoby finished his mortal career, January 19th, 1830, 
 
 * Ps. Ixxiii. 22-33. "Nevertheless I am continually with Thee." 
 
 BB 
 
 S. BOTTOMLEY. 
 
370 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 at Londesborough, in the house of his sister, where twenty-six years before God had 
 blessed him with a sense of His pardoning mercy." His remains were interred in the 
 beautiful churchyard of Warter. A memorial headstone, the cost of which was met 
 by subscription, was placed over his grave, having on it the following lines written by 
 the late Kev. W. Howcroft : 
 
 " 'Tis not on marble, nor on gilded page, 
 To print thy worth thy charity display ! 
 For chronicles like these may in an age 
 Be lost, and in oblivion pass away. 
 Eternity itself will best unfold 
 The souls led by thee to th' heav'nly fold." 
 
 Through the good offices of the Rev. 
 W. Hayton, a service was held at the 
 grave in 1887, and the stone and grave 
 piously attended to. * 
 
 HULL A LEADING CIRCUIT. 
 
 So swiftly and satisfactorily did the 
 cause progress in Hull and neighbourhood, 
 that at the March Quarterly Meeting 
 Mr. and Mrs. Harrison were appointed 
 to labour on the mission as Clowes' 
 colleagues. At the June Quarterly Meeting 
 Hull was made into a separate circuit, 
 as the plan appearing on the opposite 
 page will show. 
 
 Old plans are not history, but they throw considerable light on history : they are 
 documents pour servir. Given a modicum of knowledge to start with, there is a good 
 deal to be learned from the study of an old plan like this first one of the Hull Circuit. 
 For example, we already know something of the Woolhouses, and so we notice that no 
 less than three members of this family have their place on this first plan. Mrs. Hannah 
 Woolhouse's name stands, appropriately enough, immediately after that of Sarah 
 Harrison, whom we knew as Sarah Kirkland. Hannah Woolhouse, therefore, takes rank 
 as the first local preacher. But Richard Woolhouse, her husband, who seems to have 
 been more anxious that his wife should preach than that he should preach himself, has 
 been induced to try his modest gifts, and his name is first of those who are local 
 preachers on trial. John Woolhouse has his place next after his mother, but in 1821 
 we miss his name; the fact being that in that year he commenced his labours as 
 a travelling preacher, and is on the stations for Grimsby. His itinerant course was only 
 a short one, but while it lasted it seems to have been marked by considerable energy 
 and success. We have already seen him preaching by the light of a lantern at Howden, 
 
 OXTOBY'S GRAVE. 
 
 * See " Life of Oxtoby," by Rev. G. Shaw. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 371 
 
 and in November, 1820, we find him at Knottingley along with Sister Armstrong. 
 Says he in his Journal : " Having spoken a little on what the damned souls would have 
 to endure in hell, I sat down for two or three minutes for them to consider whether 
 
 
 they would go to heaven or hell." From this brief record we may gather that John 
 "Woolhouse was a man very much in earnest, and no stickler for stereotyped methods of 
 conducting religious services. Obviously there is a limit to what the study of old plans 
 
 BB 2 
 
372 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 as a kind of fossilised history can teach us ; and so we often rise from our study of 
 them feeling that we would like to know more. They pique our curiosity only to 
 tantalise us. We would, for example, like to know more about the Woolhouse family, 
 and how it fared with them in the after years. Hitherto, research in this direction has 
 been baffled ; but it is just possible that another old plan furnishes a useful clue. On 
 the Leicester Circuit Plan, for 1827-8, we find, side by side, the names of R. and H. 
 Woolhouse ; and we cannot but conclude that the earliest befrienders of Primitive 
 Methodism in Hull had removed to Leicester, with which town we know Richard 
 Woolhouse had business connections ; and from the position of the names on the plan 
 Nos. 23 and 24 in a list of 55 names we infer that the removal must have taken 
 place some considerable time before 1827. There was yet another member of the 
 Woolhouse family who made herself useful in the early days. Mrs. Woolhouse, junr., 
 was a class-leader, and is said to have conducted a class for children at her own residence. 
 The class was held on Thursday afternoons, at three o'clock, that being the hour when 
 children were loosed from school. 
 
 On the plan are the names of other embryo travelling preachers besides John 
 Woolhouse and John Oxtoby, such as Samuel Laister and John Hewson. Laister was 
 a native of historic Epworth, though at this time at Market Weighton. " He was fully 
 in the doctrine of a present salvation, and had a great love for the souls of men." At 
 the September Quarterly Meeting, 1820, he was stationed to Leeds with Thomas Nelson 
 for his colleague ; and at December, Malton becoming a branch of Hull circuit, he was 
 appointed to labour there. Then we meet with him labouring at Darlington, which in 
 its turn had also been made into a branch, and here his all too-brief course terminated. 
 
 Our plan contains the notification that the Quarterly meeting would be held on 
 September 13th. Now the "preachers' meeting" of that board, brought two of its 
 members under discipline. One of these was John Oxtoby, upon whom, as yet, the 
 preaching harness sat uneasily. So the following resolution was recorded: "That 
 John Oxtoby be reproved by R. Woolhouse for neglecting his appointments, and that 
 he have only one or two on the next plan." W. Rickateson also was "to be spoken to 
 by W. Clowes for long preaching and praying, and for talking about philosophy and 
 astronomy, etc." Imagination may range at will over this et cetera. All the ologies 
 may be wrapped up in it. It was not Bro. Rickateson, but another Yorkshire local, 
 who fell under the same condemnation of introducing astronomy into his discourse. 
 After he had expatiated at some length on stars and systems, an old steward called 
 out : " Let them alone. They'll go reet ; and thee come down and talk to us a bit." 
 
 Turning from the preachers to the places on the plan that were within the borough, 
 we notice that Mill Street stands first, having already superseded the Old Factory in 
 North Street. But we note, further, that no provision is made for services in Mill 
 Street until September 19th. The fact is, the growing requirements of the new-born 
 society and congregation rendered a more commodious building indispensable ; so that 
 in three months from the time W. Clowes entered Hull, the society was in the 
 throes of chapel-building, and in September, Mill Street Chapel was opened. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 373 
 
 MILL STREET CHAPEL. 
 
 A piece of ground at the end of Mill Street, on which some old buildings were 
 standing, was purchased of Mr. Edward Taylor, Waterhouse Lane, rag-merchant, for 
 the sum of 345. Eleven pounds more were spent in clearing the ground for building. 
 The foundation-stone was laid on Friday, the 12th April, and of course W. Clowes and 
 his colleagues took part in the services ; but it was Ann Carr who laid the chief stone, 
 and who seems to have given the principal address. Some who were present remember 
 the excitement produced in the neighbourhood by the fact of a woman's preaching in 
 the open-air, and they tell of the impression her powerful voice, commanding manner, 
 and her individualising mode of address made on the audience.* The chapel was in 
 
 MILL STKEET CHAPEL. 
 
 an unfinished state when opened, as the pews lacked doors, and the building 
 throughout was unpainted ; and even when all was done that had to be done, and the 
 last finishing-touches had been given, there was a studied absence of the attractive and 
 even the convenient, about the building. Architecturally, our fathers did not aim very 
 high. They set before them no lofty ideal of what a place of worship should be. 
 The one problem they cared to solve was this : how to enclose so many cubic feet of 
 space with weather-tight walls and roof, so that sitting (not lounging) room might be 
 found for a given number of men and women to hear the everlasting gospel. No 
 
 * See " Reminiscences of the Early Days of Primitive Methodism in Hull," by Jane Garbutt. 
 
374 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 fewer than three sermons were preached on the opening day, which was Friday, 
 September 10th. The preachers were Thomas King, of Grimsby, "W. Braithwaite, 
 of Scotter, and John Dent ; Messrs. King, Dent and Sarah Harrison occupied the pulpit 
 on the following Sunday; while "sisters Carr and Healand each gave an exhortation." 
 John Harrison remarks of the chapel-opening : " Through all the services we had 
 humbling and weeping times." Now, it is said, a great revival broke out. Some of 
 the outcasts of society became reformed characters, and so great was the alarm felt by 
 some persons about the sinful lives they had led, that it was no unusual thing to continue 
 the Sabbath evening meeting until midnight. These were " protracted services " indeed ! 
 As the result of this revival a large increase of members was reported at the Quarter- 
 day following the opening. 
 
 The total cost of the Mill Street undertaking is given as 1,604 18s. 9d. To us this 
 sum may seem to represent an outlay by no means extraordinary ; but we must recollect 
 that eighty years ago the purchasing power of money was greater than it is to-day ; and 
 further, that amongst those by whom the work was projected and carried out, there was 
 only here and there one who had any other source of income than the returns of his 
 own labour week by week. Amongst the items of expenditure in connection with the 
 building of the mother-chapel, we find four shillings put down for the hire of four 
 constables for the night. The item is significant. It suggests that those who came 
 together to the new chapel opening, were not all models of order and propriety, and it 
 gives incidental confirmation of the realistic pictures W. Clowes occasionally draws of 
 the difficulties under which public worship was conducted at the beginning by him and 
 his colleagues difficulties arising from the rowdiness of some of the populace. Here 
 is one picture which may serve as a sample of the rest : 
 
 "On Sunday, 24th February, I preached morning, afternoon, and evening, in Hull. 
 We had a gracious visit from on high ; but the wicked lifted up their hands against 
 us, and were very violent and fierce in their conduct, and excited the people to 
 such a degree, that they imagined the place was about to fall upon us. Alarm and 
 consternation overwhelmed the multitude in such a manner that they attempted 
 to make their escape from the place. The scene presented an indescribable picture 
 at this crisis, some crying for help, others forcing their way to the door, whilst 
 some threw up the windows and jumped out ; but, as the building was but one 
 story high, there were none seriously injured. At the evening service we got the 
 police to guard the door, to keep out the most furious of the rabble ; and when we 
 commenced our meeting, they shouted and bellowed on the outside, and threw up 
 stones and broke the windows. The battle then became very hot, both inside and 
 outside ; however, 'the battle was turned to the gate'; for many of the jack-tars 
 who had persecuted us and fired whole broadsides into us, struck their colours, and 
 came aboard of the ' Ranters' ' ship, to sail with us along to the port of glory. It 
 became a necessary course likewise (to protect the great number of anxious 
 inquirers after salvation from the violence of the mob) to apply to the mayor ; 
 by his exertions in our favour, three of the sons of Belial were imprisoned." 
 Journal, pp. 149-150. 
 
 After such a description it would be a bold thing to assert that our fathers met with 
 no persecution at the beginning of their labours in Hull. All that can be affirmed is that, 
 as distinct from occasional mischievous outbreaks, there was no systematic or official 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 375 
 
 persecution. What Thomas Binney says of the Thessalonica of Paul's time, was true 
 of the Hull of Clowes' time : " Thessalonica was a sea-port, and these ' lewd fellows 
 of the baser sort' were of the set you always see loafing about docks, quays, and 
 wharves, a kind of ' 'long-shore men,' who can always be hired for a pot of beer and 
 a shilling."* Remembering this, and also the educational advance of the people since 
 1819, and the remarkable softening of manners that has followed, one cannot but wonder 
 that our fathers did not encounter even greater opposition in Hull than they did encounter. 
 
 Their comparative immunity from perse- 
 cution must in part be put down to the 
 credit of the town. Hull, on the whole, 
 Avas true to itself ; and if there were any 
 exceptions, the magistrates, acting in 
 consonance with the noble traditions of 
 their borough, did not "bear the sword 
 in vain," but took care that the pioneers 
 of our Church should not be at the 
 mercy of any low-bred, drunken fellow, 
 who thought the " Banters," as they 
 were vulgarly called, were fair game 
 for insult and annoyance. 
 
 There were two or three small houses 
 in Chapel Court contiguous to Mill 
 Street Chapel, belonging to the trustees, 
 which at one time were occupied by our 
 ministers. They were the temporary 
 and humble residence of many men of 
 ministerial power and influence. William 
 Sanderson was the last of his brethren 
 to live in Chapel Court, but such men 
 as Suddards and Hewson, Verity and 
 Hutchinson, had preceded him as 
 ministerial occupants of the trustees' 
 property. Here, too, William Clowes 
 had lived prior to his removal to Spencer 
 Street. Subsequently, however, they 
 were let to other people, and, in 1835, 
 we find one Luke Green became a 
 tenant at a rent of 4 5s. per annum. 
 Green 1 was killed by a steam-packet explosion at the South Pier, June 9th, 1837. 
 By this untoward event several persons were hurried into eternity with awful 
 suddenness. Mr. Green had removed from Hull a little time before, and had been over to 
 Hull to attend the camp meeting on the previous day. Fearing he was late he ran to get 
 
 CLOWES HOUSE, HULL. 
 
 * " St. Paul : His Life and Ministry," p. 222. 
 
376 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 on board, and in a moment or two the explosion occurred by which he was killed on the 
 spot. From his Journal we learn that W. Clowes had fully intended being on 
 board the Gainsboro' packet that very morning. Mrs. Clowes had arranged to go by it, and 
 he intended seeing her off"; but he had lingered so long at his devotions the night before, 
 that he overslept himself, and was thus unable to be at the 
 pier in proper time to catch the packet. Possibly his drowsi- 
 ness saved his life. Jacob Dawson, another of our ministers, 
 was on board when the catastrophe occurred, but escaped with 
 a slight wound on his arm and the loss of his hat. 
 
 Mill Street was not the first chapel built north of the 
 Humber ; that distinction belongs to North Cave also found 
 on this same plan whose chapel was opened by John Harrison 
 and his wife and John Woolhouse, on July 26th, 1819. Yet, 
 though Mill Street just missed this distinction, and cannot claim 
 to be the oldest Connexional chapel still in actual use, there 
 is no existing chapel of equal size and importance still 
 
 JACOB IXAWSON. 
 
 THE FIRST CHAPEL, NORTH CAVE. 
 
 occupied; and as the prolific mother of chapels, and in the richness of its historic 
 associations, it admits of no rival. It is such considerations as these that justify 
 the recording of details which, in the case of a modern structure, would be felt to be 
 out of keeping with the purpose of this history. 
 
 The fact that Mill Street Chapel came to be known about 1849 as West Street has, 
 no doubt, tended to obscure the identity of the one building. The account of the 
 structural alterations and improvements which gave the original sanctuary an approach 
 from another and a better street, belongs to the next period, in which Hull became as 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 377 
 
 famous for its enterprise in chapel building, as it was in this first period famous for its 
 missionary achievements. 
 
 SOME HULL WORKERS AND THEIR WORK. 
 
 We have described the acquisition of Hull's workshop ; a few words must now be 
 devoted to some of its workers and the work they did. One would naturally expect to 
 find some of the earliest and best available workers amongst the twenty persons who 
 composed the original trust of West Street. We find such to be the case, but, 
 unfortunately, here as elsewhere, some who seem to have been both locally and 
 Connexionally prominent in the years immediately following 1819, afterwards disappear. 
 In the absence of information we can only put "missing" to their names, and wonder 
 whether death removed them from their posts, or whether they went out from us in 
 some time of trial and sifting, such as we know was experienced in other parts, and was 
 responsible for so many disappearances. 
 
 Of the thirteen laymen who were trustees of West Street, E. Taylor, Richard 
 Jackson, G. Gill, and M. Scafe figure on the first Connexional Committees. What 
 this means, as a gauge of Connexional influence, had better be explained here once for 
 all. In 1822 a General Committee, with one of its two branches located in Hull and 
 the other in Tunstall, was established. To the Hull branch was also assigned the duty 
 of administering the Contingent Fund established the same year. The Contingent 
 Fund, it may be said, was the precursor of what we know familiarly as the S. W.P. and 0. 
 Fund. This arrangement continued until 1825, when the Hull branch of the General 
 Committee was abolished, though it was still allowed to manage the Contingent Fund. 
 This same year, 1825, too, saw the establishment of a General Missionary Committee 
 at Tunstall, with Auxiliary Committees at Nottingham, Hull, and Sunderland. In 
 1831 the Contingent Fund became "The Circuits Assistant Sick Preachers' Fund," 
 which name of portentous length was shortened into " C.A.S. tr. prs. Fund," and the 
 executive of this fund was fixed at Tunstall ; so that, with the unimportant exception of 
 a branch Publishing Committee allowed to Hull, all the Committees as well as the Book- 
 room were located at Tunstall, which was thus the official centre of the Connexion 
 until 1843 ; Hull and the other districts having to be content with their own District 
 Committees. 
 
 For a short space Edward Taylor appears to have been one of the most conspicuous 
 figures in Hull Primitive Methodism. From him the land on which Mill Street Chapel 
 stood was bought, and he gave a donation of ten pounds towards its building fund. 
 His name is found on the lirst plan next to that of Hannah Woolhouse. We should 
 take him to have been a man of some worldly substance, plain in his dress, serious and even 
 severe of aspect, and rigid in his views as to the proprieties demanded of Christian 
 people ; for it was he who was entrusted with the delicate duty of admonishing JohnOxtoby, 
 and he was set as a watchman by the September Quarterly Meeting of 1820 to prevent, 
 if possible, the intrusion of worldly fashions into the singers' pew of Mill Street. The 
 resolution authorising his appointment is too good to be consigned to oblivion, and ran 
 as follows : " E. Taylor to take care of the singers' pew, and let none in except those 
 who appear in plain dress ; men in plain coats and no pantaloons ; women, no frills, no 
 
378 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 bunches of ribbons, and no superfluities whatever. All the preachers and leaders are 
 requested to get a plain dress as soon as possible, that they may insist upon plainness 
 in all the society." Edward Taylor's Connexional standing is witnessed to by his being 
 one of the earliest members of the Hull branch of the General Managing Committee, 
 and still more by his sharing the honour with William Woolhouse and R. Woolhouse of 
 being a representative of Hull Circuit at the Preparatory Meeting at Nottingham, 
 August, 1819, and at the first Conference of 1820 held in Hull. 
 
 Even at the risk of keeping some Hull worthies waiting, this would seem to be the 
 time to refer to the doings of the Nottingham Preparatory Meeting. The reference 
 need not detain us long, as all those amongst the fifteen representatives of the four 
 circuits to that meeting, of whom information is available, have already been mentioned, 
 and as far as possible described. All that need now be done is to give a complete list of 
 the representatives, and to add a few remarks on the historical importance of the 
 meeting. 
 
 The following is the list of delegates sent from the four Circuits to the Preparatory 
 Meeting : 
 
 1. TUNSTALL CIRCUIT. 3. LOUGHBOKOUGH. 
 
 Hugh Bourne. Joseph Skevington. 
 
 James Bourne. George Hanford. 
 
 William North. 
 
 2. NOTTINGHAM. William Goodrich. 
 Thomas King. 
 
 Thomas Simmons. 4. HULL. 
 
 W. Guy. William Clowes. 
 
 Samuel Bailey. Richard Woolhouse. 
 
 James Rudd. Richard Jackson. 
 D. Musson Jackson. 
 
 The meeting, which commenced on August 10th, "and continued by adjournment till 
 the Saturday evening following," was much more than a Preparatory Meeting. It was 
 also, as Mr. Petty remarks, " a legislative assembly, and that to an extraordinary 
 extent." It laid down the basal principles of our Church polity, in harmony with 
 which the evolution of the denomination has ever since proceeded ; so that this 
 Nottingham meeting might with strict propriety be regarded as our first and most 
 important Conference, had not usage decided that it be known as the Preparatory 
 Meeting. Only in one or two respects has limitation been imposed on what was then 
 enacted, as, for instance, in the composition of the Quarterly Meeting, which was made 
 "the seat of authority, the source whence all power was drawn," as it still remains. The 
 Quarterly Board had to be composed of "travelling and local preachers, leaders, 
 stewards, and delegates, and such other persons as the several General Quarterly Meetings 
 shall think proper." The Circuit Stewards were to be three in number, and the 
 principal steward was to be the custodian of the books and property of the circuit. 
 The appointment, and not merely the nomination, of the Society Steward was with the 
 Leaders' Meeting. The printed proceedings of the Preparatory Meeting are in the form 
 of question and answer, and the last question asked is: "(43 Q.) Shall a person be 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 379 
 
 appointed to attend to the general concerns of the Connexion ? " To which the brief 
 answer is " Yes." Xow this affirmative answer might be so construed as to favour the 
 creation of the office of a General Superintendent of the Connexion, such as Hugh Bourne 
 had been from December 1814 to 1818; or the appointment of Chairmen of Districts or 
 Presiding Elders. But even these advances in the direction of episcopal government 
 were declined in favour'of the more Presbyterian form of the appointment of " managing 
 committees" of various kinds, with their "corresponding members" or secretaries. 
 Instead of concentrating authority in the hands of one man, or few men, Primitive 
 Methodism has preferred to take the more democratic line of distributing authority 
 amongst committees freely elected. 
 
 It was at the Preparatory Meeting that the question of delegation to the first Annual 
 Meeting had to be considered and decided ; and it was decided in the way we all know. 
 Three delegates were to be sent from each circuit in the proportion of two laymen to 
 one travelling preacher. This arrangement was arrived at only after considerable 
 discussion. If any credence is to be given to floating traditions, we must conclude that 
 what was finally agreed upon was largely due to the suggestion of James Rudd, one of 
 the Nottingham delegates, who gave as his reason for urging the two-to-one arrangement, 
 that in another community where the representation was one and one, there had been 
 some dissension which had not been easily allayed ; that, in fact, despite the nattering 
 picture of the working of equal representation found in the early cartoon given on the 
 other page, the minister and the layman did not invariably walk together arm in arm. 
 On the other hand, it was objected that, if one in every three delegates was to be a travell- 
 ing preacher, that arrangement would give the travelling preachers a larger numerical 
 representation in the highest court of the Connexion than they enjoyed in the lower courts. 
 But the suggestion of James Rudd (if indeed it were his, and not George Hanford's 
 or William Goodrich's, as some hold) took with the meeting, and was, we are told, 
 acceptable to Hugh Bourne. When we remember that only two out of the fifteen 
 delegates to the Preparatory Meeting were travelling preachers, we can only express 
 surprise that so large a proportion of representation was conceded to the ministerial 
 element. The delegates to that Nottingham meeting of 1819 were broad-minded and 
 far-seeing men, and though they did not profess to claim any Scriptural sanction or 
 divine inspiration for the working arrangement they hit upon, yet the history of our 
 Church shows that the arrangement has worked well. 
 
 The Richard Jackson who went from Hull to the Preparatory Meeting was, until 
 1828, Connexionally very much to the fore. He came, he tells us, as a volunteer from 
 the Wesleyans, in May, 1819. He was the principal Steward of Hull Circuit for some 
 years, and as such from time to time sent to the Magazine short but enthusiastic letters 
 veritable war-bulletins recounting the progress made by the circuit. He was the 
 corresponding member of the Hull Branch of the General Managing Committee while 
 it lasted, and then treasurer of the Contingent Fund until we miss his name from the 
 records. 
 
 Thomas Newsam and Thomas Lascelles, among the laymen who were trustees of 
 Mill Street, survived the longest, and died in communion with our Church. The latter, 
 
380 
 
 PHIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 381 
 
 especially, long played a useful part. He filled the offices of local preacher and class- 
 leader. He plied the trade of a shoemaker, and his house in Bond Street was long 
 a home for the single preachers. Many a minister, afterwards to grow grey ? and infirm 
 in the ranks, would to the end cherish grateful recollections of the hospitable and q\iiet 
 abode of Thomas Lascelles. 
 
 " The sweet remembrance of the just 
 Shall flourish when they sleep in dust." 
 
 Mrs. Beecroft is referred to by W. Clowes in his Journal as one of his early converts 
 at the Old Factory, and in the sermon 
 preached by him on the occasion of her 
 death, he speaks of her fourteen years' 
 unbroken connection with our Church; her 
 liberality in supporting the cause of God, 
 the sick, and the poor ; her custom of 
 devoting half-an-hour twice each week in 
 praying and singing with her servants and 
 work-people. Her house was a " Pilgrim's 
 inn" where Clowes and Oxtoby, and the 
 early preachers constantly resorted for comfort 
 
 SAMl'EL BEECROFT. J CHARLES BEECROFT. 
 
 and refreshment. The name and family 
 
 traditions were worthily continued for many years by her son, Samuel, and her 
 nephew, Charles Beecroft. 
 
 AVilliam and Jane Holliday's tombstone stands hard by that of William Clowes' in the 
 " Primitive-corner " of Hull general Cemetery. For some years they gave themselves 
 to missionary work, labouring separately, though in contiguous circuits, chiefly in the 
 Dales of Northern England. In 1828 they settled in Hull, and both became local 
 preachers and class-leaders. Mrs. Holliday was a noted visitor of the sick and 
 neglected; and during the visitation of the cholera in 1832, she fearlessly and 
 unsparingly, by night and by day, tended those who were stricken by this fell disease. 
 She died in 1838, while her husband survived until 1863. 
 
 What Hull Primitive Methodism owes to the various members of the Hodge family it 
 would be difficult to tabulate, though a better idea of the extent of this indebtedness will 
 be gained when we reach the chapel-building era. The family came from Kilnsea near 
 Spurn Point, in Holderness, a district which has suffered, and is still suffering, severely 
 from the inroads of the sea. W. Clowes went on a mission into Holderness then a most 
 benighted part of the country in 1820. "At Kilnsea," he says, "I preached in the 
 house of Mr. W. Hodge, who had a large family of children, of whom many were 
 converted; and some became preachers of the Word. Here I was kindly entertained." 
 He visited one of the lighthouses on the Point, and as he returned by the shore, washed 
 by the German Ocean, " I saw," says he, "that the ocean had gained upon the land ; the 
 sea was breaking against a churchyard, and the bones and coffins of the dead were 
 visible. What an awful sight ! What hath sin done ! " As Clowes passed along that 
 day he would see Kilnsea Church standing on the edge of the cliff, unroofed and the 
 
382 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 haunt of sea-fowl. Soon the walls and tower, which pious hands had reared centuries 
 before, fell into the engulfing sea. 
 
 Of William Hodge's four sons, John, Samuel, William, and Henry, the first two on 
 their removal to Hull became actively associated with our cause in another part of the 
 town. Mrs. Jane Garbutt, a very competent authority, thus tells the story in 
 her interesting little book of "Reminiscences of the Early Days of Primitive 
 Methodism " : 
 
 "Previous to the erection of Mill Street Chapel, and in addition to the Old 
 Factory, the disused Penitentiary in Church Street, Wincolmlee, was rented ; this 
 was continued by services at six o'clock, and it was still a great medium for the 
 conversion of sinners, and by means of the classes and other meetings, strengthened 
 the faith of believers. When it was no longer available for our purpose, the 
 meetings were held at a house tenanted by Mrs. Harper on the opposite side of 
 Church Street, a little further down. About this time Mr. John Hodge came to 
 reside in a commodious house in Church Street, which was offered for our use and 
 
 gratefully accepted. Many, 
 many times has the converting 
 glory been felt, and the power 
 of the Holy One has rested on 
 the ark. A small chapel was 
 built, either on the site of, or 
 near, the above-named house. 
 This was afterwards enlarged, 
 or rebuilt, with class and 
 school-rooms and other con- 
 veniences, in 1846. This was 
 the second chapel and second 
 society which was raised up 
 a band of men and women 
 whose hearts the Lord had 
 touched, and who ardently 
 worked for Him. This 
 
 society was afterwards re- 
 moved to Lincoln Street, the 
 
 present chapel, named after its benefactor, " The Samuel Hodge Memorial 
 
 Chapel." This gentleman (as also his son the lamented Alderman George 
 
 Hodge) has since entered into his rest, beloved and esteemed by all those who 
 
 knew him. He laboured in our midst as a class-leader and local preacher, and 
 
 sustained with commendable efficiency the various offices of the Church." 
 
 When the Hodge family resided at Kilnsea, gainsayers who witnessed their hospitality 
 
 to the servants of Christ, were used scoffingly to predict that the " bacon-preachers would 
 
 soon eat them up." But God's blessing was on the industry and thrift and integrity of the 
 
 sons of the household, and they prospered in the world, sufficiently, one thinks, to shut 
 
 KILNSEA CHURCH, HOLDEKNKSS.* 
 
 * The view of Kilnsea Church in its dismantled state, here given, is from a sketch -taken in 1826, 
 by Mr. W. Little, of Patrington, afterwards reproduced in Poulson's " History and Antiquities of 
 Holderness." 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 383 
 
 the mouths of all gainsayers ; but the higher they rose in the social scale and the more 
 affluent their circumstances became, the more did the Church of their choice benefit by 
 their social and temporal advancement. From the earliest times, the policy of "scattering 
 their fire " was pursued by our fathers in Hull. Prayer meetings, well supported by 
 organised praying bands, were held in various parts of the town; tract distributing 
 bands were hard at work; a sick visiting association, formed in 1830, by three young 
 men, Samuel Hays, William Bentley, and John Parrott, afterwards of Leeds, at one time 
 had 330 members in its ranks ; open-air services were statedly held in the most neglected 
 and degraded parts of the town, and in these mission services William Hodge, Jun., 
 who twice came to occupy the position of chief magistrate of the borough, took an 
 
 TOWN HALL, HULL. 
 
 active part when a young man. Leadenhall Square was one of the districts thus 
 missioned, and with good reason it was regarded as one of the most disreputable quarters 
 of the town. This squalid rookery was cleared away for the purpose of erecting the 
 present Town Hall. While mayor of the borough, it fell to Mr. Hodge's lot to open 
 this fine building, which covered the site of his own early missionary labours, and in 
 which the Conference of 1902 was to be the recipient of such gracious hospitality. 
 
384 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 JOHN SISSONS. 
 
 Henry Hodge's name is familiar as "household words" in the mouths of our people, but 
 fuller reference to what he did for Hull Primitive Methodism, and the Connexion 
 generally, will more appropriately be made when we come to speak of Hull chapel 
 extension, and the educational and missionary movements of the next period. 
 
 His friend and relative by marriage, John Sissons, was another 
 village contribution to Hull Primitive Methodism. North Cave 
 was his home, where his parents were early adherents of the cause, 
 and where he was converted during his apprenticeship. About 
 1832, he came to seek his fortune in the big town, and by dint 
 of hard work and strict integrity, he became a leading, and at 
 last, the oldest established tradesman in the old Market Place. 
 Beyond serving as a guardian of the poor, he did not take an 
 active part in public life, but gave all his available time to his 
 Church. He identified himself with Mill Street, and retained 
 his connection with it until his death, in 1882. He was Circuit 
 Steward during those early years when the Quarterly Meeting lasted four or five days, 
 and was of the dimensions of a District Meeting. His house was the home and 
 gathering-place of the ministers. He was the close friend of John 
 Flesher and William Clowes, and the latter was accustomed for 
 many years to spend every Thursday with him in social inter- 
 course and prayer. For several years he served as Connexional 
 auditor, and very frequently represented his district in Conference. 
 He was a man of intelligence, and, within a limited range, a 
 considerable reader. He read and re-read Young, and Pollock, 
 and Milton until his own vocabulary became greatly enriched. 
 John Sissons was in many respects original some would say 
 eccentric in his ways. He had a rich vein of kindly humour, 
 and, both from principle and natural bent, was cheerful and WILLIAM GEAT. 
 disposed to look on the brighter side of things. Never would he admit that a service 
 had been to him wholly barren; if the sermon had been poor, the hymns had 
 made up for it all, or the preacher had got near to God in 
 prayer, or the Scripture lesson had come home to him with 
 unusual sweetness and force. One of his characteristic 
 sayings was that he had 'three reasons for always being found in 
 his pew on week days as well as Sundays. The first was, that he 
 went to the house of God for his own profiting ; the second, that 
 he went to encourage his minister ; and, finally, that he went to 
 set a good example. He was a firm believer in systematic and 
 proportionate giving, and had what he called "the Lord's bag." 
 The worthy poor experienced his bounty, and when he died, 
 which was a few hours after his return from the week-night service 
 at West Street, his weekly pensioners had good reason to lament his loss. 
 
 Since William Gray began his business life as the apprentice of John Sissons, and 
 was his trusted assistant, until he commenced business for himself, somewhat late 
 
 CHARLES BOWMAN. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 385 
 
 MRS. J. CHAMBERS 
 
 in life, their names may well be linked together. For some years he was an 
 instrumentalist in the singers' pew of the mother-chapel, and afterwards a leader and 
 official of Spring Bank. He was intelligent, considerate of the feelings of others 
 a gentleman by nature and grace. All who knew William 
 Gray will readily acknowledge that he gave dignity and character 
 to the official life of the Church he adorned. 
 
 A man in many respects of a .very different type was Charles 
 Bowman. He was unmistakably eccentric, narrow in many of his 
 views, blunt, the sworn foe not only of tobacco, but of the 
 moustache, of musical instruments employed in the service of the 
 sanctuary, and of everything else which seemed to him to approach 
 to conformity to the fashions of the world. But he had many 
 estimable qualities, and it was by virtue of these, and not of his 
 eccentricities, that he won the regard of his brethren, and was 
 appointed a permanent member of Conference. He was punctual, untiring in labours, 
 intensely loyal, and capable of strong attachments, as was evidenced by his profound 
 reverence and affection for William Clowes. Nor was he without 
 a grim humour of his own, which made some of his sayings live 
 in the memories of men. When, in order to keep moving with 
 the times, it was proposed to bring a harmonium into West Street 
 chapel, Charles was asked for a subscription. He complied with 
 the request of the daring collector, and when twitted with his 
 inconsistency gave as his answer : " Well ; if we are to have the 
 Devil in the singers' pew, we may as well have him in one piece 
 as in many." 
 
 Brief mention only can be made of other of the early worthies 
 of J. Brown of "The Retreat," and John Wallis ; of John 
 Chambers, originally of Yarmouth, and his wife ; of Mrs Temperton, who became the 
 second Mrs. Clowes, and her daughter Charlotte, who was married to John Davison, 
 the biographer of Clowes ; of the families of the Beckworths, 
 the Blakestones, the Normans, the Medds, the Southerns, the 
 Wilsons, the Halls of Sutton, the Charlesworths ; of Clara Chaffer, 
 who became the wife of Jeremiah Dodsworth. Other names of 
 early workers and supporters of the varied interests of the 
 Church might be given, and others belonging to a later period 
 will come before us ; but these will suffice as a sample, and be 
 enough to indicate that Hull's vigorous church-life and far-reaching 
 influence were not only due to its succession of able and devoted 
 ministers, and to the presence in its midst, for so many years, 
 of the holy Clowes, but were also largely due to a remarkable 
 band of active Christian workers and capable officials. 
 
 In 1825, the society in Mill Street, Hull, being now large and adapted to various 
 kinds of Christian labour, the friends determined to try to organise a Sunday school. 
 But at the very threshold of their undertaking they were faced by the question, "Where 
 
 cc 
 
 J. CHAMBERS. 
 
 W. BLAKESTONE. 
 
386 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 is the school to be taught ? " For a time they were brought to a stand, as no place 
 suited to their purpose formed any part of the trust premises. But Mr. W. Rodgers 
 thought he knew of a room in every way adapted to their requirements, and the matter 
 was put into his hands. He hired the schoolroom of Mr. Ledell, in Roper Street. 
 Then an appeal was made from the pulpit for voluntary labour, for subscriptions, and 
 for books, and in fourteen days from the first meeting which was called to consider the 
 subject, the school was opened with seventy-six scholars. Among the first scholars 
 were three of Mr. Ledell's children, one of whom was to be one of the heroes of the 
 " Birkenhead," while George became an official of the church, of a very useful and 
 meritorious type. Among the first officers of the Sunday School we may name 
 Messrs. Rodgers, Gill, Newsam, Dry, Locking, Bowman, W. Hodge, and R. Fisher. 
 The last laboured long and conscientiously in the school, and passed away in peace from 
 his toil and sorrow in 1873. Though it was a good step from West Street to Roper 
 Street, the schoolroom there soon became filled every Sunday. Five years later, the 
 topmost story of a building in Chapel Street was taken. As there was a passage from 
 Chapel Street to "West Street, the room was very conveniently situated, and it, like the 
 one before it, soon became strait enough. There was at one time a branch Sunday 
 school in the old town. In 1833, the trustees of the old chapel resolved to build 
 schoolrooms adjoining the chapel, and to alter the chapel itself. They were encouraged 
 to take this step, in part, from the fact that the debt had been considerably reduced, as 
 well as from a desire to meet a felt want. The new schools were opened in the spring 
 of 1834, and the speedy multiplication of both teachers and scholars showed that the 
 trustees had not missed the mark they aimed at. 
 
 Mill Street Society prospered so greatly, that at length it was deemed desirable to 
 provide additional accommodation, and, if possible, to provide it in such a locality as 
 would suit the convenience of those members and adherents who lived on the 
 Holderness Road, Drypool, the Groves, and other more distant parts of the town. 
 Hence, in 1841, Mason Street Chapel, built in 1822 for the use of a Calvinistic 
 congregation, was acquired as a "relief chapel." This made the third chapel possessed 
 by the denomination in Hull. In January, 1839. a town-mission was established, one 
 minister being set apart to this work, and the results of the appointment were gratifying. 
 Subsequently, schools were built behind the Mason Street property, and the growing 
 interest here led afterwards, as we shall see, to the building of Clowes' Chapel in 
 .Tarratt Street. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 387 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HOME BRANCH OF HULL, 
 AND ITS FIRST THREE CIRCUITS. 
 
 [N June, 1820, Hull fell into line with the other Circuits, and divided its 
 inconveniently wide missions into branches. This was done by a committee 
 consisting of W. Clowes, J. Verity, S. Laister, and E. Woolhouse. Its 
 territory was carved into seven branches, of which Hull itself, with its four 
 preachers, was called the Home Branch ; the labours of fourteen other preachers were 
 apportioned amongst the remaining six branches as follows : Pocklington, three ; 
 Brotherton, two ; Kipon, three ; York, three ; Leeds, two ; Malton, two. At present 
 we have only to do with the Home Branch, and Pocklington, Brotherton, and Hutton 
 Rudby, which were the first circuits made from Hull, and along with it constituting 
 the first Hull District of 1821. 
 
 Even after this arrangement was made, the Home Branch covered a wide stretch of 
 country, including that part of North Lincolnshire represented by the present Barton 
 Circuit, the district of Holderness in its widest sense, as including Beverley, and the 
 fringe at least of the Wolds. At the Conference of 1820, held in Hull, three great 
 camp meetings were held on Conference Sunday, instead of one, as is the custom at 
 present. One of these was held across the H umber, at Barrow, and served as 
 -a rallying centre for Barton, Goxhill, Ferriby, and other villages which had already 
 received the evangel through the agency of our missionaries. This district became 
 a stronghold of Primitive Methodism, and long retained a close connection with Hull ; 
 Barton not becoming an independent station until 1852. 
 
 HOLDERNESS. 
 
 Another of the three Conference camp meetings was held at Keyingham, in 
 Holderness. This last name, strictly speaking, designates that triangular tract of 
 country which has its apex some few miles to the south of Flamborough, and its base 
 stretching from Spurn to the mouth of the Hull. The word " Holderness " epitomises 
 the physical geography and earliest history of this district: it is the "Promontory of 
 Hollow Deira." Many of its villages have their names ending in "ea," as Kilnsea, 
 Hornsea, etc., which tells us that, formerly, the places so named must have stood on 
 sites largely surrounded by water. Lakes such as Hornsea Mere the only one of the 
 kind remaining would fill up the numerous depressions in what was itself a "hollow" 
 a saucer-like depression : hence its name. It was, indeed, an out-of-the-way corner, 
 and, in much earlier days, its inhabitants must have been largely shut out from the 
 larger world, living, as they did, hemmed in between the ocean, the Humber, and the 
 vast Wold Forests beyond the river Hull. All this remoteness and isolation are things 
 of the past; but even as late as 1819, a gifted retired Wesleyan minister, who had 
 .a good house and property in Holderness, proposed that he became a third and unsalaried 
 
 cc 2 
 
388 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 minister in order that he might labour in "this dark benighted part." The Rev. Thomas 
 Galland's words as applied to Holderness were at that time quite correct. It stood very 
 much in need of Methodism, as he knew, and probably there are few parts of the 
 country which, more than Holderness, have been dependent on the ministrations of 
 Methodism. The other branches of Evangelical Nonconformity seem to have left this 
 corner of the land to the Wesleyan Methodists and ourselves ; and it is but the sober 
 truth to affirm that our Church, as represented by Tadcaster, Hornsea, and partly by 
 Hull Circuits, has not played the secondary part in the evangelisation of Holdernes?. 
 John Harrison was the pioneer missionary of Holderness; for as early as April 17th, 
 1819, he records in his Journal: "I left Hull, and went into the country, and 
 
 KEYINGHAM. 
 
 continued for one week. There were many awakened to a sense of their duty 
 towards God, and several united with us. God has opened our way in a wonderful 
 manner in this part of Yorkshire [Holderness]; four barns have been emptied by 
 their proprietors, on purpose for us to preach in them." 
 
 So the holding of the Keyingham camp meeting was a piece of wise strategy. It 
 served as a rally for the newly-formed societies, and a further means of spreading 
 the Gospel through the district. That village subsequently became the head of 
 a Branch of Hull, and so continued until, in 1841, Patrington, as being more central, 
 took its place. 
 
 As illustrative of the change for the better in the manners and morals of the district, 
 brought about through the agency of W. Clowes and his co-workers, the story must be 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 389 
 
 told again of the camp meeting held at Preston on Maudlin Sunday arid what came of 
 it. From time immemorial it had been the custom for a football-match to be played on 
 St. Magdalene or " Maudlin " Sunday between the villages of Hedon and Preston. 
 The two villages stood for the respective goals, and the object of each village-team was 
 to kick the ball through the windows of the first public-house they came to that had not 
 its windows guarded by shutters. The ball was urged hither and thither, amid the 
 
 PRESTON-IN'-HOLDERNKSS. 
 
390 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 partisan cries of the onlookers of both sexes, and the oaths and shouts of the contestants, 
 many of whom were bruised and maimed in the struggle, from the fact that some of the 
 players had their boots tipped with hard leather or steel in order to make their kicks 
 more telling. Blood flowed freely, and so did strong drink. The whole countryside- 
 was stirred, and vocal with the rival cries of, "Now Preston!" "Now Hedon ! " Preston 
 Church has been known to empty as the ball drew near, and the parson, after hurrying 
 through the service, would "stand treat" to the victors True to their principle of 
 meeting vice on its own chosen ground, the Hull friends determined to hold a camp 
 meeting on Knowl Hill on Maudlin Sunday (August), 1820. Preston had been visited 
 for the first time but a short while before by preachers who were returning from a camp 
 meeting at Keyingham, and who preached from the cart in which they had ridden. 
 Some person drew out the linchpin from one of the wheels, by which mischievous act 
 they were placed in considerable peril. This was but a tame rehearsal of what awaited 
 
 the Hull Primitives on Maudlin 
 Sunday. On this occasion, "a 
 number of the rabble strove to 
 the utmost to upset the waggon, 
 and got under one side of it for 
 the purpose. The friends did 
 their best on the opposite side to 
 prevent it. Between the two 
 parties, the waggon was for some 
 time rocked like a cradle, or 
 tossed like a vessel in a storm. 
 The wicked, however, failed to 
 upset it, and the brethren suc- 
 ceeded in holding a camp meeting 
 according to their purpose, though 
 one of the preachers had his coat- 
 laps torn off, which were thrown 
 high into the air. Many were 
 convinced of sin, and a good work 
 broke out in the neighbourhood." 
 These particulars were given to Mr. Petty by the late Peter Jackson, a popular local 
 preacher of Preston who was present that day and witnessed all that took place. 
 Billy Rattle was a ringleader in these football-matches, but he was converted under 
 Clowes, of whom, and of that day's proceedings, he often spoke.* 
 
 Though W. Clowes says nothing in his Journal of this famous camp meeting which 
 
 checked and prepared the way for the abolition of these unseemly practices, he visited 
 
 Preston a short time afterwards and records an amusing incident which then occurred : 
 
 " At Preston 1 preached in the open-air, from the words : ' If any man thirst, let 
 
 him come unto Me and drink ; he that believeth in Me, as the Scriptures hath said, 
 
 out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' It having been a dry summer, 
 
 and there being a great want of rain, an old woman who was standing by when 
 
 THE HOUSE FROM WHICH THE FAMOUS FOOTBALL MATCH 
 STARTED AT HEDON. 
 
 * Communicated by Rev. R. Harrison. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 391 
 
 THE PLACE WHERE THE CAJ1P MEETING WAS HELD AT PRESTOX-IX-HOLDERXESS. 
 
 PHESTOX-IX-HOLDEKXESS. SHOWIXG OUR CHAPEL AXD SCHOOL. 
 
392 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 I delivered my text, when she heard 'rivers of living water mentioned, ran down the 
 town, and told the people that the waters had broken out against old Pallister's 
 house, and everybody might have some. On this, the people nocked up to see the 
 wonder, but they found that the waters that had broken out were ' living waters,' 
 and at that time they were flowing very freely. Several were under conviction, 
 and one man, lying on a heap of stones just by, was crying to God with all his 
 might. We soon had a blessed work in the place, and sixty souls joined in church 
 fellowship." 
 
 The first chapel at Preston was built in 1822, at a cost of .200, and was capable of 
 seating 174 persons. For several years Preston, Burstwick, and Eimswell Chapels were 
 a source of great anxiety, especially so as they were not originally Coimexional chapels, 
 but private property. The Hull Quarterly Meeting of 1827 directed that Brother 
 William Brining "should get Preston and Rimswell Chapels painted without cost to 
 
 BEVERLEY MARKET AS IT APPEARED 1 
 
 the funds, or, if he painted them himself, paint should be found him." During the 
 course of its history Preston has sometimes been attached to Patrington, sometimes to 
 Hull. A Society was formed at Hedon in 1840. 
 
 BEVERLEY. 
 
 Primitive Methodism was introduced into the ancient town of Beverley in 1820, by 
 John Verity, who, on the afternoon of August 20th, preached in its spacious market- 
 place to a very peaceable congregation. Some short time afterwards W. Clowes 
 preached in the same place to "a huge multitude"; and though he seems to have 
 preached under the anticipation of arrest, the service went on without interruption, and 
 at its close he had the joy of adding six members to the society. William Clowes had 
 some grounds for his apprehensions. Beverley was just the kind of town in which 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 393 
 
 opposition both from the authorities and the freemen might be looked for. Indeed, at 
 
 a date subsequent to this, W. Driffield another of the preachers of the Home Branch 
 
 was forcibly pulled down from his stand while preaching in the street, by constables 
 acting under the orders of the Mayor, and taken before the magistrates. After examina- 
 tion, however, he was courteously dismissed. 
 
 Cherry Burton, a village some three miles from Beverley, was visited at the same 
 time by Hull's leading missionary. The infamous Bonner, afterwards Bishop of London, 
 was presented to the rectory of Cherry Burton in 1530, by the Canons of Beverley. 
 Here W. Clowes found the people so " callous " that, at the close of the sermon, he 
 declared his resolve to shake the dust off his feet as a testimony against them, and take 
 the Gospel to others who would receive it with greater readiness of mind. This 
 
 Mill 
 
 BEVKRLEY. THE UPPER ROOM IN THE FISH SHAMBLES, SHOWING THREE WINDOWS 
 OVER THE TWO SMALL SHOPS IN CENTRE OF PICTURE. 
 
 declaration had a rousing effect upon several. They came forward offering to take in 
 the preachers and assist the cause ; whereupon the preacher relented, the threatened 
 interdict was recalled, and Cherry Burton continued to be visited as usual. In 1840 
 a chapel was built here under the superintendency of George Lamb, capable of seating 
 seventy-seven ersons, and in 1851, a second and improved building was erected. 
 
 Returning to Beverley, we find as the winter of 1820 drew on, with its cold and 
 storms, a large upper room near the Fish Shambles was taken. This was effected 
 mainly through the liberality of two pious widows Mrs. Copling and Mrs. Rogers 
 both Wesleyans, who made themselves responsible for the rent. In this first meeting- 
 place a chair did duty as a pulpit, which is still preserved as an interesting relic of the 
 
394 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 early times. A plain bench, capable of seating some six persons was all the room 
 offered in the way of seatage for the whole congregation, yet the people gladly attended 
 and contentedly stood to hear the word of life. Many more were added to the growing 
 
 Church meeting in the unpretentious "upper room," 
 and it soon became too small. A more commodious 
 room was then hired in Turner's Yard. In this 
 new home the infant church had for a time to 
 contend with a good deal of opposition from the 
 baser sort of the populace, and even from those 
 who made pretensions to respectability. One 
 evening a person entered the room with two 
 constables for the purpose of breaking up the 
 meeting. But, notwithstanding this unseemly 
 interference, the service of praise and prayer went 
 on until the usual time of closing. Mr. John 
 Jenkinson, however, having been recognised as one 
 of the worshippers, was summoned on the following 
 morning before the magistrates of the borough on 
 a charge of "making a riotous noise." He was 
 required to find security in a bond of 20 for 
 his appearance at the next Quarter Sessions. 
 When the Sessions came Mr. Jenkinson duly 
 appeared in court ; but it would seem the magistrates 
 had got a little more light dining the interim, and they wisely omitted calling for 
 the case. 
 
 Another instance of magisterial interference is worth recording because it relates to 
 Captain Robertson, the father of the famous " Robertson, of Brighton," who was Mayor 
 
 THE OLD CHAIR. 
 
 BEVERLET CAMP MEETING SITE ON THE WESTWOOD. 
 (The Beverley minster is shown on the right.) 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 395 
 
 of Beverley at the time the incident occurred. Eeverley has always been famous for its 
 camp meetings held on the fine stretch of ground known as Beverley Westwood. At 
 one of these historic camp meetings that of 1824 William Locking, of Hull, was 
 deeply convinced of sin, and at this same camp meeting two well-known characters who 
 were present from no religious motive, by the breaking of the fence on which they sat, 
 were suddenly thrown into a pond, from which they emerged well soused and bedrabbled, 
 to the great amusement of the bystanders. Some mock verses were written on this 
 incident, Avhich now lie before us. It was to another of these great Westwood camp 
 meetings our people were making their way in the usual style-, by singing through the 
 streets, when they were met in the Old Waste by Captain Robertson. He appeared 
 to be shocked and made angry by the apparent irregularity of the proceedings, and 
 peremptorily ordered the singing to be stopped. His behest was obeyed, and the 
 
 ,T1 
 
 U r^- 
 
 }\ r 
 
 '>< <; 
 
 i u ; i.v, 
 
 BEYERLEY. FIRST CHAPEL, WEDNESDAY MARKET. 
 
 procession moved forward to the camp-ground in comparative silence. We are told 
 that this was the last instance of opposition on the part of the authorities our people 
 encountered in Beverley. 
 
 On the 1st May, 1825, the new chapel was opened in Wednesday Market by John 
 Flesher and Thomas King. The cost of the erection was about 800 a large sum in 
 those days to be faced by a new and poor society and ten trustees, who, with one 
 or two exceptions, were working-men. Only about i'100 was raised towards the 
 outlay, and the trustees were soon involved in pecuniary difficulties. Many were 
 the plans devised to reduce the expenses and the liabilities of the trust, and to put 
 it in a financially sound and workable position. The Quarterly Meeting instructed that 
 each superintendent should make a collection in his station for the chapel at Beverley, 
 
396 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 and forward the proceeds as quickly as possible. Then, the pressure still continuing, it 
 was arranged that Brother J. Flesher should go on a preaching and collecting tour on 
 behalf of the chapels at Beverley and Cottingham. Mr. Flesher's commanding presence, 
 courteous bearing, captivating and suasive conversation, and silvery and often pathetic 
 
 pulpit address, always ensured him great popular 
 acceptance. Not forgetting William Sanderson 
 and others, John Flesher must be pronounced 
 to have been the most considerable pulpit and 
 platform orator Primitive Methodism has pro- 
 duced. No wonder, therefore, he should have 
 succeeded in obtaining, after all expenses had 
 been met, some sixty pounds, which were divided 
 between the two burdened trust-estates. Fortunate- 
 ly, despite all their struggles, the trustees did 
 not act upon the advice given them in high 
 quarters to sell the vestry and the land behind 
 the chapel belonging to them. The retention of 
 this land was to be of untold advantage to them 
 in the days to come. 
 
 In the Journal of W. Clowes there is one other 
 entry relating to Beverley of some interest. He 
 tells us that on a certain Sunday, probably in 
 1831, he preached anniversary sermons for Beverley Chnpel; that in the morning he had 
 
 liberty of soul, but was in partial bondage in the evening; that H. M. Beverley, Esq., 
 
 a celebrated polemic, was present, and put a half-sovereign in the collection-box ; and 
 
 that after the service he took supper with his sister, 
 
 who was not ashamed of the cross of Christ. Miss 
 
 Beverley was at this period identified with our cause. 
 
 She was both gifted and devout, and devoted her time 
 
 and substance to religious and philanthropic purposes, 
 
 holding services in her own house and sometimes 
 
 preaching in our Beverley chapel. Her brother, mentioned 
 
 by W. Clowes, published a pamphlet on the abuses of the 
 
 Church of England, which excited considerable attention 
 
 at the time. In 1830, or a little later, Mr. Flesher, 
 
 at the Hull Quarterly Meeting, recommended for our 
 
 ministry a Mr. Carlyle, then of London. Mr. Flesher, 
 
 in his effective way, spoke highly of his qualifications, 
 
 and the upshot was that Mr. Carlyle was written to 
 
 and engaged. Being appointed to preach at Beverley, 
 
 he soon made himself known to Miss Beverley and 
 
 married her. It was not long before he left our ministry, and though he made 
 
 considerable stir in the religious world, we need not pursue his career further. 
 The society at Beverley struggled on for some years, experiencing the vicissitudes of 
 
 K. MACKENZIE BEVERLEY. 
 
THE PEEIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 397 
 
 alternate adversity and prosperity. At the latter end of 1838 the Hull Circuit was 
 favoured with much spiritual prosperity. Mr. Clowes remarks: "Several places 
 besides Hull were partakers of the soul-saving baptism. Beverley arose in spiritual 
 power, and extended the borders of its society." In 1868, after much discussion, 
 deliberation, and prayer, the old chapel was pulled down, and the 
 present handsome and commodious one, more in harmony with 
 the progressive spirit of the age, took its place. The foundation- 
 stone ceremony was the last service of the kind Mr. W. Hodge, of 
 Hull, was privileged to attend. 
 
 Matthew Denton, Francis Eudd, and W. Edmandson should have 
 honourable mention in any account, however brief, of the early 
 history of Primitive Methodism in Beverley. The first-named 
 joined the Church as far back as 1826, and lived to be appointed 
 in 1886 a Deed Poll Member, and to attend several Conferences 
 MATTHEW DEXTOX. j n j-j^ capacity. In the midst of many difficulties and discourage- 
 ments, he, as a youth, gave himself assiduously to the cultivation of his mind. It 
 has been claimed for him that he was the first Primitive Methodist layman to 
 publish a book. Whether this priority can be established or not, his four volumes of 
 " Anecdotes Religious and Moral," attest the range of his reading and his intellectual 
 activity. Francis Rudd was converted in 1828. "For fifty years he was a class- 
 leader, and local preacher, very popular, and in oft demand for special services. 
 His religion was not occasional but habitual." " J. Edmandson joined the society 
 on coming to Beverley in 1835, and was a pillar of strength in that society until his 
 death, which took place October 6th, 1867. 
 
 POCKLINGTON CIRCUIT. 
 
 We have now reached a point when, in harmony with the design of this work, the 
 scale of narrative may very properly be reduced. We have traced in detail the formation 
 of the first four circuits of the Connexion out of which all the rest, in one way or 
 another, have Ix-en formed. No materials exist for writing the history of the many and 
 oft-changing branches which the leading circuits were forming, but for a time, the 
 geographical extension of the Connexion on its different sides may be noted by the new 
 circuits formed. If we cannot go into all the out-fields, white unto harvest, where 
 labourers are at work, we can, as long as may be needful, take our stand by the gate, 
 and watch the waggons roll in with their load of golden grain. 
 
 Pocklington is, next to Hull, the oldest circuit in the Hull district, and stands on the 
 stations next to the circuits of the parent- town. The circuit embraces a portion of 
 country of unusual ecclesiastical interest. Goodmanham is within the limits of the 
 Pocklington circuit ; and Godmundingham " the home of the protection of the gods" 
 will ever be famous as the spot where, in A.D. 626, Edwin, king of Northumbria, with 
 his court and people, destroyed the heathen temple and accepted the Christian faith. 
 
 * " Piety among the Peasantry : being Sketches of Primitive Methodism on the Yorkshire 
 Wolds," by the Rev. Henry Woodcock, p. 155. 
 
398 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 At the village of Sancton, two miles from Market Weighton as Wesleyan Methodists 
 will remember the venerable Father Jackson, so called by his admirers, and his two 
 brothers, Robert and Samuel, were born. Jackson Wray's "Nestleton Magna," we may 
 be quite certain, was somewhere within the radius of the Pocklington circuit, and 
 Primitive Methodists should know that Warter stands on its plan, with its memories of 
 William Sanderson, John Oxtoby, and Thomas Wood, "the little shoemaker," hereafter 
 of Driffield. 
 
 There is a slight conflict of evidence as to the person to whom belongs the honour of 
 having first missioned Market Weighton and Pocklington. Herod, in his " Sketches," 
 claims for Sarah Harrison that she "opened" both these places, as well as Warter, 
 
 "RANTER CHAPEL LODGING-HOUSE." THE OLD CHAPEL, MARKET WEIGHTON. 
 
 Elvington* and Riverbridge, in the early part of May, 1819. But Herod does not quote 
 Sarah Harrison's own words, or give the precise dates, and, moreover, his bias against, 
 rather in favour of, Clowes' priority in a given case must be borne in mind. On the 
 other hand Clowes' words are perfectly clear and the claim made unmistakable : " The 
 next day (May 27th,) I made my way to open Market Weighton. I preached in the 
 
 * On a large farm at Elvington, resided George and Alexander Bond, who " joined our society at 
 that village, and became great helps in spreading Primitive Methodism throughout the whole 
 of the Ouse and Derwent division of the East Riding of Yorkshire. They also rendered great 
 help to the infant cause in the city of York, by becoming responsible for the rent of the first chapel 
 we took. They afterwards emigrated to Canada West, and laboured, during life, in connection 
 with our missionaries in that part of the world." Rev. S. Smith, as quoted by Herod in his 
 " Sketches," p. 330. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 399 
 
 market-place to a well-behaved people, who were very courteous and friendly in their 
 conduct towards me. The good work of God broke out at Market Weighton, and 
 a lovely society was formed, and the cause still progresses." The last words must be 
 regarded as anticipative, since a month afterwards he writes : " I again stood up in the 
 market-place, and cried : ' Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
 world.' The presence of the Most High carried the communication to sinners' hearts. 
 I afterwards formed a society of six members." The Journal contains distinct references 
 to two other visits, and it is clear from one of these references, that W. Clowes had 
 come to look upon the market-place as his " pitch." At the September Quarterly 
 Meeting, Market Weighton is reported as having nineteen members. The meetings, 
 we are told, were first held in a cottage which has since been converted into a model 
 
 MARKET-PLACE. THE SCENE OF CLOWES' FIRST SERMON IN POCKLINGTON. 
 
 lodging-house, and the house is known to-day as the " Eanter Chapel Model Lodging- 
 House," and is inquired for by pedlars under that designation. 
 
 Pocklington, on the Derwent, appears to have been missioned by Sarah Harrison, 
 and to have been visited some months after by W. Clowes. If the reader will look 
 back to the first plan of the Hull Circuit, given on p. 371, he will see that on 
 Sunday, October 3rd, Clowes was planned at South Cave, Newbald and Xorth Cave. 
 Now in his Journal he duly describes this day's doings, and then goes on. to say : 
 
 " I held a prayer-meeting next morning, and good was done. Onwards 
 I proceeded, and spoke at Riverbridge, Market Weighton, Melbourne, Seaton, 
 
400 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Bishop Wilton, and Bugthorpe. At the latter place I called at a public-house, and 
 asked liberty to pray with the family, which was granted ; and I left the inmates 
 weeping. At Bishop Wilton I preached in a croft belonging to Dr. Meggison. 
 I then made my way to Pocklington, and preached in the market-place to a vast 
 multitude ; in the evening I spoke in a barn, the property of Mr. John Moore : 
 here the prospect of success was very promising. In the neighbourhood of 
 Pocklington I spoke frequently, and the stir among the people was considerable. 
 I then directed my attention towards Beilby, Newton, Millington, and other 
 places, God confirming his word by signs and wonders and mighty deeds " (p. 168). 
 Through the kindness of Eev. G. Ellis we are enabled to give views taken from old 
 prints, showing the stepping-stone, formerly in front of the "Black Swan Inn," on 
 
 which Clowes stood to address the 
 people gathered in the old market-place; 
 also a view of the barn (long since 
 pulled down to make way for a modern 
 mansion) in which the night service 
 was held. As recalling some vanished 
 outward features, then before the eyes 
 of Clowes and his hearers, these views 
 are not without their interest. 
 
 During 1820 and 1821 the Hull 
 Quarterly Board called into the ministry 
 several men and women whom we shall 
 shortly have to refer to, such as John 
 Verity and Samuel Smith, who were 
 foremost in securing the introduction 
 of Primitive Methodism into Leeds, and 
 Thomas Johnstone, who was to become 
 a troubler of our Israel. It was Samuel 
 Smith, the second of these, who, in 
 1821, was placed at the head of the 
 newly-formed Pocklington Circuit, hav- 
 ing for his colleagues T. Jackson (1), the 
 devoted Ann Armstrong, and M. Martell. 
 But before the year 1821 closed, a young 
 man, destined to become more eminent 
 as a preacher than they all, was borrowed from Scotter Circuit, in which he had just 
 begun his labours. We speak of William Sanderson. As a motherless lad he had 
 been apprenticed to a worthless tailor and draper, who tried to make up for his 
 thriftlessness by taking a public-house. That boded ill for young Sanderson, who had 
 already taken a few steps on the primrose path ; arid it was well for him that Primitive 
 Methodism was brought to the neighbourhood, and that Thomas Wood, his companion, 
 had got religion before him. He attended a camp meeting in the Gravel Pits at 
 Market Weighton in the summer of 1819, and in February, 1820, he found salvation 
 in the Warter Wesleyan Chapel, where, at that time, our people worshipped, though 
 
 THE BLACK SWAN PUBLIC-HOUSE. STEPPING-STONE FROM 
 
 WHICH CLOWES PREACHED HIS FIRST SERMON AT 
 
 POCKLINGTON. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 401 
 
 afterwards they were discharged therefrom. On his way home he shouted through the 
 street " He has pardoned all my sins ; I am happy." His nights were now given, not 
 to fiddling and dancing, but to prayer and reading. One December night he was locked 
 out, and had to pace the streets for hours because he had become engrossed listening 
 
 THE BARN, POCKLINGTON, WHERE CLOWES PREACHED. 
 
 to some one's reading aloud Russel's " Seven Sermons."* It was in Pocklington 
 Circuit William Sanderson tried to preach for the first time, an experience 
 
 which he has described in his own inimitable way, 
 thus : " As soon as I opened my mouth I shut my 
 eyes, and when I opened my eyes I shut my mouth." 
 And yet this timid, stumbling novice in the art of 
 speaking, became second only to John Flesher as 
 a preacher if indeed he were second. For such 
 a competent judge as the late George Race, of Weardale, 
 regarded him as Primitive Methodism's greatest living 
 preacher, and would gladly journey to Newcastle to hear 
 Sanderson when he paid his annual visit to Nelson 
 Street. Both in speaking and writing his sentences were 
 pointed and sparkling with brightness. That was a most 
 apt characterisation passed on his preaching by the aged 
 sister of John Oxtoby. Passing through the village after 
 some years of absence, Sanderson and his friends met 
 the aged woman. "Do you know who this is?" said 
 
 W. SANDERSON, AGED 30. 
 
 * See ante p. 165 for'a facsimile of the title of this book. 
 
 DD 
 
402 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 one of the visitors. "Yes," said Betty. "It's Willie; he's come to give us 
 a ' glister ' " (a brilliant or sparkling sermon, she meant). " Glister " is a good, 
 expressive word, reminding us of the " white and glistering " transfiguration-raiment 
 of the Christ. We, whose own boyhood's remembrances go back to the days when 
 William Sanderson led the devotions by our father's hearth, can see now how well that 
 word hits off the originality and brightness which impressed us, as we listened to the 
 prayers of this great and good man. He was superannuated in 1852 ; yet in the thirty- 
 two years which made up the term of his active ministry, he has recorded with humble 
 thankfulness that he, with his colleagues in labour, had seen 1330 added to the societies, 
 and he claims as his children in Christ, W. Lonsdale, J. Holroyd, and C. Kendall. 
 
 BROTHERTON CIRCUIT. 
 
 The fact that Brotherton, a large village in the vicinity of Pontefract, was made the 
 head of Hull's Second Circuit, shows that in the early days a place was frequently 
 chosen to be the head of a circuit, not because of its size or importance, or even 
 because of the strength of the cause thereat; but it was chosen as a centre round which 
 the ministers could conveniently itinerate. Brotherton Circuit, roughly speaking, 
 included the country lying between, and even beyond, the lower reaches of the Aire 
 and the Ouse, so that its occupancy gave the promise of a speedy ascent to Leeds and 
 York, to Wharfedale and Nidderdale, and the other dales watered by the tributaries of 
 the Ouse. We have said the country lying between "the lower reaches" of the Aire 
 and Ouse ; not " the lowest reaches." For there lies before us, as we write, a plan 
 of the Marshland branch of Scotter Circuit for 1822, which shows that Scotter must 
 for some time have been hard at work in the marshy country lying in the angle 
 between Goole on the Ouse, and the Trent. This old plan has on it the names of 
 twenty-five places, including such well-known ones as Goole, Swinefleet, Thorne, and 
 Crowle. But, though the Brotherton Circuit did not at first include any of these 
 places, it did reach as far as Howden ; for in the year 1825 Howden was made a circuit 
 from Brotherton, and continued such till 1827. 
 
 Sarah Harrison reached the geographical limit, in this direction, of her evangelistic 
 labours when, in May, 1819, she made her way from Pocklington to Ferrybridge. In 
 connection with her visit here, we have the first mention of Mr. John Bailey, who kept 
 a boarding-school of some repute in Ferrybridge. Mr. Bailey rendered valuable service 
 to the cause of Primitive Methodism during this period, as will be evident as we 
 proceed. It was in Mr. Bailey's schoolroom that Sarah Harrison preached, and as the 
 result of her labours a revival is said to have broken out. Tidings of this revival 
 reached earnest souls in Leeds and led to further extension. Next, Mrs. Harrison 
 proceeded to Brotherton and preached in the open-air to several hundreds of people. 
 Then we find her at Knottingley where, to secure partial shelter from the cold, she took 
 her stand under a hedge to preach the Word. 
 
 Within two months after Sarah Harrison's visit to this frontier of the Hull Circuit, 
 William Clowes followed. In his Journal he speaks of his being "affectionately 
 received" by Mr. Bailey, and notes that on Sunday, July 23rd, he preached at nine 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 403 
 
 o'clock in the morning, standing by Mr. Bailey's door; then he made his way to 
 Knottingley, and preached in the open-air. On a subsequent visit, while holding 
 a prayer-meeting in Mr. Bailey's schoolroom, a stone was violently thrown at the door, 
 and a piece of parchment was blown in, on which was written some foolish words 
 which incidents encouraged him to think that the devil felt his power shaken, and that 
 "the iron sceptre of his enchantment had begun to tremble in his hands." On a third 
 visit, an attempted wife-murderer was converted one day, and his intended victim the 
 next. In November, Mr. Bailey accompanied him on his mission to Leeds. In 
 December, he found the work still " rolling on," and describes how some fantastically - 
 
 KNOTTINGLKY CHAPEL AND SCHOOLROOM, PONTEFRACT CIRCUIT. 
 
 Eebuilt on the Site of probably the oldest Chapel in the Circuit. There were formerly two Societies 
 
 in this Village. 
 
 dressed men, calling themselves "ploughmen," invaded Mr. Bailey's house, asking for 
 money, but beat a precipitate retreat when "W. Clowes bade them get on their knees and 
 cry for mercy. His last recorded visit was in March, 1820, when he speaks of having 
 visited the misions he "had opened," among, which are included Ferrybridge and 
 Brotherton. The claim to having opened these places may perhaps be reconciled with 
 the statement in Sarah Harrison's Journals, by understanding Clowes to mean by 
 "opening," the formal establishment and organising of societies. 
 
 Brotherton has not stood on the roll of our stations since 1833 ; and, though as 
 
 DD 2 
 
404 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 a circuit designation the name may be obsolete, Primitive Methodism has never let go 
 its hold of the country first missioned by Aire and Ouse in 1819 ; and both Brotherton 
 and Ferrybridge are to day societies in the Pontefract Circuit, which, since 1834, has 
 taken Brotherton's place as head of the circuit. It would be an intricate business 
 tracing the history of the Brotherton Circuit from the beginning through all its changes. 
 Given the tract of country already indicated, it would almost seem as though every 
 possible arrangement had been tried before the present one had been arrived at. This 
 will appear from the following tabular setting-forth, which the reader can skip if he 
 choose, although it may have its value as a permanent record illustrative of circuit 
 evolution. It will be seen that Pontefract and Swinefleet Circuits, with Goole, Selby 
 and Howden as offshoots of the latter, represent the old Brotherton and Marshland 
 Circuits. . 
 
 
 MABKKT-PLACE, PONTEFRACT, A.D. 17 1 7 
 
 CIRCUITS AS PER CONFERENCE MINUTES. 
 
 Years. 
 1821-2 
 
 Brotherton 
 
 
 Marshland Branch. 
 
 1823-4 
 
 Do 
 
 
 Marshland Circuit. 
 
 1825 
 
 Do 
 
 Howden 
 
 Do. 
 
 1826 
 
 Pontefract ... 
 
 Do. 
 
 Tadcaster and Ferrybridge 
 Union Ct. Thome. 
 
 1827 
 
 Brotherton... 
 
 Pontefract 
 
 Howden ... ... ... Do. 
 
 1828 
 
 Do. ... 
 
 Do. 
 
 Swinefleet Do. 
 
 1829-33 
 
 Brotherton and Swinefleet 
 Union Ct. 
 
 ... 
 
 
 1834-&C. 
 
 Pontefract 
 
 
 Swinefleet. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 405 
 
 HUTTOX RUDBY CIRCUIT. 
 
 The Journals of W. Clowes, as given in the Magazine for 1821, show that the 
 account of his remarkable mission to the North Riding of Yorkshire is, in his published 
 Journal of 1844, chronologically misplaced. This mission was entered upon soon 
 after the last visit to Brotherton already related. On May 18th, 1820, Clowes left 
 Hull on a missionary tour, and after preaching at Ripon and several other places in the 
 vicinity, he, on the 20th July, came to Hutton Rudby, not knowing a soul there, and 
 bearing no letters of introduction, or having any well-grounded hope, except what his 
 faith supplied, that he would find friends and a shelter for the night. It is probable 
 that some of our readers might have a little difficulty in precisely locating Hutton 
 Rudby, and hence may naturally wonder why a place so little known was made Clowes' 
 objective. The answer is, that Hutton Rudby is near the small market-town of 
 Stokesley on the slopes of the Cleveland Hills, and that Clowes pushed his way there 
 because it seems to have been fixed upon as the base of the purposed mission. And 
 yet the tract of country to be covered by the mission was so extensive that it might 
 as well have been called the "North Riding Mission" or " The Yale of York and Cleveland 
 Mission." As for Hutton itself it was more than a geographical expression, or 
 a convenient central point ; one of the very first chapels in these parts was built in the 
 village, and though it stood as the head of the circuit for one year only, being superseded 
 by Brompton, there is a society in Hutton Rudby to this day belonging to Stokesley 
 Circuit. 
 
 Several notable incidents occurred during this North Riding Mission, such as the 
 conversion of Henry Hebbron in his father's barn at Potto ; and the holding of the 
 famous camp meeting at Scarth Nick a wild mountain gorge between Swainby and 
 Osmotherley. There would be a pleasure in recalling these incidents ; but the 
 circuits now comprised within the tract of country missioned by Clowes, will waive their 
 natural desire to hear these stories once more, while we take the story of the mission 
 generally, and use it as proving incontestably that W. Clowes possessed all the 
 qualifications, to a supreme degree, of a pioneer ; that he could break up the fallow 
 ground as well as reap what others had sown ; that, in short, he was, as we have heard 
 it put "an unmitigated missionary." 
 
 But is it necessary to insist on this at this time of day 1 We think so. In following 
 events up to this point we have had occasionally, because of the evidence, to assign the 
 first opening of certain places to others rather than to Clowes, whom, perhaps, tradition 
 had credited with the pioneer visit. Herod, too, in his " Sketches," though usually 
 careful and precise in his statements, does, as we have hinted before, write with 
 a certain bias when W. Clowes is in question. Herod had a theory that he Clowes 
 was not adapted to be a leading or pioneer missionary ; but that he did his best work 
 which was excellent indeed when he followed in the track of others. Herod himself 
 was one of Clowes' converts, and he writes from his heart in saying of Clowes : 
 
 "He was instrumental in bringing many souls to God. We believe no man in 
 the Connexion was the means of raising up more local and travelling preachers 
 than he ; and perhaps no one, comparatively successful, ever had fewer backsliders 
 from among his converts. Perhaps this may be accounted for by the fact of his 
 
400 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 MARKET-PLACE, THIRSK. 
 
 living in a great glory, by which he was the means of bringing a larger amount of 
 the Holy Ghost upon, and into, the souls of his converts." (p. 443.) 
 
 This is high praise indeed ; yet this eulogy is qualified, in one direction, by its being 
 preceded by a statement of Herod's theory : 
 
 " But he could sail the best where the ice had been broken for him : and he 
 
 HOSEBERRY TOPPING, FROM NEWTON VILLAGE. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 407 
 
 generally planned a harbinger to go before him. He visited but few places where 
 some move had not been made previously to his entrance." (Ibid.) 
 
 But the theory shatters itself against the simple record of what Clowes accomplished 
 in this brief Hutton Rudby mission. "We can see now that, even if hitherto the facts 
 do seem to lend countenance to Herod's theory, it is because circumstances did not 
 permit it to be otherwise. Now circumstances have altered, and opportunity is given 
 for a test-case a case standing out, clear of all embarrassing side-issues and conflicting 
 claims put forth on behalf of others. When Clowes went to Huttop Rudby, no one 
 had gone before to prepare his way ; to break the ice ; to be his harbinger. As far as 
 we can learn he went uninvited, unannounced, unexpected ; and he went alone. Once 
 more he would remember " he was a missionary," when at the outset he had no 
 
 ' ; ' BROMPTON CHAPEL, BUILT 1821. 
 
 friendly shelter except that afforded by a public-house ; though, even then, he acted as 
 the man of God and talked of spiritual things and prayed with the family. The 
 country he " opened up " was then, more than now, considered remote and wild, though 
 beautiful in its wildness. It was just the kind of country, and the work he had to do, 
 and the conditions under which the work had to be done, were just such as to test his 
 physical endurance, his patience, his zeal. He had long journeys ; he was drenched to 
 the skin ; he was benighted when crossing into Bilsdale, and had to climb the steep by 
 pulling himself up by the ling which clothed its sides. He was ready to drop from 
 physical exhaustion, and yet he rallied his almost spent powers that he might preach to 
 the waiting people. He stood up in Thirsk's spacious market-place to speak in the 
 
408 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 name of Jesus, and also in that of Stokesley, under Roseberry Topping, where a drunken 
 man tried to disturb the service, but " God put a hook in his jaw." 
 
 Such were some of the conditions under which Clowes did his work in this district ; 
 and yet his faith, his tact, his personal magnetism gave him power with men. Houses 
 and hearts were alike thrown open to him ; and, in the short period of eight weeks, he 
 created a new circuit or rather laid the foundations of three circuits and what came 
 out of them. Here is Clowes' own unadorned statement of what he did on this 
 
 "After making a plan to direct my colleagues in this mission, in which I opened 
 many places and travelled four hundred miles on foot, my whole expenses 
 amounting to thirty shillings, I set off for the Hull September Quarter-day, 1820, 
 travelling by way of Thirsk, llipon and Leeds." 
 
 STOKESLEY. 
 
 Hutton Eudby now Brompton Circuit, was destined to show too, that W. Clowes 
 could not only build on his own foundation, but also re-build what others had thrown 
 down. There lies before us the evidence of this, in an unpublished MS., written in 
 Clowes' own crabbed hand, in which he simply, yet pathetically, describes his 
 experiences as a repairer of the breach. Thomas John stone, a Hull Circuit preacher, 
 had resigned because he could not meet certain grave charges that had been preferred 
 against him ; and, marking his opportunity, had entered the Brompton Circuit and 
 sought, with some degree of success, to alienate the societies and get hold of the 
 Hutton Rudby Chapel which had been willed to the Connexion. In this critical state 
 of affairs the Leeds Conference of 1823 requested the Hull Circuit to send down 
 W. Clowes to save the circuit from total wreck. So he went down, with what feelings 
 we can imagine, " to take up the heavy and tedious task, and to gather the people that 
 had been scattered by T. J. ; and the more so, as they were the children I had begotten 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 409 
 
 in Christ, and gathered together ; for I had before opened all that country." Into 
 the details of the struggle Ave shall not enter. Suffice it to say, Brompton Circuit was 
 saved and soon "regained its feet." For five years, it stood as the first station of the 
 Sunderland District, and even when Sunderland took that position, Brompton stood 
 next to it. Guisborough stood on the stations from 1822 to 1826, inclusive ; in 1827 
 we find " Whitby and Guisborough circuit." We miss it for some years, and then it 
 re-appears as a branch of Stockton-on-Tees, and becomes an independent station in 
 1864. Stokesley was a mission of Brompton for a series of years, attaining circuit 
 independence in 1854. 
 
 Brompton was visited at the earnest entreaty of Thomas Rainshaw, who had been 
 led to Christ under Clowes' ministrations at Hutton Rudby. Brompton was an old- 
 time weaving village where the weavers plied their 
 craft in their own cottages. They could think for 
 themselves and act an independent part. There 
 was no persecution at Brompton. At the sound 
 of Clowes' voice they would leave their looms and 
 stand at their doors to listen as he preached on the 
 village green. The society, originally composed of 
 seven members, nourished, and in 1821 a galleried 
 chapel and cottage were built. These premises are 
 still in use, but the seatage has been largely increased 
 by the taking in of the cottage. 
 
 In adjoining Northallerton, Clowes is said to 
 have preached in the market-place to an orderly 
 congregation of a thousand people. William Carver, 
 James Foster, and the few others associated with 
 them, at first worshipped in a room near a tan-pit ; 
 after a time a disused theatre was purchased ; now 
 we have a splendid block of church and school 
 property with a flourishing society. At Swainby, 
 Potto, and Osmotherley, too all places visited by Clowes we have societies and 
 Connexional property. 
 
 Associated with Brompton Circuit have been many whose names it would be 
 a pleasure to record. We think of Joseph Wrigley, of Northallerton, and his generous 
 hospitality to the servants of God; of the saintly Robert Walker, who afterwards 
 removed to Hendon, Sunderland ; of John Delafield, who lived and died at Appleton 
 Wiske, and was for sixty-eight years an active and useful local preacher, and who 
 occasionally conducted successful evangelistic missions in Allendale, Alston Moor, 
 Shildon, and Middleton-in-Teesdale. The intellectual calibre of the man may be judged 
 from the statement that amongst the few select books he prized and studied, that fed 
 his mind and made his sermons "meaty" were George Steward's "Mediatorial 
 Sovereignty " and Butler's " Analogy." In his own village he battled for the right of 
 Nonconformists to bury their own dead ; and in his station he was to the last respected 
 as "an exemplary official, loyal to the doctrines, polity, institutions and ministry of his 
 Church." 
 
 JOHN DELAFIELD. 
 
410 
 
 PRIMITIVE MET-HQDIST CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SCOTTER CIRCUIT AND SCOTTER DISTRICT. 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 
 
 ITHERTO, our History has had much to do with the Trent ; and it is at 
 Gainsborough the Trent attains the dignity of a tidal river. This dignity 
 has its own special drawback, for at times, the tidal wave, like a wall, 
 sweeps up the Trent, making the vessels rock at their moorings, flooding 
 the staithes and low-lying lands, and sometimes swamping boats, whose owners have 
 either not heard or heeded the warning cry "'War' eagre," i.e., beware of the "eagre." 
 It is the Trent which has made the history of Gainsborough such as it is. Lincoln 
 was the port of the Romans : they dug a canal to connect it with the Trent, and at 
 Torksey, the point of junction, they built a castle for defensive purposes. Gainsborough 
 was built from the ruins of Torksey, and in such a position as better suited the bolder, 
 sea-loving genius and habits of the Saxons and Danes. Its position was a strategic 
 one. It was, and is, the most inland port navigable to sea-going vessels of three- 
 hundred tons or thereabouts ; and not far from it, too, were the lowermost fords of the 
 river safely passable under ordinary conditions. Next to the Thames, it afforded the 
 
 best haven for fleets. Here they were comparatively safe from attack, while the 
 vessels could easily slip down on the ebb-tide and reach the open sea within the twenty- 
 four hours. Historically Gainsborough was the most northerly town of importance 
 belonging to the ancient Kingdom of Mercia, and so we have the feeling that when 
 Primitive Methodism reached Gainsborough, the first stage of its history was rounded 
 into unity. Primitive Methodism was Mercian in its origin and early progress, and 
 when it reached Hull, it set foot in a country with a different history, and its course 
 lay open to ancient Northumbria. Because of its position, Gainsborough has memories 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 411 
 
 of our Saxon and Danish forefathers. Sweyn landed here ; Canute was born in the 
 ancient palace that preoccupied the site of the Old Hall ; and here the captains of his 
 ships acclaimed him king. Here, too, King Alfred was married to the daughter of the 
 Ealderman of the Gainas, and later memories are associated with the names of John of 
 Gaunt and Cromwell. 
 
 In 1818, Gainsborough was a busy and, relatively, a much more considerable place 
 than it is to-day. Its position, not far from inland waterways such as the canalised 
 rivers Don and Idle brought it into touch with Rotherham and Sheffield. In the 
 Napoleonic war-times tons of shot and shell were weekly shipped at Gainsborough ; 
 and from it the old bridge at Vauxhall was in 1815-16 conveyed in twenty-seven vessels. 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH HALL. 
 
 Thanks to the graphic descriptions of some who spent their boyhood-days in Gains- 
 borough, eighty years ago, we can picture the old town and the life that went on in it.-* 
 Even yet there are touches of old-time quaintness about it, but in 1818, what with its 
 fluted tiles, its yellow-ochred doorsteps, its green outside shutters, and especially the 
 sight of spars and masts standing out above the corn-fields it was the most foreign- 
 looking town in England. 
 
 Gainsborough has other memories making a still more powerful appeal to Free 
 
 * See Thomas Mozley's "Reminiscences chiefly of Towns, Villages and Schools, 1885." "The 
 Life of Thomas Cooper, Written by Himself." Thomas Miller's " Our Old Town." 
 
412 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Churchmen. In its ancient Manor Hall, standing on the site of a still earlier building, 
 lived the Hickmans who befriended the cause of religious liberty in the days of the 
 Stuarts. Probably the Separatist Church, founded in 1602, and presided over by John 
 Smyth would occasionally meet in this historic building. For three or four years this 
 church served not only Gainsborough, but the villages for miles around. William 
 Brewster, of Scrooby, and William Bradford, of Austerfield who became governor and 
 historian of New Plymouth colony were members of this Gainsborough Church, and 
 travelled to Sabbath worship some ten or twelve miles, crossing the river by ferry 
 where now it is spanned by Weston's famous bridge. For the convenience of the 
 scattered members, a second church was founded at Scrooby, of which Richard Clyfton 
 was the pastor, and John Robinson the teacher. Puritan sentiments were fermenting 
 
 THE TEENT AT EAST FERRY, SHOWING PART OP OWSTON FERRY. 
 
 strongly on both sides of the Trent in those days, and fines were levied on the more 
 prominent leaders amongst the rest, on Brewster. Desiring for themselves fuller 
 freedom to worship God these sturdy Puritans made two attempts to reach the coast 
 of Holland. The first was unsuccessful, but the second, which was made in the spring 
 of 1609, met with a measure of success. This time the place of embarkation was 
 a lonely spot on the salt-marshes, somewhere between Grimsby and New Holland. The 
 men went to the rendezvous by land, and the women and children with their goods 
 went by water down the Trent and Humber. Each section of the emigrant party, it is 
 interesting to know, would skirt one of the sides of the early Scotter Circuit the men 
 probably taking the most direct line through Kirton, Brigg, Ulceby, and thence to the 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 413 
 
 Humber banks.* Ever since the men of the " Mayflower " took their memorable journey 
 this north Lincolnshire district has been a stronghold of Puritan sentiment. The 
 author vividly recalls how this fact of Lincolnshire's inveterate proneness to "heresy and 
 schism" was bitterly dwelt upon in the parochial school of Scotter close upon fifty years 
 ago. Our teacher proved his allegation up to the hilt. No lack of illustrative 
 examples ! This exodus of Gainsborough and Scrooby Puritans to the freer air of 
 Holland, was an instance in point. Was not Epworth, the birthplace of the Wesleys 
 and of Alexander Kilham, but a few miles away 1 And, as though that were not 
 enough for one county, a whole ' army of aliens ' has since then been called into 
 existence by General Booth, another Lincolnshire man ! Even in 1854, village 
 Methodist Chapels were as plentiful in the parts of Lindsey and Kesteven as black- 
 berries in the hedges ; and that our teacher knew right well. Were statistics only 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH MARKET-PLACE IN 1838. 
 
 available, they would show that scarcely a village in North Lincolnshire but has sent 
 forth some of its sons to recruit the ranks of the Methodist ministry. No district has 
 been more fertile for the raising of Primitive Methodist ministers than this, though we 
 judge the East Riding of Yorkshire runs it close. 
 
 In the light of such facts as these it was a notable event when. William Braithwaite 
 and Thomas Saxton, as missionaries sent out by Nottingham Circuit, entered Gains- 
 borotigh on a certain Sunday in December, 1818. They opened their commission in 
 the approved way by singing along the street as they passed to the market-place. 
 Thomas Cooper, then a lad of fourteen, was one of the many who ran out to see what 
 
 * Their probable course is indicated on the Map of Scotter District given on p. 358. 
 
414 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the unwonted sounds meant. It was soon evident that these two decently-clad, middle- 
 aged men were no mendicants singing for coppers. 
 
 " They' were called " Ranters " by the crowd ; ' says Cooper ' but I soon learned 
 that they termed themselves " Primitive Methodists." ' These men remained in the 
 town for some weeks, and preached in the open-air, and held meetings in houses ; 
 and the crowd, young and old, were greatly affected. Soon a society was formed, 
 and they began regularly to preach in the very small chapel which John Wesley 
 ' himself caused to be built, in a small square, in Little Church Lane ; but which 
 had been occupied as a warehouse for some time. I became a member of the 
 society, in company with at least a dozen other lads, some of whom were older and 
 some younger than myself. I cannot describe my anguish and sorrow for sin. 
 And, apparently, it was an equally serious case with each of the lads. My grief 
 continued for many weeks, until I could find no delight in my books, or drawing, 
 or dulcimer, and could read nothing but the Bible, and was getting into secret 
 places twenty times in a day to pray for the pardon of my sins. Many lowly 
 earnest preachers came and preached in the little chapel ; and prayer meetings 
 were prolonged till midnight, often. And many up-grown sinners professed to 
 find the pardon of their sins. The change of heart and life was real in some. 
 I remember well an elderly man, an inveterate cock-fighter being humbled, and 
 becoming a true penitent. This man lived, for many years afterwards, a consistent 
 Christian life. Nor was his case a solitary one." "The Life of Thomas Cooper," 
 pp. 37-8. 
 
 One can only speculate what might have been Thomas Cooper's career had his 
 connection with Primitive Methodism been more lasting; certainly it would have 
 " saved him from a thousand snares " and many bitter regrets. But another adherent 
 was early won to the cause of Primitive Methodism whose connection with it was to 
 be life-long. This was W. G. Bellham who at this time was a young man of three-and- 
 twenty, and a Wesleyan local preacher and class leader. Though a native of King's 
 Lynn, he had removed into Lincolnshire, and, being in Gainsborough, he was induced, 
 on October 23rd, 1820, to hear a Primitive Methodist preacher for the first time. He 
 has himself told us what he thought of the preacher and the service. " I thought," he 
 says, " I never saw so much of God in a man before ; he was all love ; and every word 
 he uttered was to my soul like honey dropping from the honeycomb. I felt so happy 
 in my own soul, that I thought I could live and die with this people." And he did 
 live and die with this people. After a struggle, he honourably resigned his offices and 
 membership with the Wesley ans, united himself with the Primitives, and in May, 121, 
 began his labours as a travelling preacher in the Scotter Circuit. The first four years 
 of Mr. Bellham's whole-hearted and successful ministry were spent on the Scotter, 
 Lough borough and Welton stations ; the remaining twenty-eight chiefly on the stations 
 of the Norwich District, where we shall meet him again. He died at Ramsgate, 
 January 24th, 1854. 
 
 The name of George Rex, and equally that of his excellent wife, is closely associated 
 with the early history of Primitive Methodism in Gainsborough and Retford. He 
 came to the former town soon after the formation of the Scotter Circuit, and took his 
 share in the long journeys which fell to the lot of local preachers, travelling chiefly 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 415 
 
 on foot to Messinghain, Austerfield, Epworth, Ferry and other places. When 
 Gainsborough became a separate Branch he was one of its leading officials. 
 Largely through his instrumentality a chapel was erected in Spring Gardens, and 
 a Sabbath school established. George Rex, too, it is said, was the first person in 
 Gainsborough to sign the total abstinence pledge. About 1847 
 Mr. Rex removed to Retford and became of great service to the 
 Carol Gate Society and to the Circuit generally, sustaining 
 many important offices and often being sent to represent his 
 Circuit at the District Meeting. 
 
 While residing in Gainsborough Mr. Rex had a house built 
 for himself which he called "Joppa." He was probably led to 
 give it this name from the fact that he was of the same occupation 
 as Simon the tanner who lodged Peter in his house hard by the 
 seashore at Joppa. In the Gainsborough " Joppa " many of the 
 servants of God through the years found rest and hospitable 
 entertainment. But if the story we took down from the lips 
 of the venerable Sampson Turner be true, the parallel between the two tanners' 
 houses holds still further. At Joppa " Simon Peter " had his didactic vision ; at 
 Gainsborough Sampson Turner and his colleagues were troubled in the night-watches 
 by what they firmly believed to be ghostly visitants. Such a story might of course be 
 easily omitted ; just as an expurgated edition of Wesley's Journal might be published 
 in which all references to ghosts and the supernatural might be left out and some 
 might think the^book improved by the omissions. But we prefer Wesley's Journal 
 just as he left it ghosts and all. Its historic value as a picture of life and 
 a chronicle of the times is depreciated in proportion as it is tampered with. Now, 
 we who knew the fathers, also know that some, even of the most hard-headed of them, 
 such as Thomas Southron and John Sharpe, would occasionally in their confidential 
 moments, allude to certain experiences .in their lives which in all seriousness and good- 
 faith they credited to the occasional impingement of the supernatural on the ordinary 
 natural round of life. And so this one story, linked as it is with 
 George Rex and his " Joppa," may stand to testify to our fathers' 
 belief in one segment of the supernatural that has been cut off 
 from our circle of thought; and to suggest that they may have 
 had apprehensions, and whispered confidences, and wrestlings that 
 we who claim to be their emancipated children know little of. 
 AYe neither justify nor condemn their beliefs ; we only want to 
 know what the beliefs were that lurked at the back of their 
 minds. It was on January 5th, 1874, that Sampson Turner drew 
 forth his recollections of the past and spoke as follows : 
 
 " It was in the years 1835-6 I travelled in Seotter, having 
 come there from Oldham. We lived at Kirton, and I had 
 William Sanderson and Abimelech Coulson for colleagues. AVe preached at 
 Gainsborough, twelve miles from Kirton, and lodged there at the house of 
 George Rex, tanner. The room we slept in was a room over a passage leading 
 
416 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 to the tannery and separated from Rex's room by a wainscot or wooden 
 partition. This room had a bad reputation. William Parkinson, who travelled 
 here and went to America but soon left us, had been disturbed. . . . My 
 turn came. It was Sunday. There was an eclipse of the sun that day, and 
 I had to preach afternoon and night at Gainsborough. I laboured hard, and 
 sleep was sweet and sound. But, as the church-clock, which was near, 
 sounded three, I lying on my face, a great weight as though of a calf came flat 
 down upon me. I sat up as though a secret spring had been touched, and in the 
 name of the Blessed Trinity adjured the something whatever it was to declare 
 itself 'Who art thou 1 O God, drive away the powers of darkness.' Rex heard 
 me, inquired what was the matter, struck a light, came in and we searched the 
 room, but found nothing. He went back and we lay talking some time until 
 
 HARDWICK HILL, WHERE EARLY CAMP MEETINGS WERE HELD. THE HOUSE JUST ON THE HILL IS 
 WHERE MANY OF OUR MINISTERS OFTEN STAYED. * 
 
 * When "Poet" Sanders travelled the Scotter Circuit in 1834 he was inspired to write some 
 lines on this preacher's home, on Hardwick Hill, beginning thus : 
 
 " There is a pleasant Pilgrims' Inn, 
 By Hardwick Hill you'll find it. 
 Persons who walk the downward road 
 Pass on and do not mind it. 
 This house to many is well known ; 
 The Lord with bliss hath crowned it. 
 Comfort and Peace within it reign, 
 And hills of sand surround it. 
 The ministers of Christ call there, 
 Though sinners may despise them, 
 Yet brother Fish and his dear wife, 
 Respect and highly prize them," etc., etc. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 417 
 
 I became drowsy and began to sink into sleep. Then the ' calf ' fell on me again. 
 I went through the same form of words and once more Rex came in with the light 
 but we found nothing. Abimelech Coulson changed his quarters after being 
 troubled once. As for Sanderson and myself, I don't think we were much troubled 
 after that." 
 
 From the indisputable evidence of old plans it is clear that the Gainsborough Branch 
 of 1819, became, in 1820, Scotter Circuit, and that from 1821 to 1823 Scotter stood 
 at the head of a district. On the plan May-October, 1821 there are forty -four 
 places and six travelling preachers, viz., S. Bailey, W. Wombwell, "W. Curtis 
 M. Bell, W. G. Bellham, and J. Oxtoby. By March, 1822, Marshland has been made 
 into a Branch with W. Wombwell and W. G. Bellham as its preachers, and with 
 twenty-six places, none of which, save Buttervvick, are included in the forty-four 
 places on the Scotter Plan of the preceding year ; so that we have a total of 
 sixty-nine places statedly served with preaching by fifty preachers. Hence the 
 remarkable fact emerges that, from 1819 to the beginning of 1822, a tract of country 
 had already been missioned, which in the course of years was to be divided up into 
 nine circuits, viz., Scotter, Gainsborough, Swinefleet, Goole, Selby, Epworth, "Winterton 
 Crowle, and Scunthorpe. In this enumeration Howden is allowed to Brotherton 
 The astonishing progress made in this short time makes us look with the more 
 interest on the first Gainsborough plan ; for it is certain that much of this process 
 must have been due to the pioneer missionaries. 
 
 With the first modest sheet before us we note the announcement : " All preaching to 
 be given up on the 13th of June, as there will be a Camp Meeting on Hardwick Hill 
 to begin at 10 o'clock, a.m." This camp meeting was duly held, and was so great 
 a success as to entitle it to rank amongst the historic camp meetings of Primitive 
 Methodism. We note further that there are only seven preachers on the plan, of whom 
 three are travelling preachers William Braithwaite, John Manuel and Hannah Parrott 
 On the Sundays these are planned at what may be considered a reasonable distance 
 
 from Gainsborough, but on the week-days they are planned further a-field as far as 
 
 Kirton and Bishop Norton. What little we know of William Braithwaite relates 
 almost entirely to his pioneer work in the old Scotter Circuit. When we first see him 
 singing along the streets of Gainsborough he has just emerged out of twilight obscurity 
 and when he leaves the Scotter Circuit we are baffled in our attempts to trace his after 
 movements. The last time his name occurs in the Minutes of Conference is in 1831 
 when at the end of the stations, we. have this note: "Under the direction of the 
 General Committee : W. Braithwaite." And yet, despite the paucity of our informa- 
 tion respecting him, William Braithwaite made his record. If he did nothing else, he 
 fairly earned the distinction of being the apostle of north-west Lincolnshire. As such 
 the popular tradition of the locality holds him, and loves to recount his doings ; and 
 as such his name will be handed down to posterity. Scotter Circuit has been favoured 
 with the labours of many greater men than William Braithwaite and it does not 
 forget them ; but it is no disparagement of William Sanderson and the rest, to affirm 
 that in this region the fondest traditions of the early times gather round William 
 Braithwaite. How is this ? Years ago we wrote : " Billy " Braithwaite, as he was 
 
 E E 
 
4-18 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 more often called, was an oddity in his way. He travelled a few years, but trading 
 with a very small capital, and being withal very erratic in his movements, he soon 
 found himself without a circuit. For some time he had an authorised roving commission. 
 Like the captain of a privateer, holding letters of marque, he steered his course where 
 the most spoil was to be taken from the enemy." In the gist of it this statement is 
 correct enough. William Braithwaite had his oddities, as had the three Johns with 
 whom he must be classed Benton, Wedgwood and Oxtoby. They were all men of 
 similar type ; men " thrown up," or rather, providentially given, to do rough pioneer 
 work in a decadent time. Like them, Braithwaite preferred to go where he listed and 
 do his work in his own way ; like them he had, there is reason to believe, some private 
 
 c. KENDALL'S BIRTHPLACE, BISHOP NORTON. 
 
 means, and therefore could afford to take his way. But though we do not retract the 
 statement just re-written, there is one phrase of it we must qualify that which 
 speaks of his trading with a very small, i.e., intellectual, capital. He must have had 
 considerable capital of some sort, or he could not have carried on the trade he did. 
 A preacher is not mainly one who peddles intellectual wares. His capital is his 
 sanctified personality. It is this which tells ; especially in such times as those in which 
 these men had to do their work, when the intellectual modes of presenting truth 
 favoured and fashioned by the schools, would have been about as effective as a razor 
 would be effective for the backwoodsman's purpose. 
 
 What kind_of capital William Braithwaite was endowed with, may be gathered from 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 419 
 
 certain incidents, in which he bore a leading part, that were connected with the intro- 
 duction of Primitive Methodism into villages whose names stand on the first plans. 
 Here is one incident concerning East Stockwith, on the banks of the Trent, which 
 shows him drawing on the infinite resources of God, and reveals the main secret of his 
 power. One day a farmer while at work in his field was surprised to hear a voice 
 raised in expostulation or entreaty. He left his horses and peeped through the hedge. 
 Instead of seeing two persons as he expected, and being made privy to an ordinary 
 ignoble human quarrel, he saw but one man on his knees, pleading with an invisible 
 Power. The tears were running down his cheeks, his eyes were closed, his hands were 
 clasped, and he was saying : " Thou must give me souls. I cannot preach without 
 souls. Lord, give me souls or I shall die." Awe-struck, the man withdrew to his 
 ploughing. When loosed from labour he told his wife of the strange occurrence. 
 " Why," said she, " he must be the man who has been round saying that he is going to 
 preach at the sluice-head." "Then let me have my things," said he, "for I'm going to 
 hear him." That farmer became a member of the first class, a useful official for many 
 years, and died in the full triumph of faith. 
 
 Bishop Norton, the birthplace of Charles Kendall, though a long stretch from 
 Gainsborough was missioned and regularly visited on the week-days, by W. Braith- 
 waite and his colleagues. George Smith, a Wesleyan local preacher, had been praying 
 that the Lord would send some person to arouse the people and spread the doctrines of 
 the cross; and when he heard Braithwaite on his first visit to the village, in 1819, he 
 involuntarily exclaimed : " Bless God, that man's God is my God." We at once recall 
 W. ( i. Bellham's similar expression of feeling as he listened to the preacher at Gains- 
 borough. Taken together, the two incidents suggest that Braithwaite's power with God 
 meant also power with men ; that the man put men in love with the message ; that he 
 "so" let his light shine that men were moved to take his God as their God, and his 
 people as their people. George Smith merits an additional word. As the newly-gathered 
 flock was without a shepherd, he volunteered his services until a suitable leader 
 could be found. This arrangement however was not satisfactory to the Wesleyan 
 authorities, and his name was erased from the official roll. And so what was intended 
 to be merely & pro tern, arrangement went on for the long space of fifty-one years. For 
 forty-four years he was a local preacher, and for the same length of time his house was 
 the home for the preachers, both lay and itinerant, who supplied the village pulpit. 
 He was a trustee, steward, and treasurer of Bishop Norton chapel, built in 1833, and 
 he lived to see it enlarged and free of debt. He supported the cause even beyond his 
 means, as many thought ; since his household of twelve had to subsist on a labourer's 
 weekly wage. His church loyalty was severely tested, as it often was in Lincolnshire 
 in those days ; for Sir Montague Chomley, his aristocratic master, by expostulation and 
 ven by threats of dismissal from his employment, endeavoured to detach him from 
 Methodism, but without avail. George Smith died January 24th, 1870, aged 84.* 
 
 William Braithwaite was not always tender and persuasive ; he often preached 
 
 * See his Memoir, Primitive Methodist Magazine, February, 1872 ; also " Life of Parkinson 
 Milson " by Rev. George Shaw, pp. 196-7, where stories of his loyalty are given. 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 " rousing " sermons, and sometimes could denounce as sternly as a prophet of old. 
 Indeed, the late Robert Ducker, who was a native of Burnham in the Isle of Axholme 
 and began his long ministry of forty-nine years in Scotter Circuit and Gainsborough 
 Branch, has written of Braithwaite : "He seemed to me more like one of the old 
 prophets than a man of his times." This feature of his character comes out in the 
 story of the missioning of Appleby, in June, 1819. Appleby is a pleasant village of 
 Winterton Circuit, lying between Brigg and Winterton. The Wesleyans had dis- 
 continued holding services in the village, probably because of the, quiet pressure not 
 to be distinguished from persecution brought to bear upon the householders by those 
 of higher social standing. Braithwaite took his stand on the basal stonework of the 
 old village cross, and began to sing. While the service was proceeding, the steward of 
 
 APPLEBY CHURCH. 
 
 the estate came up, and in an imperious tone ordered the preacher to desist. His order 
 not being at once obeyed, he tried to pull the preacher down, and not succeeding in his 
 attempt, he fetched a crowbar from the blacksmith's shop, and, with the help of two 
 men, began to prize the stones from under the preacher's feet. At last, to save himself 
 from falling, Braithwaite had to step on to the road. But when every one deemed him 
 effectually silenced, after pausing a moment with closed eyes, he shot a glance at th& 
 three persecutors which transfixed them, and said in solemn tones: "People of 
 Appleby, mark my words, if any one of these three men die a natural death, then 
 God never sent me to preach here to-day. They think they have prevented the truth 
 from being declared to you, but they have not, for God will raise up a cause in this- 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AXD ENTERPRISE. 
 
 421 
 
 place, and a prosperous one too." This was no splenetic outburst; for, strange to say, 
 both the doom foretold and the church-prosperity promised came to pass One day 
 there was a dinner-party at the Hall, and the steward accompanied some of the guests 
 
 to the top of the old church tower, whence a fine view 
 can be gained of the Humber and the Yorkshire Wolds 
 on the one hand, and of Broughton Woods and the 
 Lincolnshire Wolds on the other. Perhaps unduly 
 stimulated by the wine he had taken at dinner, the 
 steward clambered up one of the pinnacles. It yielded 
 under his weight, and he fell from the tower, and when 
 the rest had made their way with all speed to the church- 
 yard, there lay the steward with his neck broken. The 
 late George Shaw visited the spot in 1855 and he avers 
 that, though the accident had occurred fifteen years 
 before, the spot was quite bare as if the grass had been 
 worn away by the trampling of innumerable feet, though, 
 JAMES KEIGHTLET. in fact, few sight-seers visited the spot on which a curse 
 
 seemed to rest.* This is not all, Mr. Shaw asked an old man what became of the 
 other persecutors. One, he was told, was gored by a bull, and the other, a few months 
 after, was drowned in a shallow dyke. It is. all very strange, and we leave it thus, 
 without venturing an opinion as to whether it were a singular triple coincidence, or 
 a threefold retribution. As to the facts themselves there can be no reasonable doubt, 
 and the facts could easily be paralleled by other incidents in our earlier history. 
 
 The brighter side of William Braithwaite's prophecy concerning Appleby has been 
 fulfilled to the letter. God did raise up a prosperous cause in the village, although it 
 was not until 1894 that a chapel was secured. For more than fifty years services were 
 held in the cottage of Mr. Kichard Keightley and his devoted wife. God's blessing 
 was upon them and theirs because of their faithful'service 
 and ungrudging hospitality, and they lived to see two of 
 their sons, James and K. W. Keightley, take an honoured 
 place in the ministry of their Church. 
 
 Brief mention must be made of adjoining Broughton, 
 if for no other reason than that it was the place of 
 Parkinson Milson's nativity. 
 
 " The house in which my nativity occurred," says 
 he, " was a portion of what was known as the Old 
 School House, and was situated near the corner of 
 the East Wood. The position is remarkably pleasant, 
 bounded as it is by the East, North, and West 
 Woods. The village lies near the fine chain of hills 
 known as the Wolds, the sides of which wear 
 a sylvan loveliness, particularly when steeped in the 
 cloudless splendour of a summer's sun, in its first post-meridian altitudes." 
 
 R. W. KEIGHTLEY. 
 
 * Aldersgaie Magazine, 1895, pp. 130-1. 
 
422 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 HOUSE IN WHICH PARKINSON MILSON WAS BORN. 
 
 Broughton was missioned in 1819, and its name is found on the early plans of the 
 Scotter Circuit. At first, the services were held on the village green and in the cottage 
 of .Mrs. Mally Allgarth. At her death, the society was left with the open-air for its 
 only sanctuary, until William and Ann Neal proffered the use of their cottage which 
 
 continued to be the recognised 
 preaching-place until the build- 
 ing of the chapel in 1841. 
 William Neal touched the lives 
 of many for good. It was at 
 a prayer meeting in his house 
 when, in July, 1843, Parkinson 
 Milson knelt as a penitent and 
 " wept much, though he did not 
 pray audibly." Neal, too, was 
 the leader of the class with 
 which, three days after this, 
 Milson united himself ; so 
 that he began his Christian 
 course just as the first period 
 of Primitive Methodism was 
 closing. It was amongst these 
 Broughton Woods he worked 
 
 and prayed, -and thought out his Sunday sermons, and where he experienced 
 
 a remarkable deliverance from death which helped to decide his career. When, one 
 
 day busy in the woods he was buried beneath a tree which another tree had 
 
 unexpectedly crashed down upon, and William Neal was weeping under the 
 
 impression that Milson was 
 
 crushed to death, he crept out 
 
 from under a big branch whose 
 
 fracture had made a small 
 
 arch of protection for him, 
 
 exclaiming "I am Thine by 
 
 preservation." One of his work- 
 mates voiced the general feeling 
 
 by saying : " I'll tell thee what, 
 
 lad, the Lord wants thee to do 
 
 better work than felling trees ; 
 
 and if thou does not do it, the 
 
 next tree that falls will kill thee 
 
 as sure as thou art born." So 
 
 Milson himself thought ; and 
 
 within the month (June, 1846), he left his woodman's tools for ever, and began his 
 
 ministry of flame. As for William and Ann Neal, they both were spared to reach 
 
 a patriarchal age, William dying in triumph in 1878, aged 81, and "Ann surviving 
 
 VILLAGE GREEN OF BROCGHTON, WHERE OPEN-AIR SERVICES 
 WERE FIRST HELD. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 423 
 
 three years longer. " They have been devil-fighters all their lives," was Parkinson 
 Milson's brief and characteristic tribute to their character. 
 
 Atkinson Smith put off the harness three years after Parkinson Milson put it on. 
 He was only fifty years of age when superannuated by the Sunderland Conference of 
 1849, and yet, as the poet wrote of him : 
 
 " The scars were on thy flesh 
 
 The marks thy body bore ; 
 The spirit still was strong and fresh, 
 The clay could fight no more." 
 
 Like Parkinson Milson, he was a Xorth Lincolnshire man, being born at Scotterthorpe ; 
 and though he died at Goxhill, where he settled on his retirement, his remains were 
 interred in the churchyard of Scotter, his native parish, by his own request. It was 
 only in 1829, eight years after he became a member of the Church, that Atkinson 
 Smith showed any indications of what he afterwards came to be. Up to that time, 
 religiously he enjoyed little and did little ; but he now experienced a deeper work of 
 
 grace which made him ten- 
 fold more useful than he had 
 been before. He was borne 
 into the ministry on the crest 
 of a revival-wave, which in 
 the spring of 1830 swept over 
 the whole of Scotter Circuit. 
 "It is probable," says his 
 biographer, 
 
 "that the revival which 
 then took place was one of 
 the most powerful and 
 extensive that was ever 
 experienced in that part 
 of the county of Lincoln. 
 The country was baptised. 
 
 Nearly every house was a house of prayer. It was truly interesting, as well as 
 profitable, to take your stand in the streets of some of these villages at the time 
 when the curtains of evening, like the doors of a sanctuary, were shutting the 
 people up with God. The voice of praise, sometimes from the family alone, at 
 others from collected neighbours, could be distinctly heard ascending at the 
 same moment from many a family hearth. The reformatory power of religion 
 was soon strikingly manifested. That which civil laws and magisterial authority 
 had failed to effect, after many a trial, was accomplished by the religion of Christ. 
 A great number of the pests and plagues of a large neighbourhood were converted 
 to God ; and several of them, to our knowledge, after having lived for years as 
 becometh the gospel of Christ, have been gathered to their rest in heaven, and 
 many others continue in well-doing to this day. 
 
 " In all this the village of Messingham appeared to be the most favoured spot. 
 Hundreds of people journeyed thither to witness the strange things which had 
 come to pass ; and not unf requently some returned home new creatures, making 
 
 HOUSE IN WHICH PRIMITIVE METHODISM COMMENCED AT 
 BROUGHTON W. NEAi's HOUSE. 
 
424 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the roads and lanes vocal with the song of praise. All classes of society were 
 
 excited. On the village-green, in casual intercourse, or among the busy scenes of 
 
 the market, the usual topic was the great revival in Scotter Circuit."* 
 
 It is a pleasing picture the writer draws of what he himself had seen and known 
 
 a picture which almost involuntarily starts the prayer " Haste again, ye days of grace ! " 
 
 Equally pleasing is the biographer's description of Atkinson Smith's absorption in this 
 
 great revival. He was happily circumstanced both for furthering and enjoying it, 
 
 being at the time foreman on a large farm at Messingham, occupied by a Wesleyan 
 
 local preacher who, like himself, was fully in the spirit of the revival. Master and man 
 
 would often take the lead in services held in the large farm-kitchen, in the presence 
 
 SCOTTER CHURCH. THE RESTING-PLACE OF ATKINSON SMITH. 
 
 of the numerous children and servants who, in patriarchal style, lived under the same 
 roof. Once, praise and prayer were still going on, with the blinds drawn and the 
 candles burning, while the sun was already up and climbing the eastern sky. It was 
 nothing to them that the struggling angel said, "Let me go, the day breaketh." It 
 might, break and dawn and shine; they said, "We will not let thee go except thou 
 bless us." 
 
 When Atkinson Smith travelled in Hull, in 1833, he was known as "the young 
 sanctification preacher." The description was accurate, fastening as it did upon that 
 feature of his ministry which distinguished it to the last. The compulsion which gave 
 this bent to his preaching grew out of a definite outstanding fact in his own experience. 
 With this behind him, he might have said, " Woe is me if I preach not " the full 
 
 * " Life of Atkinson Smith," by Charles Kendall, 1854. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 425 
 
 privilege of believers. But in seeking the perfecting of saints, he did not forget the 
 saving of sinners. So far from that, the saving of men became the chief concern and 
 the main business of his life. His solicitude on this score drove him to his closet and 
 kept him on his knees for hours together, and urged him to efforts beyond his strength. 
 " The zeal of God's house " consumed him ; like the lamp which burns with so ardent 
 a flame that it uses up too fast the oil within the vessel. It is no ideal man but the 
 actual Atkinson Smith we are depicting, as we may be assured of, if for a moment we 
 leave general statements and come to particulars supplied by his contemporaries. 
 " I called upon him one day," says one of his leaders, " and on entering the house, 
 I heard him in his study in a vehement agony of prayer. Mrs. Smith was in tears ; 
 she said : ' Oh, brother W., if the Lord does not revive his work soon I shall lose my 
 
 MESSIXGHAM, PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL AND STREET. 
 
 husband.' " William Lonsdale, one of his colleagues, a man like-minded with himself, 
 has written of Atkinson Smith : " He was a man of much fervent prayer. I remember 
 him saying to me one Friday (I think at Gainsborough), ' Lonsdale, I have prayed two 
 hours before breakfast every morning this week.' He seemed in a flame of holy zeal 
 for souls, and the glory of God." Again, George Wakefield, an influential official of 
 Scotter Circuit, has left it on record : "The influence which accompanied his prayers, 
 while only young, was extraordinary. Doubtless he and his brother Edward were two 
 of the mightiest men in prayer ever raised up in these parts." 
 
 Enough : it was an incalculable good that such a man as Atkinson Smith was 
 permitted for nineteen years to--- fulfil his ministry in the circuits of the old Hull 
 District. Doubtless, during these] years, many a scene must have been witnessed like 
 
426 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 PARKINSON WILSON. 
 
 that fondly recalled by one who was present in old Mill Street. Atkinson Smith was 
 preaching on Ezekiel's vision of the waters which flowed from under the altar. 
 
 A powerful influence rested on the congregation, reach- 
 ing its climax when the preacher recited, with much 
 feeling, the lines of Richard Jukes : 
 
 ' When first in this river I ventur'd my soul, 
 The waters of life to my ankles did roll, 
 But still persevering my Saviour to please, 
 I soon found the river was up to my knees : 
 A thousand is measured, and then I go in, 
 'Tis up to my loins, 'tis freedom from sin. 
 And then I go on to prove it a river, 
 So deep, and so wide, I swim in't for ever." 
 
 "The sun was setting in its splendour, and his full 
 soul was swimming in the fountain of rich redeeming 
 love what time he led the praying host into the fulness 
 and sinners to Calvary." * At the close of his ministry when seeking superannuation, 
 he could modestly claim that, through the labours of himself and his colleagues, one 
 thousand two hundred and four had been added to the membership on his various 
 stations. 
 
 What has been said of Atkinson Smith might, with little modification, be said also 
 of Parkinson Milson. They had both passed through the same crisis of experience, 
 and lived and preached the same truths ; and in both, the intense spirit " o'er-informed 
 the tenement of clay." And yet Milson was very human, in the best sense loving 
 and loveworthy, intermeddling with knowledge, and possessing considerable imagination 
 and poetic sensibility. We are apt to forget this, and to think of him merely, instead 
 of mainly, as the red- 
 hot revivalist and 
 preacher of holiness. 
 Atkinson Smith and 
 Milson, along with 
 Thomas Proctor, John 
 Smith (1), George 
 Warner, and others 
 who have been given 
 to our Church, must be 
 classed with William 
 Bramwell, David 
 Stoner and Thomas 
 Collins. Their reputa- 
 tion will tend to in crease WILDSWORTH CHAPEL. 
 
 rather than diminish as the years go by ; for, after all, it is the record of saintliness and 
 usefulness that lasts the longest, and which brightens as it lasts, as though even here 
 
 * " Reminiscences of the Early Days of Primitive Methodism in Hull." By Jane Garbutt. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 427 
 
 the promise were beginning to have its fulfilment " They that turn many to right- 
 eousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." 
 
 The villages of old Scotter Circuit are full of memories. Here, for example, is 
 Wildsworth, a little village on the banks of the Trent where, in 1821, a curious little 
 chapel was built on a piece of waste ground near the river. With this village cause, 
 the family of Airy, so well known throughout the circuit, was early ^associated. At 
 West Ferry and Kirton Lindsey chapels were built before the close of the year 1819. 
 It was at Kirton, lying under the brow of the Lincolnshire Wolds, where William 
 Sanderson, to use his own phrase, " nestled down " after his superannuation. Here he 
 spent in an almost idyllic manner the remaining twenty-two years of his life, cultivating 
 his ample garden, enriched as it was witli flowers contributed by friends in the various 
 
 W. SANDERSON S COTTAGE, KIRTON. 
 
 parts of the country he visited for special services; for, until 1865, it was true of him 
 as he said, that " his speaking parts were as good as ever, but his going parts were 
 disabled." Then when the seizure came, it took the form of aphasia, and the once 
 ready and eloquent man would smilingly look at you, hopelessly lost for the commonest 
 word. With his garden, a few good books, as long as might be the means of grace, 
 and not forgotten by his friends, he quietly awaited the summons which came 
 April 3rd, 1874, only some six weeks before, John Flesher, his closest friend, also 
 received his call. It was here, or hereabouts, too, that the shattered William Lonsdale, 
 the Weardale convert of Sanderson, came to die (1863), and where William By water, 
 ex-Missionary Secretary and famous chapel-builder, spent the closing years of his life, 
 
428 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 though he died in 1869, at Cote Houses, the hospitable home of the Harsleys 
 a family which, ever since the time Thomas Harsley's name stood as first local preacher 
 on the first plan, has been honourably associated with Scotter Circuit. 
 
 Reference has been made to Messingham and the great revival of Avhich it was the 
 centre. Messingham stands next to Scotter on the early plans, and there is an incident 
 connected with its missioning in 1818 of some interest, at least to the writer. At that 
 time there lived at the hamlet of Ashby one Thomas Kendall, a cottage-farmer and 
 carrier who for many years drove his cart every Tuesday to Gainsborough, and 
 " put up " and dined at the Black Bull hard by the Old Hall. Going to Messingham 
 one evening on business, he heard that a party of mountebanks was there, and 
 
 MESSINGHAM, SHOWING THE THEE UNDER WHICH THE SERVICE WAS HELD. 
 
 determined to witness their performance; but his purpose was frustrated in an 
 unexpected manner. William Braithwaite was that evening conducting a service at 
 Messingham, and Thomas was somehow drawn to the place, where he heard part of 
 the sermon preached, and the old hymn " Turn to the Lord," etc., sung. We quote 
 from the memoir of Thomas Kendall as to what followed. 
 
 " Conviction for sin seized him while he listened, and it was of so powerful 
 a nature that he often declared his hair rose up upon his head and displaced his 
 hat. A similar effect is not unfrequently produced by strong fear. . . . For several 
 weeks he remained in an awakened state, and then entered into gospel liberty as 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 429 
 
 he stood against the doorstead of a barn at Crosby, listening 
 to a sermon preached by Miss Hannah Tarrott, afterwards 
 Mrs. Smith of Goxhill. This was in the spring of 1819. A class 
 was soon afterwards formed at Ashby, which he joined. Its 
 first meeting was at his house. He co-operated with the rest of 
 the members in the erection of a chapel. This chapel, not 'being 
 properly secured to the Connexion, was in a little while sold by 
 the person on whose land it stood, and the infant society was 
 scattered. For a time the Primitive Methodists did not preach 
 at the village. They, however, revisited it ; a society was again 
 formed, of which Thomas Kendall became a member [afterwards 
 MISS P \RROTT a l ea der and chapel steward] until his decease. There was 
 
 (Afterwards Mrs. Smith.) a revival of religion not long afterwards in the Scotter Circuit. 
 
 THOMAS KENDALL S HOUSE, ASHBT. 
 
 It reached Ashby, and the cause there was established. A second chapel was built, 
 of which he became a trustee, and some improvement which he had effected in its 
 financial state was a source of satisfaction to him on his death-bed." 
 
 Just before he expired, February 22nd, 1854, he spread his attenuated arms and 
 exclaimed: "Learn to die, my dears!" As a memento of this dying ^charge, one of 
 his sons wrote a verse which was inscribed on his tomb-stone in Bottesford churchyard, 
 where devout men, headed by William Sanderson, laid him to rest. 
 
 ' "With daily energy supplied 
 
 His task through life he sought : 
 ' Oh, learn to die,' he said, then died, 
 Himself by Jesus taught." 
 
430 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Thomas Kendall was a plain man of few words, but these sharp and decisive as pistol 
 shots. He was independent in sentiment and action, prompt, and so true a time-keeper, 
 that the carrier's punctuality was a proverb in the village. While his character thus 
 showed something of Puritan ruggedness and austerity, Fanny Dennis, his wife, had 
 all the vivacity and fluent speech of her Celtic race. Some at least of their eleven 
 children who survived, must have derived largely from the maternal side ; for, of the 
 
 BOTTESFOKI) CHURCH. 
 
 FANNY KENDALL. 
 
 ten sons, six were at their father's death preachers of 
 the gospel. These all began their course as Primitive 
 Methodists, but three subsequently entered the ministry 
 of other Churches, while, Charles, Thomas and Dennis 
 fulfilled a long and useful ministry in the Church of 
 their youth. Charles carved his record deep in the 
 Hull District. He was a capable administrator, a good 
 manager of men, a careful and prayerful superintendent ; 
 a powerful preacher, with an unusually large vocabulary 
 at command, from which he knew how to select the 
 right word, as the books he has left testify. He was 
 the biographer of Atkinson Smith and William Sander- 
 son, in conjunction with the latter the originator and 
 editor of the first series of the " Primitive Pulpit " ; and 
 in collaboration with his brother Henry, the author 
 of "Strange Footsteps: or Thoughts on the Providence 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 431 
 
 CHAS. KENDALL. 
 
 of God," besides being the writer of various pamphlets. He 
 was elected President of the Conference of 1881, held at Hull, 
 and died during his term of office, May 5th, 1882. Thomas 
 Kendall was converted at Gainsborough, and began and ended 
 his thirty-four years' ministry in his native circuit. By his 
 genial, kindly disposition and pastoral diligence he endeared 
 himself to his people. His soul was full of music so that he sang 
 as well as preached that gospel which he illustrated by his life. 
 He died at Doncaster January 24th, 1878; Dennis Kendall 
 began his successful ministry at Swinefleet in 1847. His 
 ministry of forty-four years was chiefly spent on Circuits in 
 
 THE KENDALL MEMOKIAL CHAPEL, ASHBT. 
 
 the South of England where, as we shall see, he proved 
 himself an efficient superintendent. How much good resulted 
 from those two open-air services which shaped the life-course 
 of the humble village carrier ! 
 
 A further though not the final stage in this story of village 
 Primitive Methodism was reached when, in 1885, a removal 
 was made from the old site in Bottesford Lane to the High 
 Street of Ashby, and the "Kendall Memorial Chapel" was 
 erected at a cost of 1050, and opening services conducted on 
 four consecutive Sundays by members of the Kendall family. 
 The cause in the village continues to prosper ; and bearers of 
 
 THOS. KENDALL. 
 
432 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the old name are still doing good service, the Nestor of whom is James Kendall g who 
 occupies the old homestead, while Leeson Fetch survives as a veteran official. 
 
 Favoured, no doubt, by its more central position, Scotter soon superseded Gains- 
 borough as titular head of the Branch, and in 1820 was formed into an independent 
 circuit. It speedily took rank with the leading circuits, becoming strong and aggressive, 
 and having at the close of this period, 1842, no less than sixteen travelling preachers 
 labouring on its eight branches, three of which were the distant Norman Isles Jersey, 
 Guernsey and Alderney. A new chapel was built as early as 1819, the opening 
 services being conducted on September 5th, by John Harrison and Hannah Parrott, the 
 latter being one of the station ministers. Miss Parrott was a woman of excellent 
 character and abilities, who was made extensively useful in the early days. In his 
 
 SCOTTER CHAPEL. 
 
 In which the Deed Poll was read and approved. 
 
 "The Female Advocate" which perhaps still remains the best apologia for female 
 preaching we have John Stamp says of Miss Parrott: "She has spiritual children in 
 the ministry. I am one." As Mrs. Smith, of Goxhill, this pioneer preacher survived 
 many years, honoured by all who knew her. Scotter Chapel, which with its adjoining 
 preacher's house was built " on the site of an old duck-pond, given by Mr. R. Ducker," 
 was ultimately lost to the Connexion, as so many of the early chapels were. One who 
 wrote near the time and knew all the persons and circumstances connected with the 
 alienation of the property, does not hesitate to attribute it to 
 
 "a factious movement by a party that had always passed for trustees of the 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 433 
 
 Scotter Chapel, and were found in the end to be proprietors, having caused to be 
 inserted in the deed of conveyance certain clauses empowering them to dispose of 
 it as they might think proper. The society had contributed towards its erection, 
 and twice afterwards to its enlargement under deceptive representations. The 
 proprietors refusing to sell it or lease it to the Connexion, it was abandoned, and 
 through the gracious interference of Divine Providence, and the sympathies of the 
 public, a new chapel, in easy circumstances, was soon erected [on Gainsborough 
 Road]. Many wondered to see a chapel and two preachers' houses springing up in 
 the very best part of the village, but the brother of Atkinson Smith and a host of 
 his old friends were praying, and the long-tried, earnest, and loyal friends of 
 Primitive Methodism in Scotter and its neighbourhood were giving ; and what 
 difficulty, associated with the maintenance and diffusion of God's cause, can stand 
 before praying and giving 1 " " Life of .Atkinson Smith " (pp. 88-89). 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF SCOTTEF. 
 
 The old chapel (vacated for the new one in 1849) still stands, though its outward 
 aspect is not quite the same as when the delegates to the Conference of 1829 carried 
 on their- deliberations within its walls ; for to Scotter belongs the distinction of being 
 the only rural village at which a Primitive Methodist Conference has been held. We 
 say " rural village " advisedly, to distinguish it from Tunstall, which was little more 
 than a manufacturing village when the second Conference, of 1821, was held there. 
 No clearer proof is needed of the higher role played by villages in the early period of 
 the Connexion's history, or of the standing and influence of Scotter as a circuit at the 
 close of the last century's third decade. At this time, though Scotter is the head of 
 a good country station, and is a large, clean village pleasantly situated on its little 
 
 PF 
 
434 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 tributary of the Trent ; it is no busy centre, as one may gather from its being unserved 
 by any railway line, and gives small indication of its former, almost diocesan, importance. 
 The Conference of 1829 was noteworthy in several respects, and first and chief of all, 
 because then there appeared various signs not to be mistaken that the Connexion was 
 at last emerging out of that period of depression and crisis which, like a malignant 
 shadow, had rested upon it from 1824 to 1828. True; during these four years the 
 borders of the Connexion were very considerably extended, especially in the North and 
 West, but this extension was coincident with stationariness or retrogression in other 
 parts. We have already had occasion to anticipate this painful fact in writing of the 
 Midlands. And when we turn to the numerical returns for the period, there is proof, 
 plain enough, that something was wrong. The increase reported for 1825 was only 
 75, and no returns whatever were issued for 1826 and 1827 ; then when the muster- 
 roll was again taken in 1828, the membership of the Connexion was found to be 31,610, 
 or 1,897 less than it had been in 1824, four years before. In addition to this, many of 
 the circuits were found to be unable to pay their way, and were in debt to their 
 ministers. The outlook was so dark that many good men and especially Hugh Bourne 
 began seriously to dread that the Connexion was on the down-grade and would 
 soon cease to be. 
 
 To what causes must this period of reverse be attributed 1 Mr. Petty has we think 
 put his finger on two of the main co-operative causes in specifying : First, the too rapid 
 increase of travelling preachers, rendering it inevitable that a good many unsuitable men 
 would be employed to the grievous detriment of the circuits. Second : A certain 
 number of restless, turbulent spirits crept in from other churches and, turning the 
 Connexion into a cave of Adullam, ultimately wrought mischief. Both these causes 
 must be allowed due weight, and a moment's consideration will go to show that in the 
 case of a denomination like ours, beginning from the ground, increasing and extending 
 itself so rapidly, and doing its chief work among the poor and less-instructed class, it 
 was inevitable that the causes already specified would operate, and sooner or later a time 
 of trial and crisis be reached such as that which was traversed from 1824 to 1828 ; and, 
 with Mr. Petty, one can but wonder the crisis was traversed with, what must after all 
 be regarded as, comparatively little loss. 
 
 Mr. Petty finds his third cause contributing to the Connexional crisis in "the great 
 commercial distress " which prevailed at the time in the manufacturing districts. As to 
 the existence of this distress, with all the social unrest to which it gave rise, there can be 
 no manner of doubt. But while this is fully admitted, it may be doubted whether, had 
 the other causes been inoperant, the state of the country would have proved other than 
 the Church's opportunity. In the time of distress and disorder which obtained in the 
 Midlands before 1819, when the Luddites were at work and " Levelling " principles were 
 rife, the Great Revival took place and, as we have tried to show, men lent a willing ear 
 to the message of good-will and consolation our fathers brought to them. Again, in 
 the disappointment which fell upon the people after the passing of the Reform Bill, 
 Primitive Methodism could more than hold her own during the excitement which 
 attended the advocacy of the Charter. And further, when, by resorting to drastic 
 measures, our Church had got rid of the elements which disturbed her peace and 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 435 
 
 robbed her of her power with men, then her strength came back to her, and there is no 
 more fear of issuing numerical returns, and no decrease to report until 1845. And yet, 
 though the Connexional crisis was over, the state of the country grew worse rather 
 than better, until, in 1830, publicists and clergymen and men of all schools, were in 
 dread that a revolution was at hand. Our own deliberate opinion is that Primitive 
 Methodism was no inconsiderable factor in averting the revolution that so many feared 
 was coming ; * also that she has done her best work when and where, by reason of 
 unequal laws or industrial changes, social distress has seemed to create difficulties in her 
 path, whether that path has taken her amongst the operatives, or miners or agricultural 
 labourers of this our land. 
 
 The Scotter Conference stands out in refreshing contrast with some of the Conferences 
 immediately preceding, especially those of 1824 and 1825 held at Halifax and Sunder- 
 land respectively. Looking at the state of the Connexion as it then presented itself, and 
 looking at it by the light of the journals, official documents and letters of the time, we 
 are again forcibly reminded of Daniel Isaac's dictum, " They want discipline." Hugh 
 Bourne was the stern, pitiless prophet of the time. He lifted up his voice, vibrating 
 with passionate anxiety, in exposing and denouncing the evils that threatened the very 
 existence of the denomination. There were hot debates in those two early Conferences, 
 and yet at the end of them, Hugh Bourne found himself in a minority. Many of his 
 brethren regarded his judgments as harsh, and his proposals more severe than the 
 occasion, bad as it was, demanded. But in 1826, the situation was if anything worse 
 than ever, and his sterner counsels prevailed. Though, strange to say, his name never 
 stands as President of any Conference, his spirit pervades the Minutes of those years 
 and there is no mistaking his pen. At this time the circuit debts amounted in the 
 aggregate to some thousand pounds a widely distributed cause of anxiety 'and 
 embarrassment. The preachers on these stations were roughly divided into "useful" 
 and "running-out preachers." This latter term, evidently of Hugh Bourne's minting, 
 denominated the preachers who ran the circuits into debt. It was these drones or 
 inefficients who were aimed at by a regulation of the Nottingham Conference of 1826. 
 In answer to the question, "How shall the Connexion be preserved ?" it was enacted: 
 "No circuit, already in debt, shall be allowed to run any further in debt; and no 
 circuit not now in debt shall be allowed to run in debt." The course taken was 
 suggested by the self-denying ordinance adopted by the Hull preachers in 1822 Avhen, 
 faced by a circuit deficit, they proposed to forego a portion of their quarter's salary, 
 until, by hard work and the blessing of God, there should be an improvement in the 
 circuit finances. This temporary bye-law was now made a Connexional statute. "It 
 was found necessary for all preachers to be put on beginning to make proof of their 
 ministry." The regulation worked as was expected and desired. In the course of twelve 
 months thirty of these " runners out " made good their name by quitting the ministry. 
 The new regulation bore hardly for a time upon some of the "useful preachers"; so 
 much so, that a Charitable Fund was started in order partially to recoup them for the 
 
 * For further illustration of this position see the chapter on " The Kingdom as Salt," in " Christ's 
 Kingdom and Church in the Nineteenth Century." 
 
 FF 2 
 
436 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 RUTH WATKINS. 
 
 losses they had sustained. In other ways the bands of discipline were tightened. The 
 system of Circuit and ministers' pledges was begun : the creeping into the societies of 
 
 unprincipled men from other Circuits or Churches was 
 sought to be frustrated : entrance into the ministry was 
 more carefully guarded. The action of the Conference 
 of 1826 was a piece of relentless surgery ; but the patient's 
 condition was too serious for mild treatment. By 1828 
 the worst was past, and although the returns showed 
 a decrease of 1907 on the returns of 1824, there was an 
 actual increase of 1610 on the year, and in nine years 
 the membership of the Connexion more than doubled 
 itself, the rather less than 30,000 members of 1827 
 having by 1 836 become 62,306. No wonder that inspired 
 by the brightened aspect of affairs in 1829, Hugh Bourne 
 should write : " This was allowed to be the best Con- 
 ference ever held in the Primitive Methodist Connexion 
 and is likely to be remembered with a degree 
 of satisfaction for years to come and to be spoken of by children yet unborn." 
 
 Two notable things were done at the Scotter Conference, both of which showed that 
 at last the Connexion had come clear out of the shadow of her temporary eclipse : 
 the establishment of a mission to the United States, and the presentation and passing 
 of the Connexional Deed Poll. 
 
 The desirability of following the numerous Primitive Methodists who had crossed 
 the Atlantic had for some time been keenly felt by the authorities of both the Hull 
 and Tunstall Circuits. The proposal to send missionaries to the United States 
 emanated from these two circuits, and the enterprise was jointly theirs. The Scotter 
 Conference gave its sanction to the scheme and commended it to the prayers and 
 sympathy of our people in the first Conference address. Four missionaries, W. Knowles 
 and Ruth Watkins from Tunstall, and W. Summersides 
 and T. Morris selected by Hull Circuit, sailed for New 
 York on June 19th, 1829. There is extant an old letter 
 which brings their departure before us in a realistic way 
 and shows William Clowes figuring in a new character 
 
 that of an energetic man of business. The letter is 
 
 addressed to John Flesher, and is written from Manchester. 
 
 "Through much fatigue I got the missionaries to 
 Liverpool last Wednesday afternoon, sought a vessel, 
 paid their fare, 24 15s., bought their sea-stores and 
 bedding, got their luggage to lodgings and from there 
 to the ship and them on board, according to orders 
 by nine o'clock the next morning. The ship is called 
 'The New York.' The wind being against them 
 they did not sail till the next morning. They cleared WILLIAM KNOWLES. 
 
 the docks about five minutes past eleven, at which Went to America, June 19th, 1829. 
 time they waved their hands and bade me adieu. A good wind and all in good 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 437 
 
 spirits, with the exception of Sister Ruth. She sate pensive and wept. You will 
 observe they all sailed in one vessel, bound for New York. I felt bound with 
 them in spirit. Brother Flesher ! without a spirit of enterprise there is no 
 glory." 
 Such, as brought back by this old letter, was the leave-taking of our first over-sea 
 
 ^ r^ PV __ ^ -^ 
 
 2 ^a.S5^ 
 ^ 2 W a- a S 
 ee 
 
 
 
 missionaries. Now enthusiasm, when it takes the form of missionary enterprise, is an 
 admirable thing ; but looking back now upon this American mission, one may well 
 doubt whether it were wise to undertake such a mission. But even granting that 
 it was, one can easily see now, with the documents before us, that our fathers under- 
 
438 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 rated the magnitude of their undertaking, with the result that the mission was but 
 inadequately equipped both with agents of the right kind and with means. The 
 handbill which the missionaries took with them for distribution looks as though what 
 the United States might be was hardly understood. There is a certain insular 
 . simplicity about this bill which surely needed the counter- 
 active of larger maps. 
 
 If After the arrival of the party, W. Knowles and Euth Watkins 
 
 fiL* , &' began their labours in New York, while the Hull missionaries 
 
 proceeded to Philadelphia where, as also at Pottsville, some 
 ninety miles distant, societies were formed. The United States 
 mission did not fulfil the sanguine expectations of its promoters 
 must indeed, so far as its earlier history is concerned, be 
 regarded as having been a comparative failure, and at the annual 
 Conference held at New York, September 16th, 1840, it was 
 we consider ourselves from this time distinct 
 
 MR. ROBERT WALKER, 
 
 CANADA. from and unconnected with the English Conference." In harmony 
 
 with this resolution the united societies were legally incorporated under the title of 
 "The American Primitive Methodist Church." The severance, however, was not 
 final; for, in 1843, overtures were made to the English Conference with the view of 
 resuming closer connection. The result was the opening of a new page in the history 
 of Primitive Methodism in the United States which will have to be glanced at when 
 we come to look at the missionary movements of the next period. 
 
 Primitive Methodism was introduced into Canada by loyal and zealous laymen from 
 the Home-land, and, under the old flag, met with greater success than in the United 
 States. Mr. William Lawson, who had been a local preacher in Carlisle, began to 
 preach in the streets of Toronto, then called Little York, in July 1829, just before our 
 missionaries landed in New York. The first Primitive Methodist class in the Dominion 
 was organised in September of the same year in the house 
 of Mr. Lawson, who acted as leader, having that excellent man 
 Mr. R. Walker as his assistant. Mr. N. Watkins entered the 
 country as the first duly appointed missionary, August, 1830. 
 Two years after, the Conference entrusted the Canadian missions 
 to the care of Hull Circuit, [and with them they continued untij 
 in 1843, they were taken over by the General Missionary 
 Committee. 
 
 THE DEED POLL. 
 
 The Scotter Conference of 1829 should also be remembered 
 as the Deed-Poll Conference. Alike in the origin of this legal 
 
 MB. WM. LAWSON. 
 
 instrument, and in the delay which attended its execution, we 
 
 may see a reflection of that Connexional crisis of which we have spoken. On 
 the authority of the late venerable Thomas Bateman we learn that the precarious 
 tenure on which our places of public worship were held had been so borne in 
 upon the mind of Hugh Bourne by one painful incident after another that, as early 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 439 
 
 as 1823, he had become anxious for the preparation of a Deed of Settlement for the 
 Connexion similar to that Mr. Wesley secured for the Methodist Societies. He paid 
 several visits to Burland for consultation with Messrs. T. Bateman. and G. Taylor (who 
 afterwards became one of the twelve original permanent members of Conference), and 
 sought to interest them in his plans. The proposal of a Deed of Settlement " to 
 legalise the Connexion and secure its chapels," was brought before the Conference of 
 1823 at Loughborough, and a committee of five persons appointed "to see after the 
 execution of the Deed." Nothing, however, seems to have been done, and before the 
 Deed Avas really executed several members of this executive committee had disappeared 
 another proof of the unsettledness of the times. Again, in 1825, the necessity of the 
 Deed of Settlement was reaffirmed, and a fresh committee appointed to see after its 
 execution, consisting of H. and J. Bourne, "W. Clowes and James Steele. This 
 committee seems to have carried out its instructions, for, "an eminent attorney" 
 probably Mr. John Ward, of Burslem was employed to draw up a deed which was 
 presented to the Conference of 1826, 'and in the main approved, though various 
 modifications were ordered to be made. Then we hear no more of the Deed of 
 Settlement until the Scotter Conference of 1829. What is the explanation of the 
 delay ? Mr. Bateman is ready with the answer : 
 
 " A first draft was prepared, and the opinion of men learned in the law sought 
 thereon. But before the end of the year the Connexion was found to be in such 
 a state that no one could tell whether it would be entirely broken up or not. So 
 the deed was left in abeyance to await results. When the happy change came 
 and prosperity returned, the necessity for the deed became more than ever 
 apparent. It was again taken up and completed by the Committee, and finally 
 it was examined and passed by the whole Connexion, through and by their 
 representatives legally elected in Conference assembled at Scotter ; . . . and 
 a Mr. Wilks, of London, very generously undertook to put the matter into legal 
 form without charge." * 
 
 The Mr. Wilks referred to in the preceding extract was a man eminent in his day, 
 and interesting to us from his family connections and his associations with our Church. 
 John Wilks was the son of Matthew Wilks, minister of the Tabernacle, and father-in- 
 law of James Parsons, of York. When the Protestant Society was formed in 1811 
 for the protection of religious liberty he became its secretary ; and " Wilks and 
 Liberty " was the battle-cry of his supporters at the contested Parliamentary election 
 at Boston in 1830, in which he proved successful. Such was the public-spirited man 
 whose legal eye scanned and weighed every clause in the Deed-Poll. For that he 
 deserves mention here, and not only for that, but because afterwards he was the adviser 
 and befriender of Thomas Kussell in the time of persecution, giving his professional 
 services without fee or reward. 
 
 The Deed Poll was duly " signed, sealed, and delivered," by Hugh Bourne, James 
 Bourne, and William Clowes,! on February 5th, 1830, in the presence of John Ward, 
 
 * "Observations on, and Explanations of, the Deed Poll of the Primitive Methodist Connexion," 
 by Thomas Bateman. 
 
 f James Steele, who would have been one of the signatories, died in 1827. See p. 107. 
 
440 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Attorney at Law, Burslem and his clerk, and after enrolment was presented, read and 
 approved at the Leicester Conference of 1831. This should have been done at the 
 preceding Conference, but there had been some " delay in London," and the document 
 did not arrive in time for presentation. It does not belong to the purpose of this 
 History to analyse the provisions of the Deed Poll, which from first to last was some 
 eight years in the making. It may, however, be Avell to place on record the names of 
 the four ministers and eight laymen standing on the original document as " permanent 
 members of Conference"; for this and not "Deed Poll Members" is, throughout, 
 their legal designation. 
 
 Hugh Bourne, Richard Odlin, 
 
 James Bourne, George Taylor, 
 
 William Clowes, David Bowen, 
 
 Sampson Turner, Thomas Sugden, 
 
 John Garner, Ralph Waller, 
 
 John Hancock, John Gordon Black. 
 
 GRIMSBY CIRCUIT AND ITS OFFSHOOTS. 
 
 The history of Primitive Methodism in north-east Lincolnshire has had many 
 features in common with its history in the north-western part of the county. If 
 
 Market Rasen be substituted for Gains- 
 borough and Grimsby for Scotter, the 
 course of events relating to the four 
 circuits has Connexionally been much 
 the same. Market Rasen began as 
 a branch of Nottingham ; it soon yielded 
 the headship to Grimsby, and until it 
 achieved circuit independence for itself, 
 continued a branch of Grimsby the place 
 to which it had served as a stepping- 
 stone. In these respects the parallel 
 between Market Rasen and Gainsborough 
 seems complete. In other respects the 
 history of Scotter and Grimsby Circuits 
 offers a contrast rather than a parallel. 
 Grimsby has not been such a mother of 
 circuits as Scotter, nor did it sustain, or help other circuits to sustain, distant missions 
 in the early period, as did Scotter. Yet Louth (1823), Market Rasen (1854), Tetney 
 (1868), besides Grimsby, second and third circuits, have been formed directly from it, 
 and Alford indirectly through Louth (1860). 
 
 And yet, though this is no despisable record, Grimsby's distinction as a circuit rests 
 on other grounds. It is a good example of a circuit-town in which our Church has 
 conserved its gains. Amongst the towns we have considered, it stands almost alone in 
 having had no division or serious loss. With very few exceptions, the old families, 
 
 GRIME THE PIKATE. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 4-1-1 
 
 gradually rising in the social scale, have remained with us to the second and third 
 generations, so that our Church has struck its roots deep into the social and civic life 
 of the town. Eelated to the preceding both as cause and effect, it has made a vigorous 
 attempt to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population. Not only has it planted 
 its chapels betimes at strategic points, but it has made them so attractive that none of 
 its own people has cause to be ashamed of them ; and it has made them so commodious 
 and well-furnished that no one can justly complain of lack of facilities for carrying on 
 the spiritual and educational work of the Church. We should have some difficulty in 
 finding a town which, for its size, has put forth so much well-directed enterprise in 
 chapel building. In this respect Grimsby leaves little to be desired. It was not until 
 the middle of the last century was well turned that the need began to press to which 
 the building of Victoria Street Chapel in 1859 was the response. Since then, Grimsby 
 
 LOCK HILL, GRIMSBY. 
 
 From which Clowes sailed to Hull, and T. King and others afterwards. A favourite site for 
 
 open-air services. 
 
 has grown by leaps and bounds, and so has Primitive Methodism in the borough on its 
 material side, as the views of its many fine chapels, given on a later page, sufficiently 
 prove. Scotter Circuit had done much of its best work when Grimsby was just about 
 beginning the work which has given it distinction. The two circuits are almost coeval 
 and contiguous, yet historically the contrast between them is marked. Scotter shows 
 what a rural circuit did for the Connexion in the first period ; Grimsby is an object- 
 lesson as to what Primitive Methodism can do for the towns of even abnormal growth. 
 We begin, then, with Market Easen, as it was to this place already, or in 
 anticipation, a branch that Thomas King made his way when he began his ministry 
 in August, 1819, just after the Nottingham Preparatory Meeting of which he had been 
 
442 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 a lay-member. The success already reported in Scotter Circuit would naturally suggest 
 the desirability of missioning the adjacent part of the county, and there were good 
 reasons for making Market Rasen the first objective of the mission. Once more there 
 had been " preparers of the way." According to Herod, Ann Carr and Miss Healand 
 had preached at Market Rasen, Caistor, Tealby and Walesby in the summer of 1818. 
 This may have been the reason why John Harrison, shortly after his appointment to 
 Hull, spent some ten days in preaching at some of these places. He crossed to 
 Grimsby by packet on the 18th of May, and walked the twenty miles to Market Rasen 
 after four o'clock ! Next day he formed a society of eight members the nucleus of 
 the Market Rasen branch and all that was to come out of it. During these ten days 
 
 MARKET RASEN MARKET-PLACE. 
 
 John Harrison visited Middle Rasen and Nettleton, but especially Market Rasen and 
 Caistor, where the most interesting incidents occurred. It was at Market Rasen where 
 persecution of the rough and rowdy type seems to have played itself out so far as north 
 Lincolnshire is concerned ; for we do not meet with anything further north in the 
 county quite as bad as the scene witnessed in the market-place on May 25th. There 
 had been mutterings of the coming storm at the service held in the same place on the 
 previous Sunday morning. Timid friends, aware of the threatened interference, tried 
 to dissuade John Harrison from carrying out his announced intention of preaching on 
 the same spot on the Tuesday evening. But he was not to be intimidated, and taking 
 his " little Davids " with him, he began the service. One ruffianly fellow soon made 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 443 
 
 himself particularly troublesome. He came up, making a " horrid noise," shook his 
 fist in the preacher's face, and tried to pull him off his chair ; but another man 
 constituted himself the preacher's champion and knocked down the persistent disturber. 
 It was not until he had been knocked down three times in succession that the man at 
 last desisted and turned upon his assailant. While a set fight was going on between 
 the two, Mr. Harrison carried his chair a little distance away and proceeded with the 
 service. When the fight was over, the man with the horrid voice returned and once 
 more tried to pull the preacher off the chair, but only to meet the same fate as before. 
 Then, and not till then, did he pick himself up and slink away. During the service 
 sticks and stones and shot were flung, though without doing much damage. Finally, 
 the clergyman gave orders for the church-bells to be set a-ringing, a proceeding that led 
 Mr. Harrison to make some plain observations on the use and mjuse of church-bells 
 and parsons. Despite these annoyances, the vast congregation listened intently and was 
 deeply impressed. 
 
 Caistor also was twice visited by John Harrison during this mission-round. Each 
 time, be it noted, he was accompanied by Miss Healand, whose home we judge to have 
 been in these parts. On their first visit they sent the bellman round to announce that 
 a service would be held in the middle of the market-place. Their reception was all 
 that could be desired. The people ran together "as if to a bull-baiting," until some 
 five-hundred persons were assembled who, while John Harrison preached, were as " still 
 as though he had been promising them an earthly inheritance on terms of their 
 obedience that night." Amongst those who listened were three clergymen and 
 a dissenting minister, the latter acknowledging that open-air services might be 
 iiseful to many who would not attend either church or chapel. This was on the 
 Friday, and on the following Wednesday, May 26th, a congregation double that of the 
 former one assembled in the same place to hear the two missionaries. The clergyman 
 of the place was present to hear and judge for himself, thus showing that he had the 
 true Beroean spirit and was "more noble" than he of Market Rasen. At the close of 
 Miss Healand's exhortation he shook her hand, remarking, he thought it an honour to 
 do so. "I heard," said he, "such an unfavourable account of the 'Ranters,' I thought 
 I would come and hear for myself, and I must say I heard nothing but the gospel from 
 your lips. I wish you every blessing." 
 
 Naturally it was deemed desirable to follow up the success already gained, and hence 
 from June 7th to llth, we find W. Clowes and J. Harrison in Lincolnshire purposing 
 to pay another visit to Caistor. But between them and their goal lay other villages 
 which were anxious to hear the Word of Life from their lips and would not be denied ; 
 and so they got no nearer than Limber. Here Lord Yarborough's lodge-keeper told 
 them the villagers had long been expecting them, and they had reluctantly to forego 
 their main purpose. 
 
 The June Quarterly Meeting of Nottingham Circuit almost immediately followed 
 this short excursion. By this time experience had shown both the desirability of 
 prosecuting the Market Rasen mission and the impracticability of Hull's undertaking 
 the work. Clearly the missionary should be located in the midst of his work and not 
 have to keep crossing and recrossing the Humber and then going twenty miles afoot 
 
444 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 in order to reach it. These considerations would have weight, and the same June 
 Quarterly Meeting which made Hull a Circuit urged Thomas King to enter the ministry 
 and probably assigned him the Market Rasen neighbourhood as his sphere of labour. 
 
 It is significant of the changes the years have wrought that Thomas King went to the 
 scene of his future labours on foot. He spent some days at Market Rasen visiting and 
 preaching, and then did the same among the dwellers in the " moors, Avoids, clays and 
 marshes." While so engaged he " heard of Grimsby" we are told. There seems 
 something odd in this way of putting it, as though Grimsby had been an obscure place 
 in some out-of-the-way corner that he had got to hear of by the merest chance. The 
 idea suggested is in the main a true one ; for the Grimsby of 1819 was, an obscure 
 place. In days gone by it had been famous. It had its legends of Grime the pirate 
 and Havelok the Dane. It had been favoured by kings, and given birth to famous 
 men : but it had fallen from its high estate. Its natural haven had silted up ; it had 
 no manufactures to export and 
 no means of forwarding imports. 
 We can form some idea of the 
 obscurity into which it had sunk 
 by the casual references made 
 to it by those who chanced to 
 
 know it in its low estate. 
 Thomas Mozley, speaking of 
 North Lincolnshire as he 
 knew it in 1819, intimates 
 that nobody went there except 
 on business, or to take the 
 ferry for Hull, or "to go to the 
 most dreary of all watering 
 
 places near what I remember as the miserable little port of Grimsby."* Wilkie 
 Collins makes one of his characters fly to Grimsby to be in safe hiding. William 
 Cobbett, in driving from Louth to Barton, changed horses and breakfasted at Grimsby. 
 Wishing to recall something that happened there he imagines his readers exclaiming 
 " What could you find there to be snatched from everlasting oblivion, except for the 
 purpose of execration ? " t When Thomas King heard of it, its population was barely 
 3,000, though that was an improvement on the 982 at which it stood in 1790. In short 
 the local historian says : " Grimsby was so obscure that it probably owed its place in 
 maps and topographical dictionaries to its privileges as a parliamentary and municipal 
 borough." The worst was past and Grimsby's fortunes were on the rise in 1849, when 
 
 * Mozley's " Reminiscences," etc., vol. ii. p. 11. 
 t Cobbett's " Rural Rides," vol. ii. p. 322. Edition of 1855. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 445 
 
 the foundafcion-stone of the Royal Dock was laid by Prince Albert. But even then the 
 " Times " correspondent on the occasion could write of Grimsby as " one of those places 
 
 that few of our readers have heard of, and 
 a less number have seen, but which I can 
 best describe as a place which a London 
 contractor woiild cart away in three 
 weeks." What the Church of England 
 did for it may be gathered from the fact 
 that so recently as 1828, "it had service 
 but once a day, and the minister served 
 Glee also."* 
 
 Such was the Grimsby Thomas King 
 DEANSGATE BRIDGE. heard the rumour of and determined to 
 
 Thomas King entered Grimsby by this road. visit. How different is the Grimsby of 
 
 to-day we need not stop to point out. All the world knows of its spacious docks, 
 its famous water-tower, its timber-yards and unrivalled fishing-trade. We can follow 
 
 THE OLD MARKET-PLACE, GRIMSBT (SHOWING OLD TOWN HALL). 
 Thomas King preached here in afternoon of October 31st, 1819, first day of his visit. 
 
 all his movements on the day he carried his determination into effect, which was 
 the last day in October, 1819. He had slept on the Saturday night at Barnoldby, 
 and left for Grimsby four miles off, accompanied by two men to show him the way. 
 But when they were within two miles of the town they^left him to enter alone. 
 Keeping his eye on the tower of the church, he pushed on for the morning was 
 cold and presently the church and adjoining town-hall and the market-place were 
 passed ; then Clayton Hall in Baxter Gate (now Victoria street), and tradition says 
 he drank at the pump then standing only a few minutes' walk from the spot where 
 
 * " Grimsby Methodism" etc., by George Lester, p. 45. 
 
446 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 he preached his first serrnon. This was on a piece of waste ground not far from where 
 the present Victoria Street Chapel stands. Thomas King stepped into a wheelbarrow 
 waiting to be ennobled by serving as a pulpit ; pulled a sevenpenny hymn-book out of 
 his pocket ; sang, prayed and preached without interruption or the occurrence of any 
 particular incident, save that the grandmother of George Shaw was present, ready to 
 become the first convert. The house where she and her husband lived became the 
 home of Thomas King and many of the early preachers, and served as an occasional 
 meeting-house. 
 
 A second open-air service was held in the " old town " in the afternoon according to 
 announcement. At its close "Farmer" Holt stepped up to the preacher, warmly 
 
 NORTH SIDE, BAXTER GATE EAST, LOOKING WEST. 
 
 grasped his hand and invited him as his guest to Old Glee. Incidentally we gather 
 that this was not the first time Farmer Holt had acted in a Gaius-like way to the 
 missionaries of the Connexion. Some time before, at his invitation, one such 
 missionary whom he had heard preach in a certain village, had visited Clee, preached 
 on the Saturday evening, and next day accompanied by his host had gone to Grimsby 
 to hold an open-air service. This fact, we may be sure, does not stand alone though 
 our records may often be silent. It would have been hazardous to affirm of any village 
 in Lincolnshire at any point between 1818 and 1820 "No Primitive Methodist has 
 ever come this way and delivered his message here." Skirmishers preceded the main 
 body, preaching whenever and wherever they found opportunity like the unknown 
 one who anticipated Thomas King at Grimsby and Clee. 
 
THE PEKIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 44*7 
 
 When Thomas King reached Glee he found another service awaiting him, and the 
 congregation already assembling in the farm-kitchen ; but first he was shown by the 
 thoughtful housewife into the dairy and urged to help himself to anything it contained. 
 She, good soul, remembered that the dispenser of the bread of life could not himself 
 dispense with the bread that perisheth. But when, a little while after, Farmer Holt 
 put his head into the dairy to see how the preacher was faring, he found him on his 
 knees. 
 
 For a day or two Thomas King occupied the guest-chamber of the farm which for 
 many years was proverbial for its hospitality. William Holt was one of the makers of 
 Grimsby Primitive Methodism. His biographer, the Rev. Joel Hodgson, says of him : 
 " In the day of small things it was no doubt a recommendation of the new society that 
 Farmer Holt united with it. His social position, force of character, and religious real, 
 
 HOUSE OF MR. WILLIAM HOLT, OLD CLEE. 
 In which Mr. King preached on the first evening after visiting Grimsby. 
 
 placed him for many years in the front rank of the local preachers and leading officials 
 of the Grimsby Circuit." He and Thomas King became fast friends, and were often 
 companions in travel. Once they walked to Tunstall to attend the Conference of 1821, 
 and when the sittings were over they walked back again to Grimsby. After this we 
 can easily credit the statement that after preaching at Grimsby one Sunday evening, 
 Thomas King supped on bread-and-milk and set off to walk to Nottingham, arriving in 
 time for the opening of the Quarterly Meeting at ten o'clock next morning. William 
 Holt lived to see wondrous changes in the position of the Church he helped to found 
 in Grimsby and the neighbourhood, since he attained the ripe age of eighty-seven years 
 and died in the triumph of faith. 
 
 It was on Wednesday, November 3rd, 1819, the first society was formed in Grimsby. 
 Thomas King had spent the day in visiting, and at night he preached in a room 
 
448 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 procured by Farmer Holt "up the town." The society formed that night 'consisted of 
 eight members of whom W. Holt became the leader. The cold weather had already 
 begun, so that a shelter was essential, and yet the society had for a time to be content 
 with a stable, that being the best place obtainable. By September, 1820, however, 
 a room in a warehouse that stood back of the spot where Thomas King preached his 
 first sermon was secured. This was afterwards vacated for a disused chapel in Loft 
 Street, which, undergoing several alterations and enlargements, continued to be the 
 society's principal place of worship until the building of Victoria Street Chapel in 
 1859. 
 
 The plan of the Grimsby Branch, beginning October, 1st, 1820, with the side-lights 
 
 cast on it from other sources, is 
 instructive. When he made it, 
 Thomas King had just returned 
 from the Nottingham Quarterly 
 Meeting which had reappointed 
 him to the Grimsby Branch. He 
 was strong to labour and in a very 
 hopeful frame of mind ; and indeed 
 as we follow his incessant move- 
 ments, and notice his unfailing tact 
 and courtesy, his buoyancy of spirit 
 and how he never seemed to spare 
 himself in labour, he seems to us 
 to have been one of the most 
 considerable figures of this early 
 time, and a veritable missionary 
 bishop ; so that we are not sur- 
 prised the Nottingham Quarterly 
 Meeting of 1828 should have 
 seriously urged his appointment 
 as " District Superintendent." 
 Thomas King's colleagues on the 
 Branch were George Herod who 
 had been appointed some six 
 months before to assist him in missioning Louth and its neighbourhood and 
 Thomas Blades, who after being appointed to Belper, ''in 1835, passed off the stations, 
 George Herod began his ministry as a married man. An early usage made a distinction 
 between preachers who could be interchanged between circuits by any Quarterly Meeting,. 
 and those who could only be stationed by the Annual Meeting. The former were really 
 " hired local preachers," whose tenure of office was very insecure. This, those concerned, 
 who were chiefly married men, were fully aware of. As is shown by a circular now 
 before us of which Herod, S. Cookman, J. Brantfoot (sic), R. Hawcroft, and 
 J. Hutchinson are the signatories they convened a meeting of all the " hired local 
 preachers " at York on the 28th May, 1822, for the purpose of discussing their grievances,. 
 
 FIRST PREACHING PLACE, GRIMSBY. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 449 
 
 which were soon redressed by all preachers being placed on the same footing of a four 
 years' probation. Herod, we remember, had married Elizabeth Parrott of East 
 
 Bridgford, so that in his appoint- 
 ment the Grimsby Branch really 
 acquired two preachers. There is 
 a touch of pathos in the account of 
 the way husband and wife went to 
 their mission : * 
 
 "A friend took care of their 
 child. There being no railways, 
 and unable to afford a convey- 
 ance, they, luggage in hand, 
 trudged many a weary mile till 
 they were benighted and knew 
 not where they were. She sat 
 down on the luggage and wept 
 as she thought of her child and 
 circumstances. Her husband 
 climbed high ground to look 
 for a light. One was descried 
 which they made for. It proved 
 to be a farm-house where lived 
 a Wesleyan local preacher who 
 fed and lodged them for the 
 night, and afterwards assisted 
 them in their work. The child 
 was well-cared for, the mission 
 a success, several souls being 
 saved under^her first sermon on 
 that missionary journey." 
 
 Louth, on its little river Lud, at the foot of the Wolds, was then as now a clean 
 well-built, municipal town of considerable size and importance, boasting the possession 
 of one of the noblest spires in England, and an ancient Grammar School where, at the 
 very time our missionaries entered the town, the brothers Tennyson (whose father was 
 vicar of adjoining Somersby) were getting their grounding in 
 the classics. Louth holds second place on the Grimsby plan 
 of 1820. Thomas King was appointed to 
 preach twice there, and once at Legbourne, on 
 its first Sunday. He tells us he entered the 
 town "with very great concern of mind," for, 
 though they had a society of "from twenty 
 to thirty lively souls," the good woman who 
 had allowed them to preach in her dwelling- 
 house could do so no longer, so that he had 
 the task before him of securing a place to 
 preach in and a home for the preachers. Before he left the town he had succeeded 
 
 in securing both. G G 
 
 * See ante, p. 242. 
 
 GRIMSBY FIRST CHAPEL, NOW COTTAGES. 
 
 J. F. PARRISH. 
 
 J. HODGSON. 
 
450 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 LOUTH CHURCH. 
 
 Louth prospered so much that in 1823 
 it became an independent station, and 
 as such has ever since continued. Its 
 area comprised not only the pleasant 
 villages in the undulations of the Wolds, 
 but also the marsh country extending 
 from Louth to the sea, with its dikes 
 broad and deep doing duty for hedges. 
 It was not until on in the forties that 
 the Alford part of the circuit stood on 
 the stations as a Branch. The Rev. Joel 
 Hodgson who, with J. F. Parrish, Daniel 
 Moore, Jabez Wood, F. W. Atkin and 
 a host of ministers, too numerous to 
 name, is a native of this part of the old 
 Louth circuit, tells us that in 1835, when 
 Elizabeth Rowbotham was stationed at 
 Scotter " first six months " and Louth 
 "last six months," with J. Wright as 
 superintendent, each would on alternate 
 fortnights walk on a Saturday from 
 Louth to Hogsthorpe, some twenty miles, 
 preaching at night in the kitchen 
 and taking their Sunday appointments 
 next day. "Mrs. Sutton, of Addle- 
 thorpe Cottage, near Hogsthorpe," says 
 Mr. Hodgson, "a lady of independent 
 means, entertained the preachers. I 
 once heard her say, ' she did not. care 
 if they chalked " Ranter " on her 
 back.' Mrs. Sutton became the wife of 
 W. Briggs, a young travelling preacher 
 who settled at Hogsthorpe, then lived 
 at Leeds and died at Skegness." Mr. 
 Briggs was in his day a prominent 
 official. 
 
 The early history of Primitive Metho- 
 dism in Alford affords an illustration 
 of the influence a domestic servant, 
 who is a consistent Christian and loyal 
 to her Church, may set in motion. 
 One of the members of the Alford 
 
 Society was Sarah B , servant 
 
 with Squire Young. Occasionally the 
 minister called at the Hall to see this 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIKCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 451 
 
 member of his flock and to leave her magazine. After one or two such visits had been 
 paid, the squire intimated his desire to see her minister and to show him courtesy for 
 her sake. This was done ; the courtesy was received and reciprocated. Acquaintance- 
 ship gradually ripened into the intimacy of Christian fellowship. The result was that, 
 in the most natural way, important and far-reaching changes were effected. Alford, 
 instead of Hogsthorpe, became the preacher's more convenient residence. At that time 
 houses were difficult to obtain in Alford, but the squire housed the minister in one of 
 his own dwellings. The chapel and other interests of the society were benefited. 
 Squire Young became a regular contributor to the missionary funds of the Connexion ; 
 
 ALFORD CHAPEL (PAST). 
 
 broke bread with the humblest in the Alford Chapel, and in a hundred delicately 
 thoughtful ways befriended the servants of God and the Church they represented. 
 The story is true ; for the writer has recollections of the squire's benevolent face, and 
 can recall how his own child-life was enriched by the changes brought about by Sarah 
 
 B . 
 
 For some years Louth Circuit made but slow progress numerically, so that in 1835 
 it reported but 204 members to Conference. By 1838, however, the number had risen 
 to 610. We get some details of this notable advance in a communication "approved 
 
 GG 2 
 
452 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 by the Circuit Committee and signed, John Stamp," which appeared in the Connexional 
 Magazine for 1839 : 
 
 " During the three years that Father Coulson and myself have laboured in this 
 (the Louth) circuit we have built sixteen chapels, enlarged one, bought another, and 
 fitted up a large room, and have had an increase of twenty-five local preachers, 
 and four hundred and sixteen members ; and our last quarter's income was sixty- 
 five pounds more than the first ; and we have called out three additional travelling 
 
 preachers, and have 
 fitted up a preacher's 
 house. I have walked 
 more than ten thousand 
 miles; have preached up- 
 wards of one thousand 
 five hundred sermons ; 
 and have visited near 
 six thousand families ; 
 and through the blessing 
 of God, 1 feel more strong 
 to labour than when I 
 first began, which I 
 attribute in a great 
 measure to total abstin- 
 ence from intoxicating 
 drinks, and the blessing 
 of Almighty God." 
 
 That part of this roseate 
 report which relates to 
 chapel enterprise sets 
 forth a prosperity largely 
 fictitious and radically 
 unsound, as after events 
 soon showed. Some of 
 these " sixteen chapels," 
 etc., Avere built without 
 money or what amount- 
 ed to the same thing 
 with other people's 
 money; some had no title 
 deeds or legal trustees, 
 and the inevitable day of 
 reckoning soon came. 
 It was well for Louth Circuit that at this critical time it had connected with it 
 some men of substance and tried loyalty such as John Maltby and William Byron. 
 The latter, especially, did much to relieve the circuit from its embarrassment. In 
 his unostentatious way Mr. Byron rendered, at various times, many valuable 
 services to the Connexion. He and Mr. J. Maltby were joint Treasurers of the 
 
 ALFOKD CHAPEL (PRESENT). 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 453 
 
 General Missionary Fund from January 1856 to 1862. He was elected a permanent 
 member of Conference, and at the Yarmouth Conference of 1872 the last he was 
 privileged to attend he and "his excellent lady" received the thanks of the 
 
 .1. MALTBT. 
 
 MRS. BYRON. 
 
 WILLIAM BYRON. 
 
 Conference inscribed on parchment for their gift of 559 10s. to various Connexional 
 funds. Amongst all the other services he rendered to the Connexion Mr. Byron's 
 decisive action in purchasing some of these recklessly built properties must be 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL, LOUTH. 
 
 regarded as not the least valuable. His prompt action preserved the buildings to the 
 Connexion and helped the circuit to tide over its difficulties. Still, an unfortunate 
 experience like this could not fail to react on the genuine spiritual prosperity which had 
 
454 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 been enjoyed; so we find that in 1850 the membership of the circuit had been reduced 
 to 422. During the next ten years, under the labours of Messrs. Knowles, Campbell, 
 C. Kendall and their colleagues, steady progress was made. The membership of the 
 circuit more than doubled itself, and Louth Chapel was rebuilt on a greatly enlarged scale 
 and provided with schoolrooms, and all else needful for the requirements of a vigorous 
 working church. In following the history, and giving any estimate of the present standing 
 of our Church in Louth, there are one or two facts needing to be borne in mind. One is, 
 the almost inappreciable increase of population which took place during the last 
 century. Unlike Grimsby, Louth was about as large and important years ago as it is to- 
 day. A second fact is that, for many years, Louth was a stronghold of Wesleyan 
 
 Methodism. In 1848 there were 
 2,600 members in the circuit, 
 more than a thousand of them 
 living in the town. During the 
 troubles of the "Reform agita- 
 tion" twelve hundred members 
 seceded from the parent body, 
 since which, Louth has been one 
 of the strongest circuits of the 
 Methodist Free Churches. 
 
 JOHN STAMP. 
 
 John Stamp's name is now fairly 
 before us, and this seems to be 
 the right time to refer to him 
 more at length ; since he was 
 a native of Louth Circuit, as was 
 also his pious and gifted wife ; he 
 spent the first three years of his 
 ministry in Louth Circuit, and 
 afterwards was closely associated 
 with Hull Circuit, and was the 
 main cause of the troubles which 
 marked the close of the first 
 period of our history in that town. Though his more active association 
 with our Church lasted only from 1835 to 1841, he yet filled during those 
 six years a considerable space in the eye of the Connexion, and was much in the 
 thoughts of its responsible advisers. He looked upon his appointment by Hull 
 to its Sheerness Mission, in 1838, as a sentence of banishment on account of 
 his ardently avowed "Eadical teetotalism." For all that he loyally took up his 
 appointment, and threw himself into the work of evangelisation with his accustomed 
 enthusiasm and success. All the old revivalistic methods~were adopted, and some that 
 then appeared novel, but are so no longer. " Protracted Meetings " were one of such 
 novelties recently imported, like camp-meetings, from America. The first meetings of 
 
 BUKWELL CHAPEL, LOUTH CIRCUIT. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 455 
 
 the kind in the Connexion are said to have been held at Sheerness in July, 1838. 
 Each day, for near a fortnight, services were held at five in the morning and at three 
 and seven o'clock ; and at the close it was found that twenty converts were the fruit of 
 this protracted effort.* By 1839, the 112 members of Sheerness Mission had become 
 310, and it was formed into an independent station with three ministers. In 1840 
 it was transferred to Brinkworth District, and its reported membership was 410. 
 John Stamp affirms that at one time Sheerness employed seven preachers ; but never 
 more than three appeared on the stations, and the rest must have been called in by 
 Stamp to assist him. There can be no question that in 1838-40 the northern part of 
 
 Kent was the scene of a remark- 
 able revival, and that Primitive 
 Methodism reached and made 
 itself felt in some places in this 
 lovely county, from which, alas, 
 it has long since receded. We 
 have before us an interesting 
 letter, dated August 18th, 1840, 
 written from Ashford, by John 
 Stamp's colleague Henry Thomas 
 Marchment. For various reasons it 
 will be well to quote from this 
 letter which has never been pub- 
 lished : 
 
 "It is with the feeling of deep- 
 toned gratitude to Almighty 
 God I inform you that in this 
 town (Ashford) we are doing 
 well. I came for the first time 
 a stranger to every one in the 
 place on Saturday, July llth, 
 and on the Sunday preached 
 three times in the open-air. 
 I was taken to the "Cage" by 
 two constables but was soon 
 liberated, as perhaps you read 
 in the paper. I continued 
 persevering, rejoicing that I 
 
 should be counted worthy to suffer shame. We have now twenty in society, 
 and a place to worship in, and good openings in four adjacent villages. On 
 Sunday I preached five times ; in the open-air at nine, in our room at ten-thirty, 
 two-thirty and six, and in the open-air at a quarter before eight in the evening, 
 when about a thousand were present. We are getting some saved and added every 
 
 * At the Hull September Quarterly Meeting Brother Summer-sides, lately returned from the 
 American Mission, gave an account of Protracted Meetings as conducted in America, and the 
 propriety of adopting them was discussed. It was, in the end, resolved that a beginning should be 
 made in October at Barnard Castle. 
 
 JOHN STAMP. 
 
456 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUECH. 
 
 week and the discipline of Primitive Methodism (which I have strictly enforced) 
 takes well. God is with us. We shall do valiantly." * 
 
 This is a fair picture. Would there were no other ! Then would Primitive Methodism 
 in Kent have had a less chequered history and its present condition would have been 
 more prosperous than it is hopeful though its condition may be as compared with that 
 of some previous periods. But there is a reverse picture of which the fact that neither 
 in Ashford a large market-town, an important railway junction, and the seat of the 
 South Eastern railway-shops, nor in its adjacent villages have we any connexional 
 interest, may be taken as the type. 
 
 In the Sheerness Circuit there soon arose troubles some unpreventable, others plainly 
 occasioned by mismanagement and the reckless incurring of liabilities there was no 
 reasonable prospect of discharging. At Ramsgate a chapel was bought for .1100; at 
 Margate a play-house was turned into a chapel. One of Stamp's colleagues died of 
 fever ; another proved a failure ; a third assistant Joseph Eden was confined nine 
 weeks in Canterbury jail for refusing at John Stamp's instance to be bound in 
 a hundred pounds not to sing through the streets of the city. Stamp's own excellent 
 wife, and also a child, died during these troubles, and he shocked the propriety of some of 
 his friends by himself preaching her funeral sermon. Finally, on his being removed 
 to the Canterbury Branch, dissension arose in the Circuit, and Thomas Holliday came 
 down to hear and report to the authorities on certain charges which had been 
 formulated against the superintendent. This report found its way by the usual 
 channels to the Reading Conference of 1841, which left John Stamp without a 
 station. 
 
 Now the scene shifts to Hull, whither Stamp had made his way. It was alleged 
 that he had been expelled for his Teetotalism and without being heard, and that the 
 Connexion was in his debt. These allegations were sounded forth from public platforms 
 in Hull, received currency in the local "Temperance Pioneer," and the London 
 " Temperance Weekly Journal," of which latter Jabez Burns, himself an ex-travelling 
 preacher, was one of the editors, and the friends of justice and temperance were in the 
 columns of these prints invited to subscribe to a Stamp Defence Fund. John Stamp 
 himself .rushed into print Avith a "Defence" of sixty-four pages, in which at times the 
 language used approaches scurrility. Messrs Clowes and Flesher are styled " Pope 
 William and Pope John," and as for certain laymen who stood by them throughout 
 this trying time they are called names which we will not repeat. To John Flesher 
 was assigned the duty of vindicating the Connexion through the medium of the press 
 a duty which it is hardly necessary to say, he discharged in a most satisfactory way. 
 A secession of some score or more of John Stamp's supporters took place from the Hull 
 societies. Some of these were well parted with ; while others were good and sincere. 
 Fetter Lane Chapel and Moxon Street School-room were the first quarters of John 
 Stamp and his friends, and at the end of the year 1841, a chapel in South Street was 
 
 * The letter was written to John Frisken, 33, John Street, Bedford Row, London. Marchment 
 afterwards left the Connexion, probably as the result of the Sheerness troubles, and became we believe 
 a Congregational or Baptist minister. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 457 
 
 opened. Here history repeated itself. What had happened at Louth and Sheerness 
 happened here also and afterwards at Leeds. The wheel went round full cycle and 
 revival and enthusiasm went under while dissension and embarrassment were upper- 
 most ; and at last South Street Chapel had to be sold. Many of those who had left 
 our Church returned to do good work, and as West Street was crowded, a room was 
 taken in Nile Street and a school established in Wilberforce Rooms these the nucleus 
 of the Thornton Street that was to be. As for Sheerness Mission, it had no local 
 William Byron to stand by it in the evil day. It was taken again under the fostering 
 wing of Hull Circuit and in 1843, when the Missions were transferred to the General 
 Missionary Committee, four Kentish stations were occupied Sheerness, Ramsgate 
 and Margate, Maidstone, and Canterbury. 
 
 John Stamp was a remarkable man in whatever light we view him ; remarkable for 
 gifts which ensured success, and equally so for deficiences by which failure in another 
 direction was no less ensured. He had remarkable declamatory powers. One passage 
 of impassioned rhetoric in which he denounced intemperance has, one may say, gone, 
 and is still going, round the world. It was plagiarised to the last letter and comma by 
 Col. Robert C. Ingersoll, and delivered as though an extemporaneous outburst before 
 the Supreme Court of the United States. As so given, it electrified that assembly. 
 It was copied into newspapers, did duty in many a temperance campaign, ran from 
 press to press all over the American continent ; and yet what made all this sensation 
 was just a piece of a letter addressed by John Stamp to the Reading Primitive Methodist 
 Conference of 1841. But John Stamp was more than a rhetorician or Temperance 
 orator, he was a doubly-born evangelist ; endowed by nature and qualified by grace to 
 convince and convert men. This was his call, his forte, his business, and he should 
 have been kept to it, and kept/TWft having anything to do with bricks and mortar, and 
 promissory notes and balance-sheets. Instead of that and therein lay the tragedy- 
 he was sent into distant Kent, made superintendent of a station that embraced half 
 a county, allowed to build chapels, hire rooms and engage a little corps of helpers who 
 continued, spite of all, to believe in him, so great was his magnetism. In short he was 
 put into just such a position in which his talent for mismanagement, which was quite 
 as remarkable as his other talents, could be put out to usury. Even in Louth, Avith 
 " Father " Coulson as his superintendent and Messrs Byron and Maltby as circuit 
 officials, we know what happened. If such things were done in the green tree, what 
 would be likely to be done in the dry 1 The tragedy worked out its own sad inevitable 
 denouement. And when the catastrophe came John Stamp's gift of declamation swiftly 
 passed, as it easily can do, into vituperation, and bitter things which it were best if 
 possible to forget, were spoken and written of the men who had wished him well. 
 There can be little doubt that at this day our Church would be glad to have a half-dozen 
 men with the evangelistic gifts of John Stamp ; and one may hope that if it were to be 
 so blessed, it would have the wisdom to let the evangelist by God's election evangelise. 
 But we are not so sure that it would ; so prone are we to assume that a man richly 
 endowed in one direction must necessarily be a man of "all the talents." 
 
 The sum and the best that can be said for John Stamp has been said by Rev. JToseph 
 Odell. Mr. Odell believes in the principle of spiritual heredity and claims to be the 
 
458 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 direct spiritual descendant of John Stamp. The claim, so far as it relates to the 
 possession of remarkable evangelistic gifts may readily be admitted. Beyond that 
 the claim must not go, for, certainly, Mr. Odell has not inherited his ancestral hero's 
 talent for mismanagement as we beg leave to call it. This last and best word for John 
 Stamp may suitably find place here, since we find ourselves in general agreement with 
 its writer. It will, however, be necessary to refer to the attitude of our Church to the 
 new altruistic movement of Total Abstinence which began in this country about 1830 
 a movement of which John Stamp himself was the erratic child as he was one of its 
 most advanced representatives and spokesmen. These remarks will best come in a 
 separate section at the close of the present chapter. Meanwhile Mr. Odell shall 
 speak : 
 
 "The Rev. John Stamp was certainly ALL ALIVE. We think him very much 
 alive still. It is very many years since his name appeared on the list of our 
 ministers. He forfeited his position we quite believe. He was rash enough for 
 that. But what was rashness then, appears heroic cow. He lived at least fifty 
 years before his time, and was the victim of a transition period. He blundered 
 in chapel-building and battled for Temperance, when " Gospel Temperance " was 
 thought to be rank blasphemy in the Churches. But the great fact about the man 
 appears to be this : his remarkable talents, his resources of intellectual and 
 spiritual wealth were of that unique order, that required a definite line of labour 
 the line of the evangelist. Instead of that, he found himself in chapel-building 
 efforts and financial straits. Added to this was an apparent extravagance of 
 language upon the drinking habits of Christian men, and proposals of a kind 
 entirely too drastic. These things deprived him of his place amongst us as 
 a minister. Were he living now, and such as he are needed now, we should see 
 him the first Evangelist of Primitive Methodism the man our Churches need. 
 His portrait is before us. The face is finely classic ; his form and features seem 
 breathing with life and vital with irrepressible energy. This is a man who could 
 not die. He is all alive. We have his writings also. They are all alive. How 
 they stir the readers ! We know of more than one minister who has been made by 
 them. If the writings prove so potent, what must the preaching have been ? We 
 are able to tell. His sermons held people for God and eternity. Hundreds were 
 converted as he preached. We knew a man our own Professor of Theology, and 
 the only college tutor we ever had, who used to drive thirty-three miles one day 
 and back the next, in order to hear John Stamp preach. In a missionary meeting 
 in Kent, we mentioned John Stamp's name incidentally in a speech, and all the 
 old people rose involuntarily as they heard the name of the man who led them to 
 Christ. This man cannot die . . . His triumphant life was crowned with 
 a translation rather than a death. His departure took place at his own little 
 residence, "Teetotal Cottage," Dearisgate, Manchester, and he lies buried not far 
 from our Higher Ardwick Church." * 
 
 To return to Grimsby Circuit and its first plan : it is interesting to notice that 
 Caistor, Middle Rasen, Grasby, Usselby, and Holton-le-Moor all places in the Market 
 Rasen district are on this 1820 plan ; and further, that Ann Carr's name stands on 
 
 * " All Alive ! A Eevival Letter by John Stamp, reprinted by Joseph Odell." Primitive 
 Methodist Book Eoom. 
 
THE PEKIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 459 
 
 the plan next after the travelling preachers. As we have seen Market Rasen attained to 
 Circuit independence in 1854. Grasby is the village of which Charles Tennyson-Turner 
 was so long the vicar, succeeding to the living on the death of his uncle Turner, whose 
 name he assumed. In a volume of interesting reminiscences of the Tennyson family 
 recently published, we are told how the poet, whose fame has been overshadowed by 
 that of his greater brother, would stand on his lawn on a summer Sunday afternoon 
 and listen with the keenest interest to an open-air service doubtless a camp meeting 
 that was being held close by ; " though his innate shrinking from publicity used to set 
 him wondering as the preacher would shout in a stentorian voice " Now, brethren, let 
 us count up how many the Lord has saved at this service." * The type of Christianity 
 from which, in some of its manifestations, the vicar of Grasby might shrink, has kept 
 on all through the years helping men and women to live and preparing them to die, 
 exerting, too, a searching wholesome influence on village life, as even the poet himself 
 would have been the first to grant. One cannot but be impressed with this as we read 
 the memoir of a Grasby worthy who recently passed away after 
 forty years' active association with the village society. Mrs. 
 Barkworth we are told was " upright, generous, devout, trust- 
 worthy ; " "a Dorcas indeed." 
 
 Tetney, too, which was "Wesley's favourite village in Lincoln- 
 shire," is also found on the first Grimsby Circuit plan, and 
 remained associated with that circuit until 1868. when it attained 
 independence. Here on his farm near the famous "Blow Wells " 
 traditionally regarded as bottomless lived Mr. R. Surfleet, 
 for many years a stay to the society and a befriender of the 
 MRS. BARKWOKTH. Grimsby Victoria Street Chapel trust-estate. 
 
 Thus the result of our inspection of the first Grimsby Circuit plan goes to show that 
 already in 1820, we have the cadre of the seven existing circuits with their combined 
 membership of 3,703. Looking forward just a quarter of a century and examining the 
 Grimsby plan for 1845, amongst the six places not on the plan of 1820, we find 
 Cleethorpes which has taken the place of Glee. Yet how small and feeble Cleethorpes 
 was at its beginning is clear from the fact that it had but one service a Sunday, the 
 hours of service being 9.30 one Sunday and 2 p m. the next. Cleethorpes' advance as 
 a watering-place has been almost as rapid as Grimsby's advance as a port. What has 
 been said of the remarkable material progress made by our Church in Grimsby may 
 with equal truth be said of Cleethorpes which has now come to be almost the sea-side 
 suburb of Grimsby. 
 
 Amongst the names of the fifty preachers having place on the plan of 1845 there 
 are several that merit a word of recognition. No. 3 on the list is Elizabeth Lingard, 
 who was known throughout North Lincolnshire, and had, as John Stamp states, 
 " spiritual children all around her, and not a few of them preachers and class-leaders." 
 Then there is Sarah Moody, " whom the Rev. G. Austin once announced as the Rev. 
 
 * " Glimpses of Tennyson and some of his Eelations and Friends," by Agnes Grace Wild. In 
 C. Tennyson-Turner's " Small Tableaux " there is a sonnet entitled " Fanaticism : a Night Scene in 
 the Open Air." 
 
460 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Sally Moody," and if goodness and faithfulness entitle a preacher, whether male or 
 female, to reverence and respect, then Mrs. Moody was worthy of the style and title 
 thus humorously accorded her. She preached the gospel with great point and force, in 
 a way calculated to make sinners tremble and saints rejoice, the lukewarm to bestir 
 themselves and the backsliding to retrace their steps." Such is the testimony to Sarah 
 Moody borne by a venerable minister Avho knew her.* There is, as No. 16, Thomas 
 
 OLD CLEETHOKPES. 
 
 Barkworth who was pronounced by George Shaw to be one of the most gifted preachers 
 he ever heard. Lower down on the list is the name of Henry Smethurst, born in 1819, 
 
 at Newark, and converted when about twenty years of 
 age at Grimsby. His father had settled at Grimsby after 
 (from 1820) serving as a travelling preacher for a few 
 years, travelling successively at Bottesford, Nottingham, 
 Scotter, Grimsby, and Louth all circuits that have come 
 under our notice. His retirement was rendered necessary 
 by the demands of his large family for which the small 
 stipend then received was found quite inadequate. By 
 virtue of his own sterling qualities young Henry gradually 
 won his way to a good position. He was closely identified 
 with the town's staple trade and with the social and 
 corporate life of the borough. He became a member of 
 the Town Council, an alderman, justice of the peace, 
 
 ALDERMAN H. SMETHURST. and was for many years chairman of the School Board. 
 * Rev. Joel Hodgson in " Christian Messenger." 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 461 
 
462 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 For two years in succession he was elected Mayor of the Borough, and on the occasion 
 both of his election and re-election, he was accompanied by the Corporation to 
 the Flottergate Chapel. Henry Smethurst was an ardent temperance advocate 
 in a town which very much needed such advocacy. One of the cherished schemes 
 of his life was within sight of realisation when he laid the foundation stone of 
 the present Temperance Hall. When in his prime he was a vigorous gospel and 
 temperance out-door speaker, a hard-working local preacher, and an "aider and 
 abettor" of our Church in its efforts at extension both in Grimsby and the adjacent 
 villages. He died August 7th, 1892, only three days after his faithful wife who had 
 
 sympathised with all his efforts to 
 do good. His fellow-citizens marked 
 their appreciation of Henry Smethurst's 
 worth by erecting a marble memorial 
 in "The People's Park." As the life- 
 long friend of Henry Smethurst, and 
 probably the only witnesser of his 
 conversion still surviving, respectful 
 mention must be made of the veteran 
 official Joseph Robinson, in whose 
 society class the writer began his associa- 
 tion with the people of God. To 
 the roll of Grimsby worthies must 
 now be added the names of Alderman 
 J. C. Wright, J.P., J. W. Emmerson 
 and George Shaw, who have just 
 passed away. Each, like Paul, "served 
 God from his forefathers," and by 
 their inherited and ingrained attach- 
 ment and loyalty to our Church their 
 lives illustrate that " continuity" 
 which has been so pleasing a feature 
 in the history of Grimsby Primitive 
 Methodism. What each did in his 
 own way and measure cannot be told 
 here, but their portraits are given to 
 recall them to remembrance. Without such officials of the type of Henry Smethurst, 
 J. W. Emmerson, J. C. Wright, and others like-minded who remain, the goodly 
 chapels figured on the preceding page could never have been built. In a true sense 
 these are their monuments. 
 
 LINCOLN CIRCUIT. 
 
 There is no one name so definitely and exclusively associated with the introduction 
 of Primitive Methodism into the ancient city of Lincoln and the parts adjacent as is 
 the case with most of the circuit towns we have thus far had before us. It was in 
 
 THE SMETHURST MEMORIAL. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPEISE. 
 
 463 
 
 September, 1820, Lincoln was formed into a Circuit, but for some time before this, 
 Hugh Bourne tells us, it had been familiarly known as " Lincoln Circuit," though only 
 as yet a branch of Nottingham. Much of the country around had been traversed by 
 John Hallsworth and others, for when stationed to the new circuit in 1820, Hallsworth 
 
 JOSEPH ROBINSON. 
 
 J. C. WRIGHT. 
 
 .1. \V. EMMERSON. 
 
 records his thankfulness at finding the position of things so much improved since he 
 laboured in these same parts years before ; he recalls the fierce persecution he and his 
 fellow-labourers then endured, and notes the retribution with which former persecutors 
 had been visited as notably at Fulbeck, where the ringleader had since lost his reason 
 and " had to be shut up in a madhouse," while others had suffered the loss of their 
 cattle. 
 
 Thus Lincoln had probably been entered by our missionaries prior to the famous visit 
 of William Clowes and John Wedgwood during Clowes' Leicestershire campaign of 
 1818. We speak of Clowes' mission as "a campaign"; and such he himself evidently 
 regarded it, if we may judge by the warlike spirit and phraseology of the extract from 
 his Journal which follows. It is clear he felt himself engaged in a veritable " Holy 
 War." Having announced a fortnight before that they would " lift up their banners 
 
 in that city " ; they proceeded to do so on a spot " between 
 
 the Minster and the new Gaol." 
 
 "We began the labours of the day about nine in 
 the morning, and terminated them about- nine at 
 night. About eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the 
 conflict with the powers of darkness was very hot. 
 A goat which some sons of Belial procured, was run 
 in among the congregation with a shout of three 
 times three, and throwing dust in the air. But we 
 remained in firm phalanx amid this storm, and 
 returned upon the legions of the devil a powerful 
 discharge from the big guns of Sinai, whilst at the 
 same time we unfurled the ensigns of the cross of 
 Jesus, inviting the enemy to ground his arms, and 
 surrender upon the terms of peace and reconciliation 
 offered in the gospel. Many that day did accept of 
 offered pardon ; the solemn stillness, and the tears 
 stood in the eyes of numbers, were evidently indicative of this. Generally 
 
 rhich 
 
4.64 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 the work of conversion went on well during the day, and as a division of the grand 
 army of Emmanuel we that day took the city and we have not been driven out of 
 it to this day. Hallelujah ! " 
 
 William Clowes did not come scatheless out of this spiritual conflict. Some coward 
 hand threw a stone which cut his face and drew blood. But Clowes meekly bore the 
 wrong and prayed for his persecutor. The sight of the blood trickling down his cheek 
 and, still more, the bearing of the preacher under this assault so Christian in its 
 calmness and dignity made a lasting impression on one who was standing by. The 
 man thus impressed came from Eagle, a place some seven miles from Lincoln, and it is 
 said he afterwards showed our people great kindness. The next day the missionaries 
 pushed on to Waddington where a farmer, who had been at Lincoln the day before, 
 
 THE OLD NEWPORT AKCH, NEAR NORTHERN ENTRANCE TO CITY OF LINCOLN. 
 
 lent them a waggon from which they preached to " a vast multitude, most of the heads 
 of the town being present " ; and this was followed by a prayer meeting in the farmer's 
 house. Wellingore was also visited by Clowes and Wedgwood, but whether just at this 
 time is not clear. Here a camp-meeting was held amid a good deal of turbulence. 
 One passage from the Journal is significant : " I turned my eye upon some of these 
 Philistines, and God accompanied my glance with an arrow of conviction, and two or 
 three of the rebels fell into the rear as if utterly powerless, and remained quiet during 
 the remainder of the meeting." Let these words be noted and remembered. 
 W. Clowes was quite aware that his eye at times had the power to pierce and quell the 
 defiant, just as he was aware that under certain conditions his voice had the power to 
 search and thrill the souls of his hearers. 
 
THE PEEIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 465 
 
 Information respecting the early history of Primitive Methodism in Lincoln Circuit 
 is scant ; and what little there is has had to be gleaned from scattered sources. The 
 first chapel or room in the city occupied by our Church, we are told, was erected in 
 1819, in Mint Lane, though the building was known as Hungate Chapel. In 1823, 
 there are no less than six preachers on the stations for Lincoln Circuit, and the 
 membership for that year is reported as six hundred and sixty-four. By the next year 
 the preaching staff and the membership have both been reduced by one half. How is 
 this 1 It looks as though the boundaries of Lincoln Circuit in this early period were 
 
 shifting ones and had contracted 
 between 1823 and 1824. Nor 
 must we forget that Balderton 
 Circuit first appears on the 
 stations of 1824. But even 
 allowing for some transference 
 of territory, there is good reason 
 to believe that the Connexional 
 crisis of which we have so often 
 spoken made itself felt even here; 
 for it is certain that some of the 
 places that were missioned as 
 early as 1818 and 1819 had to 
 be remissioned some years after. 
 In the absence of all numerical 
 returns from the stations from 
 1824 to 1829 we cannot tell how 
 it fared with Lincoln Circuit in 
 the interim, but in the latter year 
 it reports two hundred and twenty- 
 one members. 
 
 Many of the Connexion's lead- 
 ing ministers laboured in the 
 Lincoln Circuit during the first 
 period of our history. With all 
 its drawbacks the old system of 
 stationing ensured this. No matter 
 that the circuit was wide and 
 laborious, and the city itself only 
 chill and unkindly soil for Methodism to work as are most places where the 
 cathedral casts its long shadows still the men of light and leading had to take their 
 turn. So in 1825 we find William Sanderson here, his circuit extending from 
 Willingham, near Gainsborough, to Ashby beyond Horncastle, from point to point 
 a distance of about thirty-five miles, and, he significantly adds: "I was expected 
 to superintend." 
 
 Robert Atkinson was the superintendent of Lincoln Circuit in the years 1829 and 
 
 H H 
 
 CASTLE HILL, LINCOLN, WHERE CLOWES AND WEDGWOOD 
 PREACHED IN THE OPEN AIR. 
 
466 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 KEV. BOBT. ATKINSON. 
 Aged 37, 1831. 
 
 1 830. He was a native of Owersby in what the Bible calls the " coasts " of Market 
 Rasen. He began his ministry in 1820 and died at Thirsk in 1859. "He lacked 
 imagination and mental opulence " says Mr. Petty, but again " he was respected for his 
 meek and gentle spirit, and his upright and consistent walk;" and the official memoir 
 
 of him records that "he was a plain, earnest, faithful 
 and earnest preacher of the gospel." These solid, 
 wearing qualities were recognised by his appointment 
 as a permanent member of Conference in 1856 in the 
 room of John Garner. 
 
 Mary Birks travelled the Lincoln Circuit in 1823 and 
 again in 1829 as the colleague of Robert Atkinson. She 
 laboured in Hull and in several of the stations which, 
 after!824, belonged to the Hull District and, as John Stamp 
 says, she laboured "with credit to herself, and honour 
 to the Connexion, and died in full triumph shouting 
 'Victory.'" Physically she was an uncommon woman, 
 being quite six feet in stature. What she was intellect- 
 ually and as a minister may be gauged from the fact 
 that at the December Quarterly Meeting (1829) of the 
 Hull Circuit, Mary Birk's name was under consideration 
 as a suitable person to reinforce the staff of the American Mission, and W. Clowes 
 was deputed to cross over to Grimsby to interview her on the subject. She declined 
 the proposal. Parenthetically it may be noted that from the same Quarterly Meeting 
 a letter was sent to Belper to inquire whether W. Bembridge, to whom Sarah Harrison 
 (whom we knew as Sarah Kirkland) had been united in marriage, would make 
 a suitable missionary for America, and if so whether both would go. We do not hear 
 anything more of this proposal. After travelling fifteen years, Mary Birks located at 
 East Stockwith, and at her death a modest sketch of her life was published by John 
 Davison, the biographer of Clowes, who, in 1842, was the superintendent of Scotter 
 Circuit. 
 
 During John Garner's superintendency of the Lincoln Circuit in 1835-6, considerable 
 numerical and some material progress was made. Chapels were built at Horncastle 
 (1835), and Hogworthingham (1836), and Horncastle was made into a Circuit with two 
 hundred and two members. Tradition relates how John Garner made Elizabeth 
 familiarly known as Betty Swinton his Circuit Steward and got her to supply his 
 pulpit in his not infrequent absence from the Circuit for special services ; she invariably 
 appeared in white and attired in Quaker bonnet, and how, when she did thus officiate 
 for him, no complaints were made because she was so well received by the people. Betty 
 was a remarkable woman with a strange history. She had belonged to a gipsy clan and 
 been addicted to the telling of fortunes. When converted she settled "for a while at 
 Fulbeck, and was made very useful there as a local preacher; but after her marriage 
 she and her husband removed to Lincoln. 
 
 Without adhering strictly to the order of years short reference may here conveniently 
 be made to one or two other Lincoln worthies who are still remembered and whose 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 46 ' 
 
 " works follow them." Elizabeth Ingleton is still spoken of as a woman mighty in 
 prayer. She was afflicted with deafness but made no trouble of it, but rather a cause 
 of thankfulness "seeing there were so many things not worth hearing." 
 
 Edward Chapman was a highly valued official of the early days local preacher, and 
 
 K. CHAPMAN. 
 
 JOHN OLIVER. 
 
 J. BROADBERRY 
 
 for many years, the leader of a large class having for a time John Oliver as his 
 assistant leader. He was a convert of that useful preacheress Ann Tinsley, who 
 travelled in Lincoln Circuit during the second six months of 1828. Of Mr. Chapman 
 it was observed that "literally as well as spiritually he lived on the hill, and often, to 
 avoid strife, declined to descend in the valley." At the time of his death, which took 
 place in 1871, he was the oldest member of the Lincoln First Circuit. 
 
 It is fifty-two years ago since Joseph Broadberry left Grantham for Lincoln. He 
 was emphatically a strong, though cautious, man and made his mark both in the Church 
 and in the city of his adoption. To him belongs the distinction of having been the 
 first working-man to climb to the city magisterial bench. 
 
 Resuming the chronological thread of our narrative, we have to chronicle the opening 
 in 1839 of the first Portland Street Chapel, Lincoln. Though this date brings us near 
 
 to the close of the first period, we 
 must take a glance beyond ; for in 
 the case of Lincoln Circuit, as in that 
 
 "j^^^^^A j of Grimsby, 1842 gives no fitting 
 
 | terminal point. In 1844, when Lincoln 
 
 ^ MH Circuit was transferred from Hull to 
 
 ;:t I Nottingham District, it had only one 
 
 hundred and seventy-eight members, 
 and other indications are not wanting 
 that our cause in the city at this time, 
 and for a year or two after, was feeble, 
 and the circuit generally in a depressed 
 
 But during the term of Messrs. J. Hurd and W. Price circuit prospects 
 gradually brightened. Some of the village interests were revived, especially that 
 of Metheringham, where a new chapel was built. The employment of a city 
 missionary to work in the very haunts of vice led to a remarkable moral reformation 
 
 H H 2 
 
 PORTLAND PLACE CHAPEL, LINC( 
 ERECTED 1839. 
 
 condition. 
 
468 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 W. R. WIDDOWSON. 
 
 and redounded to the enlargement of the Church's borders. The story is interesting 
 and worth outlining, since it proves that the Gospel fearlessly applied just where 
 it is most needed is the best curative of the vices which are the curse and almost 
 the despair of our cities. 
 
 It was well known at this time that certain districts of. the city had been taken 
 possession of by the " strange woman whose house inclineth unto 
 death and her paths unto the dead." There were three quarters 
 of the city that deservedly lay under this imputation, differing 
 from one another only in the graduated presence or utter absence 
 of sham respectability. The authorities must surely have been 
 very supine to suffer such a reproach to sully the fame of their 
 fair city. But be this as it may, the state of things weighed 
 heavily on the heart and conscience of some Christian people. 
 Already they had attempted something. A Reformatory had been 
 built at Burton, a suburb of the city, but the class for whom 
 it was designed showed little disposition to enter its precincts. 
 At this point a public-spirited Wesleyan Mr. Warrener made 
 a proposal to the effect that, under the direction of our Church 
 some suitable person should be engaged to preach in the open-air and visit and 
 work right amongst those whom we euphemistically call " unfortunates," promising 
 if this were done to bear most of the expense. Whereupon, Jabez Langford, 
 an unpolished agricultural labourer hailing from the borders of Donnington and 
 Sleaford Circuits, was engaged and carried on his mission with most gratifying 
 results. Some remarkable conversions took place. The stigma of ill-fame 
 which had attached to certain houses ceased, and the Reformatory now went 
 on with its Christianizing work. Rasen Lane was in one of these cleansed 
 districts, and here a new Connexional interest was begun which ere long had its centre 
 in Rasen Lane Chapel, and in 1870 became the head of Lincoln Second Circuit. " It 
 was so fully recognised that our work had led to the reformation that, although it was 
 two miles from the Reformatory to Portland Place Chapel, several of the inmates, along 
 with the matron, used to attend the Sunday morning services." * 
 Thus, as Hockley Chapel was acquired through the Nottingham 
 Town-mission, so Rasen Lane grew out of the City-mission of 
 Lincoln. After labouring for a year or two in Nottingham 
 District, Jabez Langford was sent out in August, 1854, to 
 assist John Sharpe, the veteran Australian missionary, and 
 subsequently left the denomination. 
 
 From this time Lincoln Circuit continued to make consider- 
 able progress. In 1853, at the close of the term of Messrs. 
 W. Jefferson, W. R. Widdowson and J. Eckersley, it reported 
 seven hundred and three members. In 1854 Portland Street 
 Chapel was enlarged and a piece of land bought from a Mr. 
 
 Bunyan, said to be the lineal, if not the last surviving descendant of John Bunyan ; 
 and in 1874 the chapel was entirely rebuilt. 
 
 * Communicated by Eev. W. R. "Widdowson. For the reference to Hockley Chapel, see 
 ante, p. 250. 
 
 HEV. w. PRICE. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 "THE RISING OF THE TEMPERANCE STAR." 
 
 469 
 
 The simplest way of dealing with the allegation that John Stamp was expelled 
 because of his teetotalism would be flatly to deny it, as John Flesher did. He 
 maintained and rightly that it was not true, and could not possibly be true ; that 
 in face of the attitude taken by the Connexion as a whole to the Temperance question, 
 such an allegation was preposterous ; that any one who could believe it would go on 
 believing it, despite all proofs adduced to the contrary. So let us leave this particular 
 allegation on one side for a moment, while we consider the gradual advance in the 
 Temperance sentiment of the Connexion which, beginning about 1830, had by the 
 middle of the century become very pronounced. Here we have a question of fact 
 resting on evidence ; and when the evidence shall have been brought forward there 
 
 rUKKT CHAPEL. 
 
 It will have 
 
 will be no need to trouble much further about the allegation aforesaid, 
 died of inanition. 
 
 The growth of Temperance sentiment through the Nineteenth century was a long, 
 slow process. It was a growth from "moderation" as the accepted position of the 
 generality of Christian people, to the acceptance of total abstinence as the right rule 
 of life. Time was when drunkenness was regarded as being only a sin by excess, 
 like gluttony or incontinence. But science has changed all that. It has cut the 
 ground from under the feet of Moderatism, which now stands self-condemned. 
 
470 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 The most eminent members of the medical faculty have pronounced one after another 
 that alcohol in all its forms is not only useless but positively harmful ; that it does not 
 permanently exhilarate, that it does not feed or strengthen ; that it is a poison and as 
 such ought to be labelled and shelved, and only used homoeopathically, in those very 
 rare cases where one poison may legitimately be employed to expel a still more deadly 
 one. So science has reacted on morals. What our fathers might do, in all good 
 conscience, we cannot permit ourselves in without a sense of condemnation ; for we 
 know we have no right to sin against our own bodies and souls by imbibing, even in 
 carefully regulated doses, what science by its high priests declares to be poison. But 
 these consentient pronouncements of medical science are but of recent date that is 
 to say as uttered ex cathedra, by those whom everybody must acknowledge as having 
 the right to speak, and from whose judgment there can be no appeal. 
 
 Now the relevancy of all this to the early history of our Church is obvious. There 
 were a few who were ahead of their time ; who were wiser than the faculty, and had 
 an inkling of the truth as to the physiological action of alcohol. But they were a small 
 minority indeed. The great bulk were under the prevailing delusion a delusion 
 encouraged by the medical opinion of the time that the moderate use of intoxicating 
 drink was innocent, and that beer was as bread. Hence there was no consciousness of 
 wrong-doing in the habit of moderate drinking. Say we are touching on delicate 
 ground ! Surely the time has come calmly to look upon the process of evolution that 
 went on in our own as well as in other Churches, and by so doing justify our fathers, 
 while at the same time we cannot exalt or take any special credit to ourselves for not 
 sinning against the light which science, in these last days, is shedding. It is all very 
 strange when we come across entries from the old Minute Books authorising brewings 
 for the Quarterly Meeting dinner, or find that men who believed it wrong for a Christian 
 professor to wear a double-breasted coat, or cried out against the sin of wearing a topping, 
 should have felt no scruple in being moderate drinkers.* Connexional sentiment 
 on the drink question surely reached low-water mark when, at the Manchester 
 Conference of 1827, legislation was brought forward to the effect that the trustees of 
 chapels should be desired or required "to provide wine for the use of the preachers, 
 either before preaching, to give them a little spirit for their work, or after preaching to 
 revive their exhausted energies." Hugh Bourne, who was in advance of the opinion 
 and practice of the time, strenuously resisted the proposal both on economical and 
 moral grounds ; and the legislation was rejected. The account of the turning of the 
 tide deserves a fresh paragraph. 
 
 At the Conference held at Leicester in 1831 a notable thing happened much more 
 
 * At the Sheffield Conference of 1837 a charge was brought against W. Clowes for suffering John 
 Flesher to be' appointed a delegate, on the ground that Flesher wore a double-breasted coat. The 
 charge was based not on the result of an actual inspection of the coat, but of Flesher's portrait, 
 which we take to have been the identical portrait shown, ante p. 396. It turned out that the 
 incriminated coat was not a true double-breasted coat but simply one with two rows of buttons. 
 The charge waS withdrawn and John Flesher was permitted to keep his seat as not " guilty of the 
 crime" imputed. As for the "topping" we have this entry in John Harrison's Journal : "How 
 alarming to see a preacher in the pulpit with a topping, and a shirt-ruffle shown in his bosom." 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 4*71 
 
 notable, one thinks, than the declaration against "piece-sermonising"* or the 
 imposition of a ten-shilling fine for long preaching, which were also memorabilia of this 
 Conference. Hugh Bourne brought the subject of Temperance before the assembly 
 and dwelt on it at some length, with the result that "the editor was instructed to 
 devote a portion of the Magazine to articles on the Temperance Question." It is 
 probably more than a mere coincidence that within the leaves of the Tunstall District 
 reports for the year 1831, there has lain undisturbed until now, a four-page Temperance 
 tract which was no doubt referred to and quoted by Hugh Bourne during the course of 
 his deliverance. This tract, issued under the auspices of "The British and Foreign 
 Temperance Society," founded in 1831, contains a form of Temperance pledge which it 
 will be well to give. It will be noted that the pledge proposed is what is known as 
 " the moderate pledge." 
 
 "We whose names are subscribed, do voluntarily agree, to abstain entirely from 
 the use of ardent spirits, except for medicinal purposes ; and although the moderate 
 use of other liquors is not excluded, yet as the promotion of Temperance in every 
 form is the specific design of the Society, it is understood that excess in these 
 necessarily excludes from membership." 
 
 We have spoken of the action taken by this Conference in relation to Temperance as 
 "notable." So Hugh Bourne evidently regarded it. Taking into account the vested 
 interests, the customs and the opinions obtaining at this time, he says : 
 
 " It might have been deemed almost a miracle for any religious community to 
 take up this new Temperance movement. Such miracle was, however, accomplished, 
 for in May, 1831, the Primitive Methodist Conference, at Hugh Bourne's instance, 
 took up the self-denying Temperance movement, and made or enacted a law or 
 rule for the promotion of Temperance." 
 
 He calls the years 1831-8 " seven Temperance-law years," and claims that the 
 twenty-six thousand three hundred and eighty-four increase of these seven years 
 more than the increase of the seven years immediately preceding them, affords a signal 
 demonstration of God's approval of the new movement which had been accepted by 
 the Connexion, as evidenced by the Minute of the Conference of 1832, and incorporated 
 in the Consolidated Minutes of the same year as the permanent expression of 
 Connexional opinion. 
 
 Q. " What is the opinion of Conference in regard to Temperance Societies ? " 
 A. "We highly approve of them, and recommend them to the attention of our 
 people in general." 
 
 Hugh Bourne's use of numerical returns, in this instance, is employed here only to 
 show that the advance in Temperance sentiment was incontestable and notorious, or he 
 could not with any show of reason have made use of the fact to point his moral. We 
 have already found reason to conclude that the remarkable numerical progress made by 
 the Connexion after 1829 was largely the result of the preservative measures taken 
 
 * " Piece-sermonising " was Hugh Bourne's name for the practice of bringing out a sermon in 
 numbers as it were ; when a preacher full of matter was unable to finish his discourse and promised 
 to complete it on his next occupancy of the pulpit. 
 
472 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 during the critical period preceding that year. At the same time it may be readily 
 conceded that the Temperance movement was another factor in that progress. Its 
 influence must have been of the most salutary and conservative kind ; and an inspection 
 of Church-records would go to prove that there was much less wear and tear in the 
 societies after the inception of the movement, than in the ante-teetotal days when the 
 antecedents of many of the converts made lapses from the strict line of temperance 
 perilously easy. In this respect, at least, we do not well to say the former times were 
 better than these ; for they were not. 
 
 As for Hugh Bourne, he became more and more enthusiastic in the cause of 
 Temperance, until he almost got to believe that he was the father of teetotalism as well 
 as of English camp meetings. When Mrs. Shafto, of Bavington Hall, asked him if he 
 had joined the Total Abstinence Society, his answer was : " No ; they have joined me ; 
 I was a teetotaler before the teetotalers began their society." There is a similar 
 suggestion conveyed in the following more serious passage in which he speaks of himself 
 in the third person : " When the total abstinence system rose he had still more cause 
 
 to thank God and take courage, as the Lord was then 
 raising up many to stand much on the same ground lie 
 himself stood on for so many years. And he believes 
 the teetotal system has been, and is, a great handmaid 
 to religion " Many of the leading ministers of the 
 Connexion became pledged abstainers and zealous 
 advocates of the cause men like George Lamb, the 
 brothers Antliff, S. Smith, T. Morgan, and others too 
 numerous to mention. Laymen to,o, of whom George 
 Charlton and George Dodds in the North, and John 
 Briggs and Eichard Horn in the Midlands, may be taken 
 as samples, were using their gift of popular address in the 
 same cause. Even in 1841 the leaven of the new 
 movement had so far spread in the Connexion that, in 
 a circular addressed to the stations by the General 
 Committee, it was but a mild statement of the truth to 
 say : " It is well known that [our Connexion approves of Teetotalism, and recommends 
 the prudent advocacy of it." 
 
 After Hugh Bourne's superannuation in 1842, Walford, his biographer, tells us : 
 
 " He became a teetotal preacher [sometimes taking as many as a half-dozen texts 
 for one sermon to show that the Scriptures were full of it] visiting, writing, 
 preaching, and lecturing on teetotalism, in different parts of the Connexion. He 
 had for years been a man of temperance and great self-denial ; and having watched 
 and witnessed the good effected through the agency of teetotalism in the Primitive 
 Methodist Connexion, and now being at full liberty to dispose of his labours as he 
 thought best, and invitations pouring in from different parts of England, he 
 entered into this field of labour with all his accustomed zeal and activity ; and as 
 he considered this branch of religious temperance calculated to promote the cause 
 of religion and the interests of Primitive Methodism, he threw his whole soul into 
 the work." 
 
 THE LATE ALDERMAN GEORGE 
 CHARLTON. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 473 
 
 GEORGE LAMB. 
 
 A letter of Hugh Bourne's, hitherto we believe unpublished, bears witness to this 
 enthusiasm for "religious temperance." The letter was written in March, 1843, to 
 
 Thomas Morgan, and it gives an account of a two 
 months' tour of visitation amongst various circuits, 
 chiefly in the Xorth. In this long letter there is not 
 a single allusion to camp meetings or processions, 
 and not a single fling at long preaching or piece- 
 sermonising. True, it was winter and therefore not 
 the season for camp meetings ; still, had Hugh Bourne 
 written a letter as long as this thirty years before, he 
 could not, we may be sure, have kept camp meetings 
 out of that letter, even though it were written in the 
 middle of a seven weeks' frost. This letter of 1843 
 is alive with all the old passion for reaching men 
 by the gospel, and he cannot but express his joy that 
 wherever he goes men are being so reached. But it 
 is also perfectly clear that new methods of applying 
 the gospel and furthering the interests of the Church 
 are now in the ascendant. So he alludes once and again to " Protracted Meetings " 
 but recently introduced, and to the "golden system," from which system much was 
 expected, and above all to " religious temperance." 
 
 He arrived at York on January 3rd, and the same evening he says : 
 
 " I had the opportunity of hearing our brother, George Lamb, and other great 
 speakers at a great teetotal meeting. A speaker of the name of Whitaker turned 
 his speech into a religious view. I was much taken with this, as I myself had 
 before been contemplating teetotalism in a religious view. This meeting was held 
 in the Concert Room. I think teetotalism stands high at York." 
 He preached at Brompton, and "we introduced 'the golden system.'" "Teetotalism," 
 he remarks, "is strong here." He had liberty in speaking at a teetotal meeting at 
 Hartlepool and " felt the presence of God." When he gets to Newcastle he notes : 
 
 " I understand that all the travelling preachers in the Sunderland District are 
 zealous teetotalers ; and you will be aware that the Lord owns the labours of the 
 teetotaler. I am told that Sunderland, Berwick, Westgate, 
 and Newcastle-on-Tyne Circuits are going on powerfully. 
 The Lord owns the labours of the teetotalers in the con- 
 version of souls. To Him be glory and dominion for ever 
 and ever. Amen." 
 
 Then before folding his letter he adds a long postscript to say 
 that he has good news out of Cornwall from Joseph Preston, 
 who " is a zealous teetotaler " ; and at Durham, where he is 
 writing, they had a meeting the night before when "teetotalism 
 was advocated in a religious way " which " gave great satisfaction." 
 The letter does get finished at last by an interesting reference 
 to Preston : " I think they will, like our brethren at Preston in 
 Lancashire, go into the way of holding their own teetotal meetings and holding 
 them in their own way." 
 
 JOSEPH PRESTON. 
 
PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Hugh Bourne was very impressionable to new ideas which he had the knack of 
 appropriating and exploiting as though he himself had discovered them. In this, as in 
 other respects, he presents a striking contrast to William Clowes who could not so 
 readily throw off the old and put on the new, and modify the convictions and habits of 
 his prime. Temperance as a specific movement was one of the manifestations of 
 that altruistic spirit which now in the thirties began to breathe upon society and the 
 Churches, softening the hard outlines of individualism and beginning its work now 
 going on with accelerated rapidity of blending men together in a conscious community 
 of interest. Hugh Bourne caught the early fannings of this movement, and, as we 
 have seen, with the years it got increasing power over him. But Temperance in its- 
 original crude form, as expressed in the " moderate pledges " of the early societies, was 
 still largely individualistic and more akin to stoic morals than to Christian ethics. But 
 
 Total abstinence was nothing if 
 not altruistic. While as yet 
 Science delayed her decision on 
 the question, men lent a readier 
 ear to the high teaching of Paul 
 that the strong should be considerate 
 of the weak, and abstain for their 
 sakes if not for their own. This- 
 was not only Temperance but 
 " religious Temperance." And 
 now Science has at last mounted 
 her rostrum, and pronounced in her 
 high pontifical way that th e teetotaler 
 Avhile deserving credit for his self- 
 sacrificing intentions, has after all 
 taken the line of enlightened self- 
 interest and has benefited himself 
 while seeking to benefit others. 
 
 Whence came the new spirit 
 and how did it find out Hugh 
 Bourne ? The answer is it came from America, via Ireland and Warrington ; and it is 
 impossible not to be struck with the remarkable similarity between the origin of the 
 camp-meeting movements and the Temperance movement as each affected Hugh Bourne 
 and our Church. Both these movements were Transatlantic in their origin.* With both 
 Irish Quakers and Warrington and Stockton Heath Independent Methodists had much 
 to do. We became very familiar with the names of Peter Phillips and Thomas Eaton 
 in dealing with the origin-period of our history. Now these names recur once more ; 
 for we shall assume that recent historical research has demonstrated that the first Total 
 Abstinence Society was founded at Stockton Heath in 1830. As Mr. Mounfield in 
 his recently published brochure says : 
 
 PROVIDENCE CHAPEL. 
 
 The Old Independent Methodist Church, Stockton Heath, 
 Warrington. 
 
 * " The light of this new movement shone across the Atlantic and enlightened England and 
 Scotland." H. Bourne. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 475 
 
 " Thomas Eaton was a local manager of the Bridgewater Canal, a member of the 
 Independent Methodist Church, and a close friend of the founder of that body, 
 Peter Phillips. . . . The Church to which Thomas Eaton was attached had 
 been formed in a barn as the result of the preaching of Lorenzo Dow, but a new 
 building called Providence Chapel had just been erected. In this building on April 
 4th, 1830, George Harrison Birkett and William Wood [members of the Society of 
 Friends from Dublin] held their first meeting and formed the first Total Abstinence 
 Society." * 
 
 At Warrington the " battle of the pledges " was fought, having for one of its results 
 
 the formation in 1834 of a second 
 Total Abstinence Society which had 
 its head-quarters in old Friars Green 
 Chapel. Here we will quote again : 
 
 "From that time [December, 
 1830] forward, Friars Green be- 
 came the scene of a succession of 
 stirring and historic meetings 
 which grew in interest and 
 influence as the years went by. 
 Peter Phillips and his family 
 joined in the work and gave the 
 weight of their influence, and 
 henceforth the doors of the Church 
 were ever open to the teachers 
 and advocates of Total Abstinence. 
 It became a recognised centre and 
 witnessed some of the finest efforts 
 of Joseph Liveseyand his eloquent 
 co- worker Henry Anderton. 'Next 
 to the cock-pit at Preston,' says 
 Edward Grubb in his^Memoirs of 
 Henry Anderton, ' the old Friars 
 Green Chapel deserves to be 
 associated with his name as one of 
 
 the places where he displayed that mighty eloquence that touched all hearts and 
 
 filled every eye ' " (p. 29). 
 
 It seems, therefore, that the claim of " the seven men of Preston " to have been the 
 first Total Abstinence Society will have to be surrendered ; though the story of the 
 origin of the word " tee-total " from Richard Turner's emphatic utterance of the word 
 " total " has not, as far as we are aware, been disproved. It may have been challenged, 
 but it still holds the field. As now told, however, the true story of the origin of the 
 Total Abstinence movement should, if anything, prove more interesting to Primitive 
 Methodists than the story it displaces, since it takes us back to the very neighbourhood 
 of our origins, and brings us once more in touch with some worthy people who in the 
 
 * ' ; The Beginnings of Total Abstinence. The Warrington Societies of 1830." By Arthur 
 Mounfield, 59, Fleet Street. 
 
 PAGE FROM ROLL BOOK 
 
 OF THE STOCKTON HEATH SOCIETY, 
 
 COMMENCING DEC. 23RD, 1830. 
 
476 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Connexion's infancy were, in Scripture phrase, its "nursing fathers and mothers." It 
 was for preaching in Friars Green Chapel that W. Crawfoot got into trouble. It was the 
 Eatons who helped him financially when he paid his visit to London along Avith Hugh 
 Bourne, and theirs was the home Clowes pronounced a " pilgrims' inn " and " the best 
 ordered family he had ever seen." 
 
 "This was like the rising of a new star, and its light was brilliant." Such arc Hugh 
 Bourne's words in speaking of what happened at the Conference of 1831, when the 
 Temperance movement was recognised as making for righteousness and beneficence. 
 But this star did not rise in the east but in the west and, if one may say so, it came 
 and stood over the spot that owed its existence to the visit of the meteoric Lorenzo 
 Dow. 
 
 As still further indications of the spread of Temperance sentiment in the Connexion, 
 it may be stated that at a great Temperance Conference of ministers, held at Manchester 
 in 1848, there were present twenty-eight ministers of our Church, a number exceeded 
 only by the representatives of the Congregationalists and the Baptists, who numbered 
 forty-seven and twenty-nine respectively. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 477 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE SHEFFIELD GROUP OF CIRCUITS. 
 
 [HOUGH we speak of Sheffield Circuit, that name from 1820 onwards for 
 a year or two, does not so much designate Sheffield with its adjacent towns 
 and villages as an extensive tract of country which was rapidly evangelised 
 by our pioneer missionaries. Though there might be extensions into 
 Nottinghamshire this tract mainly consisted of the northern and eastern parts of 
 Derbyshire from Chesterfield to the High Peak, and the West Riding of Yorkshire 
 from Doncaster to Huddersfield, so that the missionaries here joined hands with those 
 who were labouring in Leeds and its neighbourhood. By 1824 this wide area 
 was broken up and formed into no less than eight important circuits, viz., Sheffield, 
 Barnsley, Chesterfield, Halifax, Wakefield, Doncaster, Bradwell, and Huddersfield. 
 The way in which these important circuits were so quickly formed affords a good 
 
 HALIFAX 
 
 fe 
 HUDDERSFIELD- 
 
 WAKEFIELO- 
 
 *^ 
 
 1822) 
 
 OONCASTER 
 
 BRAOWELL- II5TJ 
 
 CHESTERFIELD- 
 
478 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 JEREMIAH GILBERT. 
 
 illustration of what borrowing from organic chemistry we may call the cellular 
 method of circuit propagation, as distinct from distant circuit missions or branches of 
 which Hull affords the best type. The third method that of circuit-division, belongs 
 to the later era of consolidation and of this method multiplication by division no 
 
 Connexional centre offers a better instance 
 of late years than does Sheffield. It is 
 therefore not so much with the local extension 
 and consolidation of our Connexional interests 
 in Sheffield this chapter has to do, as we 
 have to show how in little more than four 
 years an area equal to that of a province 
 was visited by our missionaries, and the 
 foundations well and truly laid for others to 
 build upon. 
 
 The process of Circuit propagation that went 
 on during these years is attempted to be 
 shown in the accompanying diagram. 
 
 Who were these hardy, . indefatigable 
 pioneers ! That name specially belongs to 
 four persons, each of whom suffered hardship 
 and imprisonment Jeremiah Gilbert, William 
 Taylor, S. Perry, Thomas Holliday. To Jeremiah Gilbert belongs the honour of being 
 the pioneer of the Connexion in Hallamshire, while to William Taylor was assigned 
 the task of breaking up the ground in Barnsley and its neighbourhood. Thomas 
 Holliday was won by Jeremiah Gilbert, so that, although he was quickly pressed 
 into the service and was inferior to none of his colleagues in efficiency and zeal, yet 
 priority belongs to them as first in the field. 
 
 William Clowes was indirectly concerned in the establishment of the Sheffield 
 mission. There were two persons present at the March Quarterly Meeting of the 
 Nottingham Circuit who would not have been there but for his invitation. One of 
 these was S. Atterby whom the meeting appointed to Retford Mission ; the other was he 
 who afterwards came to be affectionately known as " Father Coulson." Early in the 
 century Mr. Coulson had removed from Chesterfield to Sheffield, 
 and was now desirous that the Primitive Methodists should 
 begin a mission in this important industrial centre. When on 
 a business visit to Hull he had brought the subject before William 
 Clowes who suggested that he should attend the next Quarterly 
 Meeting and there personally plead the cause he had so much at 
 heart. The result was that, probably by the appointment of the 
 Nottingham Circuit Committee, Jeremiah Gilbert was designated to 
 the mission, and set out for his sphere of toil assured of the help 
 and sympathy of John Coulson, who had now identified himself 
 with the denomination. Both S. Atterby and Jeremiah Gilbert 
 seem to have taken Bolsover in Derbyshire, on their way to their 
 
 T, HOLLIDAY. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 479 
 
 respective missions, and both were shut up in Bolsover Round House for preaching 
 abroad. Eight days after, Atterby tells us, he was again taken into custody at 
 Tickhill in Yorkshire. As for Gilbert, the first Sabbath of his ministry was made ever 
 memorable to him by his experience in the Round House, where he had "neither bed 
 nor straw," but where " God took possession of him body, soul, and spirit." 
 
 We have a pretty full journal of Jeremiah Gilbert's labour in the mission after May, 
 1820, by which time it had become a circuit; but precise details of the first nine 
 months' labours are wanting. One early record in his Journals conveys a vivid idea of 
 the work that could be crowded into one Sabbath, and by it we gain a glimpse of some 
 Sheffield localities associated with our humble beginnings in the hardware city : 
 
 " Sunday, May 14th : At Sheffield. Preached at six o'clock in the morning, in 
 Young Street ; a good time. At eight, preached at Water lane, which I suppose 
 
 BOLSOVER CASTLE. 
 
 to be the wickedest place in Sheffield ; but many appeared to be greatly affected, 
 and came in the evening to the chapel. Preached at half-past ten in the chapel ; 
 and at two administered the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It was a solemn 
 time. Preached again in the chapel at six, and in the park at eight. It was 
 a blessed day to many souls. 
 Eight days after the preceding entry, Jeremiah Gilbert notes that he preached 
 
 a funeral sermon in the chapel and afterwards renewed the tickets to three classes. 
 
 All this indicates that a considerable society had already been established in Sheffield. 
 
 But Gilbert was essentially an itinerant missionary and one of the most devoted and 
 
 successful the Connexion has ever had. Hence the references to Sheffield are only 
 
480 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 occasional. The greater part of his time was taken up with carrying the gospel to 
 various towns and villages comprised within the extensive area of the Sheffield Circuit. 
 He visited amongst other places Rotherham, Greasborough, Bradgate, Clown, Doncaster 
 and even Retford. , , He does not seem to have had much experience of rough handling 
 by the mob, but he had rather more than his share of clerical persecution. Many of 
 the clergymen of the district were bitterly hostile, and did all in their power to prevent 
 
 open-air preaching in their parishes. 
 
 So zealous were they that sometimes, 
 when the constables felt their task 
 distasteful and hung back, the clergy- 
 man would himself pull the preacher 
 down. When, at Balber, the con- 
 stable did lay hands on Jeremiah 
 Gilbert who thereupon began to sing, 
 " Wicked men I scorn to fear," etc j 
 the clergyman tried to put his hand 
 before the preacher's mouth : but 
 
 BOLSOVEK CROSS. 
 Where first open-air services were held and where Gilbert was arrested (?) 
 
 The first preaching place, 
 Bolsover, was in this upper 
 room. 
 
 says Gilbert, " I told 
 him my tongue was 
 jaot to be tethered ; 
 and as the Almighty 
 had imparted unto 
 me such a gift as my 
 
 tongue, it should be employed in praising Him." And here, perhaps, one should put 
 in a good word for the old-time parish constable into whose hands oui early missionaries 
 so often fell. These men were often unwilling agents, hating the work which they were 
 compelled to undertake. " I had a deal of conversation " says Jeremiah Gilbert " with the 
 constable on the way to Chesterfield. He wept very much and said, he hoped it would 
 be the last time he should have a job of that sort ; " and, as they drove along, the 
 constable confessed that " he was so timid, that he was forced to go and get a glass or 
 two of ale before he could manage to come and pull me down." 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 481 
 
 There is one passage in Gilbert's Journal, written in July, 1820, which reminds us of 
 that noble passage in which Paul enumerates the sufferings he endured on behalf of the 
 gospel. One item in that heavy account is " in prisons more frequent." So, quite in 
 Paul's spirit and manner is Gilbert's statement : " Although within the last fifteen 
 months I have been taken before magistrates six or seven times for preaching the 
 gospel, I have never lost anything but pride, shame, unbelief, hardness of heart, fear of 
 man, love of the world, and prejudice of mind. I have always come out of prison 
 more pure than I went in." 
 
 It is a fair inference from these words that, although Jeremiah Gilbert gives us in 
 detail only one of his prison experiences, there were several such experiences he might 
 have given ; and it has always seemed to us that the description of what happened to 
 
 ROUND HOUSE, BOLSOVER. 
 
 him in the " damp and doleful " prison at Eckington, in Derbyshire is, because of the 
 cheery spirit it breathes, and the quaint, naive way in which it is written, worthy to be 
 reckoned with similar narratives in the lives of the early Quakers or Baptists. As 
 John Garner was allowed to speak for himself in describing the sufferings he underwent 
 at Sow some fourteen months before this, so here we must let Jeremiah Gilbert tell his 
 own story in his own way. Sow and Eckington make good companion, though 
 contrasted, pictures. There is here no brutal rabble, only a timid constable that must 
 prime himself with ale for the disagreeable work he has to do, and the inevitable 
 clergyman in the background : 
 
 " Wednesday, 12th July : At Eckington, Derbyshire. Got upon a chair, sung 
 
 n 
 
482 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 and went to prayer, sung again, and gave out a text. Then a constable came and 
 desired me to come down. I asked him two or three times where his summons 
 was, and began to preach again as if nothing had been amiss. He then called 
 out for assistance, but not one would engage to help him. He then got hold of 
 my coat and pulled me down. I then began to sing : 
 ' Christ He sits on Zion's hill,' etc. 
 
 It caused the people rather to smile to see me take hold of the constable's arm, and 
 walk with him. He took me to a place which seemed to be as complete a prison as 
 I had ever seen. The window had strong bars. The door appeared to be full of 
 great nails. I looked through the bars of the window and there was a great many 
 people. I exhorted them to flee from the wrath to come ; and those who feared 
 
 YOUNG STREET, SHEFFIELD. 1 
 Where Jeremiah Gilbert first preached in the open-air in Sheffield. 
 
 the Lord to glorify Him ; and many sang the praises of God without, while I sang 
 His praises within. After some time the gaoler came and conversed with me. 
 I persuaded him to go down on his knees in the prison ; and prayed with him. 
 I afterwards wrote a part of my Journal : and at midnight I prayed and sang 
 praises to God, and then retired to rest. I had blocked up the window as well as 
 I could to keep out the cold ; for it was a wet, damp, doleful prison. I had neither 
 bed nor straw, but lay across some laths, and had a besom for my pillow. It was 
 afterwards remarked to me that my prison was a deal worse than Derby dungeon ; 
 but the Lord converted it into a paradise." 
 Next day, for the second time, Jeremiah Gilbert was driven to Chesterfield to go 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 483 
 
 before the justices. He would not walk ; for, as he said, he had to walk quite enough 
 when he preached the gospel, and when he was taken up for preaching it it was his 
 intention to ride. There is a tradition that, as the constable was driving along with 
 his prisoner, he good-naturedly dropped the hint 'that Gilbert might slip into a wood 
 they were passing at the time, and make good his escape. But the hint was not 
 taken ; for Gilbert meant seeing this business through. Whether it be true, as is 
 sometimes affirmed, that the fox may even get rather to enjoy being hunted, we know 
 not. But be this as it may, we cannot suppress the feeling that some of our early 
 missionaries such as W. R. Bellham and Jeremiah Gilbert, rather enjoyed the evident 
 perplexity of the Justice Shallows of the period to know what to do with their prisoners 
 when brought before them. They secretly chuckled as they saw the magistrate, helped by 
 
 PARADISE SQUARE, SHEFFIELD. 
 
 Where the first room was secured for Primitive Methodist Services. 
 
 his clerk and the parson, referring to musty precedents, fumbling with law-books and 
 getting mixed with the statutes of different reigns. So it was at Chesterfield on this 
 occasion. The magistrate opened his law-book and began to read. "Is that Queen 
 Elizabeth?" asked the clergyman who was Gilbert's accuser. "No, Sir, it is King 
 Charles the Second " was the answer, at which the prisoner put in his word : " You 
 must try to get to another place if you please ; turn to King George the Third the 
 Fifty-second year of his reign." The interview for trial in any real sense it was not 
 lasted between two and three hours, and at the end magistrate, clergyman, and 
 constable seemed glad to get rid of the prisoner on any terms, though the formality 
 
484 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 of imposing a forty pound fine was gone through ! Jeremiah Gilbert at once made his 
 way back with all speed to Eckington and finished the discourse which had been 
 interrupted the night before. 
 
 However much the history of Primitive Methodism in Sheffield prior to the year 
 1836 may involve however much conscientious labour, struggle, and self-sacrifice 
 the main facts of its history up to that date can soon be outlined. It is with the 
 process of circuit ramification, from Sheffield as the original root, that went on in the 
 
 early years that this chapter has to do. The remarkable extension of our denomination 
 in the city of Sheffield, the story of its chapel-building enterprise, beginning with the 
 opening of Bethel Chapel in 1836, and the division and sub-division of its various 
 circuits that has gone on in late years, is quite another and a later chapter. It will be 
 enough to say here, before passing to other places once included in the original Sheffield 
 Circuit, that for fifteen years after the formation of that Circuit the society in the 
 town had for long no settled home. "A temporary preaching-room, we are told, was 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 485 
 
 secured in Watson's Walk, through the amalgamation with the mission of a small 
 congregation worshipping there. Better accommodation was afterwards secured in 
 Paradise Square ; Brocco and the Park followed, and finally in Coalpit Lane, now 
 called Cambridge Street, possession was taken of a chapel previously occupied by the 
 Baptists; and in 1835, the present Bethel Chapel was commenced, and completed in 
 the following year, under the superintendency of the Rev. W. Carthy."* 
 
 Never perhaps did a band of men and women, "poor as to the world," attempt 
 a more formidable task than did the Sheffield Society when it set about the building of 
 Bethel Chapel. The audacity of faith could surely go no further, nor could faith 
 have proved her sincerity by a greater degree of self-sacrifice and cheerful toil, not 
 wanting in resourcefulness. "The total expenditure, including the purchase of the old 
 leasehold property, and the erection of the new premises was, we are told, 4,460 ; the 
 whole of which was borrowed." In order to keep down expenditure as much as 
 possible, the trustees undertook to pull down the cottages standing on the intended 
 site, and to prepare the land for building. In our group of old Bethel officials are 
 a few of those who took their share in this self-imposed labour. Joseph Hunter is one 
 of these. His connection with the Sheffield Society began some years before the 
 erection of the chapel. He and his wife were famous class-leaders, and at one time 
 had one hundred and thirty members under their joint care whom they carefully 
 shepherded. Mr. Hunter became a trustee for the new chapel. He helped in the 
 demolition of the cottages and in the digging out of the foundations, and as he had his 
 own dav's work to do, this extra labour had to be put in before his own work began 
 or after it was finished. His wife seconded his efforts in her own way. She made 
 butter of the domestic cream she contrived to save, and gave the proceeds to the chapel- 
 fund. Like Mrs. Dale, whose portrait is also in the group, and others not represented, 
 she dressed the bricks of the demolished buildings so that they might be used again. 
 Edwin Machin and William Wright, two other trustees, are also in this group. They, 
 too, wheeled barrow and handled spade at the digging out of the foundations. For 
 some time the former lived in daily expectation of a visit from the bailiff because of 
 his chapel responsibilities, but he lived to see the brighter days that followed the 
 erection of the chapel in Coalpit Lane, afterwards known as Cambridge Street. An 
 interesting reference to the opening of this historic building is found in the Journal of 
 W. Clowes, and with this we leave Sheffield and its workers for the present. 
 
 "On June 19th [1836] I accompanied brother J. Flesher to Sheffield, to assist in 
 the opening of a commodious chapel in Coalpit Lane. Brother Flesher preached in 
 the morning and evening, and I officiated in the afternoon. The congregations 
 were very large and respectable, and as I listened in the morning to the beautiful 
 and powerful reasoning of brother Flesher, and witnessed the effect of his appeals 
 on the large assembly, I felt humbled in the dust, and wondered how it was that 
 I had ever been received as a preacher, and been continued such for more than 
 twenty years. With these views of myself, I fled to the throne of grace, and 
 implored divine help for the service of the afternoon. The Lord granted my 
 request, and as I addressed the audience His glory filled the house, and appeared 
 to be felt by all present. On the morrow as brother Flesher and I journeyed 
 
 * Rev. T. Campey. 
 
PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 homewards, I told him what my feelings and views were as I heard him preaching 
 on the previous morning ; and to my astonishment, he stated that as he was 
 hearing me in the afternoon, he had just the contrary views to mine of my 
 preaching and of his ; and that the fear of spoiling my sermon, were he to pray 
 after it, induced him to leave the pulpit and retire into the vestry, to prevent my 
 asking him to pray. Thus the Lord frequently humbles us, to prevent any flesh 
 from glorying in His presence, and to show us that he who glorieth should glory 
 in the Lord." 
 
 BARNSLEY. 
 
 To revert to the beginnings of the Sheffield Mission : just about the time the 
 prison-scenes already described were being enacted, William Taylor was sent out as an 
 
 additional labourer into this 
 wide mission-field. He 
 was a native of Tunstall 
 and his name had stood on 
 the Tunstall Circuit Plan. 
 Slackness of trade in the 
 Potteries had led him 
 to obtain employment in 
 Sheffield, but he had not 
 as yet taken up his duties 
 as a local preacher in the 
 Sheffield Mission. A visit 
 to his native place, how- 
 ever, and the faithful 
 admonishment of a Tun- 
 stall friend, led him on his 
 return into Yorkshire to 
 BETHEL CHAPEL, SHEFFIELD. engage heartily in aggressive 
 
 Christian work. He soon became the leader of three classes and the missioner of 
 Hough, Newhill, and other neglected places. When the June Quarterly Meeting of 
 the new Sheffield Circuit found itself in want of two preachers 
 to "break up fresh ground," it was but natural that the eyes 
 of the brethren should turn to William Taylor as a man in 
 every way likely to make a useful missionary. The officials 
 had not mistaken their man, nor did they commit an error 
 of judgment in thrusting him forth in July, 1820, into 
 the mission-field. For twenty-nine years William Taylor did 
 useful work in various parts of the Connexion, dying August 
 llth, 1849. From his Journal as given in the Magazine we 
 find him labouring at Barnsley, Penistone, Wakefield, Horbury> 
 Silkstone, CudwOrth, Huddersfield and many other familiar 
 places in the West Riding. When the Branch Quarterly 
 Meeting was held at Barnsley in March, 1821, it was found that four hundred persons 
 
 WILLIAM TAYLOR. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 487 
 
 had been added to the societies during the quarter, and the success of the mission in 
 this part was so encouraging that, during this same year, Barnsley was made into an 
 independent station. According to a well- authenticated tradition, it was Mrs. Tamar 
 Hall (the grandmother of Rev. T. Markwell) who opened her house to the first 
 Primitive Methodist missionary in Barnsley, and in this house the first money was 
 given towards a chapel. Amongst other early befrienders of the cause respectful 
 
 FIRST PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL, BARNSLEY. 
 
 mention should be made of J. Pollard, a local preacher of fifty years' standing, who 
 died in 1873, and J. Glover. When in 1832 the official addresses of the stations first 
 have place in the Minutes of Conference, 
 we find the superintendent preacher of 
 Barnsley Circuit living in Rymer's-row, 
 Barebones ! Such eminent men as Dr. 
 "W. Antliff and J. Brownson lived in this 
 oddly named locality. In 1842 we find 
 Charles Lace housed in Castlereagh Street. 
 In the later as well as the earlier period of 
 its history Barnsley Circuit has continued 
 to be the fruitful mother of circuits as 
 the successive formation of such circuits as 
 Horbury, Clayton West and Hoyland shows. 
 
 JOSEPH POLLARD. 
 
 JOHN GLOVER. 
 
488 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 HALIFAX AND WAKEFIELD. 
 
 Another notable missionary was called out by Sheffield Circuit to do pioneer work in 
 Halifax and its vicinity. Now, though Thomas Holliday gets only three poor lines in 
 the Minutes of 1858, which record that his "end was peace," for all that, he was a man 
 possessed of considerable vigour both of body and mind, and in the early days his 
 strength and force of character were freely expended in the service of our Church. 
 Holliday began his labours in the spring of 1821 by preaching at Elland and other 
 places in the neighbourhood of Halifax. So much success attended his labours in this 
 
 district, that he appeared at the 
 Adjourned Quarterly Meeting at 
 Barnsley, April 28th, with the 
 request that another preacher 
 might be appointed to assist 
 him in the Halifax Branch. His 
 request led to the appointment 
 of a helper called Revel whose 
 name, however, does not appear 
 on the stations. 
 
 The foundations of Halifax 
 Circuit were laid in persecution ; 
 and Thomas Holliday, like 
 Jeremiah Gilbert and William 
 Taylor, had his "baptism of 
 fire." The circumstances were 
 these. On the 27th May, 
 Holliday and his colleague 
 were holding a service in the 
 Butter Market. While the 
 former, with closed eyes, was 
 in the act of prayer, some one 
 shook him by the arm and bade 
 him desist. Without heeding 
 the interruption Holliday con- 
 tinued and reverently finished 
 his devotions, and on opening 
 his eyes found himself face to face with the constable. The preacher readily gave his 
 name when it was demanded, but expressed his determination to go through with the 
 service unless prevented by force, and gave some reasons for his determination. What 
 was allegedfto be a summons was then produced, and Holliday and Revel were led off 
 to the constable's house. Here, after a time, the constable left them, and in his 
 absence, Holliday from the window preached on " the New Birth " to the crowd that 
 had gathered and which seemed reluctant to disperse when the sermon was over. 
 "The people seemed much troubled about us," says Mr. Holliday "but we told them 
 we were happy in the love of God." Then a man, "cursing and swearing," made 
 
 WESTGATE CHAPEL, BARNSLEY. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 489 
 
 his way into the house ; he threatened to knock the preacher down if he did not 
 come down, tried to thrust his umbrella down Mr. Holliday's throat, and ended by 
 dragging the two into a lumber room which did duty as an "inner prison." 
 
 Next day, Justice Horton came to what was evidently regarded as Police Court as 
 well as prison, and had the two missionaries arraigned before him. When they refused 
 to find bail to appear at the Bradford sessions, or to give an undertaking not to preach 
 in the streets of Halifax, the magistrate committed them to Wakefield House of 
 Correction there to await the sessions. They praised God for counting them worthy to 
 suffer in His name, and the Justice bade them "cease their blasphemy!" Next day 
 the preachers sang the praises of God as they passed through the streets of Halifax 
 and through the villages on their way to Wakefield. 
 
 Messrs. Holliday and Revel remained in durance only from Tuesday to Saturday 
 evening, when they were liberated through the interposition of friends who thought 
 fit to give bail for them. They were liberated just in time to enable them to take 
 part in one of the largest and most memorable camp meetings ever held in these parts. 
 Jeremiah Gilbert makes special mention of six camp meetings held in Sheffield Circuit 
 during 1821. The first was at Wolfstones, near Thong, on April 29th, when ten 
 thousand people are said to have been present. To get to another held on Keenly 
 Common on July 29th, Gilbert walked twenty miles, he being at that time on the 
 Halifax Branch. A third, held on August 5th, on Greetland Moor, was attended by 
 thousands, amongst whom were many members of the Old Connexion who threw them- 
 selves heartily into the services of the day. This camp meeting was the precursor of 
 a great revival at Greetland. Others were held during the year on Stain Cross Common 
 near Barnsley, Heath Common near Wakefield, and Skircoat Moor near Halifax. But 
 none of these equalled in magnitude the Sheffield and Barnsley Union Camp Meeting 
 held on Mexbro' Common, June 3rd. At one time during the day there are said 
 to have been sixteen praying companies engaged, and the newspapers of the district 
 reported the number present as upwards of twenty thousand. It is only fair to say 
 that Hugh Bourne in his History gives the much more moderate estimate of ten 
 thousand. 
 
 The presence at this camp meeting of the missionaries just released from prison would 
 naturally lend additional interest to the proceedings, and the persecution so cheerfully 
 borne by them would make a powerful appeal to the high-spirited and liberty-loving 
 Yorkshire people. No surer method of winning the people to the new movement could 
 have been found than trying to stop it with the constable's staff. What with the zeal 
 of the missionaries and the sympathy in their favour aroused by persecution, the 
 Halifax Branch was almost from the first self-supporting, and in 1822 both Halifax 
 and Wakefield became independent stations. It should be added that when the 
 Bradford sessions came on, Messrs. Holliday and Revel duly surrendered themselves and 
 were honourably acquitted. Finding themselves in Bradford our missionaries began 
 preaching in the streets with the view of annexing that town, but they were in this 
 forestalled by the Leeds Circuit. 
 
4190 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 HALIFAX. 
 
 The first class-meetings of the Halifax society were held in the house of Mrs. Halstead, 
 and the first meeting-house, now a printing-office approached by outside steps, stood in 
 John Street. In 1822, Ebenezer chapel was built at a cost of 2,206, and here, just as 
 at Sheffield, women as well as men, counted it an honour to give their personal labour, 
 and assisted in getting out the foundations and clearing the ground for the builders. 
 The original schoolroom below the chapel, low and dark, and therefore ill-adapted to its 
 purpose, is now a store for ironmongery; and iu 1884, a fine suite of schools and class- 
 rooms was erected at a total cost of 4,460. Connected with the chapel is a burial 
 ground, wherein lie the ashes of many of the early adherents of the Church. 
 
 From the beginning Ebenezer has been a centre of earnest, aggressive work. Four 
 circuits have resulted from the 
 missionary enterprise of the 
 Church, and the old spirit still 
 lives. Ebenezer has a further 
 claim to remembrance as having 
 given accommodation to the 
 fifth Conference 1824. Of 
 this, as of the rest of the early 
 Conferences, it is surprisin 
 
 EBEXEZER CHAPEL, HALI 
 
 FIRST PREACHING PLACE, 
 HALIFAX. 
 
 how little we know. We do 
 not even know the personnel 
 of some of them. The official 
 records are meagre in the ex- 
 treme, and as yet the Minutes 
 do not give the names of 
 those who attended the preceding Conference. We have no descriptive reports, no 
 sketches of the principal figures, no piquant notes and comments on the proceed- 
 ings to help us to realise what went on day by day. The privilege of admission 
 to the Conference was jealously guarded, as may be gathered from the fact 
 that, at the Sunderland Conference of 1833, Hugh Bourne demanded that John 
 Flesher pay down on the table sixpence as a forfeit tor proposing that brother Aspinall, 
 the superintendent of Sunderland Circuit, should be the Conference door-keeper. Hugh 
 Bourne went on to speak of the mischief which such an irregularity was likely to 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 491 
 
 produce. But his brother, who was in the chair at the time, was of a contrary opinion, 
 and J. Flesher had his sixpence restored to him.* 
 
 The second Conference was attended by about forty delegates ; the third by fifteen ; 
 the fourth by forty-four, and Hugh Bourne, writing shortly before the holding of the 
 fifth, anticipated that as there were now near seventy circuits, there would probably 
 assemble at Halifax, on Whit Tuesday, 1824, upwards of seventy delegates. He fore- 
 shadows the plan, then adopted, of dividing the Connexion into four large districts, so 
 that an assured basis of representation might be found, and the fluctuations in the 
 number of delegates, from year to year, be obviated. At the Conference, W. Clowes 
 preached in the chapel in the morning, and Brother Bowen (probably David Bowen of 
 Darlaston) in the evening. We read in the Magazine that " a peculiar unction attended 
 the services of worship ; " but this was a very critical time, and the discussions that 
 went on in Ebenezer were not only animated but at times acrimonious. As strikingly 
 confirmatory of what we have more than once said of the crisis now reached, let the 
 reader take the following from the private Journal of Thomas Bateman. He himself 
 was not present at Halifax, but writing in September, 1824, he says: 
 
 "Mr. Hugh Bourne came over again for another consultation as to the almost 
 hopeless state of the Connexion, and the best means to adopt to save it if possible. 
 Poor man he is nearly heart-broken, and well he may. . . . Some few fancy 
 that since the last Conference at Halifax they see a rift in the dark cloud. Oh, 
 that it may prove to be correct. At best the struggle will be sharp and long. I 
 trow the pruning-knife will have to be used with an unsparing hand. Many dead 
 branches will have to be lopped off if the tree must live and thrive." 
 
 That this crisis which nearly broke the heart "of Hugh Bourne and the hearts of 
 
 JOHN FEARNSIDE. 
 
 WILLIAM PARRY. 
 
 MRS. HOOSON. 
 
 others besides him was safely overpassed, was not entirely owing to the enforcement 
 of discipline and the excision of dead branches. It was rendered possible, mainly, 
 because, up and down the Connexion, there were found a sufficient number of those 
 who daily were content to be faithful in the local fields of inconspicuous service. It is 
 right that those who were forgetful of self should not be forgotten by us. Amongst 
 
 * Unpublished MS. of W. Clowes in the author's possession. 
 
492 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 the faithful workers at Halifax in the early years let a few be named. John Fearnside, 
 a deeply pious and successful class-leader 
 and family visitor; Timothy Schofield, an 
 "ideal chapel-keeper" and earnest school- 
 worker ; William Parry who rendered 
 valuable service for many years ; Mrs. Hooson, 
 mother of the late Rev. Stewart Hooson, 
 "a saint indeed;" and Mrs. Driver, mother 
 of Mrs. J. Brierley, a most devoted 
 woman and liberal supporter of the 
 Church. Mention too must be made of 
 W. Gledhill, formerly a missionary in 
 Canada, who, after his superannuation, 
 
 settled down in his native town and rendered much useful service. 
 
 That intra-aggressive movement in Halifax itself, out of which resulted the formation 
 
 of Halifax second circuit, is an interesting though later story, and must be told at 
 
 a later part when we come to speak of the Bradford and Halifax District. 
 
 MRS. DRIVER. 
 
 GLEDHILL. 
 
 HUDDERSFIELD. 
 
 William Taylor was, no more than his colleagues, exempt from persecution, in the 
 form of arrest by the constable and imprisonment. As early as July 16th, 1820, he 
 
 OLD MARKET-PLACE, HUDDERSFIELD. 
 Where Eev. W. Taylor preached Sunday, July 16th, 1820. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 493 
 
 found his way to Huddersfield, and there met with Sister Perry, another devoted 
 labourer in the mission. As usual, they sang along the streets to the market-place and 
 began to preach. Then " the constable came in a rude manner and took them into 
 custody," and under his escort they went along singing the hymn consecrated to such 
 an experience "Wicked men I scorn to fear." They were thrust into a dirty prison 
 and locked up for the night. But the day's work was not done. They sang 
 praises in their cells, and to the people assembled outside many of whom were weeping 
 Taylor spoke concerning the doctrine they preached and for which they suffered. 
 Some kindly souls " put victuals through the bars." The people lingered near the 
 prison till midnight, and " cried, shame ! shame ! on the constable for putting us in 
 with nothing to lie on. The constable then sent two blankets and took sister Perry 
 
 THE FIRST PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL IN HUDDERSFIELD. 
 
 Removed from its original site for Railway purposes, and rebuilt in Northumberland Street 
 from the old material in 1817, precisely as it stood on the old site. 
 
 out." Early in the morning a prisoner in an adjoining cell, who had been imprisoned 
 for house-breaking, cried to Taylor to pray for him, and " himself began to pray like- 
 wise, and was in sore trouble." The picture is almost a replica of that drawn by 
 Jeremiah Gilbert of his experience in the damp and doleful prison at Eckington, only 
 that in this case we have the darker detail added, of a gentle woman treated as though 
 she had been one of the vilest of her sex. Next day the two missionaries were taken 
 before a magistrate who, after vainly trying to extort the promise tha.t they would not 
 preach anywhere in the town, dismissed them. Such was the manner of Primitive 
 Methodism's introduction into Huddersfield. Yet " the word of God was not bound," 
 
494 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 and in 1824, Huddersfield became an independent circuit with Thomas Holliday as its 
 superintendent. 
 
 We get an interesting side-light on Thomas Holliday's habit of way-side sowing from 
 an incident told in a local history of Methodism an incident that must have occurred 
 when Thomas Holliday was itinerating the district round Huddersfield. This dropping 
 a word in season as they passed along was a common practice with the first race of 
 preachers. It was conversation-preaching in its simplest but most difficult form. 
 Two souls, like two ships, cross each other's path, perhaps never to meet again. To bid 
 the passing stranger " good day " were not enough. The one sentence possible must be 
 a message a rousing inquiry. Some of our fathers were adepts at this single-sentence- 
 preaching, and we suspect that Thomas Holliday was one of these. But the incident ! 
 "Young Squire Brooke was out shooting on Honley Moor and got shot. The plain 
 and pointed words of Thomas Holliday, ' Master, you are seeking happiness where it 
 will never be found,' were well aimed and well meant, and did more execution than all 
 the sermons he had heard preached." For over forty-five years he was a popular 
 Wesleyan Methodist salvation-preacher, and, as once more confirming the view that 
 "Like father, like son" is a principle that holds good of spiritual as well as of natural 
 filiation, we are told that 
 
 "Squire Brooke had a wonderful way of speaking a word in season, and still 
 more wonderful way of speaking a word at times apparently to many out of 
 season. The manner and the message roused sympathetic interest, awoke 
 sleeping memories, and often resulted in sound conversion. To a card-player he 
 said, ' Young man, you have a mother praying for you.' On journeying through 
 a village he inquired the way to ' Paradise.' The man said he had lived in that 
 village forty years and had never heard of such a place. 'What ! never heard of 
 such a place as " Paradise " 1 I am going there.' ' Ah, master, I understand you 
 now.' .... He never forgot that the word spoken to him on Honley Moor 
 by the humble yet earnest Thomas Holliday was the means, under God, of his 
 conversion, and believed that under the same Divine blessing a stray word or 
 a direct appeal might mean salvation to others." * 
 
 We give portraits of one or two of those who did much to establish and consolidate 
 Primitive Methodism in Huddersfield. First 
 must be named its first circuit steward, 
 Mr. John North, who also was a well- 
 known Connexional man and filled for 
 some years the office of Treasurer of the 
 General Chapel Fund, receiving the thanka 
 of the Conference of 1862 on his retire- 
 ment from the office. James Rayner joined 
 the society in 1830, and was a member 
 for the long period of sixty-eight years, 
 filling the offices of local preacher and 
 
 J. NORTH. . . , ,, , ., JAMES RAYNEll. 
 
 society steward. Ihe brothers oamuel and 
 Alexander Glendinning were amongst the earliest local preachers and prominent officials. 
 
 * History of Methodism in Huddersfield, Holmforth, and Denby Dale, by Rev. Joel Mallinson, 
 pp/95, 6. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 495 
 
 SAMUEL GLENDINNING. 
 
 ALEX. GLENDINNING. 
 
 CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 The tradition that Primitive Methodism was introduced into Chesterfield by Messrs. 
 Gilbert and Coulson is undoubtedly authentic; but no details survive as to the 
 circumstances which attended its introduction into a place ranking next in importance 
 to the county-town. The open-air preaching and lively singing of the missionaries 
 would be sure to create a stir amongst the five-thousand inhabitants of the town, yet no 
 echo of that stir has come down to us, and tradition is silent as to any persecution 
 having been met with. 
 
 Our records begin with the statement that a cottage in Froggart's Yard was the first 
 head-quarters of the society. This soon 
 becoming too small, a remove was made 
 to an old paint-shop in Silkmill Yard, 
 which in its turn was superseded by 
 the first connexional chapel built in 1827, 
 when Jabez "Woolley was superintendent 
 and the society numbered but thirty 
 members. As no site could be obtained 
 within the borough (now greatly enlarged), 
 the building was planted just outside 
 the borough boundary, in the parish of 
 Brampton. Here was rebuilt, in 1866, 
 Mount Zion Chapel, now standing as the head of Chesterfield Second Circuit. But even 
 eighteen years before this, Brampton had taken second place, yielding the position of 
 circuit chapel to a new building erected within the borough proper; for, by 1848, the 
 
 accommodation available was inadequate 
 to the requirements of the society, now 
 numbering two hundred and thirty-five 
 members. lu that year, therefore, a chapel 
 was built in Wyatt's Yard, Beetwell Street, 
 which served until 1881, when the old 
 School of Industry was bought, and 
 Holywell Cross Church built under the 
 superintendency of Rev. John Wenn. 
 
 We have not space, neither is it necessary, 
 to detail what has since been done in 
 Chesterfield in the way of Church extension. 
 The ninety-three pounds that in 1827 
 represented all that the society of thirty 
 members had been able to raise towards 
 the eight hundred and three the cost of 
 the first chapel, points to the small and 
 feeble beginnings of Primitive Methodism, 
 contrasted with its latest developments as 
 set forth in our illustration of its present 
 FROGGART'S YARD. chapels. 
 
 First Preaching Boom was in this Yard, Chesterfield. 
 
496 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 The society at Hasland in the Chesterfield Second Circuit has had a long and interest- 
 ing history which is thus outlined by the competent pen of Dr. G. Booth : 
 
 "The first preaching services at 
 Hasland were held in Mrs. E. 
 Widdowson's cottage (my grand- 
 mother's house, also my own birth- 
 place), and this was the place of 
 entertainment for the preachers for 
 many years. The house became too 
 small for the number of worshippers, 
 and, after many anxious deliberations, 
 two female lay-preachers rented, 
 cleaned, and caused to be fitted up, 
 an empty shed formerly used for 
 storing wool-pack waggons. This was 
 afterwards turned into a blacksmith's 
 shop. These two zealous and active 
 members Miss S. Webster arid Miss 
 B. Cooper were destined to fill 
 a wider sphere of action ; for the 
 first-named became the wife of the 
 Rev. G. Booth, and the latter the THE OLD CHAPEL AND PREACHER'S HOUSE, BEETWELL 
 wife of Dr. William Antliff. The STREET, CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 OLD BLACKSMITH'S SHOP^HASLAND, WHERE PREACHING SERVICES WERE HELD. 
 
THE PERIOD Ok CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 HOLYWLLL CROSS 5CHOOI 
 
 WHITTINGTON MOOR 
 SCHOOL 
 
 KK 
 
498 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 first chapel was built [1842] during the time when Mr. Booth travelled in the 
 Chesterfield Circuit. He designed the plans, drew up the specifications, and 
 laboured thereon with his own hands. As this was the only Nonconformist place 
 of worship in the village, some years after, increased accommodation was required, 
 and then the son took up the task and the chapel was enlarged. Again the 
 sanctuary became too small for the worshippers, and another chapel was erected 
 [1880] by the side of the old building which was used 
 as a school-room, etc. Lastly, the handsome Gothic 
 church now used was erected in a prominent part of 
 what has now become a populous township [1890]. 
 The intimate connection of the Booth family with the 
 Primitive Methodist cause in Hasland was kept up by 
 the laying of a foundation-stone of each of the last- 
 named structures by the editor of the Hymnal Tune 
 Books." 
 
 It was in Chesterfield the veteran G. W. Armitage, 
 Dr. S. Antliff and George Booth began their ministry. 
 The last-named was born at Emley, near Barnsley, in 
 1805, began to travel in 1832, and died at Winster, April 
 BARBARA COOPER OF HASLAND. 9th, 1854 ; the twenty-two years of his useful and laborious 
 ministry all being spent within the limits of the old Nottingham District. He was 
 
 HASLAND 
 
THK PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 499 
 
 a plain, practical preacher, a diligent pastor and a man of deep and unquestioned 
 piety. Excessive labour broke down a naturally strong constitution and laid it open 
 to the inroads of disease, and George Booth died at the comparatively early age of 
 forty-nine years. From certain entries made in his diary we may see something of 
 his unsparing labour. 
 
 "January 3rd, 1849 : Visited more than forty families, and prayed with them 
 when I had an opportunity. . . . January 5th, Walked fourteen miles. I \\.-is 
 not very well ; but I visited a few families, and preached with power. . . 
 January 6th, Walked twenty miles arid rode fifteen. The weather was cold and 
 frosty, and snow was falling ; but I found the presence of God on the journey. 
 The Lord brought me safe to East Shilton Circuit, where I saw three persons 
 converted to God on the Sabbath. . . . January 15th, I was not very well ; 
 but after visiting a few families and exhorting the officials to love one another, 
 I preached at Melton. January 16th, I visited sixty families ; and in every house 
 prayed with the inmates and exhorted them to serve God." 
 
 Thanks to the care and training of a wise mother the before-named S. Webster of 
 
 Hasland George Booth's only son was 
 to find his way to Chesterfield, to make 
 his mark on the civic life of the town, 
 and greatly aid in that development of 
 our Church in this busy centre which 
 has gone on in these later years. To Primi- 
 tive Methodists generally, Dr. Booth is 
 chiefly known from his connection with 
 our excellent Hymnals, to which fuller 
 reference will be given. But in Chester- 
 field he is known not only as a medical 
 man in large practice, but as a veteran 
 educationalist, a magistrate, an alderman 
 who has passed the chair (Dr. Booth was 
 Mayor in 1887), and as a loyal Primitive 
 Methodist, whose musical taste and interest 
 in Christian education have largely con- 
 tributed to give to the particular church 
 he belongs the distinction of having the 
 largest Nonconformist Sabbath School in the 
 town, and the most effective service of praise 
 in connection with its public worship. 
 
 In 1829 the Chesterfield Circuit was 
 reported as having only two hundred and sixty-six members. In 1842 the 
 membership stood at four hundred and twenty-one, and by 1863 it had increased 
 to one thousand and seventy-three. In that year Clay Cross and Bolsover branches 
 were formed ; these gained Circuit independence the former in 1867, and the 
 
 KK 2 
 
 DR. GEO. BOOTH. 
 
500 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 latter in 1869. In 1879 the Staveley Circuit was formed. Thus it will be seen 
 that, including the three Chesterfield Circuits, what was originally part of 
 Sheffield Circuit, and then one of its branches, has by a process of division 
 and subdivision become six Circuits. The local historian intimates that " Chester- 
 field has re-awakened to vigorous life ; especially during the past half-century." 
 It is gratifying to have to conclude from the facts already cited that the same statement 
 might be made of Primitive Methodism in the town and district For the future the 
 omens are favourable ; so much so that the words with which the same local historian 
 concludes his survey of Chesterfield's past, by a hopeful prognostication for the years to 
 come, may very well be appropriated by us : " There is every probability that with 
 intelligent municipal government, etc., Chesterfield will continue to expand, and in 
 greater extent and prosperity, thoroughly realise the estimate of the historian who 
 described Chesterfield as ' Ye fayrest towne in ye Peake countrie ' " * 
 
 I )()XCASTER AND BRADWEUL. 
 
 Doncaster was within the radius 
 of Jeremiah Gilbert's missionary 
 labours. He held a camp meeting 
 on Ravensfield Common on June 
 2nd, 1820, and another at Doncaster 
 on July 2nd. Of the latter he 
 says : "We had not many people, 
 nor many preachers; but the Lord 
 was there." In the Journals of 
 Messrs. Brooks and Ingham, there 
 are sundry references not only to 
 Doncaster but to Balby, Adwick 
 and other places in the neighbour- 
 hood, and it is clear from the 
 reference to Doncaster that, by 1821, there was a society there worshipping in 
 its own hired room. Doncaster was formed into an independent station in 
 1823, and in the redistribution of circuits made the next year, it was included 
 in the Hull District. Right through the first period Doncaster had a chequered 
 history. In 1829 its membership had fallen to 129; it lost its circuit independence 
 and was re-incorporated with Sheffield Circuit; then it was promoted to be a 
 branch, and io was such when John Garner, who had for two years been on the 
 Sheffield Station, was appointed to take charge of it He found the society in a feeble 
 and depressed condition : " worship was conducted in a room inconveniently situated 
 adjoining a public-house." This would be the old dancing-room in Scholes Yard, 
 Hallgate, which was the second place occupied by the society, the first having been 
 a cottage in Fishergate. The Sheffield authorities despairing of their ability to carry 
 the burden much longer, got it transferred to the shoulders of Scotter Circuit which 
 
 SCHOLES YARD, HALLGATE, DONCASTER. 
 
 Old Dancing Room to the left, front half now turned 
 
 into cottages. 
 
 * "Modem Chesterfield : its Legends, History and Progress." By John Pendleton and William 
 Jacques, 1903. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 501 
 
 accepted the responsibility with some misgivings. Under the new arrangement, to 
 which John Garner was more than a consenting party, a vigorous policy was entered 
 upon an additional preacher was called out ! " The appointment was a happy one. 
 Mr. Garner and Thomas Kendall, his colleague, laboured together with fervent zeal and 
 affection, and God blessed them and their combined efforts with abundant success. In 
 Doncaster, Providence put them in possession of a commodious chapel. The country 
 places improved rapidly, and in the course of a few months the station in regard to its 
 numerical, financial and moral strength occupied an honourable position." * The chapel 
 
 thus providentially acquired in 
 1839, was one in Duke Street, 
 belonging to the Methodist 2sew 
 Connexion, from whom, after some 
 negotiations, it was purchased. 
 Duke Street now stands officially 
 as the head of Doncaster second 
 station. 
 
 It would have been unlike John 
 Garner if there had been no touch 
 of originality even in his methods 
 of conducting the routine work 
 of the circuit. His biographer 
 tells us that once, at Balby, John 
 Garner "preached to himself," 
 and thereby largely increased his 
 after congregations. He had gone 
 to the village to fulfil a week- 
 evening appointment, but had not 
 a single hearer. This, however, 
 made no difference. He went 
 on with the service as though the 
 chapel had been full of people, 
 and the fact was duly reported 
 by one who had put his head 
 within the door while the strange 
 service was going on. The next time Mr. Garner came to Balby, and many times after, 
 the curious came in numbers to see and hear the man who " preached to himself." 
 
 So marked was the improvement made by Doncaster while under the wing of Scotter 
 that, in 1853, it was again granted circuit autonomy. At -this time it had three 
 preachers T. and R. Cheeseman and H. Woodcock, some fifty-six local preachers and 
 twenty-nine preaching places, amongst which were Mexborough (now the head of 
 a circuit) and historic Austerfield, and 541 members were reported to the Conference of 
 1854. Another step in advance was marked by the opening in October, 1854, of Spring 
 
 * " Life of John Garner, Sen.," 1856, by W. Garner, p. 77. 
 
502 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 ( Jardeus Chapel, justly regarded at the time as one of the best chapels in the Connexion. 
 Under the successive superintendency of the brothers Cheeseman the circuit continued 
 to increase in strength and influence. The holding of the Conference of 1858 'at 
 Doncaster to some extent registered the local progress .made. Doncaster's first camp 
 meeting (held soon after the close of the first Conference) with its "not many people, 
 nor many preachers," was in striking contrast with the' thirty-ninth Conference camp 
 meeting, held on Doncaster race-course, as described in a few pen-strokes by one who 
 
 took part : " Processioning very 
 large; much excitement, approach- 
 ing that on the St. Leger day ; 
 two stands." * 
 
 There was one mail present that 
 day who would appreciate the 
 change the years had brought, and 
 who himself had been no mean 
 instrument in bringing about the 
 change. This was Richard Wads- 
 worth, who was a delegate to the 
 Conference held in his own town. 
 He joined the society in Hallgate 
 in 1828, and finished his course in 
 
 SPRING GARDENS CHAPEL, I.OX.'ASTKK. 1897> j n th(} nineliet h year Q f his 
 
 age. For sixty-five years he was a local preacher, and is said to have walked some 
 twelve thousand miles in fulfilling his long ministry. He was a class leader sixty- 
 three years ; attended eight District Meetings and five Conferences as a delegate. 
 But this record, remarkable though it be, pales before the record of what he did, week 
 by week and year by year, in visiting the sick and dying. "We have read and re-read 
 his private journal. We read it first from duty ; we read it a second time for love. 
 The reading leaves an impression, distinct and clear, of a man to whom religion 
 was the main concern of life. Amongst the spiritual children of Richard Wads- 
 worth are Dr. Reynolds Trippett, who after being on the Doncaster 
 plan in 1845 entered the ministry of the M. E. South, and James 
 Shaw, now in our own ministerial ranks. 
 
 It has been the good fortune of Doncaster to be chosen by 
 several veteran ministers as the place wherein to spend the 
 quiet evening of life. William Leaker, who died September 
 26th, 1878, was one of these. Two years of his ministry 
 1837-8 were spent in the Doncaster Branch, during which 
 he married the daughter of George and Martha Harring, of 
 Warmsworth, whose cottage from a very early date was the 
 preaching-place and the home of the servants of God. His 
 declining days were spent in " visiting the aged, the suffering, the poor, and giving 
 comfort to the sorrowful." He may well be remembered here ; for, when the Balby 
 
 * Thomas Batsman's private Journal. 
 
 RICHARD \VADs\VOKTll. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 503 
 
 WILLIAM LEAKEU. 
 
 GEORGE TAYLOB. 
 
 Road Chapel could not pay its way and the trustees and superintendent were greatly con- 
 cerned, Mr. Leaker came to their help. His gifts, amounting to 400, meant self-denial for 
 him but salvation for the cause. The last one was so opportune and so unostentatiously 
 and graciously bestowed as to enhance its 
 value, and the Conference of 1872 quite 
 properly acknowledged it by a special 
 resolution. In Doncaster cemetery also lies 
 the dust of T. Kendall, William Saul, a 
 native of Doncaster Circuit and son-in-law 
 of Richard Wadsworth, who after serving 
 the Church for forty years died at 
 Doncaster 1889 ; and J. T. Shepherd, for 
 forty-one years an able and successful 
 minister of the Hull District, who died 
 September 5th, 1897. The name of George 
 Taylor should be chronicled in connection with the Hatfield Society, Doncaster 
 second circuit. He was converted through the instrumentality of George Lamb on 
 his first visit to the place, May, 1834. The society at Hatfield owed, and still owes, 
 much to the fostering care of Mr. Taylor who, from the time of the opening of the 
 chapel in 1835 up to the time of his death, was class leader, society steward and 
 school superintendent. 
 
 BRADWELL. 
 
 Bradwell in the High Peak, though it is one of the oldest circuits in the Manchester 
 District, genealogically can be claimed by Nottingham. It, like Doncaster and the 
 rest, was one of the fruits of the Sheffield mission begun by Jeremiah Gilbert. The 
 first clear, dated reference to Bradwell Primitive Methodism we can find is in a communi- 
 cation to the Magazine by James Inghain, describing a camp meeting held there on 
 October 7th, 1821. The date was late enough for a full day's services in the open-air 
 in that high region. Indeed, "many expected it would be a wet day," says the 
 reporter of the proceedings : " But God can answer prayer. It was a fine day, and the 
 wicked were heard to say 'See, they can change the weather.'" Ingham is explicit 
 enough as to this being a pioneer camp meeting : " Six of us [from Sheffield] were there 
 to hold the meeting, and I believe we had not a member in the town. Well might we 
 say : " What are these among so many 1 " He is equally explicit in giving us to 
 understand there were quite a score of converts ready to be enrolled as members at the 
 close of that Michaelmas camp meeting. 
 
 The first services were held in the house of George Morton, who became the first 
 circuit steward ; arid a chapel was opened in 1822 by Hugh Bourne. This we learn on 
 the authority of Joseph Middleton, who tells us that, from the time of the Primitive 
 Methodists coming to Bradwell, he had generally attended their meetings, and in this 
 same year, when a youth of seventeen, joined the society. He soon after entered the 
 ranks of the ministry, and was followed by his brother, the present governor of Bourne 
 College. Joseph Hibbs, John Hallam and John Morton, were also sent forth from 
 this circuit. 
 
504 
 
 I'KIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Joseph Middleton kept a full diary, from which we learn that he was born at Smalldah, 
 adjoining Bradwell. Quite excusably for a native of this interesting district, he boasts 
 of the natural wonders to be seen near his birthplace ; Mam Tor, or the Shivering 
 
 rrr 
 BIII 11 
 II ii ii 
 
 FIRST CHAPEL, BKADWKLL. 
 
 Mountain, of the well which ebbs and flows, of the stream which disappears in 
 unknown depths, of the natural caverns which, sparkling with crystals and roofed witn 
 stalactites, look like fairy palaces. It will, keep us in touch with Hugh Bourne's early 
 friend to know that these very wonders were looked on admiringly and speculated about 
 by Peter Phillips, when traversing this district on foot to attend the Annual Assembly 
 of his denomination at Sheffield. 
 
 The outside of the first Bradwell chapel may be judged of by our engraving ; but 
 inside, the chapel had its own special distinction, derived 
 from the riches of the adjoining lead-mines. True, the chapel 
 had no porch or vestibule ; its seats were movable forms 
 without backs, and its floor was unbearded. But for all that, 
 the said floor was out of the common order. According to the 
 veteran, Rev. Jesse Ashworth who began his long ministry 
 here the ground was covered with what was called " small 
 feith," or spar from the mines, which sparkled and glistened 
 with little particles of lead ore ; this was renewed every year. 
 John Verity travelled on the Bradwell Circuit in 1831, and 
 he was wont to describe this time-honoured structure in his 
 own peculiar fashion. " My chapel," said he, " is floored with 
 
 sparkling gems and diamonds, the people make no noise treading upon it, coming in or 
 going out ; if a baby cries, the mother quietens it by putting it down on the floor 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 505 
 
 THOMAS BLAIDES. 
 
 to play with the diamonds. If I want any one to engage in prayer two or three forms 
 from me, I take up a handful of gems and throw them at the person's back."* 
 
 In this same year 1822 another camp meeting of note was held at Bradwell. 
 Jeremiah Gilbert, who conducted it, tells us that it was held "upon 
 a very high hill," and that thirty persons were " truly converted 
 to the Lord." Let the date be remembered, for May 19th, 1822, 
 was a famous camp meeting Sunday in our annals. At Congleton, 
 Oakengates, and especially at Old ham, camp meetings on a large 
 and impressive scale were being held during these very hours 
 when Jeremiah Gilbert and his band were making the high hills 
 vocal with praise and prayer. 
 
 Bradwell was made a circuit by Sheffield in 1823, and had for 
 its first preachers Thomas Holliday and J. Hopkinson, whom we 
 shall meet again in the North Country. John Skevington, the 
 future Chartist, spent half a year of his short itineracy here, and 
 Thomas Blaides was one of its early preachers. In 1845, during the superintendence of. 
 that remarkable man, David Tuton, a new chapel was built at Bradwell which has 
 since been enlarged. His two years' ministry in this circuit were very successful, so 
 much so that he earned for himself the honourable title of the Apostle of the Peak. 
 His name and fame still live in the district. We give the portraits of two of the early 
 worthies of the Bradwell Circuit each of whom served the Church as a local preacher 
 John Backing Darwent for nearly fifty years, and Rebecca Edges for more than 
 that number. What that involved in the early days may be guessed, when we know 
 that in 1826 the Bradwell Circuit had something like fifty-eight places on its plan, and 
 covered the ground now occupied by New Mills, Glossop, Marple, Newton and Hyde, 
 and Buxton stations. New Mills Branch was made a circuit in 1827, and was annexed 
 to the Manchester District ; and the next year Bradwell itself was transferred from 
 Nottingham District to Manchester. 
 
 There is some significance in this transference. When the Sheffield missionaries 
 
 reached these high altitudes, Primitive 
 
 Methodism had circuitously returned to 
 
 its sources ; for the High Peak is part 
 
 of the Pennine range of which Mow Cop 
 
 is also a part. The Peak country is 
 
 a watershed feeding the Mersey on one 
 
 slope, and the Dove, the Derweet and the 
 
 Don, tributaries of the Trent, on the other. 
 
 Primitive Methodism from Bradwell spilled 
 
 over the water-parting somewhat, and 
 
 mingled itself with the movement from 
 
 Manchester and Stockport. A similar 
 process went on from Macclesfield on the other side; for from that Cheshire 
 town now aflame, earnest men and women crossed the ridge to evangelise some 
 
 REBECCA EDGES. 
 
 J. B DARWEXT. 
 
 * Eev. Jesse Ashworth, in the Aldersgate for 1899, p. 754. 
 
506 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 of the Derbyshire villages. So the point we have reached marks a stage in the 
 geographical extension of our Church. When Bradwell Circuit was formed, the 
 Trent basin, and especially that portion of it lying in the county of Derby, was 
 earmarked for the Connexion. It was formally taken possession of and mapped out ; 
 and what remained to be done in the years that followed, was to divide and sub- 
 divide the territory into smaller and more easily workable areas. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 507 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE TUNSTALL FORWARD MOVEMENT. 
 END OF THE " NON-MISSION LAW." 
 
 |E have now to chronicle a notable advance on the part of Tunstall Circuit.- 
 In 1819 it fell into line with the newer circuits, and was not a whit behind 
 any of them in missionary enterprise. Prior to 1819 this could not have 
 been said ; but from that date a stirring chapter in its history begins. 
 The facts have already been noted that, in December, 1818, W. Clowes was given 
 up to the Hull Mission, and that in January, 1819, Hugh Bourne's illness led to his 
 resignation of the office of General Superintendent. Up to this point the mother 
 circuit had not materially enlarged its area, or even greatly increased its membership ; 
 for in December, 1818, the number of members reported was but 690, as compared with 
 the 200 of the year 1811. But during the next fifteen months a remarkable change 
 for the better took place. An extensive tract of country was missioned, and so 
 successfully, that one slice of it was deemed ready for circuit independence. An 
 increase of 1,013 for the fifteen months was reported. A circuit debt of some thirty 
 pounds was wiped off, and a balance remained available for mission purposes. Better 
 still, a spirit of enterprise and hopefulness took the place of languor and depression. 
 
 Hugh Bourne had diagnosed the disease and applied a remedy to which he attributed 
 the pleasing change. In his view the decline of the circuit had been coincident with 
 the decline in camp meetings, and the advance of the circuit had kept step with the 
 reform in camp-meeting procedure. The lesson of Mercaston Camp Meeting had been 
 lust; the circuit had fallen into the old groove and stuck there all through the years 
 1817-1818, when the great revival was going on in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire 
 and Lincolnshire. But with " the sweeping away of the long and tedious exercises, the 
 restoring of the praying services, and the bringing of the talents of the people 
 generally into action," new life and vigour had been infused into the circuit. These 
 new regulations for the ordering of camp meetings were made at the March Quarterly 
 Meeting, 1819, and printed on the back of the plan. A camp meeting on the new, or 
 ruther the restored, model was held at Wrine Hill, nine miles from Tunstall, May 23rd, 
 1819, and, as an event marking a forward movement, an account of it was inserted in 
 the Magazine. With the signs of circuit improvement everywhere in evidence, Hugh 
 Bourne's own health rapidly improved. He intimates that it was mental anxiety even 
 more than labour that broke down his health. He was " wounded to the quick " by 
 the "camp meeting ruin," brought home to him by the findings of a committee of 
 inquiry that sat at Alton soon after the December Quarterly Meeting. He does not 
 hesitate to say that "the Spirit of God was grieved," and that if the system 
 
508 
 
 PRIMITIVE MKTHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 '': 
 Ctme&C 
 
 Plan of the Preacher's of f fie Society 
 PRIMlTlviTTlETHODISTS. 
 
 UOWRJ * :;i^0^?j| 
 
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 CuwoA-hw, My SO At D. K. Vorkj, JUK SO. At Wruoo, in Chtikho, Jaly 4 At Bulluiii, July 2S. C Cimji Mertio,> 
 fct._TTlfkfH_PPrnytr.mMlinn. 
 
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 . M.cclnCU, Juni K. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 509 
 
 of holding camp meetings with "continuous preachings" had continued another 
 year, the circuit would have been ruined. While bowed under the stress of such 
 convictions and forebodings as these, the sight of the havoc caused in Leicestershire by 
 the secession of R. Wintield came as the last straw, and what seemed like complete 
 physical collapse followed as the joint result. Hence, at March, Hugh Bourne was left 
 unplanned ; but reviving prosperity acted like a medicine, and he soon found himself 
 able to assist his "boys," as some rather contemptuously called his young but willing 
 labourers. By June, he tells us : " It was found that the circuit was rising out of its 
 crippled state, and that it had begun to revive in almost every part. During the next 
 quarter, the regulations began more fully to take effect, and the circuit rose very fast. 
 The Lord graciously made bare His arm in the conviction and conversion of great 
 numbers ; the praying services at the camp meetings, and the prayer meetings at the 
 close of preachings were crowned with very great success." 
 
 Such is Hugh Bourne's version of the history of the decline and rise of the Tunstall 
 Circuit, from 1816 to 1820 a version which gives a theory of the facts as well as the 
 facts themselves. There can be no question that the new camp-meeting regulations 
 were a considerable factor in effecting the improvement which showed itself in an 
 increase of one hundred per cent, in the membership on the labours of fifteen months. 
 But Tunstall had annexed a good deal of territory during this same period, and it is in 
 the policy of expansion by which its borders were enlarged that we shall find the real 
 explanation of the improvement made. It was not merely the resumption of the pray- 
 ing companies, but the resumption of missionary labour ; the return to the old-time 
 method of pushing forward and breaking fresh ground, that had proved so successful in 
 the origin-period of the Connexion, and was even at that very time carrying Primitive 
 Methodism from county to county ; in other words, it was the virtual annulling of 
 the " non-mission law " Avhich was opening for Tunstall a new and eventful chapter of 
 history. It is only when an army leaves its cantonments and enters upon an active 
 campaign that the special correspondent finds his work cut out for him. Our difficulty 
 is that we cannot be with three army-corps at one and the same time. While we 
 follow the advance of Tunstall, the missionaries of Hull are pushing on to Leeds and 
 Newcastle ; and the missionaries of Nottingham are breaking ground in the Eastern 
 counties. Events that really happened together can only be described in succession. 
 We must recognise the disability narrative labours under, and make .the best of it. 
 
 A RECAPITULATION AND FORECAST. 
 
 In one of his not infrequent historic generalisations, Hugh Bourne gives a useful 
 retrospect of the ground we have gone over, and an indication of that which has 
 next to be traversed : 
 
 "Before the year 1819, we never had any opening to spread the work to any 
 extent from Tunstall. But from Bemersley the work got to Ranisor, Wootton and 
 Lexhead, and so on to Hollington and Boylestone in Derbyshire, and also to 
 Mercaston, Turnditch and Hulland ; and from there to Belper. And then from 
 the camp meeting held at Mercaston, June 9th, 1816, the work by the good hand 
 of God opened out, and in two years and a half it extended in Derbyshire, 
 
510 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. And this year, 
 1819, the work in Tunstall Circuit opened out in Cheshire, and a foundation \vas 
 laid for what are now Burland and Preston Brook Circuits." 
 
 This passage needs little comment or qualification. Note well, for it is very significant, 
 that Bemersley and Tunstall are distinguished from each other, as though each had its 
 own particular history, and represented a somewhat different policy. Further, it may 
 well be that in this passage Hugh Bourne suggests his own dissociation from the non- 
 mission law. But the third factor in our history must not be forgotten. The extension 
 to Belper and the Midlands was brought about by Benton, Wedgwood, and the more 
 active and irregular workers, with whose doings Hugh Bourne undoubtedly sympathised, 
 though he followed rather than led. Thus qualified, the passage may stand as a useful 
 summary of our history thus far. We are told that James Steele was in favour of the 
 reform of camp meetings and had witnessed their worsening with pain and disfavour. 
 That may well be ; but we have reason to believe that he was a strong believer in the 
 policy of consolidation. That policy was now happily to be balanced by the policy of 
 
 . aggression, and of this new policy Wrine Hill Camp Meeting supplies the symbol and 
 the date-mark. As Mercaston Camp Meeting had presaged and heralded the great 
 revival in the Midlands, so Wrine Hill, looking out over the Cheshire border, 
 inaugurated the Cheshire Revival with all that sustained and heroic effort that 
 succeeded in evangelising the country watered by the Mersey, the Dee, the Ribble, the 
 Wye and Severn. 
 
 In consequence of the extension of Tunstall Circuit during the year 1819, certain 
 important changes were made. First, as the work had spread so rapidly in what we 
 call the Black Country, Darlaston was in March, 1820, made the head of a new circuit. 
 Then, as the result of anxious deliberations, the remaining part of Tunstall Circuit was 
 divided up into six branches the Home Branch, Ramsor, Belper, Burton-on-Trent, 
 Burland and Preston Brook. The circuit had become so unwieldy as to be difficult to 
 work. Only think of Sampson Turner in the course of two short months having to walk 
 to his appointments at places so far removed as Cannock, Burton-on-Trent, Macclestield, 
 Talke, and Northwich in Cheshire ! It was time some method of economising the time 
 and strength of the preachers should be devised, and perhaps no better arrangement 
 could have been hit upon than the system of branches under the general supervision of 
 the Home Branch, and with frequent interchange of the preachers thereon. Each branch 
 in its turn became a convenient centre for further advance, and with this end in view 
 
 one preacher at least was usually employed in purely mission work opening fresh 
 
 places. 
 
 How THE CHESHIRE MISSION BECAME BURLAND BRANCH. 
 
 We have first to look at the beginning and development of the Cheshire Mission 
 which, as Thomas Bateman says, " in its grand results has perhaps but seldom been 
 exceeded." Quite properly it was called a "mission," since it was started, and for 
 a time carried on, without the direction or supervision of the Tunstall Circuit authorities. 
 John Wedgwood, the missioner, made his own plan as he went on, going here and 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 5H 
 
 there as invitations came, or as openings presented themselves. As was the way with 
 him, he filled the day with labour, often carrying on the meetings until late, and risin^ 
 from a short night's rest to hold a five-o'clock morning service. He ate but sparingly" 
 so that anxious hosts wondered how he could do the work he did on so meagre a dietarv' 
 and remonstrated with him all to no purpose. In short, we have in the Cheshire 
 mission a repetition of the methods adopted by Benton and Wedgwood at the beginning 
 of the great Revival in the Midlands. 
 
 The Cheshire mission began in a very simple and natural way. In the spring of 
 1819, the Tunstall Circuit had certain outposts on the Staffordshire side, including 
 Englesea Brook, Coppenhall, Leighton, Wood Green, and a few other places" 
 Mr. George Chesters, who had taken a farm at Wolstanwood, having heard John 
 Wedgwood preach at Leighton, was desirous that his parents at Ridley Farm, near 
 Bulkeley, and the other friends he had left there, should have the opportunity of seein" 
 and hearing this remarkable man. With some difficulty arrangements were made for 
 John Wedgwood to preach at Bulkeley Four-lane-ends, on Easter Sunday night, 1819. 
 
 Wedgwood could not pass Nantwich without bearing 
 his testimony and delivering his message. Years before 
 it had driven out John Wesley ; and though many 
 trials had been made, our people had as yet gained no 
 permanent footing in the town. So Wedgwood took his 
 stand and preached on the Snow Hill near the bridge in 
 the High Street, and Richard Ikin, who had gone into 
 Nantwich to spend that Sabbath afternoon at the ale- 
 bench, was seized with conviction as he listened to the 
 preacher. When afterwards he found rest, he joined 
 the Ravensmoor Society, and his name is mentioned here 
 because he may be regarded as having been the first- 
 fruits of the Cheshire Mission." 
 
 From this point, we are fortunate in having the copious 
 Journals of Thomas Bateman, of Chorley, bv the heln 
 
 THOMAS BATEMAN. J> J 
 
 of which we can follow the succession and correlation of 
 
 events. But though we have the Journals as a salvage from the wreck of time, little 
 of a pictorial kind survive*, so that it is impossible to give, as we should have liked to 
 do, portraits of some who have strong claims to remembrance. 
 
 Thomas Bateman was yet six months from his twentieth birthday at the time of 
 Wedgwood's visit a fact we have difficulty in taking in as we read these Journals. 
 They are written with the sense and gravity often hard to find in a man of forty. He 
 had been accustomed to attend the services of the Church of England, and had even 
 taught in its Sabbath school. Occasionally he attended its services still, but he was 
 more frequently found on the Sabbath morning and afternoon at the Faddiley Wesleyan 
 Methodist Chapel. But he was neither a communicant-member of the Church of 
 England nor was his name down in any Methodist class-book. 
 
 It was the talk of the country-side this Easter, that " a great gentleman out of the 
 
 * Richard Ikin died July, 1822, and Thomas Bateman wrote his memoir in_the Magazine. 
 
512 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Potteries " was going to preach at Bulkeley, and Thomas Bateman was asked by his 
 friends to go hear him. But there was preaching at Faddiley that night, rather 
 singular to say, and there was also a little prejudice in Thomas Bateman's mind, and he 
 declined. But from those who were present at Bulkeley he afterwards got a full 
 description of the service, which was probably the first held by the Primitive 
 Methodists in West Cheshire. First-hand reports of what took place in those early 
 stirring times are too rare and valuable not to be used when available, especially when 
 penned by so keen an observer as Thomas Bateman. The descriptions he gives of 
 Wedgwood's public services, and the effects they produced, bear the stamp of actuality, 
 and out of the shadows of the past bring the events and the people right before us. 
 Hence we make no apology for quoting freely. 
 
 "My special friend and companion C. W. came to tell me about the Bulkeley 
 meeting. He described the preacher as having a very strange appearance, and his 
 manner as strange as his look. At the prayer-meeting after the preaching, he said 
 there was a strange scene singing, praying, shouting, weeping many professing to 
 get converted there and then. This was no strange thing to me. I had seen revivals 
 before and was often saying : ' Haste again ye days of grace.' He said the 
 meeting continued very late, and the preacher said he would preach again at the 
 same place at five next morning. This was considered strange and new. No ; no ; 
 not very new. Did not Wesley usually preach at five in the morning ? Are the 
 old days and scenes of Methodism going, to return ? Why not 1 I see no reason 
 why it should not be so." 
 
 He heard John Wedgwood for the first time, April 26th, on Egerton Green, 
 "standing on something behind a chair, with an Indian handkerchief tied round his 
 head." He remarks on his " solemn look and manner of giving out the hymn, and his 
 sermon altogether strange and out of the ordinary way of sermonising " ; and his twice 
 striking up the verse of a hymn in the course of his sermon. On May 16th, Thomas 
 Bateman heard Wedgwood nearer home ; for his brother John had succeeded in getting 
 Wedgwood to preach on Chorley Green. Quotation is here indispensable, because 
 George Taylor is for the first time brought before us : 
 
 " The meeting was held under a large oak-tree on the north side of the green : 
 and what a congregation and what a time ! Scores in distress, and among them 
 my old friend G. Taylor. I spoke to him, and he told me how he felt very 
 doubting. I said, ' You don : t need to despair. Only believe and yours is heaven. 
 As I moved in the congregation I felt constrained to speak to some about their 
 souls. But timidity and prejudice kept me back. The number professing to get 
 converted that night was not small. Amidst all this I felt an impression steal over 
 my' mind, for the first time, that I should one day become one with this people. 
 And after all my former purposes I should never join the Wesleyans. This 
 impression I felt disposed to shake off. Oh, for divine direction ! I would do right 
 whatever the sacrifice or cost." 
 
 But he did not shake off the impression. Almost unwillingly, for he knew that 
 from a worldly point of view it was not to his advantage, he yielded to what seemed 
 to be his destiny. If one may put it so, he got into the swim of Primitive Methodism 
 gradually, like a man who, step by step, goes down a shelving beach into deep waters. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 513 
 
 He attended class some time before he would suffer himself to be counted a member. 
 He took up the same non-committal attitude with regard to the plan. He would be 
 known on the plan by a mere " star," and not have his name thereon in plain black 
 and white. But all the time, though he did not realise it, he was being drawn further 
 and further in, becoming more and more immersed in the movement, until with his 
 friend George Taylor, he gave himself whole-heartedly to it. And then his friends the 
 Methodists, with whom he continued on the best of terms till the day of his death 
 weuld have made him a minister a missionary anything in reason. But it was too 
 late. He had taken the irrevocable step, and was not the man to draw back. So with 
 George Taylor. There was a brief space when he too was undecided whether to join 
 the Old Body or the new. To each he was greatly indebted. But a repulse from a love- 
 feast at Kantwich, with the ungracious words : " You cannot enter here ; you are 
 Clowesites," decided his future once and for all. He joined the society and became its 
 leader, and remained such to the day of his death in 1837 ; he was also steward of 
 Burland Branch, and then of Burland Circuit, as long as he lived. 
 
 "June 7th. Yesterday was a day that will not soon be forgotten. Mr. W. 
 preached again on the green. He took his stand at the side of a brick-kiln at the 
 south-west corner [he never pitched on the same site twice together} The 
 congregation was very large for a place so thinly populated ; much larger than 
 , before ; not less than two thousand being present. Many were in distress, and 
 many got blessed with a sense of pardon how many could not be told. The 
 meeting commenced at ten in the morning and continued until afternoon. There 
 were several remarkable conversions took place this morning. One especially fell 
 under my own notice in going round among the mourners. A respectable man 
 whom I knew, stood looking down on a company of mourners who were down on 
 the ground crying out for mercy. On speaking to him of the necessity of securing 
 pardon for sin before it was too late, he said : 'Before I would demean myself as 
 these people are doing there I would have my hand cut off.' I thought : You had 
 better beware, my friend ; the fire is catching if you come too near. It was not 
 long before he was on the ground crying earnestly for mercy like the rest. 
 Mr. Wedgwood went to preach for the Wesleyans at Barbridge at night. I went 
 there also. This cost me a twenty miles' walk that afternoon." 
 
 There were those present at the June Quarterly Meeting of Tunstall Circuit Avho had 
 come straight from witnessing such scenes as these; who like Barnabas had "seen the 
 grace of God and were glad." It was determined that arrangements should be made for 
 supplying a certain number of places on the Cheshire Mission with preaching. When the 
 new arrangements began to take effect, John Wedgwood, as was customary with him, 
 left the work of organising societies to other hands and moved farther north, extending 
 the mission to Huxley, Burton Hall, Tarvin, etc. He even entered Chester, but not 
 meeting with much success there, he pushed on into the peninsula of Wirral, opening 
 the way for what are now the Chester, Wrexham and Buckley circuits. 
 
 We cannot follow John Wedgwood any further on his Cheshire mission, full of 
 incident and successful though that mission continued to be. How he worked and with 
 what results may be gathered from the samples already given; but the subsequent 
 career of so interesting a personality, to whom Primitive Methodism was so greatly 
 
 LL 
 
514 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 indebted, may be briefly outlined. In 1829, probably induced by a change in his 
 circumstances, lie became, by his own request, a recognised travelling preacher for three 
 years, two and a half of which were spent amongst his old friends of the Burland 
 Circuit, and six months in Frees Green, one of its offshoots. This short period over, 
 he revisited the scenes of his former labours and triumphs in the Midlands and 
 elsewhere. He was gladdened to find strong churches in many places he helped to 
 mission, and, in this connection, he makes special mention of Bottesford and Grantham. 
 Then, as it is the impossible that often happens, in 1840 he married, and for seventeen 
 years was a householder at Boylestone. But it would be a mistake to suppose that he 
 was a constant resident of this pleasant Derbyshire village. His wife might be but he was 
 not. The old instincts and habits were too strong to permit of his settling down in one 
 place, and he continued to be much from home, visiting among the churches. In 1857 
 he removed to Ore we, chiefly induced by the greater facilities it afforded for travelling. 
 
 JOHN WEDGWOOD S HOUSE, BOYLESTONE. 
 
 Here he found a congenial church and a home in a district where he was well known and 
 much respected. That respect took tangible and enduring form in the Chapel bearing 
 his name, figured on a preceding page.* As far as declining strength would permit he 
 made himself useful, until he quietly passed away, March 20th, 1869, aged 81 years. 
 
 When the day of interment came, the funeral cortege had to go fourteen miles to the 
 place of sepulture which was Brown Knoll Cemetery. Crowds witnessed the setting 
 out of the long procession of vehicles ; throngs gathered at various points along the 
 route as well as at the grave a " new tomb," presented by the trustees of the Cemetery. 
 Such a funeral as this had never been known in that neighbourhood. It was remarked 
 that the road taken by the cortege led through the centre of John Wedgwood's mission, 
 and passed the spot where just fifty years before he had opened his commission in that 
 
 * See ante, p. 164. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 515 
 
 district, now testifying in this striking way to the genuineness and lasting influence of 
 his work. One simple incident that took place as the crowd turned away when the 
 last rites were over, may serve as John Wedgwood's not unworthy elegy. Says his 
 biographer : 
 
 " To an old man that tottered away from the grave, and sat down on a stone 
 wiping eyes that were not dry, we said ; 'Well, friend, what makes you look so 
 sad ? ' Casting a look towards the grave he had just left, he said : ' Sad ! who can 
 help looking sad ? ' 
 
 ' ' Why so ? did you know Mr. Wedgwood ? What did he ever do for you ? ' 
 
 " ' Do ! Why I owe the rise of all my comfort in this life, and all my hopes of 
 a better to his teaching through Christ.' 
 
 '" But why weep 1 Ought you not rather to rejoice when the righteous are taken 
 away from the evil to come ? Are there not plenty of preachers left now he is 
 gone ? ' 
 
 " ' Plenty ! but where will you find another like him ? ' 
 
 ' ' Don't despair,' we said, ' if God sees it right to take away His workmen, He 
 can still carry on His work, rest assured of that : ' so saying, we left him. Oh, 
 what a cloud of living witnesses ! > What a number of such testimonies might 
 have been collected that day." * 
 
 " He was just the man for the work Providence had called him to do." So wrote 
 one who visited John "Wedgwood in his last hours-. The verdict is just ; just to the 
 man himself, without being unjust to others who were, and could not but be, unlike 
 him. The same verdict shall we not rather say, the same encomium must be 
 pronounced on Benton, Braithwaite, Oxtoby and others of their type. 
 
 John Wedgwood was a preacher on Tunstall circuit plan (No. 19) while he was 
 prosecuting his Cheshire Mission, and therefore that mission formed a kind of hinter- 
 land naturally falling to Tunstall. Not only was the circuit enlarged by the addition 
 of this huge cantle of country, but in other directions its area was being rapidly 
 enlarged, so that we are quite prepared for the following brief entry in Thomas 
 Bateman's Journals. 
 
 " February 1st, 1820 : The good work still spreads rapidly. Tunstall Circuit is 
 become too large, and it is intended to divide it at the next quarter-day. George 
 Taylor and I have had several consultations as to the best division." 
 
 Accordingly, at the March quarterly Meeting the Cheshire Mission became a Branch 
 of Tunstall Circuit. It had on its first plan thirty-three places, for the most part in 
 Cheshire, though there were a few in Wales and still more in Shropshire, in which 
 county there was a splendid prospect if only more labourers had been available. As it 
 was, the staff of labourers consisted of three travelling preachers John Garner, John 
 Platt, a native of Faddiley, near Burland, and Thomas Brownsword " the boy-preacher " 
 and twenty-three local preachers, two of whom were females. In fact, places were 
 being multiplied faster than preachers, so that most of the places had to be content 
 with preaching once a day every other Sunday, and once in three or four weeks on the 
 week-day. 
 
 * " Memoir of the Life and Labours of Mr. John Wedgwood." By a Layman (Thomas Bateman) , 
 
 1870. 
 
 LL 2 
 
516 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 So now that Cheshire Mission has become an integral part of Tunstall Circuit it 
 shares the fortunes of the latter. Its preachers are the same as those who are working 
 
 now here, now there in other parts of the same unit, at the task of still further 
 
 enlarging its borders and preparing its branches for circuit independence. Let us 
 glance at some of these Tunstall preachers, and then go on to look at their pioneer 
 labours on the various extensions of the Tunstall Circuit. 
 
 SOME ENLARGEBS OF TUNSTALL CIRCUIT AS REFLECTED IN T. BATEMAN'S JOURNALS. 
 The already rapid extension of the Tunstall Circuit created a demand for more 
 labourers, which could only be met by pressing into service the young and comparatively 
 inexperienced of both sexes. The critics with a turn for sarcasm, 
 who complained that the circuit was being worked by boys fresh 
 from the plough, might just as truly have added and by 
 girls fresh from the milk-pail; for some of the most 
 acceptable and useful workers in these parts during the next 
 few years were young women scarce out of their teens. True ; 
 there were in the circuit at this time Thomas Jackson (1), 
 a seasoned veteran of thirty, and Sampson Turner, quite mature 
 at twenty-three, and John Garner, no novice though only twenty 
 years of age. These three we know ; but we now meet with 
 others for the first time, whose names will frequently recur 
 as we chronicle the growth and ramifications of the Tunstall 
 Circuit. To some of these we will introduce the reader. 
 
 Now that the Cheshire Mission had become part of the Tunstall Circuit, it was 
 visited by all the preachers in turn ; and even when the Burland Branch had been 
 formed, there were such frequent interchanges, that almost every quarter saw a fresh 
 staff of preachers. In his Journals, Thomas Bateman notes the coming and going of 
 these workers, and sometimes adds a brief characterisation that may be helpful for 
 identification and remembrance. 
 
 After the departure of John Wedgwood the first new-comer was Thomas Webb, who, 
 "from his appearance, might have been just taken from the plough, like the son of 
 Shaphat, very earnest and loud, but more methodical in his preaching than John 
 Wedgwood." Then came on his round Sampson Turner, sedate, practical "a plain, 
 good preacher, but not so noisy as some," who looked well after the organising and 
 due ordering of the societies. Thomas Jackson came along from Preston Brook 
 way, and it is recorded of him that his tongue was like a pen in the hands of 
 a ready writer, and that "he had scarcely ever heard a preacher so fluent." The 
 diarist appears to have been particularly interested in the advent of William 
 Sanders, the poet. The first impressions were decidedly disappointing : "From the first 
 look at him you could not well expect either good poetry or ought else worth notice 
 from him. But who may not have felt agreeable surprise to have music soft, smooth 
 and sweet from what appeared a rough, unready instrument 1 None who had any 
 mind for rhyming could listen long to him without perceiving poetry in his prose." 
 A paragraph must be given to Thomas Brownsword, whom our young diarist heard 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 517 
 
 WILLIAM SANDERS. 
 
 as early as October 29th, 1819. Brownsword was then only "a boy, comparatively. 
 However, I heard him with profit. But I felt terribly ashamed of myself. I believe 
 I am twenty years old this day ; and for what purpose have I lived? What good have 
 I done ? I have purposed much and I fear done but very little. I still feel Is bashful 
 and timid as ever." So wrote this youth of twenty, whose 
 life was almost to span the century, and who was to crowd 
 into the more than three score years and ten still remaining 
 to him an amount of labour truly astonishing, as if to show 
 that grace is the best discipliner, and hard work healthful, 
 and friendly to length of days. Thomas Brownsword and 
 his sister are figures that scarcely stand out in such sharp 
 relief as they deserve to do, and hence we will recall the 
 singular, primitive method of his call to the ministry. 
 
 Worthy Thomas Woodnorth, while doing duty as a preacher 
 in these parts fell ill, and, deeming that his preaching days 
 were over, wanted to get back to his home. So he asked 
 friend Darlington, of Burland Green, to let his son take him on 
 
 horseback as far as Englesea Brook, and bring back some one who could enter into his 
 work. Accordingly this was done. The preacher named the son of a small farmer- 
 innkeeper at Gorsty Hill happened to be at work in the harvest-field, where young 
 Darlington found him amongst a number of rough fellows. The message was no 
 sooner delivered than the youth threw down his sickle, called at his home to change 
 his clothes, mounted behind young Darlington, and went into Thomas Woodnorth's 
 preaching-round. Such was Thomas Brownsword's call to the ministry in which, for 
 a number of years, he did good service. He was soon followed by his sister, Ann 
 Brownsword, Avho by her respectable appearance and more than ordinary preaching 
 talent, was made very useful in opening out the mission in 
 Cheshire, Staffordshire and other counties. She afterwards 
 became the wife of Mr. Abraham, of Burslem. 
 
 Besides the Brownswords, Englesea Brook sent out other 
 travelling preachers from its numerous "locals," such as 
 Thomas Webb and William Newton, the blind preacher. 
 Its productiveness in this respect, which, with its geographical 
 position, almost made it the key to the Cheshire Mission, was 
 largely owing to Sarah Smith, who kept a dame's school for a 
 number of years and served God and the Church in her calling. 
 She used to pray with the children ; take the little ones on 
 her knee and teach them the old hymns. She began a prayer 
 meeting on the Sunday evenings, and got the elder children 
 to pray, and encouraged the more promising among them to exhort ; so that, under her 
 influence, Englesea Brook came to be a kind of normal school for the training of 
 evangelists. We suspect Thomas Bateman never had any particular love for " Insti- 
 tutes," and hence there may be veiled sarcasm in his suggestion that our first Institute 
 was at Englesea Brook, and that Sarah Smith was its first principal, as well as its 
 
 JOHN SMITH. 
 
518 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 theological and divinity professor. She did what she could : a professor of divinity 
 could do no more.* 
 
 Two other persons whose careers are of consequence to this history are repeatedly 
 mentioned in the Journals. John Smith (1) had been a scholar in Thomas Bateman's 
 Bible-class. He came on the stations in 1824, and until 1829 laboured at Burland, 
 Chester and other parts of the old Tunstall Circuit, and then moved off to East Anglia, 
 to be written down by his old friend and teacher as " the bishop of Norfolk." John 
 Ride's appearance in these parts came about in a somewhat singular way. When last 
 we saw him, he had just begun to preach at Mercaston Camp Meeting. In 1820 
 he emigrated to the United States, but his wife dying shortly after his arrival, he 
 soon found his way back to Derbyshire and engaged in evangelistic labours with all 
 his old ardour. Some of the inhabitants of Ashbourne, not relishing his proceedings, 
 set a cunning trap for him. A respectable householder offered his doorstep as a stand 
 for an open-air service, and when the offer was accepted in all good faith, steps 
 were taken for the issue of a summons against him for having preached on private 
 premises unlicensed for public worship. Urged on by his friends, John Ride travelled all 
 night to Bemersley to ask counsel of the Bournes ; and they, at the end of the fortnight, 
 sent him to Burland with the request that a place might be found him on the Cheshire 
 Mission a thing by no means difficult to do, as the Mission's sphere of influence 
 practically extended from Liverpool to Shrewsbury in one direction, and from Tunstall 
 Circuit to beyond the borders of Wales on the other. So John Ride went into the 
 northern part of the Mission, following John Wedgwood and Thomas Brownsword, 
 opened Wrexham, and found his way to Liverpool, where he was put into Bridewell 
 for preaching in the open-air, but was soon liberated as the result, it is said, of a letter 
 of remonstrance addressed to the magistrates by Dr. Adam 
 Clarke. In this way was John Ride thrust forth into 
 the ministry. He laboured in these parts until 1823, when 
 he was stationed successively at Tunstall, Oakengates and 
 Darlaston, and then he, too, moved off, to become one of 
 the pioneers of the Brink worth District. We have, in 
 the Journals so often referred to, a thumb-nail sketch 
 of John Ride, taken June, 1822, after the holding of 
 a love-feast. " Oh, how he did labour ! His zeal 
 seemed to have no bounds." Here we have the man 
 as he was to the end. 
 
 These then were some of the preachers most of them 
 mere striplings to begin with who pushed forwards the 
 boundaries of Tunstall Circuit in different directions, and 
 
 carved it into circuits that became the Tunstall District of 1821 and the larger district 
 of 1824. And there were others Sarah Spittle, Ann Stanna, Joseph Preston, of 
 Bronington in Flint, and William Doughty, a Lincolnshire man, and James Bonser, of 
 Kinoulton, both of prison-fame, who did their part. 
 
 * Sarah Smith's memoir is in the Magazine for 1823. See also the Magazine for 1881, p. 551, 
 It was Sarah Smith who invited Thomas Woodnorth to " open " Englesea Brook in June, 181 1. See 
 ante p. 123. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 519 
 
 MRS. N. BELCHER. 
 
 DARLASTON CIRCUIT. 
 
 Only six months intervened between Darlaston's coming on the plan and its being 
 made into an independent station in March, 1820. Like Hull, it shot up rather than 
 slowly grew to maturity ; and in its case as in that of the town by the Humber, quick 
 growth did not mean either quick decay or slow death ; for Darlaston Circuit was 
 destined to become one of the most powerful and procreative circuits 
 of the Connexion. 
 
 By whom, and under what circumstances, this rapid develop- 
 ment was begun and brought about, are points concerning which 
 our information is but meagre. What little contemporary 
 information we have of a reliable character is mostly derived 
 from the MS. Journal of Sampson Turner, from a statement by 
 Mr. Petty made also on the authority of S. Turner, and from the 
 negative and incidental evidence of the Plan of the Tunstall 
 Circuit given on a preceding page. To these sources must be 
 added certain jottings communicated by Mr. James Belcher the 
 oldest local preacher in the Darlaston Circuit whose mother's name stands third 
 on the Roll-book of members for 1827, and who lived a long and honoxired life. 
 
 Sampson Turner, it will be remembered, lived at Cannock Lane, and was converted in 
 1812. Cannock Lane, Cannock Wood, Essington Wood, and Walsall Wood are all on 
 the plan of 1819, and the societies at these places would afford a base for missionary 
 efforts in the populous district we know as the Black Country. In his Journal, 
 S. Turner tells us that he and others had missioned Brownhills, Pelsall, Walsall Wood 
 and other places, and that in the early spring of 1819, he devoted some four days to 
 missioning Bilston, Wolverhampton, Willenhall and Darlaston. 
 
 At Bilston he spoke, ' amid quietness, in a space in the centre of the town," but at 
 night he was put into a small room in a common lodging-house along with tinkers, 
 cadgers and chimney-sweeps, and was glad to slink away very early next morning. 
 When at Wolverhampton he took his stand in the market-place, before he got to the 
 end of his discourse he was hustled and howled at ; nor did the 
 mob cease its unfriendly attentions as he made his way to the south- 
 west end of the town with a gentleman who had rescued him from 
 his persecutors and invited him to be his guest. As they went 
 along, the mob followed them, using abusive and menacing 
 language. At Willenhall he was stoned out of the town, but 
 found shelter at New Invention, where he met with great civility 
 and kindness. His brief mission over, he returned to his home 
 on the Thursday before Easter, and awaited in some suspense 
 his call either " to missionary " or be a travelling preacher that 
 is, either to raise societies where none existed, or visit those already 
 formed. Through some mischance, there was delay, but at last the official letters 
 from Tunstall arrived, informing him that he was to be a travelling preacher. He 
 began his duties on the first Sunday on the plan, and the reader can, if he chooses, 
 
 JAMES BELCHER. 
 
520 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 follow No. 50 on his round through the Circuit. On the last Sunday of the 
 plan, he fulfilled appointments in his own neighbourhood and amongst his own 
 acquaintance. He says : 
 
 "July 25th: Preached in the morning at^Essirigton Wood, in the afternoon at 
 Cannock Lane, and in the evening at Cannock Wood. This day J. Benton heard 
 me for the first time. He lost his speech some time before and has never been able 
 to preach since. There seems to be a greater prospect than ever of a revival of 
 religion in this neighbourhood. Three preachers have lately joined us, and Darlaston 
 is put on the j)lan." 
 
 This entry seems to 
 
 explain Mr. Petty's state- 
 ment, made from inform- 
 ation supplied by the 
 diarist : that Mr. W. 
 Carter, being present at 
 a service at Walsall Wood, 
 ottered the use of his 
 large room at Darlaston 
 for services; that some 
 few weeks after, the offer 
 was accepted, the large 
 
 BLOCKALL, PAKLA8TON. 
 
 room occupied, and that 
 Messrs W. Carter, Hum- 
 page, and others joined 
 the society, and a little 
 later, Mr. D. Bo wen. 
 This incident must have 
 happened while S. Turner 
 was on his round, and it 
 put a new face on things. 
 Not only was the revival 
 spreading, but the acquisi- 
 tion of the preaching room, 
 
 and still more the adhesion of three preachers men of standing and business ability, 
 added to those there already were, would seem to justify making Darlaston thus 
 early the head of a West Midland Circuit, desirable as that arrangement was on the 
 ground of convenience. 
 
 The regulation of the Preparatory Meeting requiring travelling preachers to furnish 
 their Circuit Committees each month with extracts from their Journals, soon bore fruit 
 in the Magazine in communications which are like dispatches from the seat of war. 
 
 THE BULL STAKE, DARLASTON. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 521 
 
 WILLIAM CARTER. 
 
 The first reports of this kind relating to Darlaston we meet with, were written by 
 Thomas Brownsword and James Bonsor, who both began their labours in the circuit 
 almost immediately after its formation. They tell us of the places they visited 
 Bilston, Tipton, Wednesbury, Darlaston, etc., of the open-air services and house prayer- 
 meetings they held ; of the varying spiritual results which followed. It is a record of 
 hard and successful evangelistic labour, told in the briefest, barest 
 way, and quite wanting in those details which would justify 
 quotation here. But each preacher had an early experience of 
 legal persecution to report, which varies his ournalistic summary 
 of work done, and demands our notice. 
 
 Thomas Brownsword might be a boy-preacher, but he was 
 evidently a man in courage ; and he tells his story in such a modest 
 and even reticent way that Hugh Bourne feels it necessary to 
 supplement his narrative. On July 8th, T. Brownsword preached 
 at Round Oak in the morning, and then went to Stourbridge in 
 Worcestershire, where one of the mission-band preached without 
 interruption to a large congregation. Brownsword's own turn 
 came in the evening, when he had about a thousand people before him. He had 
 sung and prayed and got a short way on in his discourse, when he was taken 
 into custody by a constable, as was also one of his companions who tried to continue 
 the service after Brownsword's arrest. The next morning, the brother who had 
 preached without molestation " stood up " again, and was led off, so that three were 
 taken before the magistrates, and, because they would not give their word to cease from 
 preaching in the open-air, they were committed to the County Gaol at Worcester. 
 Even during their more than a week's imprisonment they cannot be said to have 
 suspended their work, but only to have carried it on under different conditions. How 
 it was that our imprisoned preachers of those early days were allowed such facilities of 
 intercourse with their fellow-prisoners, we know not. But that they often had such 
 facilities, and made good use of them, is certain. The evidence is too abundant and clear 
 to admit of doubt. " Praise God !" writes T. Brownsword, "He was with me, and we 
 spared not to preach Christ to the poor prisoners. We preached 
 or exhorted every night. A great reformation appeared among 
 the prisoners ; those who had been accustomed to curse and 
 swear and sing, began to read and pray. The Lord was with us 
 in a powerful manner." 
 
 The event created quite a stir in the district. Popular 
 sentiment was with the preachers in prison, and not with the 
 magistrates who sent them there. The new denomination, 
 struggling to gain a footing in these parts and carry on its 
 beneficent work, shared in the sympathy that was evoked, and 
 profited by it. It was seen that the Black Country of 1820 was 
 not the Black Country of Wesley's days, and that Wednesbury 
 riots were no longer possible. It was determined to use every effort to win 
 a favourable verdict at the approaching trial. Tunstall Circuit pledged its 
 
 DAVID BOWEN. 
 
522 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 assistance. The Dissenting ministers came nobly forward with proffers of help. 
 Contributions were freely offered; nor was prayer forgotten. On the llth June, 
 after suffering ten days' detention, the prisoners were taken to the Shire Hall and 
 dismissed. 
 
 " The same day in the evening," says Hugh Bourne, " they held a vast meeting 
 on the race-ground at Worcester. Multitudes flocked in to see and hear those who 
 had been in prison. There were others also who had gone to attend the trial : 
 four of the preachers spoke, and hundreds were in tears. This was the 
 introduction of the Primitive Methodists into Worcester." 
 
 James Bonsor had visited Brownsword while in prison ; but his own turn soon came, 
 and in time he got to be ''well known to the police." After a camp-meeting at Bilston 
 Wake on July 31st, he, with a few to help, went to Wolverhampton to hold an evening 
 service in the market-place, but he was "interrupted by a policeman and then led away 
 by a magistrate." He continued, during the night and morning he was in prison, to pray 
 with the prisoners and even preach to them. "Many people," says he, "came to visit 
 me and brought me food. I read them several chapters, and the prisoners wished me to 
 stay with them ! " The next day at noon he was brought before the magistrates. As 
 he was wont to do, he argued the case with them, and assured them that as long as 
 men swore, told lies, broke the Sabbath, and did other bad things, " he meant to preach 
 as long as the Lord gave him strength ; and as soon as he was at liberty he should 
 preach again." He was bound in two sureties to appear at the Stafford sessions, and 
 when the time came duly surrendered. For decency's sake the Justices inflicted 
 a nominal fine, but as he would not pay it, but told them he thought they should rather 
 give .him something for his trouble, they dismissed him, and" So I went away ; and 
 at night preached at Cannock Lane." * 
 
 We are almost tempted to conclude that the persecution undergone by the newly 
 formed Darlaston Circuit was opportune and a blessing in disguise. It tended to the 
 furtherance of the Gospel. Xot only did it publish the movement and rally popular 
 sympathy in its favour, but it served also as a wholesome tonic to those who had the 
 task before them of carrying the old gospel by new methods over a wide district, 
 stretching from Cannock to Worcester, and from Wolverhampton and Birmingham to 
 Presteign in Radnorshire. Already Darlaston Circuit was the present West Midland 
 District in embryo. For a brief while we leave the young circuit just entering 
 upon its much-needed work, while we look at the extensions Tunstall Circuit was 
 making in other directions. 
 
 BURTON-ON-TRENT. 
 
 Burton, in East Staffordshire, with extensions into South Derbyshire, was another 
 of the branches formed at the important March, 1820, Quarter-day of the Tunstall 
 Circuit. And yet the head of this new branch has no place on the plan of 1819, given 
 on the preceding page, though some of the villages not far away had long been visited. 
 Some of these, with whose names we are familiar, now stand connected with one or 
 
 * A view of Cannock Lane preaching-place is given, ante p. 168. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 523 
 
 another of the Burton Circuits. Such are Tutbury where the famous fasting-girl 
 lived in 1810, whom James Crawfoot and Hugh Bourne and W. Clowes all visited 
 and believed in, and Church Broughton, the home of the Salisburys, early befrienders 
 of the cause, and, above all, Boylestone. The brewery town, therefore, must have 
 been opened during 1819, with such a degree of success as to justify the 'resolve to make 
 a more determined effort to mission it and the surrounding villages. Sampson Turner 
 was designated for this work, which he began in May, 1820. He seems to have had 
 a special interest in Burton, for he spent a week there just before he began his labours 
 as a travelling preacher. " I preached " says he " to as many as could get into a Baptist 
 chapel. It seemed to give general satisfaction, and they desired that the 'Ranters' 
 might come if it were the will of God." Then, on the 5th October, he hears that they 
 are getting on well at Burton; and he adds: "I still believe that the Lord will carry on 
 His work, and that, in spite of all worldly opposition, if believers are faithful;" and on 
 the 21st of the same month, he justifies his faith by walking twenty miles to Burton 
 where, he says, "We held a prayer-meeting at night; the house was full, and souls 
 were crying for mercy. There is at present a very bright prospect at Burton." Then 
 in March, Burton is made a Branch, and a month after, we find Hugh Bourne spending 
 three days there, busy with the plans, and preaching in the afternoon of Sunday, April 
 23rd, in the street, and at night in the room. 
 
 In going to his new sphere of labour, S. Turner took Lichfield on his way, and on 
 Whit Sunday preached on Green Hill among the caravans that were there for a show. 
 He returned during the week for another service, but such a din was made by the 
 beating of kettles, tambourines and other noise-producing instruments that were handy, 
 that he removed to another place nearer the centre of the city and there, standing under 
 a tree, he finished his sermon in peace. He informs us that a " blacksmith's penthouse " 
 was afterwards secured as a place of worship. But not even was the slender footing 
 furnished by this humble conventicle long retained. Burton Circuit made several 
 attempts to regain its hold of that city in whose cathedral, as we remember, Hugh 
 Bourne had a strange experience, but these attempts were not attended with any great 
 measure of success. In 1836, however, Darlaston and Birmingham Circuits combined 
 to maintain two missionaries to concentrate their labours on Lichfield and the surround- 
 ing villages. For a time they preached in the open-air, then an old malt-house in 
 a back street was rented, and in 1848 a small chapel was opened. Ten years before 
 this, Lichfield had been made an independent station with the laborious Richard Ward 
 as its superintendent. 
 
 But to come back to Burton and the " missionarying " of Sampson Turner. In 
 returning from Lichfield in the evening of Whit Sunday, he visited Alrewas and held 
 a service on the Green. The public-houses emptied, and the news ran that the 
 " Radical Reformers " had come. A society was formed, out of which, we are told, 
 several local and travelling preachers were raised up, and the society continues to this 
 day. At Barton-under-Needwood, he was greeted on his first visit by the ringing of 
 bells and a general tintinnabulation ; but despite the opposition met with, a footing was 
 gained in the place. Accompanied by two friends he went to Tattenhall, and began to 
 preach in a large open space not far from a large house, out of which came two persons, 
 
524 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 one of whom the worse for drink pulled him off his chair, to the detriment of his 
 clothes, and ordered the constable to take him in charge. S. Turner and his companions 
 were kept that night at a public-house but unprovided with a bed, and the next morning 
 were taken before a magistrate. Our missionary refused to pay the costs the magistrate 
 imposed, and, being let go, they went to the same place as before and held a service. 
 Here from S. Turner's Journal is the record of a full Sunday's labours : 
 
 " Early one Sunday morning I preached in the open-air at Tutbury, and then 
 proceeded to Stretton to preach in the forenoon. On entering the village several 
 rotten goose-eggs were thrown at me and so besmeared my clothes that I was 
 obliged to borrow another person's coat, in which I preached in the street while my 
 own was rinsed and dried. In the afternoon I preached at Horningham, and in 
 
 WOOD MILL CHAPEL. 
 
 the evening at Burton-upon-Trent. Persecution raged in several of the places we 
 visited ; but the word of the Lord ran and was glorified, and many sinners were 
 converted to God. To Him be all the glory." 
 
 It was by labours and amid difficulties such as these, that the Burton Branch was so 
 extended and established as to justify its being made into a separate station as early as 
 1822. It belonged to the mother district of Tunstall until 1827, when it was transferred 
 to Nottingham, and now quite properly has its place next after Loughborough on the 
 stations of the Nottingham District. We deal here with the missionary period of 
 Burton-on-Trent's history, rather than with its later development by which it has 
 become three circuits. Even before this took effect, the arrangement of the circuit 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 525 
 
 varied from time to time. For four years Alrewas ranked as a branch, and Uttoxeter also 
 stood on the stations as such from 1849 to 1860, when we judge it was transferred to 
 Ramsor. With a word as to the early chapels of the circuit, we pass on. Boylestone 
 excepted, the oldest chapel in the original circuit of which we have any record is 
 Wood Mill, built in 1823 by G. Parsons, at a cost of sixty pounds ! The deed of this 
 building, which was non-connexional, is a curious document. The original chapel was 
 superseded by a Gothic structure, built in 1870, to which a burial-ground is attached; 
 but the old building still does occasional duty for the holding of tea-meetings. As far 
 as can be ascertained, the first chapel in. Burton was built in 1829, and the shell of it is 
 still in existence serving as a hardware shop. 
 
 SITE OF FIRST CAMP-GROUND, WINSTER. 
 
 BELPEK BRANCH EXTENSIONS. 
 
 As a result of the vigorous mission carried on in the Peak of Derbyshire by Belper 
 Branch made such along with the rest in 1820 many fresh places, in what was then 
 a secluded and benighted part of the country, were visited, and a number of new 
 societies established. These, along with the older societies of Hognaston, Kniveton, 
 and Brassington, were, in 1824, grouped in order to form a new circuit of which 
 Winster was the head. The very fact that only three out of the twenty places standing 
 on the first plan of this circuit are found on the Tunstall plan of 1819, shows that the 
 missionary spirit expressed itself in hard successful work near home, as well as in 
 passing resolutions at the first missionary meetings at Turnditch and Belper.* 
 
 * See ante, p. 184. 
 
526 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 We have already referred in another connection to the missioning of Winster by 
 W. Alcock in 1821, and little more need now be added except to note the fact that 
 a chapel was built in 1823 and enlarged in 1833. 
 
 Hognaston, already named, was missioned by Belper as early as 1817. It was the 
 home of Philip Bown, a leader and a local preacher, whose name stands first on the first 
 plan of the Winster Circuit. It was he who gave the ground for the village chapel, 
 while another friend, Richard Wheeldon, by his will left 50 for the same purpose. 
 Philip Bown was a noted evangelist whose fame lingers amongst the Derbyshire hills 
 to this day. He did a good day's work when, at the direction of the circuit authorities, 
 he re-missioned a village nine miles from Winster called Monyash. The village is not 
 
 MONTASH CHURCH. 
 
 large ; it has not more than four hundred inhabitants. It cannot be said to be 
 beautiful, though it is not devoid of a certain austere attractiveness. It can, indeed, 
 lay claim to the possession of an ancient church restored without being spoiled and 
 to a crumbling village cross. There is, too, the druidical circle of Arbor Low in the 
 neighbourhood, ranking next in importance to Stonehenge. Within the enclosure of Arbor 
 Low a famous camp meeting with three stands was once held. But to Methodists of 
 all sections, Monyash will always be associated with the names of John Nelson, who 
 was pulled down by the clergyman while preaching at the cross ; and of Dr. Bunting, 
 whose mother, Mary Redfern, got lasting good from hearing a sermon by Richard 
 Boardman. Mary Redfern never forgot that sermon on " Jabez was more honourable 
 than his brethren," and gave the name "Jabez" to the future law-giver of Methodism. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 When Richard Boardman preached that sermon, he was 
 on his way from the Leeds Conference to Bristol, there 
 to embark as the first Methodist missionary to America. 
 He travelled across the country old Methodist- 
 preacher-fashion on horseback, with the indispensable 
 saddle-bags. To all Methodists the story is interesting, 
 and instructive too, since it shows the vitality and 
 fecundity of the seed of the Word. It was right and 
 fitting that in 1869, the Wesleyans should commemorate 
 Richard Boarclman's visit to Monyash and what came 
 out of it. But to Primitive Methodists the village has an 
 additional association of interest ; for here Joseph Wood, 
 Sunday School Union Organiser and General Secretary, 
 President, and Principal of Manchester College, spent 
 ten years of the most formative period of his life, only leaving the Whim Farm in 1851 
 to become a travelling preacher in Hull Circuit. 
 
 When Philip Bown took his stand by the 
 remains of the old cross in the year 1828, both 
 Wesleyan and Primitive Methodism had died out 
 of the village. His coming was the means of 
 opening a fresh and not unworthy chapter in 
 the history of village Methodism. Among those 
 who stood listening to him that day, was a burly 
 young quarryman named Joshua Millington. No 
 apparent effect seemed to have been produced 
 in him by the service ; but some time after, being 
 in the tavern with his companions, the devil inspired 
 
 1 one of them to vent the most 
 
 horrible curses and blasphemy, 
 and by so doing the devil overshot 
 the mark ; for, as Joseph looked 
 upon his companion's livid and 
 distorted face, he saw depicted 
 there, sin in its most hideous guise 
 and hell in its terrors. Alarmed, 
 he then and there cried out for 
 mercy ; and when next Philip 
 Bown came to the cross, and at 
 the close of the service invited 
 seekers to follow him into a'certain 
 house, Joshua shrinkingly fol- 
 lowed, and enrolled himself a 
 member. We have no space to 
 
 The Whim FoTTe're Dr. Wood was write his life further-that has 
 
 brought up. already been done ; * suffice it to 
 
 Historic Villages.of.Methodism." By Rev. J. Wood, D.D., in Aldersgate Magazine, !897. 
 
528 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 JOSHUA MILLINGTON. 
 
 say, he became a champion of the cause, and, for the long period of sixty years, 
 preached far and wide, in all weathers ; led his class, and lived to a patriarchal 
 age, honoured for the goodness and usefulness of his life. 
 
 With the year 1835, another page was turned in the history of Primitive Methodism 
 iu Monyash. So much had the Winster Circuit prospered under 
 the labours of its ministers David Beattie and T. Hobson 
 that in this year a third minister was appointed, and special 
 attention was directed to aggressive Christian work. Monyash 
 shared in the general prosperity of the station. One evening, 
 when Mr. Hobson the missionary was sitting in the house of 
 Mr. Palfreyman where he was to spend the night, a woman rushed 
 in uttering loud cries. She had been at the service, and sought 
 relief for her anguished, burdened heart. The little company fell 
 to prayer, and Mary Critchelow found peace. Her conversion was 
 speedily followed by that of her husband, their two eldest sons, 
 and other members of the family. When we know that Daniel 
 and Mary Critchelow were the parents of seventeen sons and daughters, fifteen of 
 whom reached maturity, we are not surprised that it was deemed desirable to build 
 a chapel, which accordingly was done in the same year 1835. This building served 
 its purpose until 1888, when a more commodious structure was erected with school 
 attached. The descendants of this worthy couple are exceedingly numerous, and though 
 many of these have left their native village, it is pleasing to know our Church in 
 different parts still reaps the advantage of their loyalty and service. Bakewell, not far 
 from Haddon Hall and far-famed Chatsworth, is all the better for the conversion of 
 Daniel and Mary Critchelow ; for it is largely owing to the enterprise and liberality of 
 Mr. Charles Critchelow, their grandson, that Bakewell has at last, after its chequered 
 history, a neat and commodious chapel. We allude to an event that happened so 
 recently as 1895, simply to continue the story which illustrates the far-reaching, ever- 
 expanding results of village evangelisation. 
 
 As Bakewell, which stands on the first plan of Winster Circuit, has been lost and 
 won several times, so have several other places in the Peak of 
 Derbyshire. For example, Flagg, a village not far from Monyash 
 was first visited in 1821 by preachers from Macclesfield, and 
 afterwards relinquished. Two years later, Bradwell took it up, but 
 after a time withdrew. Then Winster Circuit re-missioned 
 it ; and finally it Avas incorporated with Buxton Circuit. The 
 mere physical difficulties of distance, rough and steep roads 
 difficulties made harder under wintry conditions rendered it 
 almost impossible to serve and conserve some of the village 
 societies which had been established. 
 
 Mainly as the result of these causes, even Buxton, important 
 a circuit as it now is, was not founded without repeated reverses 
 
 and efforts more than once renewed. As to this we will let the late Dr. Wood speak ; 
 for as a native of the district he was fully conversant with the circuit's early 
 vicissitudes : 
 
 C. CRITCHELOW. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 529 
 
 "Thomas Hobson's first duty was to mission Buxton and Chelmorton. The 
 former place had been missioned and given up some years before by a neighbour- 
 ing circuit. Notwithstanding this discouragement conversions took place, 
 a society was formed, and the work prospered for several years, but again had to 
 be given up, principally for want of a suitable room for the services, together with 
 the difficulty of reaching the town owing to its distance (sixteen miles) from most 
 of the preachers. But some seed remained, and was ready to spring up, when 
 another and a better effort was made, and Buxton is now the head of a flourishing 
 circuit, and has the best chapel and society in this part of Derbyshire and is 
 supplying its villages with some of the most efficient local preachers in the 
 Connexion." 
 
 SITE OF THE JUBILEE AND ANNUAL CAMP-MEETINGS, WINSTER. 
 
 Precisely similar was the history of the village of Chelmorton now belonging to 
 Buxton Circuit. It had been a famous place for Methodism. John Bennett had 
 preached here with marvellous success, and amongst his converts were the forebears 
 of the Marsdens and the Lomases. But Methodism had died out of the village before 
 our missionaries from Macclesfield visited it in 1821. A society of twenty members 
 was soon established, but it had become extinct by 1834, when Thomas Hobson 
 remissioned it. The years passed, and once more the same work had to be done over 
 again ; for though Thomas Hobson's mission was not without success since, among his 
 converts were Mr. and Mrs. Grindy, who became useful local preachers and left 
 descendants who are giving a good account of themselves in different parts of the 
 
 MM 
 
530 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 Connexion still, in course of time, Primitive Methodism died out of Chelmorton. 
 Then, yet a third attempt was made. Three devoted local preachers of the 
 Winster Circuit Walter Wood (the brother of Dr. Joseph Wood), John Hibbert, and 
 Henry Prime missioned the village, and the effect of their work, we trust, will 
 abide. 
 
 We allude to these things Connexional minutiae though some may regard them 
 simply to make good one point we think of some historic value. The mission-period of 
 our history was, it will be admitted, a remarkable one. The enthusiasm of evangelism, 
 like a tidal wave, rose high and went far. The missionaries of the Connexion found 
 their way into remote villages, and 
 startled the villagers as did the 
 ubiquitous Uhlans in the Franco- 
 German war, when they drew up in 
 market-places and on village-greens 
 to the surprise of the inhabitants. 
 To take concrete examples ; it was 
 a great thing for the missionaries 
 from Macclesfield to climb into the 
 
 KNIVETON 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL. 
 
 FARMHOUSE, FIRST PREACHING-PLACE, KNIVETON. 
 
 Peak country and carry the 
 gospel to Chelmorton ; and 
 for the missionaries from 
 Bradwell to cross the Derby- 
 shire Wye and mission 
 Monyash. This was the 
 order of the day all round 
 Tunstall Circuit in 1 8 1 9-2 1 . 
 Say that the wave was 
 somewhat a refluent one ; 
 that if the missionaries 
 
 came they also in some cases retired. That this should be so was to be expected. 
 In the older parts of the Connexion we hear less of missioning of the old type in the 
 'Thirties, 'Forties, and 'Fifties, though it was still going on elsewhere ; and because this 
 was so we think that period a somewhat drab and prosaic one in comparison. But 
 during this period there was, as we see, a great deal of re-missioning done, and that in 
 its way was quite as remarkable and heroic as the missioning at large of the earlier 
 period. When, by the sure working of change and death, old village-causes had died 
 out, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to have let them die and not to 
 have troubled about their resuscitation. Winster might so easily have kept "looking 
 
THR PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 53] 
 
 on its own things," and not have minded what had once belonged to Macclesfield or to 
 Bradwell. But the facts cited prove that it did mind, and in this, Winster Circuit was 
 not alone during the " drab and prosaic " period. It is well for us now that it was so 
 We may have lost ground in the villages, but we should have lost much more if a great 
 deal of re-missioning had not then gone on of which little record remains. In short if 
 it was a great thing for Macclesfield to mission Peak villages in 1821, it was just as 
 laudable a deed for Winster to re-mission the said villages in 1834, and repeat the 
 process still later. 
 
 KNIVETON AND WIRKSWORTH. 
 
 Kniveton, a village eight miles south-west of Winster, was missioned as early as 
 1817 by a zealous band of Primitives from Weston Underwood. In 1827, it was the 
 
 tenth place on the plan, with preaching 
 services appointed for Sunday afternoons 
 and Friday evenings. In 1832, what 
 was at the time considered to be one 
 of the best chapels in that part of 
 Derbyshire was erected, and some time 
 later the old Wesleyan chapel was 
 acquired for school purposes. Kniveton 
 is of interest from the fact that, though 
 it is but an inconsiderable village, it was 
 in the 'Forties made the head of a new 
 circuit and so continued until 1860, 
 when the headship of the circuit was 
 given to Wirksworth, in which town, 
 through the remarkable exertions of 
 J. T. Neal, a spacious and comfortable 
 chapel, with schoolrooms and vestries, had 
 shortly before been secured. Mr. Neal 
 is said not only to have secured the 
 land, superintended the erection, and 
 seen after the completion and due con- 
 veyance of the chapel to the Connexion, 
 but to have also "worked in the quarries 
 getting the stone, to have begged the leading of all the materials, and often fed the 
 workmen from his own humble larder." 
 
 Apart from the fact that Wirksworth will always attract attention from its association 
 with Mrs. Evans the " Dinah " of " Adam Bede " who lived and died here, it has 
 other claims on our regard. Since 1820, when it was first missioned, it seems to have 
 been favoured with a succession of loyal and sturdy adherents. Joseph and Hannah 
 Frost opened their house for the first preaching-services as well as for the entertainment 
 of the ministers. One of the first converts was their daughter, of whom a well- written 
 memoir from the pen of Philip Bown appeared in the Magazine for 1822. The account 
 there given of Temperance Frost is not without a certain degree of psychological interest, 
 
 MM 2 
 
 Will 0.3 >V<jit 
 
532 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 inasmuch as this young woman of thirty-two was deaf and dumb, and yet seems not 
 only to have been very intelligent, but to have had quite remarkable power in expressing 
 her religious emotions to the edification of others. 
 
 Ible, which stands on the first plan of the Winster Circuit and is now connected 
 with Wirksworth, has a chapel with a history. "In the year 1824," says an old 
 document now before us, " God put it into the hearts of the inhabitants to build an 
 house for Him. They employed their horses, also on the work ; the stone and lime were 
 brought together, free of expense ; consequently only a debt of .40 remained when it 
 was completed." Previous to the erection of this little Bethel, the same document 
 informs us, a shelter had been provided by W. Buxton who, "when the chilling winds 
 which sweep over these hills became too severe for the people to endure the open-air 
 service, opened his house, and a society was formed." Here we have the beginnings : 
 what of the after history of the little sanctuary 1 ? "When Ible was missioned in 1820, 
 the brothers John and Samuel Kains were amongst the first hearers, and they, along 
 with Hannah Rains, the wife of John, joined the infant church on the hill "just above 
 splendid and ever flowing water-springs." John and Hannah were class-leaders and 
 workers for over thirty years. Ten of their sons were converted 
 in the early days, and became prominent and valuable officials in 
 the Nottingham and Manchester Districts. One of these sons was 
 the late Mr. Samuel Rains, for more than half-a-century a local 
 preacher and a furtherer of the interests of our Church in the City 
 of Manchester ; another Henry Rains is making his presence 
 felt in the Buxton Circuit ; a third, the late James Rains of Kirk 
 Ireton, circuit steward of the Ashbourne Station, who kept open 
 house at Alton Hall for all Primitive Methodists for over thirty 
 years ; and his children are following in his steps. Yet another 
 son is John Rains, whose connection with our Church dates from 
 
 MR. JOHN KAINS. 
 
 1820, and who has filled various official positions to the great 
 advantage of the Wirksworth Circuit. 
 
 The "little church on the hill above the water-springs" is an emblem of the far- 
 reaching influences for good that have gone forth from our village chapels. It is partly 
 the design of this book to make this clear by concrete examples, which Derbyshire 
 is not alone in supplying. We are persuaded that a master-key to the proper under- 
 standing of our history is put into our hands by the recognition of the great part 
 played by the villages in founding and extending our Church. It was the villages that 
 missioned the towns in the first instance ; and right along, and especially till the 'Fifties, 
 rural Primitive Methodism has been the water-shed and collecting-ground of urban 
 Primitive Methodism. 
 
 ASHBOURNE. 
 
 Though Ashbourne was the last circuit formed in this part of Derbyshire, it yet 
 includes some of the very oldest societies in the Connexion. Borrowing a term from 
 geology we may call Ashbourne a conglomerate circuit ; for it holds together and 
 encloses societies of diverse age and history ; just as the conglomerate boulder has 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 533 
 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF BIGGIN. 
 Showing Old Farm-house where Preaching Services were held. 
 
 PRESENT-DAT CHAPEL, BIGGIN. 
 
534 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 embedded within it water-worn fragments of the oldest rocks. We have told the story 
 of Hulland and Hollington and Brailsford, and need not tell it over again, so that when 
 we say these three places form part of the Ashbourne Circuit, it is clear that some 
 
 components of the circuit are ninety 
 years old. There are also within 
 the limits of the circuit two places 
 on the borders of Staffordshire, 
 first missioned by Eleazar Hathorn 
 and John Benton, which formed 
 part of the "Circuit" Benton handed 
 over to Hugh Bourne in 1814. We 
 refer to Biggin and Mill Dale, to 
 both of which places there are 
 repeated references in the early 
 Journals. Biggin has a chapel 
 built in 1896, now debtless, and at 
 Mill Dale, romantically situated at 
 the end of Dovedale, there is also 
 a chapel built in 1834. These two places are on the Tunstall plan of 1819 ; afterwards 
 they belonged to Rarnsor, and, still later, probably to Leek Circuit. Three places that 
 were component parts of the original Winster Circuit are also on the Ashbourne Circuit 
 plan Hognaston, Kirk Ireton, and ex-circuit-town Kniveton. When Ashbourne was 
 formed in 1890 the old and the new touched each other. 
 
 MILL DALE PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL. 
 
 STEPPING STONES OF DOVEDALE. 
 
 Ashbourne itself must have been missioned early, since its name will be seen on the 
 Tunstall plan of 1819. 'Hugh Bourne and the rest of the Tunstall preachers must 
 have been familiar with this pleasant town. His eye must often have rested on the 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 535 
 
 " pride of the Peak," as its citizens call the towering spire of Ashbourne Church It 
 was here Hugh Bourne bought the tracts for the Hulland Tract Mission, which he 
 causally connects with the raising up of the first two female travelling-preachers. Nor 
 must we forget John Hide's hurried flight from Ashbourne to escape arrest for preachin- 
 from some one's doorstep. It requires an effort to think of John Ride as running away 
 from anything, but 
 
 " . . . those that fly may fight again, 
 Which he can never do that's slain," 
 
 and we remember how Paul made a somewhat hasty flight from Damascus before lie 
 began his ministry. 
 
 But we have not yet quite done with Belpor, for the simple reason that its missionary 
 energy was not confined to the early years, even to suit the exigencies of a theory. So, 
 
 ASHBOURNE CHURCH. 
 
 just when the era of consolidation was opening, it renewed its youth and began again. 
 And yet it is but fair to say, many other circuits would have been glad to do the like, 
 only they could not. There was no "hinterland " not any piece of "no-man's land"- 
 for them to annex. They had got the portion of territory that naturally fell to them, 
 and so were circumscribed and hemmed in, and, perforce, had to make the best of it. 
 But, while most other circuits were settling down to the founding of schools and the 
 building of chapels, and were dividing and sub-dividing themselves in order the better 
 to consolidate their local interests, Belper Circuit had both the opportunity and the will 
 to do a little more real mission-work. There was a bit of unopened country lying away 
 on the borders of Notts, and, by laying hold of this, the geographical hiatus would be 
 filled up and the borders of Belper . Circuit march with those of Chesterfield and 
 other offshoots of Nottingham. The facts have been succinctly stated by Mr. Petty in 
 his History, and we reproduce them here, just observing that the "unhappy 
 
536 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUHCH. 
 
 division " referred to was the " Selston split " we have already described as affecting 
 Hucknall Torkard, where also Edward Morton did such good work.* 
 
 " Belper Circuit reported 664 members in 1840 ; but in 1842 it was reduced to 601. 
 Selston, Normanton, and Portland Row, having, probably during these two years, 
 been transferred to another circuit. In the following year they were restored to 
 Belper Circuit, and with Somercotes and Golden Valley, they formed the nucleus 
 of a mission station [at first called Somercotes Mission], to which Mr. E. Morton 
 was appointed in April, 1843. It may be proper to remark, that the three former 
 places had been greatly injured by an unhappy division, three or four years 
 previously, and were now almost a wreck. It is to the honour of Mr. John Smith, 
 of Golden Valley, that we have to record that his fidelity to the Connexion in this 
 time of trial, and the influence of his respectable character and position, were of 
 incalculable service. A better day now began to dawn upon these suffering places ; 
 and Mr. Morton also succeeded in establishing societies at Crich, Swanwick, Green 
 Hillocks, and other places, where chapels were in due time erected. In 1850, this 
 mission contained 283 members; and in the following year was made into an 
 independent station, now called Ripley Circuit, a very compact and comfortable 
 station. It is gratifying to add, that notwithstanding the formation of this station, 
 Belper Circuit reported 811 members in 1850, 147 more than 1840 " (p. 415). 
 
 It should be added that, in 1880, Alfreton Circuit was made from Ripley, which 
 partition would, one think, tend to make the latter even more comfortable and compact 
 a station than it had been "before. 
 
 This account may be supplemented by a few reminiscent jottings communicated by 
 the present Ripley Circuit Steward Mr. John Henshaw, the worthy successor of the 
 good men he recalls. At the beginning of its history, the Ripley society worshipped in 
 a small room in a malt-house reached by steps. Mr. John Smith, mentioned above, 
 was colliery manager under the Butterley Colliery Company, 
 and though in a good position was noted for his Christian 
 simplicity and his devoted labours. He could, and did, 
 visit every house in Golden Valley, save one. Here he 
 was refused admission; but he prayed on the door-step. 
 As a local-preacher he was in great request for special 
 services and, on these occasions, often had as his travelling 
 companion Thomas Hardy of Ironville, who contributed 
 100 at the stone-laying of Ironville chapel. Some of 
 the traditional accounts of John Smith's journeyings as 
 a local preacher almost pass helief. It is said he has been 
 known to preach at Derby in the morning, go on to Little 
 Eaton for the afternoon, and to Belper for the evening 
 service, reaching home at midnight. When in the Peak 
 district, he would not get home until two o'clock on Monday 
 
 morning. On the Sunday .mornings when not preaching he led the class at Selston, 
 four miles away. Little wonder that such a man was humanly speaking the stay and 
 saviour of the societies. At his death he was succeeded in the Circuit Stewardship by 
 
 MR. JOHN SMITH. 
 
 * See ante, pp. 249-251. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 537 
 
 MR. E. COX. 
 
 MB. T. C. SMITH. 
 
 Mr. Charles Shelton, and subsequently by Mr. Edwin Cox, who is described as a man of 
 strong evangelical sympathies and " one of the best stewards any circuit could have." 
 
 In leaving Belper for we cannot return to it we are struck with the continuity of 
 its history. In that history we do not find two or more clearly defined periods 
 
 such as we find elsewhere ; and that is the 
 
 reason we have followed up its development. 
 
 Primitive Methodism has taken kindly to 
 
 the soil and become hereditary in families, 
 
 so that its representatives to-day are the 
 
 descendants of those who stood by it in 
 
 the days gone by, only for the stock is 
 
 a vigorous and prolific one there are more 
 
 of them. Nor is the old sturdy spirit 
 
 dead. The fact that Mr. Thomas Charles 
 
 Smith the first " Passive Kesister " who is 
 
 a member at Ashlehay in the Wirksworth 
 Circuit,* and that a retired minister Rev. W. Sharman spending the evening of a well- 
 spent day at Weston-under-Wood, has undergone imprisonment in the same cause, show 
 that the air of freedom blows over these hills, and that the yeomen of Boylestone, 
 who began a free day-school as a counter-stroke to clerical intolerance, have their 
 living representatives. In leaving Belper, we give the portrait of its late worthy Circuit 
 Steward, who not unfittingly bears the name of Jackson ; and we do so the more readily 
 because he has interested himself in recovering the fast-perishing memorabilia of early 
 Derbyshire Primitive Methodism. 
 
 RAMSOE, LEEK, AND CHEADLB. 
 
 Still working round the circumference of Tunstall Circuit, we next come to that part 
 of North Staffordshire which embraces the country lying between the Dove and the 
 Tean, stretching from Leek and Warslow on the north, to Rocester on the south east, 
 and taking in the rugged elevations of Morridge and Weaver, and the pleasant valley of 
 the Churnet. This tract of country was 
 made a branch of Tun&tall Circuit in 
 1820, and two years after a circuit, having 
 Ram shorn or Ramsor, near Weaver, as its 
 head. We have already described the 
 very early missioning of this interesting 
 district, and little more need be added, 
 especially as the circuit did not greatly 
 extend its borders. Nor can we wonder 
 at this when we consider its wide area, 
 together with the semi-mountainous 
 character of much of its surface, and 
 its scattered population. Two internal administrative changes must be chronicled. 
 
 * It was on May 28th, 1903, Mr. Smith, accompanied by his minister, the Eev. J. Dann, appeared 
 in Belper Court to answer to the summons. 
 
 REV. W. SHARMAN. 
 
 MR. W. JACKSON. 
 
538 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 REV. EDWARD FOIZEY. 
 
 In 1838 Leek another composite circuit was partially made from it, and Cheadle 
 entirely so in 1872. Both these changes, though they tended to reduce its area and 
 facilitate its working, have still left it one of the widest circuits in the Connexion. 
 In or about the year 1831, during the superintendency of Edward Foizey, the last 
 two societies that had clung to James Crawfoot and held 
 aloof from Primitive Methodism, sought union with the Ramsor 
 Circuit. The societies were at Waterfall and Caldon, and their 
 co-lay-pastors were Thomas Mottram and Joseph Bratt. The 
 event, interesting in itself as the healing of a breach, is still 
 more so, because it gave to the Connexion Thomas Mottram, 
 no ordinary man. For one thing, he was the grandson of 
 Samuel and Elizabeth Evans, better known as Seth and Dinah 
 Bede, so that he was half-cousin to George Eliot. But Thomas 
 Mottram scarcely needs this adventitious distinction, though 
 it is worth noting. The memoir of him, written by his son, 
 makes one think what treasures of Christian biography are 
 buried in the old Magazines that might very profitably be brought forth. For 
 more than half-a-century Thomas Mottram taught in Sunday school, led his class, 
 climbed the rugged hills, and trudged the lanes of the extensive Ramsor Circuit 
 " no journey too long, no night too dismal, no weather too severe," to preach 
 to the village congregations. He maintained his Free Church principles, took 
 part in parochial business, and yet had the respect of those who differed from 
 him in politics and Church government. We have had, and unfortunately shall 
 have again, to present many Church clergymen in no very pleasing light ; but in 
 their treatment of Thomas Mottram they are seen at their best. In one case 
 he was called upon to visit a lady during a long and painful illness, who had three 
 clergymen among her immediate relatives. One of these was her son, who, on meeting 
 him there, would say : " Now, Mr. Mottram, just do your 
 duty, and pray with my dear mother as you would if 
 I were not here." At his largely-attended and impressive 
 funeral, Mr. Sargent, the vicar, prayed in the little chapel 
 at Waterhouses in a way to melt all hearts, gave out at 
 the grave side the hymn from the Primitive Methodist 
 Hymn Book, and preached his funeral sermon in the parish 
 church. Thomas Mottram died 1874, in the eightieth 
 year of his age. Others of the family remain in the old 
 homestead to dispense the accustomed hospitality, and to 
 carry on the father's work. 
 
 MACCLESFIELD, CONGLETON, AND SANDBACH. 
 Macclesfield, as also Congleton and Sandbach, are not 
 
 on the Tunstall Circuit plan ending April ]8th, 1818, but MR THOMA8 MOTTRAM . 
 
 they are found on that beginning May 2nd, 1819, so that 
 the date of their missioning may approximately be fixed somewhere between these two 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 539 
 
 points. Nor are we left entirely to inference ; for Hugh Bourne distinctly says that 
 Macclesfield was entered early in the year 1819, and that "Congleton was opened by 
 the exertions of our Macclesfield friends." When Primitive Methodist missionaries 
 crossed the hills and opened their commission in these two towns they were but paying 
 a long-standing debt ; for we do not forget the visits of the Stockport Revivalists to 
 Congleton which led to the Harriseahead revival, and how the earliest camp meetings 
 could scarcely have been held but for the help of men from Macclestield and Knutsford. 
 So these towns were to feel the warmth of the fire they had helped to kindle. 
 
 Hugh Bourne intimates that though a society was soon raised up in Macclesfield, " in 
 its infant state, it had to contend with many difficulties ; the burden of it was heavy ; 
 
 BEECH LANE CHAPEL, MACCLESFIELD. 
 
 and the circuit was obliged to make great exertions to keep it on its feet." As 
 confirming this general statement, S. Turner records a particular experience of his : how 
 he and T. Clowes went about Macclesfield to beg a little towards the debt incurred in 
 that place, and got three shillings and sixpence. But the collectors were unfortunate 
 in their selection of a day; it was August 18th, the day after a destructive Radical 
 Reform riot in Macclesfield, and eight days before Peterloo, so that, perhaps, a 
 things considered, they did not do amiss. For some time before this, the society had 
 the use of "a large room near the old church;" and though in December, Hugh E 
 speaks rather dubiously of the proposal to build a preaching-room, he notes 
 
540 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 evident satisfaction that "there is preaching every Sunday night at eight o'clock near 
 the new church and at Hurdsfield." But, difficulties or no difficulties, the converting 
 work rolled on in a remarkable manner, as is evident from the space given in the first 
 volume of the Magazine to the encouraging reports sent in by the preachers who 
 successively laboured in Macclesfield T. and Ann Brownsword, John Garner, Thomas 
 Webb, and others. There was at this time a large and flourishing Sunday School, and, 
 in order to provide Bibles, Hugh Bourne, in his usual thrifty managing way, bought 
 twelve Bibles in sheets for thirty-six shillings, and then had every sheet of the twenty- 
 seven each Bible contained, stitched in stiff paper covers, costing twelve shillings more ; 
 " so that they got three hundred and eighty-four books for forty -nine shillings, which 
 would have cost them twenty pounds had they got whole Bibles." Much activity too 
 was shown in the raising of classes, class-papers being put into the hands of those who 
 
 seemed to have in them the 
 making of leaders. By March 
 20th, 1820, Thomas Webb could 
 report that : " the work of the 
 Lord is in a prosperous way ; 
 there are one hundred and eighty- 
 one in society, eight leaders, and 
 six preachers." 
 
 Macclesfield was one of the new 
 circuits of the Tunstall District 
 made in 1821 ; but it remained 
 such only for twelve months. 
 As yet, it seems, it was not able 
 to walk alone, and it reverted 
 to Tunstall, and, though fourteen 
 long miles away, continued under 
 its governance until 1834. Then 
 we have " Macclesfield and Congle- 
 ton Union Circuit." In 1835 the 
 two were separated and, as part 
 of the Tunstall District, have 
 so remained. Surely something 
 must have occurred to cripple the young circuit's energies ; for, at the beginning 
 of its course, its missionary zeal carried it to Flagg and Chelmorton and Burbage 
 near Buxton ; to Stockport, H. B. tells us, to Congleton and, what was even more, 
 to Manchester ; and there we shall have to follow it as soon as we have skirted 
 the North Western segment of Tunstall Circuit and noted the advance made in 
 that direction. From information received, we learn that the first preaching-place 
 at Congleton ,was a turning-shop in Canal Street, afterwards perverted into the 
 "Horse and Jockey" public-house, and now a private dwelling. This room, which 
 has played so many parts, is doubtless referred to by James Bonsor in his Journal : 
 
 " November 5th, 1820. At nine renewed the tickets at Congleton to twenty-four 
 
 FIRST CHAPEL AT CONGLETON, BUILT 1822. 
 DESTROYED SEVERAL YEARS AGO. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 541 
 
 members. At eleven I preached in the open air. At two, Elizabeth Dakin preached, 
 and opened the room they have taken. It was a good time. It was full, and the 
 room above was nearly full. The Lord poured His Spirit down. Sinners were 
 awakened, and cried for mercy." 
 
 The Elizabeth Dakin of the above 
 extract, was of Ashmore House near the 
 Cloud. She was one of the early protegees 
 of Hugh Bourne, who notes in his Journal 
 the preaching of her first sermon April 
 30th, 1814. The initials of her name may 
 be picked out from those of the rest of 
 the anonymous sisterhood at the bottom 
 of the 1819 plan. But in 1835 her name 
 is first on the list of local preachers 
 on the plan of the Macclesfield and 
 Congleton Union Circuit. She con- 
 tinued for many years a successful 
 local preacher and, in 1837, was married 
 to Mr. George Harvey. On their removal 
 to Oak Farm, Broomhall, in 1845, they 
 were numbered among the influential 
 families of the Burland Circuit. 
 
 At Congleton we meet with several 
 leading personages of theTunstall Circuit 
 of the early days. Thomas Steele was 
 one of these. Born in 1801, he was, 
 like his father, already giving proofs of 
 strong individuality. He was a trustee 
 of the first Burslem Chapel [opened 
 December 24th, 1822, by David Delany] 
 and in the deed he is designated "preacher." About this time he removed to 
 Congleton, and had much to do with the strengthening of the cause there and the 
 building of its first chapel, for which also he was a trustee. The site for this chapel 
 was given by Mr. John Andrew, sen., a man 
 of considerable means, who died in 1826 
 and bequeathed one hundred pounds to our 
 mission funds probably the first testamentary 
 benefaction of the kind. His son, John 
 Andrew, jun., was, until 1827, one of the 
 select few who formed the Book Committee, 
 and the Tunstall General Committee. In 
 the 'Forties he was twice mayor of Congleton 
 and, probably before this, left our Church for 
 MRS. ANDREW. the Weslevans. As to Thomas Steele, he 
 
 FIRST CHAPEL IN BURSLEM, 
 As it was, now a public-house. 
 
 MR. J. ANDRKW. 
 
542 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 married for his second wife the sister of John Andrew, the younger, a gifted preacheress 
 whose name stood on the same plan. He was a man of line physique and of much 
 alertness and determination, as his portrait would suggest.* He is described as having 
 been a powerful singing-preacher and a noted pioneer worker of the early days. 
 From 1843 to 1847 he was postmaster of Congleton ; but he seems to have had 
 a passion for evangelistic labour, and, in 1857, he became a colporteur in Buenos Ayres. 
 His diary of quite exceptional calligraphy is without the taint of commercialism, 
 though it is the diary of a man whose daily business it was to sell Bibles. As 
 a colporteur he did sell more than thirteen hundred copies of the Scriptures in Spanish, 
 French and Italian, but it is evident he was more anxious to save souls than to sell 
 Bibles, or rather he pushed the sale of his Bibles that men might "buy the truth." 
 We get the same impression of him from the record of his unpaid evangelistic labours 
 in Canada and the Channel Isles. Whenever and wherever the way was open he 
 endeavoured to rouse the Churches and to promote revivals of religion. Some looked 
 on him askance and thought him " queer," but yet more appreciated and were profited 
 by his labours. This was shown when, on leaving for England in 1864, the ministers 
 assembled at the Ottawa District Meeting (Wesleyan) thanked him by resolution for 
 his disinterested labours. He felt himself driven by Divine impulsion to engage in 
 these over-sea labours just as did Lorenzo Dow of whom he somehow reminds us. 
 Thomas Steele was a man of more than ordinary education and with special evangelistic 
 gifts, of whose activity to promote the interests of our Church in the early years 
 we get glimpses in the Magazines and in unpublished diaries and letters ; and this 
 is the reason he is referred to here. True ; like his brother-in-law and others 
 about this time, he left our Church; precisely when and why we know not. We 
 suspect that Avith all his father's ability and with more than his father's push, he 
 had also inherited a certain masterfulness and impatience of rules and restraints 
 not self-imposed, and possibly there may have been commercial troubles. Ultimately, 
 he left the Wesleyans, on the allegement that they had departed from primitive 
 simplicity. His final relations with our Church were cordial and sympathetic ; he 
 died March 24th, 1885. 
 
 Later workers, true and faithful to the end, were Samuel Oakes, of Mow Cop, 
 Mrs. Brassington, afterwards Mrs. Graham, and James Broad, who preached the last 
 sermon Hugh Bourne was privileged to listen to, carried his dying message to the 
 Conference, and preached his funeral sermon at Congleton. Of these the Kev. Charles 
 Smallman, who knew them well, has said : 
 
 " As it regards Samuel Oakes, I never expect to look upon his like again. . . . 
 He was, without exception, the best all-round man I ever met with. He was very 
 pious ; by no means boastful or talkative, but there was very little he could not 
 do. . . . James Broad was a remarkable worker. He walked thousands of 
 miles to preach in the Congleton and other circuits. He was in this way the most 
 remarkable man I ever knew. Jane Brassington was very pious and very useful 
 as a local preacher. She had the honour of witnessing the first conversion that 
 took place at Mow on the occasion of the great revival." 
 
 * See his portrait and that of his wife, ante p. 156. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 543 
 
 The great revival referred to in the preceding extract, began soon after Mr. Smallman 
 entered upon his station at Congleton in 1856. The Mow Cop Society had ineffectually 
 agitated to be re-attached to Tun stall Circuit, and were sore in consequence of the 
 failure of their efforts. " We want to have sinners converted, and we can get none 
 converted as we are," was the reason assigned 
 by Samuel Oakes for the prevailigg dissatis- 
 faction. But a revival came, in which the 
 Rev. James Shenton and other members of 
 his family were converted. Xot only were 
 those who were just outside swept into the 
 Church, but also those apparently afar off 
 poachers, whom neither gamekeepers nor 
 magistrates could tame, and even one who had 
 just been let out of Knutsford Prison, where 
 MR. SAMUEL OAKES. ^6 had been confined for killing his antagonist 
 in a prize-fight. We refer to this revival because it took place just on the eve of the 
 great Jubilee Camp Meeting on Mow Cop, and showed that the old evangel could 
 repeat on the old ground the triumphs of fifty years before. 
 
 Mrs. Brassington became the wife of Rev. John Graham, and survived until 1887. 
 " Jane Graham," says the local annalist, " was a bright, happy Christian, full of hope 
 and joy. She was known as a peace-maker and comforter, and sick-visitor through the 
 town of Congleton." Her husband was the superintendent of the Tunstall Circuit in 
 1840. One who knew him well at that timo says : 
 
 " John Graham was an earnest and successful soul- winner. This was his aim and 
 joy in preaching and in family visiting. As a preacher he might not satisfy the 
 critical, but he had fruit. J. Hallam heard him preach one Sunday at an adjoining 
 place, when he became somewhat embarrassed in his sermon, but extricated himself 
 by breaking forth : ' Glory be to God ; we had a number of souls saved when I was 
 preaching the other Sunday.' " t 
 
 Sandbach, in Cheshire, was missioned a little 
 earlier than Macclesfield and Congleton. On 
 and between August 9th and September 18th, 
 18 18, Thomas Jackson held half a dozen services 
 at the Town Cross, amid much excitement and 
 opposition, which largely showed itself in the 
 throwing of apples, potatoes, and stones at the 
 preacher and his congregation. The last date 
 mentioned was Sandbach Fair, and on that 
 day he and his friends sang from the Cross to 
 Scotch Common, where there was to be a bull- REV. JOHN GRAHAM. 
 baiting. The bull was driven in the direction of the preacher with the view of 
 
 * Those who are on the look-out for glimpses of the supernatural in our Connexional History may 
 be interested to know that Mrs. Graham is credited with having had a remarkable dream, by which 
 she was assured of the death of Hugh Bourne before any one in Congleton knew of the event. 
 
 t The late Rev. T. Baron, in the Aldersgate, for 1900, p. 754. 
 
 MRS. JANE GRAHAM. 
 
544 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 dispersing his congregation but, when some two or three hundred yards off, the bull 
 would persist on kneeling down as if to do obeisance, and the would-be disturbers were 
 glad to get it away. On the evening of this day a society of seven or eight members 
 was formed in a cottage. After this, Hugh Bourne paid occasional visits to Sandbach 
 and other places in the neighbourhood, and on November 22nd he records " there are 
 twenty in Society." Sandbach appears on the stations as an independent circuit in 
 1840, and Thomas Jackson lived to take part in the Jubilee Services held at Sandbach 
 in August, 1868, to commemorate the introduction of Primitive Methodism into 
 that town. 
 
 PRESTON BROOK. 
 
 We have now to glance at the missioning of that part of Cheshire, lying contiguous 
 to the original Burland Circuit which, in 1820, took the name of Preston Brook Branch, 
 and three years after became an independent station. This tract of country forms the 
 last section the last felloe of the big wheel of Tunstall Circuit as it was before its 
 partition. It must not be forgotten, however, that some parts of this district had 
 
 frequently been visited by 
 Hugh Bourne and his fellow- 
 labourers amongst the Camp 
 Meeting Methodists. Within 
 this district are Warrington, 
 the home of Peter Phillips, 
 the welcomer, and sometime 
 host of Lorenzo Dow, and early 
 associate of Hugh Bourne ; at 
 Warrington, too, is Old Friars 
 Green Chapel, erected 1802, 
 for preaching in which James 
 Crawfoot brought himself 
 under censure. Historic Dela- 
 mere Forest is also in this 
 district, and Bud worth and 
 Barnton, places that were frequently visited by Hugh Bourne during his early itineraries. 
 Brynn Chapel, too, with its original inscription : " Primitive Methodist Chapel. Built 
 1819. Prepare to meet thy God," still preserved in the reconstructed building, is 
 included within the present Northwich Circuit. Brynn Chapel is situate about a mile 
 from the former residence, long since demolished, of the " old man of the Forest." 
 A year ago it was re-floored and re-pewed, and now, over and above the historic interest 
 attaching to the building, it is one of the neatest and most comfortable country chapels 
 in the Connexion. 
 
 But it was not as Primitive Methodists that Bourne and his coadjutors had first 
 visited these parts. It was not until 1818-19 that a combined, determined effort was 
 made to win North-West Cheshire for the new denomination founded in 1811. The 
 honour of having been the leading pioneer in this aggressive movement belongs to 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 545 
 
 Thomas Jackson, though there were very soon in the field other of the Tunstall Circuit 
 preachers. In July, 1869, he took the leading part in a series of Juhilee Services in 
 celebration of his having, by his missionary labours, laid the foundations of the Preston 
 Brook Circuit. Two particulars may be noted in connection with this jubilee : W. M. 
 Salt and T. Spooner, who were amongst the first-fruits of the mission, took a prominent 
 part in the celebration ; and the jubilee itself was kept at Runcorn, which, though 
 missioned by T. Jackson in 1819, was afterwards abandoned. It was remissioned in 
 1823, but again adverse circumstances led to its abandonment in 1828. Once more it 
 was remissioned by Mr. R Turner, who volunteered to do the work without extra cost 
 to the circuit. He succeeded, as he deserved to do, and in 1838 the first chapel 
 was erected. 
 
 Writing of the Preston Brook Branch in the first volume of the Magazine, Hugh 
 Bourne says : 
 
 " This branch was opened chiefly in 1819 : and, it takes in Delamere Forest, 
 
 OLO FKIAHS GREEN CHAPEL, VVAKRINGTON.* 
 
 Weaverham, Northwich, Great Budworth, Bartington, Crowton, Kingsley, Norley, 
 Frodsham, and other places, all in Cheshire. Thomas Jackson and John Hallsworth 
 held several camp meetings with great effect ; particularly one at Bartington on 
 Sunday, June 6th." 
 
 Now, Sampson Turner was present at this camp meeting, as also at one on the 
 Sunday preceding, in the same neighbourhood, and he has described both in his 
 unpublished Journals. The first entry is specially interesting, as affording clear proof 
 
 * The valuable views of Peter Phillips' house, and Friars Green Chapel, have only recently been 
 secured, and we have been allowed to reproduce them by the courtesy of Mr. A. Mounfield, the 
 
 editor of the " Independent Methodist." 
 
 N N 
 
546 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUBCH. 
 
 that Mrs. M. Richardson, of Warrington, the West Indian proprietress who freed 
 her slaves, was still associated with our founders in aggressive work. It 
 shows that W. Clowes' words : " Mrs. Richardson became a speaker amongst us," were 
 quite true as late as 1819, at least. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that the 
 initials " M. R.," at the bottom of the plan for that year, are hers, and that she was 
 a recognised auxiliary preacher, taking regular appointments in the Tunstall Circuit. 
 The Ann Egerton referred to by S. Turner in his Journal, was another prominent 
 female preacher in the early times. Her initials will also be found on the plan 
 amongst the rest. 
 
 "Sunday, May 30th, 1819.- I was appointed for a camp meeting at Dunkirk 
 Works, in the vicinity of Northwich, with Brother T. Jackson from Belper, Sister 
 M. Richardson from Warrington, and Sister A. Egerton from Wood Green. The 
 meeting was numerously attended by all ranks, it being a novelty in that 
 neighbourhood to hold such a religious meeting out of doors. I judged there 
 to be two thousand present at least. Believers were much in the spirit of 
 their duty, and life and zeal animated the meeting most of the day. I believe 
 much good was done. To God be all the glory. Another camp meeting was given 
 out at the above, to be held next Sabbath Day on Bartington Heath. Spoke nine 
 times this week. May the Word be sent home to every heart. 
 
 "June 6th. I was planned at Weston and Englesea Brook, but by some means 
 it was supplied another way, as I had to speak in the street at Halford, near 
 Northwich, and then attend the camp meeting that had been given out as above. 
 Great numbers attended from all parts, and it was very manifest that much good 
 was done. Much was said about us, and of our eccentric proceedings ; but they 
 were compelled, in a sense, to acknowledge that we were men of God, for God was 
 with us. I spoke at Northwich at night in the street. The Lord was present." 
 
 To these graphic details of a week's labours, may be added a summary of results 
 condensed from Thomas Brownsword's Journal, inserted in the first volume of the 
 Magazine. 
 
 " In December, 1819, there were forty-five members in society at Delamere 
 Forest, twenty-two at Weaverham, seventeen at Frodsham, and forty-one at 
 Preston. In the February following, there were thirty at Crowton, and thirty 
 at Kingsley. Messrs. Jackson and Hallsworth, and Turner and John Garner, and 
 T. and A. Brownsword, appear to have been rendered very useful in this district, 
 and to have been the means of turning hundreds of souls from darkness to light, 
 and from the power of Satan unto God." 
 
 Other events as yet remote, but directly traceable to these pioneer labours, were the 
 making of Warrington Circuit out of Preston Brook in 1837, and of Northwich in 
 1855. Beyond this date we need not further follow the process of circuit subdivision. 
 Nor must it be forgotten that Preston Brook was for a time, as will be shown hereafter, 
 a kind of foster-mother to Liverpool, and that it closely followed Shrewsbury in sending 
 April 20th, 1832 a missionary to Ireland. F. N. Jersey, the agent selected, had 
 intended to concentrate his efforts on Dublin, but finding on his arrival that the city 
 was in a state of political ferment, he deemed it prudent to choose another field. He 
 fixed upon Newry, in the north of Ireland, as his centre, and soon met with a measure 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 547 
 
 of success. In 1839, the Lurgan Mission, as it was then called, embraced a considerable 
 district in the counties of Down and Armagh, some twenty-six Irish miles in length 
 and fourteen in breadth, and including within its radius four towns and some twenty 
 villages. In 1842, at the end of the circuit-mission period, the Donoughmore and 
 Lurgan Mission, as it was now called, was still under the care of Preston Brook, and 
 had for its ministers J. Judson and Jesse Ashworth. 
 
 NN 2 
 
r>48 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 CHESTER CIRCUIT. 
 
 ||E have in this chapter to try to show how, from Burland as a centre, Primitive 
 Methodism reached Chester and the surrounding district, there securely 
 planting and ramifying itself. From Chester a beginning was even made 
 in populous Liverpool ; and it also extended itself into Shropshire, forming 
 the " Shropshire Mission," out of which grew Prees Green Circuit, with its numerous 
 offshoots. 
 
 CHESTER. 
 
 To trace the beginnings of Primitive Methodism in the city of Chester, it is necessary 
 to go back to the time when Burland was still a branch of Tunstall. At first, the 
 branch was more successful in extending itself in the north-western parts of Cheshire 
 
 than it was in Shropshire, and this 
 from various causes. For one thing, John 
 Wedgwood had gone in that direction, 
 and the regular preachers of Tunstall 
 Circuit soon followed in his track. 
 Then, as yet, the preachers were too few 
 to admit of the vigorous prosecution of 
 the mission in more distant Shropshire. 
 Yet another and a very sufficient reason 
 of the earlier success realised in Cheshire, 
 lay in the number of respectable families 
 who early identified themselves with the 
 cause, and became its stay and support. 
 Messrs. Taylor and Bateman have already 
 been referred to, and the latter plainly 
 states of the former and his family, that, 
 i without them and their influence, it is 
 not easy to see how there ever could 
 have been a Burland Circuit at all. 
 There might have been a circuit in these 
 parts, but that it should get the name 
 of Burland, was simply owing to the 
 fact that the Taylor family lived there, 
 and made any other name out of the 
 question. But besides these families, there were others of influence, such as Mr. Dean, 
 of Walk Mills, and Warburton, of Burton Hall, *who opened their houses for 
 
 CHESTER TOWN HALT, AND MARKET-PLACE. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 549 
 
 preaching, and extended hospitality to the preachers. And, farther north, there was 
 Mr. Ephraim Sadler, of Huxley, and his brother William, of Tiverton. The former, 
 who was born at Burland in 1773, was for some years a Wesleyan. In June, 1819, 
 Sampson Turner, while on his long circuit-round, came into John Wedgwood's mission 
 for some three weeks. Supported by a volunteer helper named Job Gibson, he took 
 his stand near to Mr. Sadler's farmstead. He was courteously invited to preach in the 
 farm-yard, and did so, standing on a stout stool planted under the shade of a clump of 
 elms, and exhorting the people from, " Enter ye in at the strait gate." * Young John 
 Sadler was convinced at this service, and when a class was formed by Thomas 
 Brownsword he, together with his father, mother, and other members of the family, 
 joined the society. S. Turner was at Huxley again on September 22nd, and notes 
 in his Journal that " many desired that Huxley should be put on the Preachers' Plan 
 in order that they might have regular supplies, as there are many hearers, and a prospect 
 of much good being done." The farm-house became the home of the preachers and the 
 sanctuary of the society, of which Mr. E. Sadler became the first leader. The next step 
 in advance was taken when in March, 1822, Huxley was made a branch of Burland 
 Circuit. The branch comprised twenty-five places, including Tarporley, Tiverton, 
 
 Wrexham, and Chester ; it had 
 three travelling-preachers T. Sugden, 
 W. Sanders, and Ann Stanna, and 
 twenty local preachers, with ten auxil- 
 iaries belonging to Burland Circuit. 
 
 Chester had been attacked as early 
 as December, 1820, but it would not 
 surrender. A second attempt, however, 
 Avhich proved more successful, was 
 made in the spring of 1821. Thomas 
 Brownsword, having hovered round it 
 for some time, just as Benton did round 
 Leicester, preaching in the neighbouring 
 villages, made a descent on Chester in the 
 manner and with the results described 
 in the following historic record : 
 
 "Sunday, March 18th. I went 
 to Chester, and at eight o'clock 
 preached on the Cross to about 
 five hundred people. Many seemed 
 much affected. We then went 
 into Watergate Street, and held 
 a prayer-meeting in a yard. Here 
 I gave an exhortation ; it was 
 a good time. I then went to 
 
 ST. PETER'S CHURCH CROSS, CHESTER. 
 
 * On September 17th, S. Turner spoke from a table at Hampton Heath in Mr. Davis' croft, and 
 remarks : " A table or a stool has been my pulpit, and the open air my chapel, most of this summer. 
 
. r >f)() PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH 
 
 Hanbridge, and preached at ten to a large concourse of people. I believe good 
 was done. I then visited some sick, and while praying, two women were much 
 affected, and began to cry for mercy. I intended to preach in Boughton. 
 A large company assembled, but the weather was so unfavourable that we wen- 
 obliged to divide into companies and go into three houses, and hold prayer- 
 meetings. I then gave an exhortation. 1 believe much good was done ; many 
 were in distress, and some obtained pardon. When we had done in Chester 
 I went to Tarvin, and preached to a many people." 
 
 By this full good day's work Primitive Methodism got foothold in Chester, and it is 
 worth noting that both Nantwich and Chester came on the Burland Plan beginning 
 
 CASTLE GATES, CHESTER. 
 
 April 29th, 1821, together ; as the latest additions their names standing at the bottom. 
 Chester's reception of Primitive Methodism was anything but cordial indeed it was 
 rough. The rowdy element invaded the preaching-room in King Street, shouted 
 " Amen," hooted, howled, and sometimes ran up against the worshippers as they left 
 or went to the services, in a way hardly distinguishable from " assault and battery." 
 To make matters worse, the disturbers were emboldened in playing their godless pranks 
 by the chilling response of the magistrates to their appeal for protection : " ISfo ; it 
 serves you right. Why don't you stop at home, and not come here disturbing the 
 peace of the city." Matters reached their worst, and began to mend- when John Ride 
 visited the city. We have already accounted for his presence in this region, and 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 551 
 
 
 
 
 observed that he opened Wrexham in March, 1821. On April 21st, soon after 
 Brownsword's visit to Chester, Kide was present in the room, into which some unruly 
 spirits, bent on mischief, had thrust themselves. They mocked, with their " Make way 
 for the parson ! " When the devout sang a hymn they started a song. While the 
 preacher prayed they shouted. But the preacher, who at times was very mighty in 
 prayer, rose into faith and prayed, until he prayed some of the ringleaders to their 
 knees and others out of the building. After this outburst the sky cleared, and the 
 atmosphere became less thunderous and electric. Thomas Bateman noted the pleasing 
 change that had taken place, when next he fulfilled his appointments in the city in 
 October. He was agreeably surprised to find the congregation large and pretty well- 
 behaved, and that even the rabble 
 in the streets did not insult him 
 in any way as they had done others. 
 " Surely," he adds, " the bitter 
 persecution will now drop." Two 
 months later (December 8th) he 
 found the outlook still brighter. 
 He rose "a great while before it was 
 yet day," ate a little dry biscuit, 
 and walked to the city a distance 
 of some eighteen or twenty miles, 
 and at the close of a day of toil, 
 he records : " The work prospers 
 much in this ancient city now. 
 Thank God ! After a storm there 
 comes a calm." 
 
 Between these two visits 
 *& (October 27) Huxley Branch had 
 become Chester Branch. Mr. 
 Ephraim Sadler had now removed 
 to Saughall near the city, and other 
 persons of respectability and influ- 
 ence had become connected with 
 the society. Hence the change. 
 But when Burland, two months after, was made a circuit, there still remained the some- 
 what delicate question : What particular circuit is Chester now a Branch of Tunstall 
 or Burland ? This was a moot point, especially at Chester. " What ! have we, the 
 Palatine city, just got released from Huxley to be tied to Burland?" We can hear the 
 fireside debates of those dark December days. The question came before the Tunstall 
 Quarterly Meeting for settlement, and the fathers very wisely left Chester to choose its 
 own head. On January 5th, Thomas Bateman walked to Chester to meet the Branch 
 Committee which met in Bold Place, at the house of Captain Howie, who was master- 
 gunner at Chester Castle, "and quite a leader among our people." This gentleman 
 proposed a resolution to the effect that : " As they received more favours from Burland 
 
 
 
 
 LICKNCK KOK PREACHING-HOUSE, BOCGHTOX, CHESTER. 
 
552 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUKCH. 
 
 than from Tunstall, they would belong to Buiiand." This resolution was seconded by 
 Mr. E. Sadler, " who seemed to have much influence," and carried nem. con. 
 
 Though the King Street room had been the scene of unseemly disturbances and 
 opposition, it had also been the scene of many manifestations of divine grace. Among 
 the converts won in this room were .Edward Davies, the first Sunday School Super- 
 intendent, and some whose descendants are numbered with the Church of to-day. 
 Besides the room in King Street, the house of Thomas Ellis, in Steven Street, Boughton, 
 was, in 1821, licensed and used as a place of worship. This house-sanctuary was the 
 precursor of the first chapel in Steam-Mill Street. Thomas Bateman was present at the 
 opening of this chapel on May 2nd, 1824, and speaks of it as "a plain building and 
 nothing wasted in useless ornament, though it was a great effort for the society to raise 
 
 FOLLY FIELD, WHERE CAMP MEETINGS WERE HELD, CHESTER. 
 
 it. I went over several times," he adds, " to assist my friend Mr. M'Millan hi collecting 
 money and in other ways." 
 
 A month after this (June 1824), Chester was made a circuit with three travelling 
 preachers and thirty-eight places, with a good prospect of success, which its history has 
 not belied. 
 
 The Chapel in Steam-Mill Street which owed much to the liberality of Mr. E. Sadler* 
 
 * We are informed that the knd for the Chapel was given by Mr. Sadler. He died January 5th, 
 1853. See a short memoir of him, in the Magazine for 1854, p. 330. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 5 Go 
 
 served the purposes of the Chester Society for a goodly number of years. The 
 Church had its vicissitudes like other churches. Though we have no evidence that it 
 was weakened by dissension or rent by secession, it had its seasons of depression and 
 decline, and it was while it was passing through such an experience that the thought 
 and purpose of building another chapel came as a sudden inspiration. Open-air mission 
 services in various parts still continued to be held in the city and its suburbs the 
 Castle Gates, Boughton, Machine Bank, and a new suburb called Newtown. After an 
 unusually successful mission at the latter place, several of the workers retired to the 
 house of Mr. James Adams, and, after conference, resolved at once to form a committee 
 to look out for a suitable site in that district for a new erection. The result a result 
 achieved only after much prayer and self-denial was the erection in 1863 of the first 
 
 MACHINK BANK, BOUGHTON, CHESTER. 
 
 George Street Chapel, now the Temperance Hall. Among those who constituted 
 the first committee may be mentioned the names of Hulse, Fletcher, Yernon, Moore, 
 and Adams. The ambition of the projectors of George Street Chapel did not look 
 beyond this building. At the time it was looked upon as the ne plus ultra of Primitive 
 Methodism in Chester. It was thought it would meet all requirements for a long time 
 to come, if not for ever. But twelve months had scarcely passed before it was found to 
 be almost ludicrously inadequate to its purpose. The teachers and scholars of 
 school were' themselves quite sufficient to fill it, without any other congregation, s( 
 services had to be held in the chapel and the school at the same time. 
 
554 
 
 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 If any one with the mind's eye had seen " finality " written on the front of the 
 first George Street Chapel, the time came when they saw it no longer. A growing 
 
 FIRST PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL, CHESTER. 
 
 church, like a crustacean, is sure in time to outgrow its accommodation, and to have 
 to look out for a bigger shell. So it was with the George Street Church. The time 
 came when its old habitat no longer sufficed, but was felt to be cramping and inadequate. 
 Once more the church had to put forth a strenuous effort to provide roomier quarters. 
 
 TEMPERANCE HALL, FORMERLY GEORGE STREET CHAPEL, CHESTER. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 555 
 
556 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH. 
 
 affording greater facilities for many-sided church work. The result was the erection, 
 at an outlay of some 7,500, of the present goodly pile of buildings, which already are 
 felt to be none too large and only provisional. The story of Chester's enterprise in 
 chapel-building cannot be further told in detail, but it may be summed up in the 
 statement that we have now three chapels in the city, and one in the suburb of Hoole, 
 in course of erection, the aggregate cost of these erections being little short of ,16,000. 
 
 Eegarded Primitive Methodistically, Chester reminds us of Grimsby. True, the 
 latter was missioned a year earlier than Chester, has more chapels and a larger member- 
 ship, but in both there has been commendable activity shown in the erection of places 
 of worship, and in both our Church has a recognised prestige, and wields considerable 
 local influence. In Chester our adherents are found on the City and Hoole District 
 Council, the Board of Guardians, and associated with every local organisation of 
 a philanthropic kind. The reason is not far to seek. In Chester, even more markedly 
 than in Grimsby, Primitive Methodism has become hereditary in families. In some 
 towns we look and look in vain for the direct descendants of those who were leading 
 officials fifty years ago. The old families have no living representatives in active 
 communion with the Church. But in Chester many of the old names are still to be 
 found on the church-roll, and the new blood is nothing but the old blood enriched, as it 
 should be, by inheritance and the benison of heaven. Take in proof of this the 
 following facts : On the trust deed of George Street are to be found thirteen names 
 of those who are the children of former trustees and officials. Amongst the officers and 
 teachers of the school there are children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of 
 former superintendents, and there is one scholar who is at once the grandchild of the 
 present superintendent and the fifth in descent from a former superintendent. At the 
 seventy-fifth anniversary of the school a portrait-group was taken, in which were 
 included thirteen who figured in the group taken twenty -five years before. It is 
 this hereditary attachment this continuity of service, which gives cohesion and 
 strength to a Church. 
 
 Two Conferences have been held in Chester those of 1866 and 1894. The former 
 held its sittings in the Music Hall, and it is noteworthy that of the eighty-four 
 representatives present that year, only one a layman was found amongst the one 
 hundred and ninety-four who assembled at the Conference, held twenty-eight years 
 after, in George Street Chapel. So true it is, that while the Conference as to its form 
 and functions may be permanent, its p&rsonnel may in less than a generation be almost 
 entirely changed. It is like a river or waterfall in its permanence ; like a river, too, 
 in the flux of the particles which compose it. And yet, singular to say, there were 
 still living in 1894, though in age and feebleness extreme, two men who were not only 
 coeval with the beginnings of Primitive Methodism in the city and county of Chester, 
 but active participants in those beginnings. One of them had been among the earliest 
 missioners of Chester, while the other had been one of its very first travelling-preachers. 
 John Smith (1), the superintendent of Chester Circuit on its formation in 1825, had 
 been in his grave forty years in 1894, but Joseph Preston, who spent the first six 
 months of his ministry in Chester, still survived, though in his ninety-second year, 
 while Thomas Bateman was two years older. Joseph Preston tells us that he had 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 557 
 
 KEV. JOSEPH PRESTON. 
 
 not been at Chester more than six weeks before Burland Circuit wished to have him in 
 exchange for another preacher. John Smith, with the letter of application in his hand, 
 said to his young colleague : " Let us go and pray about it." 
 They went upstairs and fell on their knees. John Smith began : 
 " O Lord, Thou seest they have sent for Joseph to go to Burland. 
 Don't let him go. Don't let the devil part us : " and they were 
 not parted. Thomas Bateman spoke at the chief public meeting 
 of the Chester Conference of 1866, and according to the local 
 report of the day, " related the difficulties which Primitive 
 Methodism had to contend with when their system of religious 
 worship was first introduced into Cheshire nearly fifty years before." 
 There are many scenes in our history which would form 
 fitting subjects for the artist's pencil. One such would be the 
 picture of the two veterans already named, sitting musing in their chairs, r ; r what 
 time the seventy-fifth Conference Public Meeting is being held in Chester. In their 
 clairvoyant vision they see the great congregation, and witness its enthusiasm. The 
 
 thought of that Conference, and 
 where it is being held, carries the 
 memory back to the toils, struggles, 
 and successes of the far-back pioneer 
 days. Vanished forms reappear ; 
 scenes of which they were part are 
 re-enacted. Then the mind reverts 
 to the present, swiftly crossing the 
 gulf of seventy years, and reverie 
 passes into the anticipation of the 
 Master's " Well done ! " and the 
 last quiet resting-place. In 1894 
 those two silent figures were the 
 sole remaining links with the 
 earliest days of Cheshire and 
 Shropshire Primitive Methodism 
 links soon to be sundered. Both 
 were born and died within the area 
 of the old Burland Circuit, which 
 they lived to see embracing some 
 fifteen circuits. Both had a long 
 working day ; their sun took a wide 
 circuit, but at last it sank to the 
 horizon amid its own lengthening 
 shadows : 
 
 THE BATEMAN MEMORIAL. 
 
 Be the day weary, or be the day long, 
 At length it ringeth out to evensong." 
 
,558 
 
 PKIMITIVE METHODIST QHURCH. 
 
 FROM SEA TO SEA. 
 
 We have now reached a point when, for a moment, details may be lost sight of, and 
 a wider survey taken of what has already been accomplished. 
 
 In a lecture on Mow Cop, once delivered by James Broad in Mow Cop Chapel, he 
 referred to the famous Corda 
 Well, situate not far from 
 where he stood, that never 
 ran dry even in the severest 
 drought of summer. He 
 stated how the desire took 
 him to ascertain where the 
 overflow of this well made 
 its way. The stream, he 
 found, soon divided, each 
 
 FIRST PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL, 
 BOSTON. 
 
 part taking its own course, turning 
 mills and making itself generally 
 useful as it flowed. One streamlet 
 made its way by Smallwood, to 
 Sandbach, Wheelock, and Middle- 
 wich. But the two came together 
 again at North wich, and with 
 other streams " flowed into the 
 great canal to carry the great boats 
 and flats to Winsford and other 
 places, and then they flow on to 
 
 Kuncorn and help the packets to Liverpool, arid there helped to swell the great 
 -ocean whereon merchandise was conveyed to almost every nation under heaven. 
 
 " For the little rill keeps running still, 
 Which first began on Mow Hill." 
 
 All this is a parable ; for the significance of the formation of Preston Brook and 
 Chester Circuits consists in its showing that Primitive Methodism, which had 
 its origin hard by Corda Well, has now reached the Mersey and the Dee as 
 it has reached the Humber and the Wash. For, by this time, the missionaries 
 -of Nottingham have reached South-East Lincolnshire, as the Journals of Francis 
 
 SECOND PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL, BOSTON. 
 
THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 
 
 559 
 
 Birch testify, and have visited Boston, Sutton, Holbeach, Spalding, and Don- 
 nington. In 1821 Boston became a circuit, and Spalding was made a branch of 
 Nottingham ; but Boston retained its independence for only one year, and did 
 not permanently regain it until 1826. Much activity was shown in the buildin" of 
 chapels in this district during the following years, twenty-one chapels being reported to 
 the Nottingham District Meeting of 1848 by the two circuits of Boston and Donnington. 
 The mission into this corner of Lincolnshire led the way into Norfolk, as is shown by 
 the following statement of John Oscroft : 
 
 " When I commenced travelling [in May, 1821,] Boston was then a branch of 
 Nottingham Circuit. In a fortnight after beginning to travel, I was sent to labour 
 in that branch. About six weeks afterwards Boston was made a circuit, and 
 Spalding Branch became a branch of Nottingham Circuit. I was appointed to 
 labour in this branch with five other preachers, though at this time there was not 
 sufficient work for two. We therefore opened a mission in the county of Norfolk, 
 where the work of the Lord spread rapidly, and hundreds were soon converted 
 to God." 
 
 FIRST WRITTEN PLAN AFTER THE AMALGAMATION OF THE SOCIETIES, JUNE, 1811. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I. 
 
 FLETCHER AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, NORWICH. 
 
000 544 189