Bromley, James
1785-1860; e.m. 1811

WM minister who was a friend and supporter of Samuel Warren. He opposed the suspension of J.R. Stephens in 1834, and was censured for supporting the Warrenites the following year. At the time of the Fly Sheet controversy he again supported the Reformers, being one of the few who voted against the expulsion of James Everett, Samuel Dunn and William Griffith. He was himself expelled the following year. He wrote a number of polemical tracts at the time of the Fly Sheets, but did not ally himself with the Reformers after 1849.

Quotations

'Two agreeable features in his conversational character, and especially when polemically exercised, must be perceptible to all; the one is the profound respect which he pays to the speaker, and the other is the good temper he displays in a contest. Numbers of persons will, through the impetuosity of their feelings, and the natural warmth of their temper, be incessantly dogging a speaker on the adverse side of a question with various impertinent remarks; but this, either from prudence, policy, good-breeding, or from possessing a cooler temperament, he invariable avoids…'

Wesleyan Takings (1840) p. 107


'His personal appearance was highly prepossessing. He had a fine figure, carefully attired in clerical costume. And his face was even finer than his figure. Its expression was highly intellectual, and seemed to bear the stamp of culture, although fused with a rich English bloom. He was indeed a very presentable personage. His easy and becoming elocution, however, was sadly marred by a nasal twang which seemed to be acquired if not affected; yet it was wonderfully suited to his most characteristic deliverances in the pulpit, on the platform, and in conversation and discussion, but not to his reading of the Scriptures, which despite this irritating drawback, was most effective: he brought out the rhythm of our English version charmingly.'

Benjamin Gregory, Autobiographical Recollections (1903) pp.259-60

Sources
  • B. Gregory, Sidelights on the Conflicts of Methodism (1898)