North Shields Chapel Case

In 1784, with the expiry of the lease on the Methodist chapel, a dispute arose between two rival parties, each of which bought a site for a new chapel, one in Millbourne Place and the other lower down the town. The itinerants in Newcastle and Sunderland circuits took opposite sides in the dispute. Neither Wesley's intervention nor a visit by Thomas Coke resolved the issue; and the reluctance of the Millbourne Place trustees to settle their chapel on the Model Deed antagonised Wesley himself. The trustees had contact with John Atlay, who had played a prominent part in the dispute at Dewsbury, and their chapel was put in charge of one of his associates, William Eels.

Sources
  • John Blackwell, Life of the Rev. Alexander Kilham (1838) pp.303-4
  • Charles A. Federer, 'Wesley and the North Shields Chapel Case', in WHS Proceedings, 4 pp.223-30

See also

Category: Subject
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