The two sons of the Rev. Samuel Russell Woodall (1859-1920; e.m. 1878), Primitive Methodist minister, both had a medical career.

Ambrose Edgar Woodall (1885-1974), born in Eccles and educated at Manchester Central High School and Manchester University, was from 1921 to 1958 the resident surgeon at Manor House Hospital, Golders Green. This independent hospital, run as a non-profit making organisation, was never part of the National Health Service and had much trade union support. He was also from 1922 to 1958 the medical advisor to the National Union of Railwaymen. Knighted in 1931, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Uvedale of North End in 1946. He died on 28 February 1974 without issue.

Samuel James Woodall (1883-1965) graduated in English Language and Literature at Manchester and qualified as a teacher in 1907. Accepting the post of English lecturer at Strasbourg, in 1914 he was one of the last English people to leave on the outbreak of war, and narrowly avoided being interned. As an asthmatic, he was not considered suitable for war service and so joined his brother at Manor House Hospital in 1924, having qualified as a surgeon in 1921, first in Manchester and then at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He retired in1958.

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Primitive Methodist and trade unionist, born June 1868 at Mickley Square, Northumberland, and educated at Prudhoe Colliery School. Aged twelve, he began work at Wylam Colliery and soon became active in the Northumberland Miners' Association, serving as a branch secretary from 1905 and Union President, 1914-26. Initially a Lib-Lab, he later became a Labour Party member. He was a member of both Prudhoe Parish Council/Urban District Council and Gosforth Urban District Council. He was an alderman of Durham County Council and contested the Hexham constituency unsuccessfully in the 1918 General Election. He died in December 1926.

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'Wesleyan Methodists

Although John Wesley traversed the area in the 1760s, the first recorded Methodist worship was an open-air service under the tree in the Causeway in 1823. In 1824 the Society bought the old seed house in Church Street and converted it into a chapel. In 1852 James Amos Ashwell (1813-1899) moved to Stortford Park farm. James and his family joined the society and soon sponsored the vision for a new chapel. Eventually Ashwell secured a site for a new chapel and donated money to the building fund. The foundation stone for a new chapel was laid on 15 June 1866 by William W. Pocock, Esq., of London. On Wednesday 5 December 1866 the new chapel in South Street, seating 220, was opened, with an additional iron building as a Sunday school. A legacy from James Amos Ashwell was used to start a fund for a new chapel, with contributions from other family members, and on 11 June 1902 the foundation stones were laid for the new church, designed by Josiah Gunton and with seating capacity for 580 people, a few yards from the existing chapel. The iron building behind the old chapel was moved to the new site and replaced by a brick building in March 1927. On Saturday 4 September 1993 the church was reopened after extensive restoration by Mrs Dolly King (aged 93) the oldest member and Miss Jane Holman (aged 15) the youngest member of the church.

There was a Primitive Methodist presence in the town as least from 1869, but further information is sparse.

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The Evangelical Revival in Bedfordshire owed much to the work of the Rev. John Berridge, vicar of Everton, and it is likely that some early Biggleswade Wesleyans had formerly belonged to Berridge's societies. John Wesley's first recorded visit to the area, in January 1762, occurred when he was travelling to preach for Berridge at Everton.

Wesleyan Methodists

In 1782 Miss Elizabeth Harvey of Hinxworth became friends with John Wesley and opened her home for evangelical meetings. On Friday 19 July 1782 Wesley visited and preached to the villagers. In 1794 Mr Freeman, an excise officer, took up residence in Biggleswade. Not finding the 'gospel tone in the services at the parish church to his liking' asked Madam Harvey of Hinxworth for help. She sent the next Methodist preacher visiting Hinxworth to Biggleswade, where he preached in the Market Place. A week later a vacant shop in the High Street was used for preaching services. In 1794 a barn was licensed for Methodist services. In 1795 Miss Harvey built at her own expense a Methodist chapel and a preacher’s house in Biggleswade in Chapel Place on Cowfairlands. The Rev. Dr Thomas Coke preached at the opening service. The chapel was replaced in 1834 by a new chapel in Shortmead Street. It was opened on Friday 7 November 1834. In October 1889 the chapel was closed for major renovations to be undertaken. On 26 October 1905 a new Sunday school was opened.

Primitive Methodists

In 1847 Rev. John Guy (1811-1887) the PM minister in Baldock preached in the open air in Biggleswade at the invitation of Mr Cocking. A Society was formed with 4 members and soon there were 50. On 18 November 1848 'a room in the late dwelling house of John Gray held in trust for the Primitive Methodists' was registered by Rev. John Parrott, the Superintendent of the Bedford Mission. In 1853 a property was bought in Shortmead Street consisting of two cottages and an old schoolroom. The schoolroom was refurbished and used as the chapel. The chapel was used until July 1873 when part of the site was sold to pay off the outstanding debt. On the remaining site a new chapel and a commodious school room was built. On 3 September 1939 the former PM Society amalgamated with the Trinity Methodist Church with the vision of opening a new Bourne Methodist Church in Biggleswade, but this church was never built.

Methodist Church

At Methodist Union the Wesleyan chapel became known as Trinity Methodist Church and the Primitive Methodist chapel was named Bourne Methodist Church. On 20 September 1932 a united meeting of the Trinity and Bourne Churches was held in Trinity Methodist Church to hear the Methodist Union proceedings from the Royal Albert Hall, London. This was followed by a 'Methodist Union wedding breakfast' which took the form of a Love Feast. On Sunday 2 October a united service of Holy Communion was held in the Bourne Methodist Church. On Monday a public meeting was held in Trinity Methodist Church when speakers addressed the assembly on the subject 'Methodist Union: The Past, the Present, and the Future'.

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Thomas Hazlehurst (1779-1842) was born at Winwick on 27 February 1779 and spent his early years at Frodsham, in Cheshire. In 1816 he began making soap at his Camden Works in Runcorn, building a very successful business as Runcorn grew to be one of Britain's most significant centres of soap manufacture. Raised in the Church of England, the death of his infant daughter Eliza in 1806 prompted a religious conversion and a turn to Methodism, so that the one-time churchwarden became a Class leader and Wesleyan trustee.

After the death of the elder Thomas on 18 February 1842 the business passed to his four sons, but by 1857 the active partners were Thomas (1816-76) and Charles (1819-78). Charles took a greater part in the firm and was responsible for the introduction of soap in tablet form in 1870. The younger Thomas was a dedicated philanthropist, especially to Methodist and other religious causes. He supported the building of twelve chapels and three schools in and around Runcorn, including the Italianate St Paul's (1864-66) in the town centre, designed to seat a congregation of 1400, and Trinity, Frodsham (1871-73), a Gothic chapel with tower and spire, designed by C.O. Ellison, of Liverpool. Thomas's generosity extended well beyond Runcorn: he donated some £70,000 to religious causes and amassed a collection of 100 presentation trowels from the invitations to lay foundation stones for chapels and schools across the country. Thomas was also a local preacher and up to a million copies of his sermons were printed and distributed as tracts.

After the death of Charles Hazlehurst in 1878 family involvement in the business reduced and the company was sold to Lever Brothers in 1911.

Thomas junior lost three sons in infancy. His elder surviving son, Thomas Arthur, was killed in a railway accident in 1869, just after his twenty-first birthday. A younger brother, George Steward (1850-1918), continued the commitment to Methodism and to civic and industrial life: he was one of the first lay representatives to the Wesleyan Conference in 1878, was Mayor of Birkenhead in 1901-02, and invented the Hazlehurst acid pump. He married Ada Mary Edmunds, daughter of a Banbury Wesleyan family; their eldest son, George Arthur (1873-1940) took Anglican orders and became a Canon of Derby Cathedral.

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Samuel Rathbone Edge was born in Tunstall on 22 May 1848, son of a corn merchant. Educated at Wesley College, Sheffield, and The Queen's College, Oxford, he took the BA and BCL degrees in 1871 and the MA in 1875, before qualifying as a barrister. He successfully contested the constituency of Newcastle-under-Lyme for the Liberals in a by-election in 1878, but lost the seat in 1880. He remained active in politics, being mentioned as a likely candidate for Stafford in 1881. After the 1902 Education Act he supported passive resistance to the education rate and was President of the North Staffordshire Federation of Citizens' Leagues, the body co-ordinating opposition to state funding for denominational schools.

The Edge family were committed Wesleyan Methodists. Samuel was a local preacher and served as President of the LPMAA in 1889-90. He was a governor of the Leys School, 1874-76, and an early supporter and long-serving Vice-President of the Wesley Bible Union.

By his marriage in 1888 to Eliza Marion Holden (1864-1936) Samuel was connected to an extensive cousinhood of Holdens and Woods. In addition, the family's Wesleyan and civic ties were strengthened by the marriage of his sister Ann (1847-1924) to their first cousin John Wilcox Edge (1844-1923), local preacher, earthenware manufacturer, Mayor of Burslem 1888-90, and borough and county alderman.

Samuel and Eliza Edge raised seven children to adulthood. One, Stephen Rathbone Holden Edge (1892-1955) was a research chemist; another, Elizabeth Annie Wood Edge (1894-1973), served as a Methodist missionary in South India; both studied at Cambridge University and both were local preachers.

Samuel died on 27 September 1936.

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Liberal politician, born in Luton on 11 May 1871, the son of the Rev. A.C. Gray, a Baptist minister, although Milner became a Methodist and a Local Preacher. Educated at Greenwich, in business he was chairman of Frank Harden Ltd, of Luton, ladies hat manufacturers, and a director of United Match Industries Ltd.

He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1911, 1918, 1919, 1923 and 1924. Success finally came in 1929, when he was elected Liberal MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, and he served briefly as Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Labour in 1931, but he lost the seat in the ensuing General Election, despite indications of support for the National government.There were two more failed attempts to re-enter Parliament, for Mid-Bedfordshire in 1935 and then in a by-election for West Derbyshire in June1938. He was made CBE in 1937, perhaps as a consolation, and remained active in the higher echelons of the Liberal Party, chairing the Party's Executive for six years and serving on the Liberal Party Council from 1936 until his death.

He took a special interest in foreign affairs, was a supporter of the League of Nations and highlighted Nazi persecutions of the Jews.

Milner Gray married Elizabeth Eleanor Luck in 1902. There were no children. He died at Wheathampstead on 9 April 1943.

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English physicist who discovered the kaon (K+) sub-atomic particle in 1954.

Leslie Hodson was born at Fishlake, northeast of Doncaster, on 15 July 1925, the only child of a tenant farmer. The family raised the necessary funds for him to attend Thorne Grammar School, and he went on to read physics at Manchester University from 1943. He undertook research on cosmic rays for his PhD, supervised by P.M. Blackett, and was successively Assistant Lecturer at Manchester, Research Associate at Princeton (1951-54) and Lecturer at Leeds (from 1954). Advising on the design of the new campus in the 1960s he successfully argued for the exclusion of asbestos, in an early recognition of its health risks.

Enjoying a wide range of interests, from art and architecture, via gardening, to music and philosophy, he was a member and sometime Society Steward at Oxford Place Methodist Church, Leeds.

Leslie Hodson married Joyce Wicks in 1958 and they had three sons. He died at Leeds on 1 March 2010.

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Methodist local preacher and Liberal Democrat politician, born 4 May 1947 in North East Surrey, the son of a chef. After living in Wandsworth, he moved to Torquay where he went to Torquay Boys’ Grammar School. In 1964 he began working for the Midland Bank and on being appointed branch manager at Plymouth became their youngest branch manager.

In 1982 he was elected both to Caradon District Council and Saltash Town Council, and was twice mayor of Saltash. He was elected Liberal Democrat MP for Cornwall South East in 1997 and spent much of his time in the Commons as a front bench spokesman. He retired from Parliament in 2010.

In 1968 he married Janet Courtio; he died on 10 May 2024.

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Chemical manufacturer, born at Pensher (Penshaw), Co. Durham, on 14 January 1791. He was apprenticed to a druggist in Sunderland at the age of fourteen and spent two years in London after completing his apprenticeship. Returning to the North East, in 1828 he established a small chemical works in partnership with Thomas Coultherd at Heworth Shore, manufacturing alkali. Then in July 1836 the High Works were purchased and both sites became Heworth Chemical Works. The partnership was dissolved in 1847, and Allen moved his equipment to a new factory at Wallsend.

Allen attended Wesleyan preaching as a teenager and joined the Society in 1811. He became a Local Preacher shortly after his marriage in 1821 and also served as a Class leader and Circuit Steward. The expulsion of the itinerant Joseph Forsyth in 1835 led to significant disruption in the Gateshead Circuit; Allen was among the seceding members, most of whom soon joined the Methodist New Connexion. He played a key role in establishing the Bethesda MNC chapel in 1835-36 and when the New Connexion purchased Zion Chapel in Felling Shore from the Presbyterians in 1835 Allen provided accommodation for the congregation while the building was refitted. Zion became known locally as ‘Allen’s Chapel’. Zion was replaced in 1903, and the new chapel was named ‘Allen Memorial’. Allen remained loyal to the MNC during the Barkerite troubles of the early 1840s and was one of the first Guardian Representatives appointed under the 1846 MNC Deed Poll.

John Allen married Mary Swan (1796-1889) at Wallsend in April 1821. He died on 10 August 1860 and was buried in the churchyard of St Peter’s, Wallsend.

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Croydon is a town nine and a half miles south of Charing Cross, London.

Wesleyan Methodists

There was a small licensed Methodist meeting place in 1788 with around 30 people attending in the morning and around 100 in the evening. The meeting house was three cottages in North End knocked into one. In 1829 a Wesleyan chapel was built in Narrow Alley, North End. This was replaced by a new chapel in Tamworth Road which was opened on Wednesday 3 February 1858. The old chapel was retained and used as a Sunday school. By 1862 a Day School for boys and girls was started. When North-end Lodge and its extensive grounds on London Road were put up for auction in 1893 a group of Methodists bought both house and grounds. They rented out the northern part of the grounds, including the house, to a private school, but retained the southern part in order to build a new church. The memorial stones were laid on 20 September 1899. The opening ceremony of the 1000 seat church was on Thursday 6 September 1900. On 14 September 1927, following a major renovation of the premises and a newly built Junior School Hall, the premises were opened by Lady Rosa Dorothea Lamb (1883-1979) who was deputising for her husband Sir Ernest H. Lamb. The original church was demolished and replaced with the West Croydon Methodist church hall which was opened on 4 April 1956.

South Croydon Wesleyan Church

On Thursday 2 May 1895 eight memorial stones were laid in Brighton Road for a new church to seat 600 people. The foundation stones for a new Sunday school were laid on Thursday 1 June 1911 and the new Sunday School was opened on 25 October 1911. In 1977 South Croydon Methodist Church and the Aberdeen Road Congregational Church united, forming the South Croydon United Church, Aberdeen Road.

Primitive Methodists

Croydon was first missioned in 1848 by David Hodgson, a Local Preacher who became a PM travelling preacher in September 1848. In 1849 the Croydon Mission was created with Rev. Edward Powell (1823-1902) as the minister who continued in post until 1852. Mr David Hodgson bought a plot of land for £120 and gave it to the mission. On Sunday 1 September 1861 a Camp Meeting was held on the land on Laud Street close to the corner of Wandle Street. The trustees erected a temporary wooden chapel. On Monday 4 September 1865 a memorial stone was laid by J. T. Matthews, Esq., for a chapel, Sunday school and minister's house. The chapel, seating 250 people, was opened on Thursday 28 June 1866. After a little less than a century, the final service was held on Monday 21 March 1960.

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Salford stands on the western bank of the river Irwell which separates it from the city of Manchester.

On Friday 17 March 1738 John Wesley visited the perpetual curate of Sacred Trinity, Salford, the Rev. John Clayton (1709-1773) who was associated with the Holy Club. On Sunday 19 March 1738 Wesley, accompanied by Rev. Charles Kinchin (c.1711 – 1742), preached and administered Holy Communion at Sacred Trinity. When Wesley returned on 7 May 1747 he was refused permission to preach at Sacred Trinity Church, probably because after Charles and John’s evangelical conversions John Clayton’s friendship with the Wesley brothers cooled. John Wesley walked to the Salford Cross where he preached to a large crowd until he was threatened with a dowsing by the hose of a fire engine. Wesley and the crowd retreated into a nearby yard where he completed his sermon undisturbed.

Wesleyan Methodists

Gravel Lane: In 1787 the Manchester Methodists saw the necessity to build a chapel in Salford. Land was purchased in 1790 in Gravel Lane. The chapel was opened on 7 July 1791 when the preacher at the morning service was Rev. Dr. Thomas Coke (1747-1814). In the afternoon the Rev. Samuel Bradburn (1751-1816) preached and celebrated Holy Communion. They started a Sunday school in the basement which gave the children of poor families free religious and elementary education provided they went to worship. In 1861 the trustees built school further along Gravel Lane. The chapel was twice enlarged. In 1881 the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company needed the site of the church to build a viaduct to give rail access to Manchester Exchange and Victoria stations. The company paid the chapel trustees £10.000. The trustees then purchased land a few yards away on the corner of Blackfriars Street and Viaduct Street where they built the replacement chapel retaining its original name. Gravel Lane Methodist Church closed in 1968.

Irwell Street: It soon became necessary to build a second and larger chapel which led to the building of Irwell Street chapel. The foundation stone was laid in the summer of 1825 by Rev. Robert Newton (1780-1854), the superintendent of the Manchester (Irwell Street) circuit. The chapel was opened on Friday 13 October 1826, when the preacher was Rev. Richard Watson (1781-1833), the President of the Conference.

Broughton, Alexandra Street: By the 1840s there was a growing need to have a chapel in the Broughton area of Salford. The officers approached the Rev. John Clowes (1776-1846), an orchidophile, who owned most of the Broughton area of Salford, asking if he would sell some of his land for a chapel. He refused their request. Around the same time James Garstang had been entertaining at Knolls House the Rev. Thomas Birch Freeman (1809-1890) a Wesleyan Missionary in Africa and an expert on African orchids. Freeman had given Garstang some rare African orchid seeds. When Garstang overheard that the Rev. John Clowes had refused to sell land to the Wesleyans he gave him some of the rare African orchid seeds. Shortly afterwards the reluctant clergyman agreed to sell the land to the trustees and gave £50 towards the building fund. The foundation stone was laid 1841 and chapel was opened on 30 September 1842.

The Manchester and Salford Wesleyan Methodist Mission was started in 1886. The vision of the mission was to help anyone in Salford and Manchester who required aid and to try to give these people a better quality of life.

Primitive Methodists

The Primitive Methodists opened a chapel in King Street in 1843 but because the Salford Corporation was redeveloping the area they had to abandon their chapel in 1874. They then replaced it with a new chapel in Garden Lane. The chapel was opened 22 February 1874

United Methodist Free Church

The UMFC built a chapel/school in Collier Street, in 1842. On 14 May 1864 the foundation stone of the Salford United Free Church in Liverpool Street was laid by Mr Timothy Boddington (1817-1885), a corn merchant in Pendleton and a leading member of the Eccles United Methodist Free Church.

Independent Methodists

On the 1932 Manchester preachers' plan there are two chapels, one in North Street and the other in Chapel Street. Later other chapels were opened in Pendleton.

Bible Christians

Christ Church Bible Christian chapel, King Street, was established in 1800 by Rev. William Cowherd (1763-1816), an Anglican, around fifteen years before the Methodist Bible Christians began their mission. It was a breakaway from the Swedenborgians and its members had to sign a pledge to be vegetarians.

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Birkenhead is a town on the Wirral Peninsula, in the historic county of Cheshire, and situated on the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite the City of Liverpool. The Mersey ferry was started in 1150 to serve Birkenhead Priory. A major nineteenth century industry was an iron works founded in 1824. The company became Cammell Laird shipbuilders in 1829, building both naval and merchant vessels.

Wesleyan Methodists

The foundation stone for the Brunswick chapel which was the first chapel in the town was laid on 24 March 1830 in Price Street. The chapel was enlarged and was re-opened on 6 December 1844 with a continuing celebration on the following days when the preachers included ???, Joseph Beaumont and the Liverpool Congregationalist minister Rev. Dr Thomas Raffles (1788-1863). The foundation stone for a Day and Sunday school in Beckwith Street was laid on Thursday 22 October 1857 by John Farnworth. Around 1900 the Beckwith Street schools were condemned and needed replacing. The foundation stone for new Day and Sunday schools and lecture hall was laid on 24 September 1908 and the premises were opened in 1909. In 1912 the Local Authority decided to use the former Beckwith Street schools for the Anglican Holy Trinity Day Schools. This prompted a debate in the House of Commons on 3 April 1912 on the proposed use of the condemned building. A notable event occurred in the Brunswick chapel when on 17 April 1905 Evan Roberts (1878-1951), the leading evangelist of the 1904-05 Welsh Revival held his final Liverpool Mission Revival Meeting for non-adherents.

Laird Street Wesleyan Chapel

Thomas Hazelhurst, Esq., of Runcorn laid the foundation stone for the Wesleyan chapel, school and chapel keepers house on 1 June 1863 on land in Laird Street in the Dock Cottages area of the north of the town. The land was donated by Mr William Jackson, M. P. for Newcastle-under-Lyme. For several years the congregation had rented an upper room but with the increasing numbers of worshippers they decided to build a chapel. The chapel was opened on 20 April 1864 by the Rev. Luke Tyerman.The chapel was demolished in a bombing raid in 1941.

Hind Street Wesleyan Mission Chapel

In 1864 the Society met in a room in Denbigh Street. Shortly afterwards a wooden chapel was built in Blackpool Street. The Sunday school had around 300 children. The foundation stone for the chapel in Hind Street was laid on Thursday 20 February 1873.

Palm Grove Wesleyan

The Society dates from 1858 when they met in the office of John Newman’s wood yard, Newburn’s Lane. The foundation stone for the new chapel was laid on 8 March 1871 by Mr William Litherland, a glass and china merchant in Liverpool. The chapel seating 700 people was opened on 19 October 1871.

Grange Road Wesleyan

The Society was formed in 1858 and met in the former Welsh Calvinistic chapel on Camperdown Street. In 1872 a new chapel was built.

Lowe Street Wesleyan Mission Chapel

The iron Mission Chapel to seat 200 in Lowe Street off Conway Street was opened 11 July 1878. The Society started in a cellar in Hope Street until they moved to rooms in Conway Street.

Welsh Wesleyan (Welsh speaking)

A Society was formed in 1838 with Jonn Hussey as the leader. In 1845 a chapel in Wesley Street was built. In 1862 the Conference appointed Rev. Robert T. Owen (1842-1871) as the third minister to the Liverpool Welsh Circuit. He was the first minister to live in Birkenhead. He was succeeded by Rev. John Hugh Evans (d.1886). During the ministry of the resident ministers the Society grew in strength and numbers. The chapel in 1876 became the evangelical 'Christians' Meeting House'. On 30 August 1875 memorial stones were laid by Mr Ellis Davies of Liscard, Wallasey, who had been present when the foundation stone was laid for the chapel in Wesley Street, and Mr Richard Jones of Henfache, Llanrhaidr, who laid a stone in memory of Rev. Robert T. Owen. Captain Williams of Van Mines, Llanidloes, and Mr John Davies of Birkenhead also laid foundation stones. On 2 January 1876 an amphitheatre style chapel seating 500 was opened.

Wesleyan Methodist Association

In the 1840s the congregation worshipped in the Birkenhead Town Hall. When it was announced that the building was to be demolished the Society leaders were spurred into raising money for a chapel. On 13 April 1846 Richard Sharpe, Esq., laid the foundation stone on a site in Grance Road for a chapel with a school room below. The chapel was opened on Sunday 15 November 1846.

Primitive Methodists

There were two chapels in Birkenhead. The first Society was formed in the 1840s and met in a smithy with an earthen floor in Beckwith Street. Around 1850 they built a chapel. The chapel was replaced by a new chapel in 1880. The second Society was founded 1854 and met in the Friends' Meeting House in Hemingford Street. In 1858 they acquired the Welsh Calvinist chapel in Camperdown Street. In 1862 Camperdown Street chapel became the head of the newly formed Primitive Methodist Birkenhead circuit. This chapel was replaced by a new building in Grange Lane, later renamed Grange Road. On Monday 12 July 1869 the Memorial stone laid by Samuel Stitt (1816-1898), a ship owner of The Grange, Claughton. The chapel was opened on Thursday 17 March 1870 when the Rev. Hugh Stowell Brown (1823-1886), a celebrated Liverpool Baptist minister, was the preacher. On 31 March 1905 the Evan Roberts Liverpool Mission Revival meeting was held in the chapel.

United Methodist Free Church

The Society met in a small iron structure in the 1870s which was replaced by a brick chapel. The foundation stone was laid by Arthur J. Williams of London, former Birkenhead Liberal Parliamentary candidate, on 12 October 1880 on land in Claughton Road. The chapel was opened on Thursday 30 June 1881 when the preacher was the Rev. Marmaduke Miller (1827-1889). The chapel seated 550, with a school room below for 450 children.

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On his way from Canterbury to Dover on Wednesday 4 December 1771 John Wesley preached in the preaching house which was newly fitted up. Wesley wrote that it was well filled with attentive hearers. He also said that Ashford was one of the pleasantest towns in Kent.

Wesleyan Methodists

There was a preaching house in Ashford by 1771. In 1810 there was a Society meeting in an old lodge, probably a shooting or hunting lodge. They moved to the Assembly Rooms which they tried but failed to buy. The Society acquired Jeremiah Chittenden’s house in Hemsted Lane, later renamed Hempstead Street, converting the house into a chapel, which was opened on Christmas Day 1810. In 1811 the Ashford Circuit was formed. When Mrs Elizabeth Betts (nee Hayward Ladd) (1796-1844), a loyal Wesleyan, came to live in Ashford she suggested that the Wesleyans needed a better chapel. She persuaded her husband William Betts (1790-1867), a railway contractor, to pay for the chapel and he laid the foundation stone for the new chapel on the site of the previous building in Drum Lane on Wednesday 26 July 1843. The chapel opened on Thursday 14 March 1844, but sadly Elizabeth Betts died in the previous January, before the chapel was completed. With the coming of the railway in 1842 and the opening of the railway works in 1847 the population of the town began to increase. By the 1870s a new and larger chapel was needed. Plans were drawn up for a chapel in Tufton Street which would connect to the old buildings. The Connexional officers said that the chapel should be in a more prominent area of the town. The Bank Street site was leased for 15 guineas a year. The foundation stone for a new chapel to seat 1000 people was laid on 16 July 1873 by William M’Arthur, M.P. On Wednesday 8 July 1874 the new George Street chapel was opened. The preachers were Rev. William Arthur (1819-1901) and Rev. Richard Roberts (1823-1909). The chapel in Hempstead Street became the Sunday school but the urgent need for money meant that in December 1875 the trustees sold the old chapel to the Unitarians. The Sunday school then moved into the basement of the new chapel. During World War 2 in the Lower Hall the church people ran a Forces canteen. Wesley Hall was requisitioned to house the Ashford Employment Exchange when its premises were destroyed by bombing. Shortly after the war ended the trustees were able to clear the church debt and buy the land freehold for £300. In 1970 the Society joined with the Congregationalists to form the United Church, Ashford.

Francis Road Wesleyan Church

Land was bought in Francis Road, South Ashford in the autumn of 1903. A temporary iron chapel seating 200 was opened on Wednesday 14 October 1903. It closed in 1932, after Methodist Union, and members joined the South Ashford Methodist Church. The chapel was demolished and the Francis Road Evangelical Church is now on the site.

Bible Christians

On 18 June 1867 the trustees bought for £260 land on the corner of Lower Denmark Road and Torrington Road, South Ashford. They received financial support from the South Eastern and Chatham Railway. While the chapel was being erected a fierce storm on 18 April 1868 caused the front wall to collapse. The chapel was eventually opened later than planned on Wednesday 19 August 1868. The chapel was in the Ashford and Tenterden Circuit. When the Bible Christian Connexion became a constituent partner in the union with the Methodist New Connexion and the United Methodist Free Churches in 1907 the chapel became known as the United Methodist Chapel, South Ashford. In 1920 a fund to build a school room behind the chapel was started. The opening ceremony for the new school premises with seating for 250 persons was on 30 January 1924. With Methodist Union in 1932 the Francis Road Wesleyan Chapel closed and several of their members joined the former United Methodist chapel which was named the South Ashford Methodist Church. There was need of major restoration work to be undertaken to the building which was weakened in part by a flying bomb which exploded nearby on 24 March 1943. The front wall had to be taken down and rebuilt. The work was so extensive that the chapel had to be closed for 5 months. It was officially re-opened on Wednesday 1 October 1952.

United Church Ashford

The United Church Ashford was established on 18 November 1970, bringing together the Ashford Methodist and Congregational Churches. The United Church, affiliated to the United Reformed Church since the formation of the URC in 1972, meets in a new building on Cade Road and Kingsnorth Road in South Ashford.

Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion

The Connexion had a chapel in Ashford from 1785 until around 1864.

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Charles Wesley preached in Congleton on Thursday 16 October 1746 and prayed with the little Society. On the following day he preached at the medieval Cross in High Street.

John Wesley visited Congleton on at least 30 times and preached around 20 times. His first visit was on Sunday 10 May 1747, when he preached at the medieval Cross in High Street which was destroyed in 1772.

Wesleyan Methodists

From around 1743 there was a Society meeting in the house of Thomas Buckley, Peel Lane, Astbury, near Congleton. By 1758 the Society was meeting in a private chapel in Congleton which was entered from Mill Street. The adjacent meadow was used for the overflow when Wesley and other preachers visited. The chapel belonged to Samuel Troutbeck a member of the Society. The chapel was behind Troutbeck’s apothecary's shop and was used by the Society until they built their own meeting house. In 1776 the Society bought land in Wagg Street and the chapel was opened in time for John Wesley’s visit on 25 March 1768. When Wesley visited the Society on 28 March 1782 he made searing comments about the local Calvinists who had caused several families to leave the chapel. Captain Jonathan Scott (1735-1807) formerly of the 7th Dragoons, had been ordained in 1776 by a group of Lancaster Congregationalists as a ‘presbyter or teacher at large’. When Jonathan Scott went to Congleton he asked to be allowed to preach in the Wesleyan meeting house in Wagg Street. This was refused, so he then regularly preached outside the chapel. Several of his followers were former members of the Wagg Street chapel. In 1799 a Sunday school was started. In 1803 the Congleton Circuit was created out of the Macclesfield Circuit. By 1803 the chapel needed extensive repairs to be done. The trustees and leaders decided to rebuild the chapel. In 1807 Thomas Collins of Burslem was contracted to build a new chapel and also to build a preacher's house and stables. The chapel was opened in 1808. In 1818 the school building was built at the back of the chapel which in 1839 became both a Day school and a Sunday school. On 14 July 1869 the foundation stones was laid for new school premises by Thomas Hazelhurst, Esq., (1816-1876) of Runcorn and Mr John Ward (1799-1874) of Brook House. The new Day and Sabbath school premises were opened on Thursday 21 October 1869 with the Rev. Charles Garrett (1823-1900) as the guest speaker. In 1947 dry rot was discovered and the porch section had to be demolished and rebuilt. In 1965 the unsupported walls were bulging because of the weight of the roof. There was extensive woodworm in the gallery which was putting the safety of the building at risk. The trustees and leaders decided a new building was needed. In January 1966 the congregation moved out and joined the Brook Street Methodist Church, and Queen Street Methodist Church and became a united church temporarily meeting in the Queen Street building until the new church was built.

Brook Street Wesleyan Chapel was founded 1834 and closed 1966, when its congregation joined Queen Street Methodist Church.

Methodist New Connexion

The Society appeared on the Hanley Circuit plan of 1823 as meeting in a cottage in New Street. The Society eventually moved to a larger house in Elizabeth Street. In 1836 they bought land opposite the Elizabeth Street house. On Monday 20h June 1836 John Ridgway, Esq., (1786-1860) laid the foundation stone. The two storied chapel was opened in November 1836 and was named Queen Street Chapel. In 1856 a single storied schoolroom was built adjacent to the chapel. The chapel was renovated in 1883 and again in 1902 by which time it seated 326 people. The chapel was on the Burslem Circuit Plan until it was transferred to the Macclesfield Circuit, returning to the Burslem Circuit until 1932, when it took its place in the Congleton Methodist Circuit. The chapel closed in 1969. The congregations of Brook Street and Wagg Street Methodist churches joined the Elizabeth Methodist church congregation until the Trinity Methodist Church was opened in 1968.

Primitive Methodists

In 1804 Hugh Bourne attended a revivalist love-feast in the Congleton Wesleyan Methodist chapel which proved to be a significant event in his spiritual journey. In April 1807 Lorenzo Dow preached in Congleton Wagg Street Wesleyan Chapel. William Clowes was one of his hearers. A few days later Hugh Bourne and his brother James heard Dow preach his farewell sermon at Congleton before returning to America. Hugh Bourne purchased from Dow two pamphlets about Camp Meetings. In the autumn of 1820 Connexional missionaries visited Congleton and a small Society formed which soon had 24 members. On November 5 1820 a large room was opened. In 1821 a chapel was built in Lawton Street. In September 1822 Hugh Bourne held at Congleton a Love Feast which resulted in many converts. On 9 July 1890 the memorial stones were laid for the rebuilding of the chapel which was reoriented so that its frontage was on Kinsey Street. It had seats for 500 people. The church closed in the 1990s.

Trinity Methodist Church was opened on 2 November 1968. Trinity was a new building on the Wagg Street site and was the amalgamation of the Wagg Street, Queen Street and Brook Street Methodist societies.

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Wesleyan Methodists

In 1813 there was a Society meeting in cottages. By 1819 there was a membership of 52 and a wooden chapel was built in Middle Wall; an organ was installed in 1821. There was a flourishing Sunday school. In 1854 22 senior boys from the Sunday school formed a drum and fife (flute) band which in 1975 was the oldest Sea Cadets Unit in the country. In 1857 the wooden chapel was demolished and on Wednesday 25 March 1857 the foundation stones for the new brick church were laid. A new Sunday school was opened on Friday 2 December 1859. With the continually increasing numbers of people attending worship the chapel was extended by 20 feet in 1862. The trustees soon realised that they needed to find a bigger site and in the early spring of 1867 a plot of land was bought in Argyle Road for £250. Immediately fund raising for a new church was started in earnest. The memorial stone for a new church to seat 500 people was laid on 11 June 1868 by James S. Budgett of Ealing Park, London. The chapel was opened in October 1868. In 1869 the Baptists rented the old chapel which they purchased for £500 in 1875. In 1870 the Whitstable Circuit was formed out of the Canterbury Circuit. Around 1881 the chapel was vandalised and also needed updating. On Sunday 6 May 1883 the chapel was reopened after extensive renovation. Following Methodist Union the church was renamed St John’s Methodist Church.

Primitive Methodists

In the 1850s the area was evangelised by Primitive Methodist preachers. They regularly preached on the beach to large crowds of people. On Sunday 5 October 1856 they opened a small church at the end of Island Wall. On Sunday 8 March 1857 the Primitive Methodists were severely mobbed as the held their open air meeting in front of Hockless’s sail loft. The mob was dispersed by Thomas Hockless, the most feared drinker and fighter in the town. From then on he called himself as the 'Protector of the Prims'. The County Police Force who had been formed on 14 January 1857 paid little attention to Whitstable until this occurrence. The seriousness of this mobbing incident prompted the Police Force for the first time since its inception to send Stephen Bates, a newly recruited police officer, to maintain order in the town. In 1864 the trustees bought land in Albert Street. Two memorial stones were laid on 24 May 1864 by Joseph Acworth, Esq., (1796-1866) of Chatham and his son-in- law Thomas J. Plommer (1823-1910), Local Preacher, of Boughton. The chapel was opened several months later. In 1957 the church was closed and the members transferred to St John’s Methodist Church.

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George Whitefield preached in Bridgwater in 1738 and was doused by the town fire engine. John Wesley visited the Bridgwater eight times between 1746 and 1789. On his first visit he anticipated that there would be a riot, but the hearers were orderly. He preached on at least six occasions. He commented on his visit 8 September 1769 that preaching had been discontinued for many years.

Wesleyan Methodists

A Society existed in Bridgwater by1753, meeting in a cottage in Eastover. When enough funds had been raised, a small chapel was built nearby. In 1816 the trustees bought a site and opened a chapel seating 400 people, and a Sunday school was started. In 1840 Bridgwater became a Circuit from Taunton. Around 1860 the trustees bought a house in Dampiet Street at the rear of the chapel which enabled the chapel to be enlarged to seat 650 people and there was also space to build a manse. On 2 July 1860 the foundation stone was laid and on 29 November 1860 the enlarged chapel was opened. Wesley Methodist Church closed in 1980 and merged with the Monmouth Road Methodist Church.

Bible Christians

About 1864 James Pudner and others met in James Pudner’s house. In 1866 Rev. John Jeffre (1840-1899) was appointed to Bridgwater and established a growing congregation. A few years later they worshipped in an iron chapel in Bath Road. In 1869 Rev. Richard Orchard (1840-1893) was stationed and during his ministry St John’s Cottage was purchased for use as a manse. About the same time land for a new chapel was bought. On 29 June 1876 the foundation stone for a new chapel was laid in Polden Street. The chapel with seats for 230 people was opened on Thursday 9 November 1876.

Wesleyan Reformers and UMFC

A Society was established in Bridgwater in 1851, meeting in the Dome of the Market House. After a year they moved to premises in Gloucester Place, Albert Street. In 1854 the Rev. Dudley Pennell (1822-1901) was appointed the first resident minister. They opened their chapel in St Mary Street in 1854. In 1857 the church became the Bridgwater United Methodist Free Church. After three years and with a growing congregation it became necessary to assess the future of the building. In August 1857 a public meeting was held which was chaired by Rev. William Smith. The proposal was to enlarged the chapel with seating for around 700 people. The Mayor offered the Town Hall for worship services during the building of the extension. The reopening was on Tuesday 1 December 1857. In 1908 Rev. John Wilson (1839-1902) and the trustees arranged for plans to be drawn for a school hall to be built in front of the St Mary Street chapel. The scheme became unsustainable and so they proposed to build a new chapel in Church Street. At the same time the Bible Christians were contemplating building a new chapel in Monmouth Street next to their chapel in Polden Street. With the union of the Bible Christians, Methodist New Connexion and United Methodist Free Church connexions being contemplated both schemes were postponed. The United Methodist Free Church vacated their St Mary Street chapel in December 1906 and in January rented a room in the YMCA. On 28 January 1909 the Society began to worship in the Bible Christian Church, Polden Street. A meeting of the elected laymen and ministers of the Bible Christian and United Methodist Free Church met on 18 December 1907 and agreed to purchase a site in Monmouth Street for Bridgwater United Methodist Church.

United Methodist Church

The foundation stones for the new school were laid on the Monmouth Street site on 26 April 1910 and for the new church on 29 July 1910. The church was opened on 6 April 1911.

Primitive Methodists

Following a successful Mission in Glastonbury in 1845, Mr Powell was invited by Messrs Wyburn and Lusty to Bridgwater. The first service was held in the cottage of Mrs Mansfield. Later the Society worshiped and held Sunday school sessions in a large rented room. Around 1860 the Society built a chapel in West Street. In 1980 the Society merged with the Monmouth Street Society.

Methodist Church

By 1980 all the Methodist Churches in Bridgwater were consolidated into one church and met in the Monmouth Street Church. In 2001 the church was transformed, turning the chapel and schoolrooms into a centre for church and community.

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John Wesley preached at least 23 times in Frome between 1753 and 1790 and was typically uncomplimentary about town and congregation.

Wesleyan Methodists

Methodist preaching in Frome dates from 1747. A Society was formed in 1757 and by 1761 the membership had grown to 74. They met in a house in Broadway. In 1779 the Society bought land in Clay Batch, and built a meeting house to seat 420 people. Around 1792 shortly after retiring as the churchwarden in the parish church of St John the Baptist Robert Blunt (1745-1821) a clothier, and his wife Sarah (1747-1827), started a Wesleyan Sunday school. They were assisted by Edward Griffith (1761-1816), a linen draper and grocer, who later became a class leader, Sunday School Superintendent and a Local Preacher, and also a churchwarden. There was a revival of religion in Frome in 1809 and the congregation in the Wesleyan meeting house doubled. In October 1810 the trustees bought a piece of land adjacent to the meeting house. For about a year during the building of the new chapel the Wesleyans worshipped at the parish church of St John the Baptist. The new chapel was opened on 14 May 1812 and was later known as Wesley Church. A Sunday school was re-started in 1813. Frome became a Circuit out of the Bath Circuit in 1812. !n 1854 an organ was installed in the chapel.

Bethel Wesleyan Chapel sited at The Butts was opened in 1859. The chapel was renovated and re-seated and re-opened on 27 May 1909. It closed c. 1968.

Primitive Methodists

The area was missioned in 1823 by the Western Mission. William Paddison (1801-1885) held a camp meeting in 1826. The Society built a chapel to seat 480 people in 1834 in Sun Street. It was opened on 14 and 19 October 1834 when the preachers were Rev. Spedding Curwen (1792-1856), Independent Minister, and Rev. W. Jones. The Sunday school was started in 1835. On Thursday 28 February 1907 the chapel was reopened after an extensive restoration and extension. Closed in 1982, it became the Frome Gospel Hall.

United Methodist Free Churches

From around 1850 the Society worshipped and held their meetings in a small chapel behind the Temperance Hall. In July 1908 a scheme for a new church was proposed. Money was raised by fundraising, grants and interest free loans and the sale of the old chapel to the trustees of the Temperance Hall. On 5 May 1910 the foundations stones for a new church were laid in Portway. The Church with seating for 240 and a schoolroom for 120 was opened on Thursday 3 November 1910.

The new Frome and Shepton Mallet United Circuit was formed 1964 and the Portway chapel closed in September 2021.

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Wesleyan Methodists

On Sunday 30 November 1879 the Bristol Wesleyan District Home Missions Committee held a service in the Triangle Meeting Room, Clevedon. The Rev. J Surman Cooke (1845-1910) was the preacher. People were invited to stay after the service to discuss founding a Wesleyan Society in the town. Many people stayed and a Society was formed. On Sunday 7 December 1879 the Rev. Philip Hawkes (1953-1940) started a ten day series of mission services. With the increasing numbers of worshipers the meeting room became too small. In 1881 with the help of Sir Arthur Elton (1818-1883) the Society moved to the larger Public Hall. In 1882 the Bristol Wesleyan District Mission Committee secured a plot of land in Queen Street but when land became available on a better site in Lower Linden Road, the Queen Street plot was abandoned. On 28 September 1882 nineteen foundation stones were laid for a chapel and manse by ladies and children. On Wednesday 6 June 1883 a chapel seating 500 people was opened. The Society continued to grow and in 1909 the trustees raised the money for a major renovation of the chapel and Sunday school. The Linden Road Methodist Church and Christ Church (Church of England) joined and became Christchurch in 2005.

Kenn Road Methodist Church

In early 1948 Councillor Edmund H. Shopland (1872-1954) J.P., a Local Preacher for over 50 years, bought two corrugated roofed wooden huts from the Ministry of Works which he arranged to be erected on a plot of land which his brother Mr John Shopland (1867-1953) had bought in Kenn Road, Cleveland. The temporary wooden building with seating for 150 people was placed well back on the site to make room for a permanent church to be built in about 10 years' time. The church was opened on 16 February 1949. In 1984 a scheme was launched to replace the old buildings. On 2 June 1990 the first foundation stone was laid and the Kenn Road Methodist Church, Clevedon, was opened on Saturday 6 October 1990, by Mrs Kathleen M. Shopland (1898-1998) the daughter-in-law of the founder of the original church, The old corrugated roofed wooden building was retained for social events, and the church was extended in1999.

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Wesleyan Methodists

There were Methodist meetings held around 1806 in a cottage in the passage between Warwich Street and Riley’s court. When the cottage became too small for the congregation they moved to two cottages in Harral’s Court, Drury Lane. At this location the Methodists suffered much persecution. Nevertheless, the Society prospered and in 1823 was able to build a chapel in Chapel Street. It was enlarged in 1841 to hold 500 people. The Rugby Circuit was formed from Daventry in 1860. On 29 May 1868 a procession of the Wesleyan Day and Sunday schools teachers and children paraded to the site of the new chapel in Market Place to witness the laying of the foundation stone by William M’Arthur, the Sheriff of London and Middlesex. The platform party in the evening included Rev. Frederick Temple (1821-1902) headmaster of Rugby School and future Archbishop of Canterbury. The new chapel was opened on Thursday 15 April 1869 and contibnued in use until its replacement by the Methodist Church Centre, Russelsheim Way, opened on 28 January 1984.

Cambridge Street Mission Chapel

On Tuesday 26 June 26 1883 six memorial stones were laid for the Wesleyan Mission Church in Cambridge Street. The Mission Hall was opened on 3 October 1883. Later the Mission Hall was shared with the Elim Pentecostal church and in August 1985 the Methodist Mission closed and the Elim Pentecostal Church took possession of the Mission Hall as their church.

Primitive Methodists

On 20 July 1800 Mr T. Shaw, a Primitive Methodist preacher, unfurled a banner near the Southam Road Infirmary and preached to around 100 listeners. The preacher was verbally attacked by Mr Spencer a local farmer. The police were called and Mr Shaw was put in the local lock-up-house. He was brought before the magistrates and eventually released. Mr Shaw was threatened with a ducking in the local brook if he preached in the area again. Around 1815 John Flavell (1764-1820) of the old Forge in Newbold-on-Avon invited Primitive Methodist preachers to preach from the horse mounting block at his forge. On John’s death his wayward son William (1797-1888) was converted and continued his father’s mission work by moving to Rugby and preaching in the surrounding area. William and his son Henry were placed on the Circuit Plan. The preachers occasionally used the London to Birmingham railway waiting room at Rugby. The first chapel in Rugby was built in 1841 on the corner of Queen Street and Russell Street. It was twice enlarged. Memorial stones were laid on 27 August 1877 in Railway Terrace for a 450 seat chapel. The chapel was opened in December 1877 and the Queen Street / Rusell Street premises were put up for sale. In 1912 the congregation joined other Rugby Free Churches and formed the Rugby Brotherhood which met on Sunday afternoons. The Brotherhood had around 400 members.The final services of Railway Terrace Methodist Church were on 30 August 1964 and the congregation was transferred to Market Place Methodist Church. In September 1967 the Rugby Evangelical Free Church bought the chapel and on 7 October 1967 they re-opened the chapel for worship. It is now known as The Terrace Church.

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John Wesley recorded eighteen visits to Marlborough between 1739 to 1747 and a further visit in 1784 but he does not mention preaching in the town.

Wesleyan Methodists

George and Elizabeth Pocock, and others, purchased a plot of land in Oxford Street in 1811 and built a chapel which was licensed as a preaching house. Pocock (1774-1843) owned and taught at the Prospect Place Academy, Bristol. He was a Wesleyan Local Preacher on the Bristol Circuit Plan and, with John Pryer (1790-1859), also a Wesleyan Local preacher founded the Tent Methodists. The 1851 Religious Census records that 225 people worshipped in the morning, 50 in the afternoon and 125 in the evening. With the growing numbers attending worship the chapel was extended in 1872. By 1900 the chapel was in need of extensive restoration or replacement. Following discussions with Rev. John Hornabrook, the Secretary of the Connexional Chapel Committee, in 1903 a fund raising scheme was launched and by 1909 it was decided to build a new suite of premises. On Wednesday 9 February 1910 the foundation stones for the replacement church to seat 330 people were laid. On Easter Monday, 28 March 1910, the foundation stones for the school hall to be known as Wesley Hall were laid. The New Road Methodist church and Wesley Hall in Oxford Street were opened on Wednesday 6 July 1910. The church was built on land adjacent to the former church which had been sold to the Freemasons.

In 1979 the Methodist Minister took on the extra responsibility of being the minister of the Marlborough United Reformed Church. In 1984 the United Reformed Church closed and on 21 October a United Methodist/URC church was formed, meeting in the New Road Methodist Church, which was renamed Christchurch.

Tent Methodists

The Tent Methodists were a dynamic evangelical movement, which flourished between 1814 and 1832. On 24 April 1814 a tent made by George Pocock capable of holding 500 people was erected in a village close to Bristol. As the movement gained momentum, Marlborough and the surrounding area became an important centre for the Tent Methodists. The tent was erected in 1817 in Marlborough. On 12 June 1818 a tent was pitched in a field on the outskirts of Marlborough for a month long series of meetings and services. In 1821 John Gosling, a Marlborough banker, provided premises in Marlborough for the movement. On 5 January 1821 the Tent Methodists opened their chapel in Marlborough, and this lasted until late in 1828.

Primitive Methodists

The 1851 Religious Census dates the Ebenezer building as being built in 1823 with seating for 160 people. It was built by the General Baptist denomination (Arminian Baptists). In the 1820s a number of Primitive Methodists met in the cottage of the Awdry family in Herd Street. The first minister was the Rev. James Hurd (1809-1892) who in 1832 and 1833 was a minister in the Shefford Circuit and missioned in Marlborough. In 1838 Rev. William Bell (1814-1891) was appointed to the Shefford Circuit and in 1839 the Rev. Henry Higginson (1805-1871) joined the Shefford circuit and they continued the mission work in Marlborough. In 1840 the Mission became a separate circuit with William Bell as the minister. In 1841 the Primitive Methodists bought the General Baptist chapel in Herd Street and also built a house next to it for the minister. In 1843 the Sunday school was started with Mr W. Dance of the Town Mill as the Superintendent. In 1851 the attendance was 90 in the morning, 40 in the afternoon and 90 in the evening. In 1885 plans were drawn up for a larger church to be built in the High Street but the Connexional officers would not allow the scheme to proceed. Soon after the scheme was stopped, the Society began to decline. When in 1892 the Rev. Henry J. Pring (1833-1895) moved from Marlborough to the Pewsey circuit, he was not replaced. In May 1920 the Primitive Methodist and Wesleyan societies amalgamated and met in the Wesleyan Church. The Primitive Methodist Church was sold.

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Wesleyan Methodists

Although the Wesleyans did not open a chapel until 1865 there had been an earlier Methodist presence in the area. In 1814 the Wesleyans rented rooms in Thorpes Building, George Street, but the Society was short lived. The Wesleyans in Hadleigh, Leigh, Rochford and Reyleigh appeared on the Maldon Circuit plan as a preaching places by 1849. When the Leigh Circuit was formed out of the Maldon Circuit in 1854 Hadleigh, Leigh, Rochford and Benfleet were included. At the Leigh Circuit Quarterly Meeting on 8 January 1863 it was 'considered desirable that a new chapel should be erected at Hadleigh'. After a few failed attempts to secure land for a chapel the minister, Rev. William H. Major (1840-1913) and Mr Henry Cater were given the responsibility of finding land on which to build a chapel. On 25 March 1865 they reported to the meeting that a freehold piece of land had been purchased. The Hadleigh trustees were appointed on 29 July 1865 and the chapel was built in Chapel Street in the same year and was in use until 1929. In 1929 land was bought on the corner of Chapel Lane and London Road. The plans for a new chapel to seat 300 people were approved. The stone laying ceremony was held in June 1929 and the chapel was opened on 4 December 1929 by Miss Nancy Cotgrove and Mrs Leonard Ramus. The guest preacher was Rev. Dr F. Luke Wiseman. On land purchased from the Salvation Army a Youth Hall was opened on 10 March 1962.

Primitive Methodists

In 1835 the Primitive Methodists started to mission Hadleigh. In 1836 the Rev. Robert Key, the East Anglia Evangelist, was stationed in Hadleigh. In the same year the Society rented rooms in Thorpes Building, George Street. In 1848 they bought adjacent land and built a chapel the following year. This was replaced in 1875 with a larger chapel on the same site. In 1975 the centenary of this building was celebrated, but four years later the chapel closed.

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When James Wheatley, one of John Wesley’s helpers, had been expelled him from the fledging Methodist movement by the Wesley brothers he came to Norwich. He collected money to build a permanent preaching place and his fund was swelled by a substantial donation from the Countess of Huntingdon. The Norwich architect Thomas Ivory designed a chapel and house for the preacher at St Martin-at-Palace Plain.

Wheatley then resolved to build chapels or tabernacles in two villages in south Norfolk – at Hempnall and Forncett End. These were completed in 1754. However, when rumours again circulated about Wheatley’s inappropriate relationship with women, he was brought before the Bishop’s Court, found guilty and left Norfolk, never to return.

Before he left, he urged John Wesley to take over the supervision of his congregations and lease of the buildings. Wesley was initially very reluctant, but eventually agreed. On Sunday 25 March 1759 John Wesley wrote in his journal, ‘I rode to Forncett, twelve miles from Norwich, where also was a building of James Wheatley’s, which, without my desire, he had included in the lease’. He discovered that one of Wheatley’s Calvinist collaborators, William Cudworth, had preached there in the morning and had clearly poisoned the minds of the congregation against John Wesley for, he went on to say,

'The people looked as direful upon me as if it had been Satan in person. However, they flocked from all parts, so that the tabernacle would not near contain them. I preached about two. God bare [sic] witness to His truth, and many were cut to the heart’. After preaching I found Mr. Cudworth sitting in the pulpit behind me, whom I quietly and silently passed by.'

On Wednesday 28 March, he wrote, 'I rode over to Forncett again and preached to a large congregation. Great parts of them were now exceedingly softened; but some were still bitter as wormwood'.

Back in Norfolk the following year, John Wesley again visited the congregation at Forncett. On Friday 4 January 1760, he ‘preached at about one at Forncett to a much milder people than I left there’.

In 1765, with thankfulness, Wesley relinquished the leases on Wheatley's chapels and they were taken over by the Countess of Huntingdon. Subsequently, when her cause declined after her death, in 1791, the building and congregation at Forncett joined the General Baptists. The Baptist use ceased about 1960. The chapel was subsequently purchased by a local farming family for storage purposes. Two silos were constructed inside and a modern access door to the right of the porch. It was last used about 2001.

An application to turn the building into a house in 2003 came to nothing. In 2012 efforts were made to secure Listed Building status, as this is the only surviving chapel building in East Anglia where John Wesley preached. The application was unsuccessful.

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Maurice Barnett was born in Coppenhall, Crewe, Cheshire, on 21 March 1917, the son of Edwin Percy Barnett (1887-1968) and Beatrice Barnett, nee Cawley (1888-1958). He was educated at Crewe Grammar School, and studied at Cliff College before training for the Methodist ministry at Hartley Victoria College Manchester and the University of Manchester. In 1960 he was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Sheffield for a thesis on 'Holiness and its Social Implications'. He was a talented organist and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the London College of Music in 1973.

From 1941 to 1943 Maurice was a minister at the East Ham Mission, working in a heavily bombed area of London, Under the leadership of the Rev. Dr Colin A. Roberts Maurice became involved with the Christian Commando Campaigns. His next appointment was on a housing estate at Eden Grove, Bristol. In 1946 Maurice became a lecturer at Cliff College, moving a year later to the Eastbrook Hall, Bradford. In a 17 year ministry his evangelical preaching created and sustained one of the largest Methodist congregations in the country. In January 1956 he founded the first club in Britain for Teddy-boys and Teddy-girls, which they governed themselves. Maurice also pioneered work amongst the growing immigrant community in Bradford.

In 1964 Maurice became the Superintendent Minister of Westminster Central Hall. In partnership with Lord Rank he devised a scheme which cleared the £60,000 debt on the premises and he led a much needed refurbishing of the Hall. An enthusiastic ecumenist, he quickly developed good relations with Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral clergy and people. He also built important links with the Houses of Parliament and many Government departments. His ministry and preaching drew large congregations. He was in constant demand as a preacher, including Bible studies at the Derwent Convention, Cliff College Anniversary weekends, and preaching missions in the U.S.A., Fiji, and Australia. He led many ‘missions of renewal’ in Britain. A prolific writer, his publications ranged from The Living Flame: Being a study of The Gift of the Spirit in the New Testament (1953) to a regular column in the Westminster and Pimlico newspaper.

Maurice Barnett suffered a heart attack while planning a mission in Tavistock in spring 1980 and he died in Cromer following a second heart attack on 9 April 1980.

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Wesleyan Methodists

There was a Society from 1810 and a chapel was built in Cannon Square, Hogge Hill in 1813. On 21 October 1866 the chapel was re-opened after extensive alterations and enlarged to seat 580 persons. More improvements were completed in 1881. With the growing number of Sunday school children and weekday activities a new Sunday school was added to the church which was opened on Wednesday 28 November 1894. The chapel closed in 1964 when it joined the Mount Tabor and the London Road chapels in the newly built Downham Methodist Church, in Paradise Road.

Primitive Methodists

A Society was formed around 1829 and a small chapel was opened on 31 August 1834 in a back lane in the lower part of the town which had to be enlarged six months later. The Eastern Fens chapels formed their circuit in 1836 which was centred on Downham Market. On Good Friday and Easter Day 1870 the Circuit held celebratory preaching meetings on the recently purchased site for the new Downham Market church on London Road. The foundation stone was laid on Thursday 15 September 1870 and the chapel, seating 300 persons, was opened on Good Friday (7 April) 1871. The chapel closed in 1965, uniting with the other two Methodist chapels to form the Downham Methodist Church.

Wesleyan Reform and United Methodist Free Churches

A Wesleyan Reform group was meeting in the town in 1849 and in the 1851 Religious Census they were meeting in a room above stables and a gig house.

A Society formed around 1850 built Mount Tabor ??? Chapel on Bridge Street in 1859, to seat 250 people. The school room was added in 1865 and a gallery in 1879. The chapel was enlarged in 1897-98. The chapel closed in 1966 and with the other two Methodist chapels became the Downham Market Methodist Church.

In 1962 a scheme was launched to unite the three Methodist societies in one church building. In May 1963 a building fund for £36,000 was launched with a commitment that the Downham Market Methodists would raise £12,000. Other moneys to be secured by the sale of the three existing chapels and with grants. Eventually the building cost £44,000 of which £15,000 was raised locally. In November 1964 the three congregations united and temporarily worshipped in Mount Tabor church. On Saturday 16 July 1966 the new church was opened on Paradise Road by Mrs Mary E. Osborne, one of the oldest members.

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Worship in the Belle Hill area began around 1809, with a congregation of local people and soldiers from the King's German Legion, refugee Hanoverians, loyal to George III. A Society was formed and placed in the Lewes Circuit. Land was bought in 1822 and the Belle Hill Wesleyan chapel opened in 1825. This became the base for further outreach and the premises were extended in 1869 and 1887. In 1886 the St Leonards Circuit, including Bexhill, was separated from the Hastings Circuit.

A new chapel was built on the corner of Sackville Road and Parkhurst Road in 1892-96, with seating for 710 people.

Primitive Methodists

In 1865 a group of mission preachers from Hastings preached on the Sidley village green on the outskirts of Bexhill. The Primitive Methodist preachers were well received and regular Sunday and mid-week services were held; in 1873 a small chapel was built at Haddocks Hill.

Competition for a site on the corner of Springfield Road and Holliers Hill between brewers and the local Temperance movement resulted in the purchase of the site by a London stockbroker, Alfred J. Marshall Jay (1852-1922), who gave the site to the Primitive Methodists, with a donation to support the building of a chapel. Christ Church opened on 20 March 1907.

After Methodist Union, in 1938 the Belle Hill Wesleyan and Christ Church Primitive Methodist societies joined, on the Christ Church site.

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Samuel Barber was the son of Francis Barber (1742/3-1801) and Elizabeth Barber nee Ball (1756-1816). His father was born into slavery in Jamaica and given the name Quashey. He was brought to England in 1750, baptised, and given the name Francis Barber. He was later sent by the Bathurst family to work as valet to Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). Francis married Elizabeth Ball in 1776 and Samuel was their youngest surviving child. The family lived with Dr Johnson until he died and Samuel attended a boarding-school in Lichfield. In 1799 he became a servant of Gregory Hickman (1766-1816) a Burslem surgeon, and in 1802 he married Eleanor Tunstall; there were no children from the marriage. After Dr Hickman's death Samuel became an apprentice potter’s printer for the master potter Enoch Wood.

Despite initial hostility to Methodism and Dissent, Samuel was caught up in the Methodist revival in Burslem in 1805 and 1806 and was converted. On 11 September 1810 he met and had meaningful conversation with William Clowes (1780-1851) and when Clowes was expelled by the Wesleyans, Samuel was an early member of Clowes' Burslem Class meeting. He remained a member in the Burslem Wesleyan Society, where he met Frances (Fanny) Sherwin (1786-) a Sunday school teacher. They married in 1811 and had six children. By November 1815 Samuel was a ??? on trial on the Primitive Methodist Plan. He was appointed the first Secretary of the Religious Tract Visiting Society in April 1818. He died at Tunstall on 6 July 1828, having served as a Local Preacher for 17 years. In October 2021 the Staffordshire libraries hosted the animated film 'Tunstall', produced by Jason Young, the story of Samuel Barber, the first Black British preacher in Primitive Methodism.

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Cloud sometimes known as The Cloud stands on Bosley Cloud Hill near Congleton and is on the Staffordshire side of the Cheshire border. In the entry in the journal of Hugh Bourne (1772-1852) dated 4 May 1808 says that (Wesleyan) work is broke out at Rushton and he goes to speak about improving the meeting at Buglawton by Cloud with a camp meeting. In his journal dated 15 May 1808 Hugh Bourne writes that the meeting at Cloud was held out of doors. On 28 July 1808 Hugh Bourne heard from his brother James Bourne (1781-1860) that they had been “put out of Society” in other words expelled by the Burslem Wesleyan Circuit Meeting. Cloud was on the Congleton Wesleyan Circuit Plan 10 January 1808 to 10 July and 23 October 1808 to 16 April 1809 with a preaching service every other week. The Cloud Wesleyan Society was on the Cheshire side of Cloud Hill. On the Staffordshire side of Cloud Hill lived the Dakin (or Deakin) farming family, Joseph (1746-1831) and Rebekah nee Reynolds (1752-1822) and their ten children. They were tenant farmers at Ashmore House, Rushton. Their youngest daughters Mary (1791-1814) and Elizabeth (1793-1879) early in 1810 heard a Methodist style sermon which made a lasting impression on them. The preacher was the Rev Jonathan Wilson, curate of St Lawrence’s Church, Rushton Spencer. Mary found salvation in late 1810 at a prayer meeting led by Hugh Bourne at Cloud. Around the same time her sister Elizabeth found liberty. Shortly afterwards Joseph Dakin was taken seriously ill and his son George (1778-1854) who had joined the Rushton Wesleyan Society brought some of the members to pray with his father. Following this incident Ashmore House became a preaching place. In 1811 James Bourne preached at Ashmore House several times. Rebekah was profoundly deaf and at her request Hugh Bourne wrote what he called 'A statement of the doctrines of the gospel'. Following their spiritual awakening the Dakin family home became a preaching place. On 25 April 1811 Hugh and James Bourne preached at Ashmore House and shortly after a Primitive Methodist Class was formed which the Dakin family joined. On the hand written Primitive Methodist Plan for 22 September 1811 to 15 December 1811 Cloud is one of the preaching places. On 17 November 1811 Hugh Bourne preached three times at Cloud and stayed overnight with Aaron Mitchell. Hugh Bourne wrote in his Journal on 10 May 1814 that Elizabeth Dakin preached at Cloud for the first time and that she did well. When a Sunday school was started at Cloud it created the need for a chapel. On 12 May 1815 the trustees bought for £5 a piece of land on the Staffordshire flanks of The Cloud hill to 'build a chapel meeting house or school for the use of a society or congregation known by the Denomination of Primitive Methodists.' H. B. Kendall (1844-1919) reported in 1904 the tradition that Thomas Bayley begged the money for the chapel in three days and that the stone-built chapel costing £26 was built in three weeks. The trustees were Hugh Bourne and James Bourne, William Dakin (1783-1855) and Charles Dakin (1787-1872) yeomen, the nail makers Richard and Aaron Mitchell and Thomas Bayley, a stonemason. The chapel opened in 1815. The first Anniversary of the chapel was held in May 1816 when the preacher was Samuel Barber (1775-1828) popularly known as 'Black Sam'. On 3 April 1817 Elizabeth Dakin preached at the Cloud chapel. The Cloud Methodist Church which is in the Dane and Trent Methodist Circuit is the oldest still functioning former Primitive Methodist Church in the world. At the time of writing in 2025 there is a weekly service on Sunday afternoons.

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Between 1746 and 1790 John Wesley visited the town over 40 times and preached on at least 35 occasions. He was mobbed on a number of visits.

Wesleyan Methodists

There was a Society meeting in a meeting house from at least 1748. John Wesley preached in a partly built new meeting house in Park Road on Monday 25 October 1762. The Sunday School was started in 1801, teaching children to read and write. By 1821 there were 149 scholars. A replacement chapel named Ebenezer Wesleyan chapel was built in 1819 on land where the Tennis Court Inn had previously stood in Paul Street. It was designed to seat 1000 worshippers. It was enlarged and a porch added in 1860. On 7 October 1874 a new Sunday school and class rooms were opened. On Tuesday 28 October 1890 the foundation stones were laid for the Wesleyan Centenary House which was close to the Somerset and Dorset railway station. The property was a manse, named Centenary House to celebrate the centenary of the Shepton Mallet Circuit which was created from the Bradford-on-Avon Circuit in 1789. In the early 2000s the Methodists moved to St Peter's and St Paul's parish church in Peter Street. Shortly afterwards the Methodist Church premises in Paul Street became the Paul Street Community Centre.

'Primitive Methodists

There was a Class of 20 members in 1842 led by Mrs Anna Langford (1789-1858) when Shepton Mallet was a Mission in the Frome Circuit.

On the 1851 Place of Public Religious Worship census form, Mr Joseph Watts, a Local Preacher, living in Leigh on Mendip gave information about the numbers attending worship but in the entry for Name or Title of Place of Worship he entered 'None'. There is a suggestion that there was a meeting house registered in 1867 in the town in Leg Street. There is no Leg Street in Shepton Mallet although there is a Leg Square. On the Ordnance Survey maps of the area there is no Primitive Methodist chapel indicated. There seems to have been a Primitive Methodist presence but no Primitive Methodist Chapel.

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Wesleyans'

John Wesley was in the central Norfolk town of East Dereham on three occasions - in 1788, when he was requested to preach, again in 1789, and in 1790, on his last tour of East Anglia, when he administered communion to a congregation there.

Shortly after Wesley's first visit, on 25 November 1788, the itinerant preacher John Reynolds, stationed in Norwich, applied to register for worship the house of William Knapp of East Dereham.

In 1823, Thomas Padman, Methodist minister in the Holt Circuit, applied for a licence for 'a meeting house or Chapel belonging to the Wesleyan Methodists in East Dereham.' Building was quickly begun on a site in Theatre Street and the chapel opened for worship in 1824. It was a modest building: according to the Thetford and Watton Times of 24 April, 1880, 'Its architecture was of such an uncouth kind.' It accommodated just 140 worshippers.

Originally listed in the vast King's Lynn Circuit, East Dereham moved in 1790 to the Wells-next-the-Sea Circuit, re-named the Walsingham Circuit in 1791. In 1815 it was transferred to the new Holt Circuit and finally in 1827 became part of the Swaffham Circuit.

Itr was so much affected by the crisis in Wesleyanism in the mid-nineteenth century that almost all the congregation left the chapel and joined the Wesleyan Reformers. The Wesleyan chapel became 'the scene of disgraceful occurrences', the minister, Henry Laugher, later wrote. 'It became an object of hatred. Its windows were broken, its gas fittings wrenched off, its seats destroyed, and its floor covered with a wagon-load of rubbish.' (Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1861, page 370).

In 1860 the building was repaired and an additional minister was stationed in the circuit who was to reside at Dereham. This became a regular arrangement. Very slowly the cause improved.

The foundation stone of a new chapel was laid on 21 April 1880 for a building 57 feet by 35 feet, with a gallery for eighty people, and an open-timbered roof with curved braces and octagonal columns. In the Early English style, it had walls of Bath stone and dressings of Kentish ragstone. It was designed by the Norwich architect Edward Boardman and the builder was William James Larner of Dereham. It was named 'Trinity Church'.

A cast of notables attended the opening ceremony in December 1880: the President of Conference, the Rev. ???; the Secretary of Conference, the Rev. Marmaduke Osborne; and the Revs Dr Morley Punshon, Francis Sharr, and Robert Morton. The cost was £3400 and this included building and furnishing a house for the minister. £275 of this came from the Methodist Extension Fund and £50 from the Connexional Chapel Fund.

The following year East Dereham was made into a separate circuit.

Wesleyan numbers in Norfolk had never recovered from the Reform dispute and at the end of the nineteenth century most Norfolk circuits were dissolved and re-formed into two missions covering very large areas of the county. East Dereham was placed in the Mid-Norfolk Mission.

Debts dogged the Dereham Trust, not helped by the fact that monies given to the minister, the Rev. R.W. Pickersgill, were never handed to the treasurer.

Primitive Methodists

After a tentative start, with the town missioned from Fakenham, a permanent cause was established in the town and was part of a new circuit gathered by Robert Key and based on the village of Mattishall. Problems repeatedly arose in finding a permanent preaching place until 1843, when a chapel was rented in Norwich Street.

In 1844 the residence of the superintendent was moved to East Dereham and in the following year Dereham became the head of the circuit to replace Mattishall.

A site for a chapel was found in Commercial Road. Thomas Lowe, minister, was indefatigable in raising money for a new building and travelled extensively round the country lecturing in an effort to swell the necessary funds. The stone-laying took place on 23 June 1863. The stone was laid by William Hodge of Newington Hall, Yorkshire, former Mayor of Hull, and Robert Key preached the opening sermon. The new building consisted of 450 seats and cost a little over £1000. A Sunday school met in the basement and a gallery was added in 1870.

The circuit was an active one with very many members particularly amongst agricultural workers. The National Agricultural Workers' Union gained much support amongst the Primitive Methodists in particular.

United Methodist Free Churches

A licence for worship was obtained on 17 January 1850 for a chapel on Wellington Road, which cost £280. This building was relinquished in the 1860s and various properties were rented for worship. A site was bought in Norwich Road in 1902, a stone-laying took place on 4 August 1902 and the new chapel opened on 10 December. It seated 200 worshippers.

Union

At Methodist Union it was agreed that the Primitive Methodist chapel would close and the congregation should join the two other Methodist churches in the town.

Debts gathered following the Second World War and by 1974 it was agreed to help resolve this problem by combining the Dereham and Swaffham Circuits.

Building issues with the Norwich Road church led to a decision to close in 1982.

In 1985 a large building project was undertaken at Trinity Church. The work was undertaken by A.J. Woods and Sons of Norwich and the glazing by the firm of G. King. The total cost was £40,000. The building was given Listed Grade 2 status in 1999.

Trinity Church is now part of the Central Norfolk Circuit.

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A school teacher, Band and Class leader in Bristol. Susan Massingarb married James Designe at St Mary's church, Whittlesey, in 1730. Neither of their baptisms have been traced, but it is thought that they were members of the French Protestant congregation at Thorney. Following their marriage they moved to Bristol, where their daughter, Parthenia, was baptised at Temple Church on 14 April 1734. It is not known if they had any other children.

Susannah was impressed by the preaching first of George Whitefield and then of John Wesley, resulting in her joining one of the Methodist societies in Bristol. John recorded taking tea and singing hymns at her house on 9 June 1739. On 12 August 1741 Susannah write to John that she had heard that Sister Ryan was leaving the school in the Horse Fair and that Sister Somerell had declined taking it on. Susannah was offering to take on the school because her own school was declining, which she attributed to parents persecuting the Methodists.

On 18 March 1742 Susannah wrote her conversion testimony to Charles Wesley, at his request. This letter survives in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library.

On 29 August 1746 John Wesley recorded a conversation with Sarah Farley, in which Sarah recounted an incident involing Susannah which had taken place on 16 July 1743. It concerned a pupil of Susannah's, named only as S.T., who suddenly developed fits. Her father sent for an apothecary, who pronounced her dead. Her mother sent for Susannah and the child recovered. Wesley records the third-hand account of the child's near-death experience.

James Designe was buried at St James's Church, the parish in which the New Room was situated, on 7 February 1769.

In a list of 'Persons admitted on Trial' between September 1765 and March 1769 Sister Design recommended three women to become members and they were each to meet with her in Band or Class. A fourth, Ann Smith, who was housekeeper at the New Room, was transferred to her from the London Society, and a fifth was added to her care without additional recommendation. Susannah appeared in the first complete membership list for the New Room, dated 1770, leading two Classes, and described as a widow, working as a schoolmistress and living at Cross Street. She continued to appear in each annual list, as a Class leader and schoolmistress, living at Cross Street, until 1777. In 1778 Susannah was not recorded as a Class leader, but she was in a Band. Although her name was recorded in the 1779 membership list, it was subsequently underlined and marked with a symbol to indicate that she died during the year.

Susannah was buried at the church of St James on 31 December 1779. Her daughter, Parthenia Murray, and her granddaughters, Susannah and Parthenia, were members of the Society at the New Room.

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James Banyard, sometime Wesleyan Local Preacher and founder of the group known variously as the Banyardites, the Christian Brethren, and the Peculiar People, was born on 31 January 1800 in Rochford, a small market town in Essex. The son of a ploughman, Banyard began his working life as an agricultural labourer, but learned the craft of shoemaking while serving a prison term for poaching. Attendance at the Rochford Wesleyan chapel led to a reformation of life and a commitment to teetotalism. This led to contact with William Bridges (1802-74), a London hat block maker, whose sister lived in Rochford. Bridges experienced a powerful evangelical conversion under the ministry of Robert Aitken, a Church of England clergyman and revivalist, and in 1837 founded the 'Plumstead Peculiars'. While visiting Bridges, Banyard had a similar conversion experience. Already a Local Preacher, he began to advocate this experience in the Rochford chapels, but met with opposition and transferred his preaching first to his own cottage and then to rented premises. By 1842 the Banyardites were renting their own chapel in Union Lane, Rochford, and a literal reading of James 5:14-15 persuaded them to adopt the prayer of faith as the remedy for sickness, eschewing conventional medicine.

In 1844 Banyard's wife Susan, nee Garnish, died. The following year he married the widow Judith Lucking (1822-71), nee Knapping, daughter of a farming family, and her resources enabled him to buy a site for a chapel in North Street, Rochford. The growth of the group and the acquisition of property led to the adoption of a constitution in 1852. Banyard and three other leaders became bishops and the group took the name 'The Peculiar People' from biblical texts.

The fifth of the Banyards' seven children, Josiah, born in 1855, was sickly, and James was persuaded to seek the help of a local doctor. He subsequently argued for a combination of prayer and medical attention, but this provoked a schism in the denomination and Banyard was removed from the leadership. He continued to preach until his death on 31 October 1863.

The Peculiar People endured several secessions during the nineteenth century. They established between thirty and forty chapels and meeting places, mostly in Essex, but with outposts in Kent and London. The denomination changed its name in 1956 to 'The Union of Evangelical Churches'.

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Although John Wesley mentions Chippenham in his Journal 17 times between 1742 and 1790 he only stopped for refreshment or just passed through. There is no record of him preaching in the town.

Wesleyan preaching in Chippenham began around 1805. At first the Society met in the Presbyterian chapel, but a Wesleyan chapel was built in London Road in 1812. This was succeeded by a larger building on The Causeway in 1853, in turn replaced in 1908-09 by a new chapel in Monkton Hill, designed by Gordon and Gunton.

Primitive Methodism: Persistent missioning by the Brinkworth Circuit from 1825 to 1832 led to the establishment of a PM Circuit by 1835. The Society bought the Quaker Meeting Room in The Causeway in 1834, replacing this with a larger chapel in 1896. A second chapel was built in Lowden in 1855, replaced by a new chapel in Sheldon Road in 1901.

In the 1980s the former PM Society at The Causeway joined with the Monkton Hill congregation to form Central Methodist Church.

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Glastonbury is a town on the Somerset levels, twenty three miles south of Bristol. Since 1970 the town has been home to the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, the largest greenfield music festival in the world. The Festival's founder and organiser, Michael Eavis, is a Methodist.

There is no record of John Wesley preaching in Glastonbury, but on 23 September 1755 Wesley climbed Glastonbury Tor and visited the tower, the remnant of St Michael's church.

Wesleyan Methodism began in Glastonbury with open air preaching, followed by meetings in private homes. A chapel was built in Lambrook Street in 1825 and gthis was replaced with a larger building in 1863-66; a new Sunday School was added in 1873. The premises were renovated in 1922.

Primitive Methodism: A chapel was built in Northload Street in 1844 and extended in 1888.

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Minister and missionary, popularly known as 'Fiji' Wilson. He was born in Bosfoot, Covend, Kirkcudbright, Scotland, on 21 November 1828 and raised in the Church of Scotland. Converted in his late teens in Liverpool and accepted as a candidate for the ministry in 1850, after training at Richmond College and marriage to Jane (1828-59), daughter of Peter McOwan (1795-1870), he sailed for Fiji in 1853, to work with James Calvert. Wilson was stationed successively at Viwa and Bua. Jane died at Bua in May 1859 and in 1860 Wilson returned to England with his three infant sons. He served in a succession of English circuits, was elected to the Legal Hundred in 1880, and attended the 1881 and 1891 Ecumenical Methodist Conferences. A consistent advocate of missions, especially to Fiji, he died on 1 June 1896.

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James Diggle Mould was the architect son of a Primitive Methodist minister, John Mould (1822-1887; e.m. 1849) and Sarah Diggle (1830-1891). Born at Glossop, he was educated at Bury Grammar School and in Manchester, before being articled to Maycock and Bell of Manchester from 1872-77. Employment then followed in Bolton with Thomas Haselden (1847-88), where Mould was head architect, 1878-83. He commenced his own practice in Manchester in 1884 and opened a branch office in Bury in 1886. About 1898 his younger brother, Samuel Joseph Mould (1869-1923) joined the practice, now known as Moulds, and with an office in London. A further partner was Austin Townsend Porritt (1876-1939), whose family ran Stubbins Vale Mills, near Edenfield. The partnership of Moulds & Porritt was dissolved in 1907, when Porritt left, having to take over the running of the family mills on his father's death. The Mould brothers worked together until 1910; thereafter Samuel remained in London. During the First World War he served in the Royal Engineers rising to the rank of captain; he died on 21 September 1923 at Hackney.

James Mould was the Secretary of the Manchester Architectural Society, 1885-1891, until it amalgamated with the Manchester Society of Architects. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1888 and a Fellow in 1897.

Although the practices covered a range of building types, including housing, offices and banks, they were responsible for more than sixty religious buildings, mostly Nonconformist chapels, especially Primitive Methodist and Congregationalist. Many were in Lancashire but their distribution reflected to some extent their office locations. Their Congregational chapels included Bury Castlecroft (1885) and Park, Manchester Road (1898); Chingford, Buxton Road (1910); Hull, Newland (1904-6). Primitive Methodist buildings included Edensfield, Rochdale Road (1891); Irwell Vale (1893); Luton, Hightown (1897); Oswestry, Castle Street (1899); Worsley, Worsley Road (1883).

James Mould married Sarah Taylor Rogers in 1893. Their son George (1894-1976) was a journalist. A man of wide culture and an excellent musician, James was a choir member and for a time also choirmaster at Walmersley Road PM, Bury, where he was a member. He also served as a Liberal councillor in Bury between 1900 and 1903. He died at Bury on 28 May 1935.

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The Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield is eight miles north east of Birmingham and seven miles south of Tamworth.

Methodist preaching started in Sutton Coldfield in 1765 when Francis Asbury held services in a cottage at Hill Hook, the home of Edward Hand, a self-employed cordwainer. Opposition to the Methodists continued through the 1770s and 1780s, with occasional violence and attempts to evict the Hand family.

A chapel was opened in Belwell Lane in 1799 and sold in 1853. A growing congregation in the 1880s led to the building of a new chapel, designed by Thomas Guest of Birmingham, on the corner of Newhall Street and The Parade in 1887-88, with a Sunday School in South Parade, built in 1926-27. The chapel was purchased by the town council in 1935 and a new chapel was opened in South Parade in 1936.

The closure of the Four Oaks racecourse in 1899 led to extensive housing development. Local Wesleyans bought a site on the corner of Lichfield and Walsall Roads and the Four Oaks chapel, designed by Crouch and Butler of Birmingham, was built in two phases - the nave in 1902-03 and the transepts, chancel and vestries in 1908-10.

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Street is a large village approximately 2 miles southwest of Glastonbury. From the mid-seventeenth century there was a Quaker presence in the village and the Clarks, a prominent Quaker family, developed a very successful shoemaking business in Street from the mid-nineteenth century. The Clarks were generous donors of land and funds to successive Methodist chapels.

Wesleyan Methodists: Preaching probably began in private houses licensed for worship in the early nineteenth century. The first chapel, built in 1839, was extended several times and then replaced by a new building in Leigh Road in 1893, a Geometrical Gothic chapel with side aisles and transepts, designed by Henry Hawkins. A two-storey Sunday School, with an assembly hall and ten classrooms, was added in 1897.

Primitive Methodists: PM open-air meetings began in Street in 1852 and a Society was formed in 1863. A chapel was opened in the High Street in 1872 and extended in 1882-83.

Both chapels remained in use after Methodist Union, but the ex-PM chapel was closed in 1963.

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Socialist and reformer, born on 20 July 1866 at Raunds, Northamptonshire, into a Wesleyan Methodist family. Her parents, Samuel and Sarah (née Ekins) were farmers; one brother, Richard Ekins Brown (1867-1943; e.m. 1892) became a Wesleyan minister. Ada was an active Wesleyan and Liberal, identifying with the party's Radical wing.

In 1896 Ada moved to London and joined Katherine Price Hughes' Sisters of the People. A year later she transferred to the Bermondsey Settlement, sharing a flat with Grace Hannam and taking responsibility for the Settlement's Girls' Clubs. At the Settlement she met Alfred Salter (1873-1945), then an agnostic and socialist, also with a Wesleyan background. Under Ada’s influence he became a Christian and a Liberal. They married in August 1900 and Alfred set up his medical practice in Jamaica Road, Bermondsey.

In 1906 Ada resigned from the Liberal Party over their failure to grant votes for women. Already involved with the fledgling Women's Labour League, Ada joined the Independent Labour Party. In 1909 she was elected to the Bermondsey Borough Council as the first woman and first Labour councillor. Although her first term was brief (1909-12), she returned to the Council in 1919 and was re-elected for three further terms. She was the first woman and Labour mayor both in London and in the British Isles. Her political priorities were public health, slum clearance, and the improvement of the urban landscaoe through the 'greening' of Bermondsey, creating open spaces and planting thousands of trees.

Ada was an 'associate member' of the Deptford Friends' Meeting from 1903. Her strong pacifism led her to identify fully with the Quakers from the beginning of the First World War.

Ada and Alfred Salter's only child, Joyce, was born in June 1902 and died of scarlet fever in June 1910.

Ada died in Balham, London, on 4 December 1942.

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Addingham is situated on the River Wharfe, about 6 miles east of Skipton and 3 miles west of Ilkley. The Quaker Meeting House at Farfield was established soon after the 1689 Toleration Act.

The first Methodist society in Addingham was formed around 1748, several years after preaching in the area began, led by William Grimshaw. John Wesley preached at Addingham on 26 July 1766, travelling from Skipton to Guiseley. The first meeting house, a modest building with square windows and whitewashed walls, was built in 1778 in Lidget Lane. It was enlarged in 1808 and reconstructed in 1834. Around the chapel building is a large burial ground which was given in 1825 by George Oates Greenwood (1798-1845), of Netherwood House. In the burial ground is a large Egyptian style mausoleum built by William Greenwood (1804-1866) in honour of his brother George Oates Greenwood. In 1843 a Wesleyan Day School was started in premises specially built as a school using the British system of tuition. 50 children were enrolled. In 1874 new school premises were built. The chapel was extended in 1880. By the 2020s the Methodist congregation was worshipping in the former day school premises.

Primitive Methodists: In 1821 John Hewson (1793-1831) preached in Addingham Main Street. A Society was started and met in a room in the Crown Inn. In 1832 a Sunday school was started and met in the Addingham Low Mill. In 1837 land was purchased and the chapel was opened in 1839. On 22 June 1912 the foundation stones for a new chapel and school were laid opposite the Fleece Inn on land donated by Mr Ellis Cunliffe Lister-Kay (1774-1853). The chapel was opened on Saturday 15 January 1913 and later closed, becoming a community centre.

Wesleyan Reform Union: The corner stone of Mount Hermon chapel was laid on Good Friday, 29 March 1861. The building survived a fire, set by a disgruntled member of the congregation in December 1869.

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The name Port Talbot was first used in 1837 when docks were built on the banks of the river Afan. The town was not created until 1921 when Aberafan, Cwmafan and Margam were amalgamated. Port Talbot is on the east side of Swansea bay and eight miles from Swansea. The main employer is the steel works.

John Wesley preached in the area several times. By1797 Wesleyan ministers were preaching in Taibach and a Society Class was formed and met in the house of Isaac Bailey in Constant Row. The history of the chapel is linked with the Margam Copper Works which was the economic backbone of Taibach and the surrounding area. The Vivian family, owners of the copper works and of the Morfa coal mine, were Anglicans, but also supportive of Methodist and Nonconformist work in the area, permitting use of the Eastern day school for Sunday worship, Sunday School, and weeknight activities. As the society grew, funds were gradually raised for a chapel (1887-91), and a building in Incline Row (Waun-y-glo) was constructed in 1892-93. Wesley Hall, later the Central Hall, was opened in 1896 and rebuilt in 1911.

Primitive Methodists: The area was missioned in 1841 and re-missioned in 1848 when a Society was formed in a house on Cwmavon Street, Aberavon. In 1851 the PMs built Bethel chapel on Wern Street. The opening services were held on Friday 24 October 1851. In 1900 the chapel was relocated to High Street.

Bible Christians: In 1840 James Bartlett (1816-1881) was sent from the Monmouth Mission to Cwnavon to work amongst the Bible Christians from Devon. The area was missioned by the Bible Christians in Cwmavon around 1843. In 1849 Societies were founded in cottages in Aberavon and Cwmavon. The Society built a chapel on Wern Street in 1851. This was replaced by the larger Zion chapel in Clarence Street which was opened on 26 June 1864.

Trinity Methodist Church: When Wales’s first motorway the M4 Port Talbot bypass, was built, Bethel, the former Primitive Methodist Church, Zion the former Bible Christian/United Methodist chapel, and Wesley Hall had to be demolished. The congregations came together in 1963 in the specially built Trinity Methodist Church in Tydraw Street.

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Caernarfon is the correct spelling of this Welsh Royal town. The anglicised spellings of the town’s name Carnarvon and Caernarvon were used until 1974. Caernarfon is a port and resort in North West Wales on the Menai Straits; its name means ‘Fortress on the Mona’.

John Wesley passed through Caernarvon on his way to or from Ireland 6 times between 6 August 1747 and 24 March 1756, but never mentions preaching in the town.

As the President of the Irish Conference, Thomas Coke (1747-1814) from Brecon regularly travelled through North Wales. Coke realised that there was need for Welsh speaking itinerant preachers to be seconded to this important section of Welsh life. The Welsh speaking Methodist preachers at the time in North Wales were mainly Calvinistic Methodists.Coke urged the 1800 Wesleyan Conference to establish a Welsh speaking (Arminian) Wesleyan mission with itinerants who spoke Welsh. The Conference appointed the Welsh speaking Owen Davies (1752-1830) of Wrexham and John Hughes (1776-1842) of Brecon as missionaries to Wales. The appointment in the Minutes of Conference stated: "Brother Davies has a discretionary power to labour as and where he judges best, for the advantage of the Welsh Missions; and shall have the superintendence of the whole Mission, and authority to change the Preachers as he judges best."

On 16 September 1800 Owen Davies preached in the Caernarfon Calvinistic Methodist chapel, leading the service in English. On 26 October 1800 John Hughes preached in Welsh and English to a large congregation in the same chapel. In June 1802 the bi-lingual preachers Edward Jones (1778-1837) (Bathanfarn) and the former Calvinistic Methodist and now a Welsh Wesleyan itinerant John Bryan (1776-1856) were warmly welcomed by Robert Jones who had come from the Vale of Clwyd to live in Caernarfon and Samuel Ogden (1769-1839), a Local Preacher and hatter who had also recently come to live in the town from Oldham. The Town Crier was sent out to announce that there would be a service that evening in Penyrallt Street. Not knowing anything about the Wesleyans he announced that two Welsh Lions would preach at seven o’clock that evening.

On his next visit Bryan formed a Wesleyan society, which rented the Old Playhouse in Penyrallt Street for their meetings. In 1803 Caernarfon was made the head of the second Welsh Circuit which encompassed the counties of Caernarfon, Anglesey and Merioneth. John Hughes was the first Superintendent. At the first Quarterly Meeting on 11 April 1804 Samuel Ogden of Caernarfon and Thomas Templeman (1744-1833) of Anglesey (game keeper and formerly of Yorkshire) were appointed Circuit Stewards. At the time the Welsh Wesleyans' Arminian doctrines were considered by most of the other denominations as heretical. In the early days the Welsh Wesleyan ministers and preachers had to vigorously defend their beliefs. During the ministry of Hugh Hughes (1821-23) land was bought for a chapel and on 9 April 1826 Ebenezer, the largest Welsh Wesleyan chapel in the principality, was opened at a cost of £4000. In 1830 the Carnarvon and Bangor English Circuit was formed with the English minister John Gordon being stationed in Carnarvon. In 1834 an English Wesleyan Chapel was opened. The Welsh and English Societies in Carnarvon although in different Circuits worked side by side. When the former minister John Bryan amicably withdrew from the itinerancy he was eventually encouraged to return to Carnarvon in 1831 by Richard M. Preece (1797-1854), Local Preacher and JP. Bryan opened a grocery and tea dealership business and gave faithful and valuable service as a Local Preacher and Methodist leader until he died in Caernarfon on 28 May 1856.

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Leonard Gregory Parsons, Professor of Paediatrics at Birmingham University and dean of the University's medical school, was born on 25 November 1879 in Kidderminster, the eldest child of Theophilus Lessey Parsons and Sarah Ann Parsons (nee Sharpe). The family were experienced and entrepreneurial farmers, and committed Wesleyans.

After recovering from a serious accident in childhood, Leonard Parsons was educated at King Edward's Grammar School, Aston (1891-96) and then at the Birmingham Mason Science College, studying first zoology and then medicine. He gained a succession of medical degrees and awards, including the MD and MRCP by 1909 and FRCP in 1923. Posts at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children and at the Birmingham Children's Hospital facilitated the development of expertise in paediatrics. After service in the RAMC in the First World War he resumed lecturing in paediatrics in Birmingham and was greatly involved in the establishment of the medical school, becoming its dean in 1941. His Diseases of Infancy and Childhood (1933), coauthored with Seymour Barling, became the standard textbook on the subject. He pioneered research in child nutrition, coeliac disease, rickets, and the treatment of rickets with synthetic ascorbic acid, and, in a team including his cousin Dr Evelyn Marion Hickmans, haemolytic anaemias in chlidhood. Parsons was knighted in 1946 and elected FRS in 1948. He died on 17 December 1950.

Leonard Parsons married Ethel May Mantle (1885-1955) at Catford Wesleyan Church, Lewisham, on 30 April 1908. Ethel was the daughter of John Gregory Mantle (1852-1925), Wesleyan minister. Their son Clifford Gregory Parsons (1909-92), educated at The Leys School and Jesus College, Cambridge, was also a distinguished paediatrician, specialising in children's heart diseases and malfunctions. Like his father, Clifford Parsons was an active member of Four Oaks Methodist Church, Sutton Coldfield, and he died while ayyending a Men's Fellowship there on 19 December 1992.

Leonard Parsons' eldest sibling, Emily Gertrude Parsons (1881-1971), educated at King Edward VI School for Girls, Aston, and Newnham College, Cambridge, served as Principal of the Methodist Girls' School in Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka). She married in 1908 the Wesleyan minister Arthur Ernest Kilner Brown (1883-1952).

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Pontefract is a market town in the historic West Riding of Yorkshire, now within the City of Bradford.

John Wesley passed through Pontefract on his way to Epworth on Tuesday 18 March 1746. There is no record of him preaching on this occasion. At his next visit on Wednesday 29 July 1772 at noon he opened the new preaching-house and preached to a “large and still congregation”. Wesley’s last visit was on Friday 23 April 1790 when he preached in the new chapel on Romans 3:23 before moving on to Wakefield.

Wesleyan Methodism: The Society was formed around 1765, or earlier, and was in the Leeds. It owed much to the encouragement of the Rev. Edward Buckley, Curate and in 1770 Vicar of St Mary’s, Kippax, and to the leadership of John Shephard of Peckfield, whose home contained the preaching-house opened by Wesley in 1772, A new chapel was opened on 4 April 1790 and another, in the Horsefair, seating 1000, on 13 January 1825. The development of the town led to the building of a school chapel in Newgate, opened on 19 October 1875.

Primitive Methodism: There was a Sunday school started around 1829. The first chapel was built in Booths just below the castle in 1834. This building was replaced by a 500-seat chapel, opened in Micklegate on 21 January 1872. In 1900 the Tanshelf Mission was opened.

The Wesleyan (Horsefair) and PM (Micklegate) Circuits united in the 1950s, forming the Pontefract Circuit and the Horsefair congregation moved to the Micklegate chapel. This building was destroyed by an arsonist in 1965 and replaced in 1969. Meanwhile, Central Methodist Church opened in 1962, designed by John Poulson, at that time a member in the circuit.

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Ledbury is a market town which is 16 miles east of Hereford.

Wesleyan Methodism: There was a Wesleyan Methodist presence in Ledbury from around 1800 and it was served by preachers from the Hereford Circuit. In 1812 the Circuit was named Hereford and Ledbury. The Ledbury Wesleyan Circuit was established in 1817. The Wesleyan chapel was built in Homend Street and was opened on Wednesday 14 November 1849. The chapel was reopened after extensive alteration, including the addition of twin towers, on 4 March 1886. The chapel closed on 4 August 2019 and the congregation moved to other premises.

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Haverfordwest is a sea port and market town, and the county town of Pembrokeshire, West Wales.

Methodism in Haverfordwest

Calvinistic Methodists: The Calvinistic Methodist society in Haverfordwest was established in 1743. by Howell Davies, (1717-1770), who was known as the Apostle of Pembrokeshire and who had been converted by Howell Harris in 1737. Howell Harris visited regularly and George Whitefield came to the town in 1768. The society met in City Road, and later in Cokey Street. In 1774 they built the Tabernacle chapel. A dispute over governance in 1790 led to the departure of the Calvinistic Methodists. At first they met in Bridge Street, and later in a corn loft in Prendergast until they built Ebenezer chapel in Perrot Road in 1817. The chapel was rebuilt in 1844 and restored in 1967-69.

The Moravian society in Haverfordwest started in 1739. In 1763, a few days before John Wesley's first visit to the town, the Moravian bishop John Gambold established a congregation of 26 members. The Moravians built a chapel in St Thomas' Green and Rosemary Lane.

Wesleyan Methodists: John Wesley made his first of fourteen visits to Haverfordwest on Wednesday 24 August 1763. At the time Wesley knew no one in the town and there is no evidence of any of Wesley’s preachers having visited the town before.

The Wesleyan Methodists built their preaching house in 1772 adjacent to the north side of St Martin’s Parish Church where Wesley occasionally preached. The congregation had to walk through St Martin’s churchyard to get to the ‘new house’. When Wesley visited the town on Tuesday 18 August 1772 he preached at the opening of this preaching place, which Wesley said was 'far the neatest in Wales.' The ‘new house’ was known as the ‘Wesley Room’. By 1781 there were 60 members and it was the largest congregation in the Pembroke Circuit. In 1818 the chapel was rebuilt on the same site in Perrot Road and Chapel Lane.

Primitive Methodists: S. Lewis writing in 1833 suggests that the Primitive Methodists were active at that time in Haverfordwest. William Allen, class leader and boot maker, in the 1851 Religious Census claimed that the Primitive Methodists had had a meeting place in Prendergast, Haverfordwest since 1836. The cause was started in 1823.

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Pembroke is a town in South West Wales at the end of the Pembrokeshire peninsula.

Methodism in Pembroke: John Wesley preached in Pembroke for the first time on Sunday 21 August 1763, making seventeen visits between 1763 and 1790.

Calvinistic Methodists: The Calvinistic Methodists found it difficult to establish a society in Pembroke or the county because of the anglicised nature of the area. However they erected their Westgate Chapel, Westgate Hill, Pembroke in 1826.

Wesleyan Methodists: In 1761 John Wesley accepted Thomas Taylor (1738-1816) as an itinerant and sent him to Wales. In 1762 he preached in Pembroke several times and formed a society. A Pembrokeshire circuit was formed in 1763 and a Pembroke circuit in 1771. The society built a chapel in 1822 on East Back, Main Street.This was replaced in 1871-72, on the same site.

Welsh Wesleyans: This section of the Wesleyan Connexion was unable to successfully put down deep roots in Pembroke or in the county because English was the dominant language in this part of Wales. Before the Welsh Wesleyan Mission was created the Welsh Baptists and the Welsh Congregationalists had become the only nonconformists to be successful in planting Wesh language chapels in the area.

Primitive Methodists': There is no record of a Primitive Methodist chapel in Pembroke. There was Zion Primitive Methodist chapel in Prospect Place, Pembroke Dock, which was built in 1849.

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Until the industrial revolution began, Merthyr Tydfil was a rural village. In the mid-19th century it became known as the ‘Iron Capital of the World’ and in 1804 Merthyr Tydfil was the first place in the world to have a steam powered railway. It ran around 14 km from the Penydarren ironworks to the Glamorganshire canal.

Calvinistic Methodists: Around 1738 Howel Harris preached in the area. In 1749 the Ynysgau Non-Conformist chapel was built in Merthyr Tydfil. Following disputes in the chapel leadership, in 1794 the Calvinistic Methodists left and built their Pennsylvania (later Pontmorlais) Chapel in the town.

Wesleyan Methodism was introduced to the Dowlais area of Merthyr Tydfil by John Guest (1721-1787), a Wesleyan yeoman farmer, brewer, and coal merchant from Broseley, Shropshire. John Guest in collaboration with Isaac Wilkinson (1695-1784) started the Plymouth Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil in 1763. The partners in the Dowlais Ironworks in 1767 appointed John Guest as their manager in 1767 and shortly afterwards his wife Anne (1726-1763) and their children came to join him. In 1782 John Guest became a Dowlais Ironworks shareholder. John's son Thomas Guest (1748-1807) and grandson John Revel Guest (1790-1837) were Wesleyan Local Preachers. When in 1790 Samuel Homfray, the owner of the Penydarren Ironworks, Merthyr Tydfil, needed more workers for his expanding works he recruited them from Yorkshire and Shropshire. Many of these men were Wesleyans. The incomers started holding Wesleyan prayer meetings in cottages near St Tydfil’s Church. When the Nonconformists in the area were told that the Wesleyans sang during their meetings they considered it an innovation to be deplored. They were further horrified to hear that the blind Englishman John Drew accompanied the singing on his bass viol. As the people attending increased the congregation moved to the Long Room at the Star Inn. When they outgrew the Long Room they met in the open-air, often in St Tydfil’s graveyard using the grave stones for seats. Caleb Simmons was stationed to the area by the 1795 Wesleyan Conference and Merthyr was placed on the Brecon Circuit plan. The foundation stone for a chapel was laid in 1796 and Thomas Guest donated £50 to the building fund. The chapel, the first Wesleyan and first English chapel in Merthyr, was opened on 18 June 1797. A new and larger chapel was opened on 15 January 1863.

Welsh Wesleyans: When in 1802 Owen Davies, (1752-1830), the leader of the Welsh Mission, and Stephen Games were returning from the Bristol Wesleyan Conference they became the first Wesleyans to preach in Welsh in Merthyr Tydfil. Owen Davies was asked by the locals to appoint a Welsh speaker for the area as soon as possible. In 1804 James Evans (d.1820) was appointed to the Merthyr Tydfil English Circuit. A year later he was joined by Edward Jones, jun. who became the first Welsh speaking minister in Merthyr Tydfil and effectively the first Welsh Wesleyan minister in the town. The English chapel allowed the Welsh Wesleyans to use their chapel for services and meetings. During his two year ministry in Merthyr Tydfil Edward Jones Jun. established Welsh Wesleyan societies not only in the town but also in Cefncoedcymer, Dowlais, Tredegar, Rhymney, Ebbw Vale and other places nearby. In 1810 the Merthyr Tydfil Welsh Wesleyan Circuit was formed with David Jones sen. as Superintendent and David Evans as second minister. A chapel was built around 1811. In 1819 a gallery was added and in 1827 the chapel was enlarged. In 1854 the Vale of Neath Railway bought the chapel and new larger chapel was built in the middle of the town. In 1805 Thomas Guest encouraged James Evans and Edward Jones jun. of the English and Welsh chapels in Merthyr Tidfil to preach near to his home in Dowlais. Their open-air preaching sowed the seeds for the Shiloh Welsh Wesleyan to be opened in Castle Street and in 1843 the English Wesleyan chapel to be built. There was a dispute between the Wesleyan Conference and John Josiah Guest (1785-1852), the son of Thomas Guest, over an earlier plot of land for the English chapel in Dowlais. This probably caused John Josiah Guest to leave the Wesleyans and become an Anglican.

Primitive Methodists. The local records show that Ebenezer Primitive Chapel in Wind Street Dowlais was built in 1846 and that it was in the Nelson Circuit (Wales) .

Wesleyan Reform. In February 1850 Samuel Dunn and William Griffith held Wesleyan Reform meetings in South Wales. They held a meeting in the Independent Chapel in Merthyr Tydfil. They returned on 6 November 1850 and addressed a meeting in the Town Hall. In 1853 William Jones (1814-1895) left the Wesleyan Association and became the minister of the Wesleyan Reform societies in Tredegar, Merthyr Tydfil, and Aberdare.The Wesleyan Reform society was formed in Merthyr Tydfil around 1852.

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Samuel Ogden was baptised on 30 August 1769 at St Mary's Church, Oldham, the son of Joseph and Betty Ogden; Joseph was a weaver. Samuel married Elizabeth Connell (1762-1852) at St Mary's on 20 July 1789, and they had ten children. By 1797, when he was admitted to the St John Masonic Lodge, Samuel was working as a hatter in Manchester. By 1802 Samuel had settled in Caernarfon.

In June 1802 the bi-lingual preachers Edward Jones (1778-1837) (Bathafarn) and the former Calvinistic Methodist and now Welsh Wesleyan itinerant John Bryan (1776-1856) visited Caernarfon where they were warmly welcomed both by Robert Jones who had come from the Vale of Clwyd to live in Caernarfon and Samuel Ogden (1769-1839). The two visiting ‘Welsh Lions’ preached in the evening in Penyrallt Street.

Samuel led an English-language fellowship each Sunday in Bangor and preached in Caernarfon. Bryan recorded that the English Wesleyan society in Caernarfon began in the Ogdens' home. In 1803 Caernarfon was made the head of the second Welsh Circuit which encompassed the counties of Caernarfon, Anglesey and Merioneth with John Hughes as the first Superintendent. At the first Quarterly Meeting on 11 April 1804 Samuel Ogden of Caernarfon and Thomas Templeman (1744-1833) of Anglesey (game keeper and formerly of Yorkshire) were appointed Circuit Stewards. Samuel Ogden remained the leader of English language Methodists until in 1831 when the Conference appointed the probationer James Egan Moulton (1806-1866) as the first English minister. Samuel and Elizabeth Ogden and many of their family continued to be faithful members of the English Wesleyan chapels in Caernarfonshire. Samuel Ogden died in Caernarfon on 29 July 1839, aged 70.

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Richard Mathias Preece (1797-1854), was born at Cowbridge, Glamorgan, on 7 August 1797. His father, also Richard (1766-1847) was headmaster of the school in Cowbridge, and Richard junior began his career as a schoolteacher. He later worked for the Chester and North Wales Bank in Caernarfon, and was a Bailiff (1828) and Mayor (1844) of Caernarfon. The Preece family moved to London in 1845.

Richard Preece was brought up at Cowbridge Welsh Wesleyan chapel, the first Welsh Wesleyan chapel in South Wales. Fluent and eloquent in both Welsh and English, he was largely responsible for the building of Ebenezer Welsh Wesleyan chapel in Caernarfon. He was in demand as a preacher for chapel openings and other occasions and he was a strong supporter of the Sunday School movement.

Preece married Jane Elizabeth Hughes (1799-1870) at Llanbeblig, Caernarfon, on 27 May 1817. Among their large family of fourteen children was William Henry Preece (1834-1913), FRS, awarded the KCB in 1899 for his pioneering work in telegraphy, radio, and railway signalling.

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James Roskell was the eldest son of Robert Roskell (1762-1854) and Isabella nee Silcock (1768-1851), who lived at Over Wyre farm near Hambleton in the Fylde, Lancashire. He was given a basic education by his parents and was trained in farming skills with a view that he would help his father run their homestead farm. As a teenager James joined the army, serving with Wellington's forces in the Peninsula at Torres Vedras, Salamanca, Talavera and Badajos, where he was badly injured. Stationed at Clonmel in Ireland after 1815, James joined a group of soldiers attending a Methodist meeting, and was converted. On discharge James returned home to the farm in Rawcliffe. He sought out and joined the only Methodist Society in the area across the river Wyre at Thornton and was soon asked to take over the leadership. He met the class in the morning and led a prayer meeting in the afternoon. He then ferried over the Wyre in time to walk home to do the evening milking. James gathered a Sunday School in his home and eventually a modest chapel was built in a farmer’s field. In 1830 James Roskell moved to Little Layton on the outskirts of [[Entry:4338] Blackpool]. During the summer on Blackpool beach services were held for the holiday makers and locals when a preacher could be found. James went to the services and soon saw the need for a Methodist chapel in the town. At the beach services he met Robert Baird (1792-1850) a Preston Methodist linen draper who had opened a summer season branch in a cottage in Blackpool next to the Aquarium. In 1832 Roskell and Baird started a Methodist class-meeting in Bonny’s Bathing House on the South Beach. At the Garstang Circuit Local Preachers' meeting on 24 September 1832 it was resolved 'that Blackpool shall be tried once a month as a preaching place, services to be held at six o’clock on Sunday evening.' Although Roskell never became a Local Preacher he led the first Blackpool Methodist Society. James never married and eventually went to live in a cottage in Fleetwood where he spent his last few years caring for the poor people who knocked on his door for help. He died in 1842.

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Historic Montgomeryshire is an inland county in north-central Wales. The town of Montgomery is just west of the English border.

Methodism in Montgomeryshire. The main towns in Historic Montgomeryshire are the county town of Montgomery, Carno, Llanidloes, Llanfyllin, Llanrhaedr ym Mochnant, Llansantffaid ym Mechain, Machynlleth, Newtown, and Welshpool. John Wesley's first journey through the county was on 5 August 1747 when he rode from Builth to Caernarfon on the unmaintained road; his last visit was on 9 August 1769.

Montgomery. The first known Wesleyan itinerant to preached in Montgomery was Thomas Olivers (1725-1799), born in Tregynon, Montgomeryshire, and visiting his home county in 1768. By the late 18th century the Calvinistic Methodists had a society in the town and opened their Sion chapel in 1824 which was replaced in 1885. In 1851 82 people attended the morning service and 100 the evening service. The Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built in Duck Lane in the late 18th century. In 1851 they had a morning Sunday school with an attendance of 36 scholars. The main services were in the afternoon when 45 worshippers were present and in the evening when 56 attended. In 1848 the Primitive Methodists had a preaching room in the town. In 1851 there were 38 people at the afternoon service and 109 attended the evening service.

Carno: After John Wesley had preached In Llanidloes on 10 April 1749 he went to a village 7 miles away where he was received with open arms, and gladly supplied with hospitality. This was probably Carno. Around 1794 Richard Price was converted under the ministry of Cleland Kirkpatrick. Shortly after he led a Wesleyan Methodist society in Carno. In 1812 a Wesleyan chapel was built in the town.

Llanidloes: On his way to Holyhead on 22 February 1748 Wesley reached Llanidloes at 11am. He preached on a stone in the market-place at 12 noon. Wesley visited again in 1749, 1750, 1764, and 1769. The Methodist society held its meetings in the Market-house. In 1802 the English Wesleyans built their chapel. In 1874 it was replaced by a chapel in Long Bridge Street. The Welsh Wesleyans built their Salem chapel in 1802 which was enlarged in 1822 and twice rebuilt in 1849 and 1875. The Calvinistic Methodist had the largest chapel in the town which was registered in 1843 but the start of the society is much earlier. The present building was built in 1872 and restored in 1983.

Newtown: On 9 August 1769 Wesley preached in Newtown market-place. After a few minutes Mr Evans the landlord of the New Inn appeared cursing and blaspheming and with a stick hit all who got in his way.The stick was wrenched from Mr Evans but the commotion he caused drowned out Wesley’s preaching. Wesley and his hearers moved to Mr Hardcox’s Lower Bryn farmhouse where he continued his sermon. The Wesleyan Methodists built their chapel in 1806 which was the first Nonconformist place of worship in the town. The Calvinistic Methodist chapel was built in 1810. The Primitive Methodists built their chapel in 1821.

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Abergavenny is a market town in Monmouthshire on the confluence of the river Usk and a tributary of the river Gavenny. It is six miles from the English border. Abergavenny’s meaning in Welsh is mouth of the Gavenny. The town is mostly surrounded by hills and mountains.

Methodism in Abergavenny

John Wesley went to preach in Wales for the first time in October 1739, encouraged by Howell Harris, and Abergavenny was the second place he preached, using a stand built for Harris and previously used by George Whitefield.

Calvinistic Methodism: Howell Harris preached in the town in 1739 and shortly afterwards a Calvinistic Methodist society was formed. Frogmore Street Calvinistic Methodist Chapel and Sunday School was built in 1871 and in 1908 the society moved to Penypound and built the chapel which is now known as Whitefield Presbyterian Church.

Wesleyan Methodism: with the gradual division of large circuits, Abergavenny became the head of a circuit in 1821 and remained so until merger with Pontypool in 1909. The Castle Street church was opened in 1829 and it claimed a congregation in 1851 of 80 (morning), plus 40 scholars, and 300 (evening).

Primitive Methodism: The Tabernacle Primitive Methodist chapel was opened in Victoria Street on 23 June 1850, with room for a Sunday school and a manse. In the census a year later there were 36 at the morning service and 32 scholars in the Sunday school. 44 students attended the afternoon Sunday school and 90 the evening service.

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Born in 1904 in Liverpool, the nephew, grandson and great grandson of Primitive Methodist Ministers, Stanley Bridge grew up in Liverpool and was educated at the Liverpool Institute for Boys. He briefly worked for Martin’s Bank before candidating for the Primitive Methodist ministry. He trained at Hartley Victoria College whilst also gaining a BA in Theology from Manchester University. He entered the ministry in 1931, serving initially at Great Yarmouth (Temple) and subsequently in Bolton (Moor Lane), Sheffield (Ecclesall), Sheffield (North) and Leeds Mission circuits. He was at Oxford Place Leeds for seven years, for the last three of which he was Chairman of the Leeds District. In 1952 he was called to be District Missionary and Chairman of the Stoke-on-Trent and Macclesfield District. He died suddenly on 5 September 1953, at the early age of 49, and in the twenty-third year of his ministry. He and his wife Marjorie had three sons, one of whom, David, entered the ministry in 1959.

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In the early eighteenth century Wigan was a small market town on the river Douglas, halfway between Liverpool and Manchester. A century later, Wigan became a significant mill-town, connected to the coalfields and the ports first by canal and then by railway. Mid- to late-nineteenth century population growth owed much to Irish immigration. Immortalised as an industrial town by George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), the town was badly affected by the decline of the cotton and coal industries after the Second World War.

Methodism

Methodism was introduced to Wigan by John Leyland, a cobbler, and William Langshaw, who attended Methodist preaching in Liverpool, Manchester and Bolton. Travelling nearby in 1759, John Wesley described Wigan as "a town wicked to a proverb", and was equally uncomplimentary when he first came to the town in July 1764. He made a further seventeen visits. More significant to the growth of Methodism in Wigan was the preaching of Samuel Bradburn, sent from Liverpool in 1774. Bradburn's powerful oratory gathered a congregation and inspired promises of funds for a chapel, and a chapel was duly opened in Wallgate in 1775. Wesley preached at this "New House" in June 1776.

In the controversies after Wesley's death, most of the Wigan society turned to the New Connexion. The Wesleyans rebuilt their society and opened a new chapel in Standishgate in 1844-45, adding a day school in the latter year. In 1856, however, further disputes within the Wesleyan Connexion led to the secession of 300 scholars and teachers to the United Methodist Free Churches (1856). Meanwhile the Independent Methodists built a school chapel in Greenough Street in 1829 and established a Bookroom in Wigan in 1869. Since 1990 the Connexion's Resource Centre, headquarters and archive centre have been located in Wigan.

The Primitive Methodists missioned Wigan in the 1830s and built chapels in 1851 and 1897.

There was also a Welsh Calvinistic Methodist presence in Wigan, recorded in 1851, and with a chapel in Greenough Street from 1913-64.

Late-nineteenth century expansion saw new chapels in Standish, Blackrod, Appley Bridge, Hindley and Platt Bridge, while a mission in Scholes grew into the Queen's Hall, opened in 1907. Changing demographics led to the closure of the Standishgate chapel in 1969 and a move to a new building in Spencer Road, Whitley (1969-71).

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Ebbw Vale - Glynebwy is an industrial town on the Ebbw Fawr stream which runs into the Ebbw river. The Industrial Revolution brought large numbers of people to work in the mines and also in the iron and steel works, so that from 1778 until the last quarter of the twentieth century Ebbw Vale was an important iron and steel-making town. Ebbw Vale was represented in parliament for more than sixty years by two prominent Labour politicans with Methodist connections: Aneurin (Nye) Bevan (1897-1960), MP from 1929 until his death, and Michael Foot (1913-2010), MP from 1960 until 1992. Bevan's mother was a Methodist; Foot's father was the Liberal MP and Vice-President of the Conference, Isaac Foot.

Methodism in Ebbw Vale Calvinistic Methodists: The Cardiganshire preacher Owen Enos formed a society in Ebbw Vale in 1794. The society met first in a shed, rebuilt in 1806 and replaced in 1825 by the large Penuel Chapel, rebuilt and enlarged again in 1838 and replaced in 1865. In 1844 an offshoot society of Penuel chapel in Church Street was formed. With the influx of Welsh speaking families who had come to work in the iron works they needed a large chapel and on 23 and 24 September 1850 Ebenezer Chapel was opened. The chapel closed in 1891 and around 1893 the chapel became an English-speaking Calvinistic Methodist chapel. A third chapel, Bethesda, opened in 1877 and a Sunday school building was added in 1908.

Wesleyan Methodism: During the lifetime of John Wesley, Ebbw Vale was a scattered rural community of around 120 inhabitants. In 1790 the Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron and Coal company was established and a blast furnace was built which made the town a major industrial area attracting large numbers of workers. Ebbw Vale was missioned by Edward Jones, junior, Welsh Wesleyan minister stationed in the Merthyr Circuit from 1805-07, with an English Wesleyan colleague. The first chapel, built in 1808, was for both English and Welsh Wesleyans, but by around 1825 it was too small and the English Wesleyans built their own chapel. The societies were in the Merthyr Tydfil English and Welsh Circuits, formed in 1803 and 1810 respectively.

Primitive Methodism: The PMs formed a society in Ebbw Vale in the 1840s and opened Zion Chapel in 1847. A new chapel, with accommodation for 500 worshippers and 350 scholars, was built in 1894-95.

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Fleetwood is a coastal town on the Irish sea at the North end of the Fylde peninsula in Lancashire. It was developed from the 1830s as a port and seaside resort by Sir Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood.

Among the earliest inhabitants of the new town were the Roskell and Ronson families; Alice Ronson was a Methodist, and she hosted the first Methodist preaching in the town in 1837. The Garstand Wesleyan minister George Hughes (1809-90) preached to the workers building the new town. A class-meeting was formed around 1840 and services began in a room over the workshop of Thomas Heaps, Local Preacher and owner of a joinery and building business.A chapel was built in 1846-47, replaced by a new building in 1899.

A Primitive Methodist society was formed in 1851 and a chapel opened in Lord Street in 1855, enlarged and renamed St George's Church in 1875. This building was replaced by a new school and chapel on the corner of Promenade and Mount Street in 1907-08.

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Blackpool is a vibrant Lancashire holiday seaside town on the headland of the Fylde peninsula, facing the Irish Sea. The town's growth from the early nineteenth century derived from the popularity of sea bathing.

Wesleyan meetings began in Blackpool in 1830, on the initiative of James Roskell. A chapel was built on Adelaide Street in 1835, enlarged in 1862 and later renamed Central Methodist Church. The Victorian building was replaced in 1976. Other chapels were built on South Shore (Ebenezer, 1869, replaced by Moore Street in 1889), North Shore (1888, replaced in 1907), and Raikes Parade (1886, replaced in 1909). Ebenezer, in Rawcliffe Street, was donated by Francis Parnell (1799-1884).

Primitive Methodist chapels were opened in Chapel Street (1862, rebuilt 1875 and 1938), Egerton Street (Ebenezer, 1900), and Grasmere Road (1908).

There were also Methodist New Connexion chapels in Blackpool, in Springfield Road (1889) and Newton Drive (1909) and an Independent Methodist chapel on Central Drive (1925).

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Pershore is a market town set in the centre of the Vale of Evesham six miles west of Evesham.

Methodist preaching was taking place in Pershore by the early 1790s, with preachers visiting from Worcester. The curate, Rev W. Russell, published in September 1793 a reply to Joseph Benson's Defence of the Methodists. In Five Letters addressed to the Rev Dr Tatham.

A house in Newland licensed for Methodist worship under the Toleration Act was frequently attacked; on 13 January 1811 the mob broke into the house, injuring Mary Tomkins, a member of the congregation. The Methodists responded by taking a case to the Worcester Assizes and the Court of King's Bench.

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In 1820 Crewe was a village of 70 inhabitants with Crewe Hall inhabited by Lord Crewe (1812-1894) and his family in the centre. In 1837 the Grand Junction Railway line from Birmingham and Wolverhampton to Warrington crossed Lord Crewe’s estate, with the station named in his honour. By 1871 the population had increased to over 40.000 largely due to the Grand Junction Railway building its locomotive works in the town.

Wesleyan: Preaching began at Mr Galley’s farm house in Wistaston in 1835 and then in 1842 in a saw pit near Mill Street. A temporary preaching place was opened by Dr Beaumont in 1843. When Mr Richard Dutton built his home the services were transferred there and the society was placed on the Nantwich Circuit plan. A few years later a school/chapel was opened in Mill Street for nonconformists in the area. Eventually the other denominations built their own chapels leaving the Wesleyans to continue worshipping in the building. A new chapel, Trinity, was built on the site in 1848-49. With the rapid growth of the town, additional chapels were built at Warmingham Road (1868), Hightown (1868), and North Street (1869), with Day and Sunday Schools in Mill Street and Hightown (1869). Crewe became a separate circuit in 1869 and Trinity chapel was rebuilt in 1877, to a design by G.B. Ford of Burslem, with new school premises added in 1909.

Primitive Methodists In 1843 Crewe was missioned by two preachers from Nantwich. Later Thomas Wood also a Nantwich local preacher began to preach in Crewe. A society was formed and they held the services in a cottage tenanted by Ralph Poole in Market Street. In 1846 a chapel was built on the corner of Market Street and Victoria Street. Soon there was need of a larger chapel. Land in Heath Street was bought from Samuel Heath (1816-1882) and his cousin Martin Heath (1810-1887). The foundation stone of the chapel was laid on 5 September 1854 by Mr Richard Dutton of Stanthorne Hall, Middlewich followed by Mr Samuel Heath who laid the foundation stone for the schools. A new chapel was opened on 25 July 1866 and was later known as the Wedgwood Memorial Chapel, in honour of John Wedgwood (1788-1869). Samuel Heath celebrated his 50th birthday in 1866 by giving the land and donating the building costs of a school chapel in Ramsbottom Street. This building was replaced by a larger chapel, the Heath Memorial Chapel, opened on 10 July 1875. Other Primitive Methodist Chapels were built as the town began to develop. These were Wesley Street (Hope Primitive Methodist), September 1863; Mill Street, July 1865; Henry Street, 1880, Bradfield Road Mission Room 1899.

Independent Methodists. In 1869 James Slack (1833-1883), an engineer who came from Manchester to Crewe for employment, met with a few friends in a room in Market Street belonging to the Crewe Cooperative Society. Mathew Darlington was the first preacher to the group. In 1871 the Independent Methodists rented then later bought the former Baptist chapel on the corner of Oak Street and Bowling Green street. Some years later the trustees sold the chapel and moved into rooms owned by the Co-operative Society in Co-operative Street. By 1901 the accommodation in the Co-operative Rooms were too small for the growing congregation so a scheme was devised to build a church. On 21 August 1909 the foundation stones were laid for a church and schools in Flag Land and Bridle Road. The church opened in early 1910.

The Methodist New Connexion had a chapel in Edleston Road, opened in 1881, and the Wesleyan Methodist Association (later UMFC) worshipped in Earle Street from 1843, then in Market Terrace (1863) and then in Hightown (Heathfield UMFC, 1883).

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Knutsford is a market town in Cheshire some 14 miles southwest of Manchester.

Travelling south from Manchester on 20 March 1738 John Wesley briefly stopped and preached in Knutsford from the steps near the George Hotel. The occasion is commemorated with a plaque. Wesley visited again on 21 March 1775 and 14 July 1787.

Until 1796 the Wesleyan society met in the home of Peter Dean. A chapel was opened in that year in the Market Place and a school room was added in 1813. A new chapel was built in Princes Street in 1864-65; the foundation stone was laid by the Wesleyan philanthropist Thomas Hazlehurst (1816-76) on 25 May 1864 and the chapel was opened on 11 May 1865.

Primitive Methodist. In 1805 Eleazar Harthern (c.1785 – c. 1850), "the wooden legged preacher” who lost his leg in military service was converted whilst hearing Lorenzo Dow preach in Knutsford. A chapel was opened in 1836 in Cross Town, Knutsford In the 1851 Religious Census the Knutsford PM attendance was recorded as 22 in the afternoon and 52 in the evening.

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Droitwich is a mainly residential spa town on the River Salwarpe in Worcestershire around 7 miles northh-east of Worcester. The town is built on huge salt deposits.

A Wesleyan society was formed in 1797 and was described on the Worcester Circuit preaching plan as 'a new place opened this year, and in which we have a very good prospect.' The first chapel was built in 1808; the society moved premises in 1831, moving again in 1859-60 and 1886, when subsidence caused the evacuation of the premises. Following Methodist Union, a new building was constructed on Worcester Road and opened in 1938.

The Wesleyan Methodist Association and the Primitive Methodists were also represented in the town.

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Redditch is a town twenty miles north east of Worcester. In the middle ages it became the centre for needle making and by the 1870s Redditch was supplying 90% of the world's hand sewing needles. It was also a major centre for the manufacture of fish hooks.

John Wesley visited Redditch, then a small village, in 1752, 1756 and 1761.

The Wesleyan Methodists began preaching in Redditch in 1807, establishing classes, and then a chapel and a Sunday School in 1808.The chapel was extended in 1817 and replaced in 1842-43; the new chapel was greatly enlarged in 1881. A chapel was opened at Headless Cross in 1857, and replaced in 1873-74 by a new Gothic building, designed by Charles Bell. This building was destroyed by a gale in March 1895 and the chapel which replaced it was demolished in 2016.

A dispute over the preaching of Miss Butler and other women in 1831 led to the creation of an Arminian Methodist society in Redditch and the opening of a chapel in Evesham Street in 1833. This society joined the Wesleyan Methodist Association in 1836 and then the UMFC. Enlargements in 1854 and 1871 were followed by the building of a new chapel, Mount Pleasant, in 1899-1900.

There was a Primitive Methodist presence in Redditch from the 1830s, with chapels opened in 1839, 1849 and 1890-91.

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Francis Parnell was born in 1799 in Manchester, the son of a sergeant in the army. He began work in a cotton mill at the age of 8 and enlisted in the Royal Navy at 15. Returning to Manchester at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, he resumed mill work, first as a weaver and then as manager, partner, and proprietor, retiring to Blackpool in 1864.

Parnell joined the Wesleyan Methodist Society in Manchester around 1819, becoming a Sunday school teacher, Class Leader, and Circuit Steward. With growing prosperity, he was a generous benefactor, paying for the Ebenezer chapel and Sunday School in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in 1849. Later, he funded the Rawcliffe Street chapel and Sunday School in Blackpool, and he donated 1100 guineas to the Wesleyan Thanksgiving Fund in 1879.

In civic life Parnell was a member of the Manchester Corporation and an elected Guardian of the Poor. He was a Commissioner of the Local Board in Blackpool, one of the first borough aldermen (1876), a magistrate, and the second Mayor of Blackpool (1879-80).He was also a major shareholder in the Winter Gardens.

Parnell was married twice: first, in 1818, to Ellen Howard (1800-59), and second, in 1859, to Mary Cook (1811-81).

Francis Parnell died in Blackpool on 1 July 1884.

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Leominster is a town in the north Herefordshire borderlands of England and Wales, known as the Marches.

Joseph Cownley (1723-1792), a native of Leominster, was converted in Bath by Methodist preaching. Returning to his home town in 1743 he joined the Moravian Society and later became one of John Wesley's preachers. John and Charles Wesley and John Cennick preached in Leominster between 1746 and 1750.

The first Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Leominster opened around 1836 and was replaced by a larger building in 1861.

The Primitive Methodists began open-air preaching in Leominster in 1821, formed a Society in 1825, and built a chapel in Green Lane in 1839.

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Walsall is a West Midlands town historically in Staffordshire and around 9 miles north west of Birmingham. . From the 11th century the town's prosperity came from coal, iron ore and limestone and there has been metal-processing since the 14th century. The town was transformed from a large village to a major manufacturing town with the industrial revolution.

Both Charles Wesley and John Wesley on their visits to Walsall in 1743 and 1744 were met with violence. On Monday 26 March 1764 John Wesley preached at 7 am to an attentive crowd. Wesley later commented: “All present were earnestly attentive. How is Walsall changed!”

Wesleyan: In 1770 the Society hired a room in Dudley Street. The first chapel was built in Bedlam Court off High Street in 1801. A Sunday school was begun in 1807. These premises were replaced by a new chapel in Ablewell Street, opened on 26 March 1829. These premises were replaced in 1859. This was succeeded by a Central Hall, seating 1400 people, which was opened on 9 January 1930.

The Methodist New Connexion opened a chapel in 1860, the Primitive Methodists in 1872 and the United Methodist Free Churches in 1862.

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Whitchurch is the oldest continuously inhabited town in Shropshire and the most northerly market town in the county, situated 20 miles south of Chester and around 20 miles north of Shrewsbury the county town, with the Welsh border 2 miles to the west.

[[Entry:2955] John Wesley's] first visit was when he rested in Whitchurch during a snow storm on 4 April 1751. He visited and preached in the town on six further occasions between 1760 and 1781.

Wesleyans.

The first Class-Leader was Joseph Brown who with his wife Ann invited visiting Methodist preachers to preach in their home. The second Class-Leader was Samuel Roberts. Another Whitchurch resident John Parsons (1730-) had his curiosity about the Methodists aroused when he read about them in the Gentleman’s Magazine. On a visit to London he heard John Wesley preach on Blackheath and decided that he wanted to hear more Methodist preachers proclaim the scriptures. On his return to Whitchurch he built a large preaching room in the back yard of cottages he owned in Clay-pit Street and invited the Methodists to hold their meeting there. The Whitchurch Society was put onto the Chester Circuit plan but in 1803 the Conference assigned Whitchurch to the Wrexham Circuit which had been formed out of the Welshpool Circuit. The Whitchurch Society felt the growing need to have their own chapel. A chapel was built in 1809 in St Mary’s Street and opened on 8 July 1810 by [[Entry:656]Rev Dr Thomas Coke] (1747-1814) and [[Entry:2878] Rev Samuel Warren] (1781-1862). In 1815 Whitchurch became a Circuit. On 25 October 1877 [[Entry:1771] Sir Francis Lycett] (1803-1880) and others laid the foundation stones on a plot in St John Street for a larger and gothic cruciform chapel, opened in April 1879.

Primitive Methodist.

Both the Burland and Frees Circuits missioned Whitchurch but had little response so they stopped sending preachers. Thomas Bateman (1799-1897) and other officials from the Burland Circuit arranged to hold a Camp Meeting at Whitchurch on 1 September 1822 near the canal wharf but the constable ordered the meeting to stop. Thomas Bateman and the people then processed to another site on the other side of the town and continued the meeting. Even though the town was frequently missioned over the following years no Society was formed until 1838, when Mr J. Goulburn went to live in the town and opened his home for the Primitive Methodists to hold their meetings. When it overflowed with listeners the Baptist Chapel leaders offered them the use of their premises. By 1840 the trustees had procured a piece of land for a chapel. The chapel was opened on 27 December 1840. This building was replaced in 1866: the foundation Stone was laid by [[Entry:4324] Samuel Heath] (1816-1882) of Crewe on 13 June and the opening services were on 16 and 23 December.

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Oldbury is a Black Country market town in the West Midlands and the historic county of Shropshire. In 1768 James Bridley’s original Birmingham canal was cut through the town and Oldbury became an island surrounded by canals. Oldbury was a coal and ironstone mining area.

There was a Wesleyan Methodist Society and Sunday school in Oldbury by 1801; nineteenth-century growth was reflected in the building of new chapels and Sunday school premises and in the formation of the Oldbury Circuit in 1859. By 1877 the Wesleyans had a flourishing cricket team and two football teams who played in the Birmingham leagues. Meanwhile, in 1846 special sermons were preached in the chapel to raise funds for the families bereaved by an explosion at Round Green New Colliery on 18 November, which killed 19 men.

The New Connexion, [[Entry:2214] Primitive Methodist] and [[Entry:2939] Wesleyan Reform] traditions were also represented in the town.

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Oldham is a large town and Metropolitan Borough in Greater Manchester and in the historic county of Lancashire. It is on the foothills of the Pennines with the rivers Irk and Medlock flowing through the town. In the mid-18th century Oldham became a centre for hat making and evolved into a major centre of textile manufacture.

John Wesley visited Oldham five times between 1770 and 1790.

Wesleyans

The Wesleyan Methodist Society started in the mid-18th century. John Murlin (1722-1799), who was arrested for street preaching, described Oldham as a place of daring and desperate wickedness. The Wesleyans opened a chapel in Bent Brow in 1775; this housed a Sunday School when the Society moved its worship to Domingo Street. The Sunday School met at 9 am then at the end of the session the children and adults walked to St Peter’s Anglican chapel to attend the service led by Rev. Hugh Grimshaw (1743-1793) who occasionally raised money for the Wesleyan Sunday school. In 1789 foundation stones were laid in Manchester Street for a chapel opened on Good Friday 1790. Mount Pleasant chapel was built in 1832 and in 1858 the Society moved to a new chapel in Greenacres Road.

A Methodist New Connexion chapel was built in Manchester Street in 1805 and was sold to the Baptists in 1816, when the MNC Ebenezer chapel opened in Union Street.

Primitive Methodists: Oldham was missioned by Manchester preachers in 1820. The Society opened two classes in the homes of members. Some 14,000 people attended the Oldham Bardsley Camp Meeting held on 19 May 1822, and in the same year Oldham became a Circuit. The first place of worship was at Ashworth’s stable in Duke Street. They then moved to a former machine shop in Grosvenor Street. In 1826 they built a chapel in the same street and used the machine shop as a Sunday school. In 1836 the Society built a more commodious chapel in Boardman Street which Hugh Bourne opened. In 1850 the Lees Road chapel was built, followed by a chapel in Henshaw Street in 1871. Primitive Methodism developed so well in Oldham that the denomination had four Circuits in the town.

A United Methodist Free Church' chapel was built in 1834 in King Street.

Independent Methodists: Oldham was an important centre for the Independent Methodists. Around 1806 a group of worshippers in St Peter’s parish church formed a group who met weekly under the leadership of Joseph Matley. At one of their meeting John Neild took a scripture text and began to expound it. This let to split in the group. The friends of John Neild left the group and began to meet in an old disused mill in Whitehead Square. The incumbent of the parish church asked them stop holding their meetings. They refused and called themselves Independent Methodists: they were the first group to use the name Independent Methodists. The denomination did not adopt the name until 1898. In 1816 George Street chapel was the first purpose built Independent Methodist chapel in England. In the same year they started the first of seven Sunday schools in the town and neighbouring area.

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Market Drayton is an historic market town in North Shropshire, close to the Staffordshire and Cheshire borders and with good communications by road, river and canal.

Wesleyans

Around 1799 the Methodists met in houses in Tinkers Lane and Ranters Gullet. In 1808 the Wesleyans built a chapel on land between Keelings Lane (Salisbury Road) and Street Land (Shrewsbury Road), with an extension added in 1817 and a gallery in 1842. In 1864-65 a new chapel was built, seating 400, designed in the Gothic style in brick with stone dressings and a spire, at a cost of £1666. The old chapel continued to be use as a Sunday school, and a Wesleyan day school.

Primitive Methodist

A PM Society appeared on the 1824 Burland Circuit Plan. The first recorded Primitive Methodist chapel was opened in Ranters Gullet off Cheshire Street. It was licensed in 1826. The 1851 Religious Census reported that it had 150 seats with a congregation of 140 in the afternoon and 150 in the evening and 90 children at the Sunday school. It was replaced by Ebenezer chapel built on Frogmore Road, opened on 10 November 1867. In 1869 Market Drayton became the head of its own named Circuit.

Methodist Church

As a consequence of the severe damage caused by a tornado on Monday 23 November 1981 the former Wesleyan chapel was demolished in 1982. A new chapel was built on the site and was opened on 28 September 1985. The congregations of the former Wesleyan chapel and the former Primitive Methodist chapel united in the new building and the former Primitive Methodist chapel in Frogmore Road was then sold.

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Samuel Heath, born in Haslington, Cheshire, in 1816, was the eleventh and last child of John Heath (1766-1846) and Catherine Heath (nee Stockton) (1772-1850). John Heath was a bricklayer; John and Catherine were Primitive Methodists and their home was a preaching centre. From a very frugal childhood, with limited opportunities for education, Samuel became a timber merchant, builder and farmer, owning land in Crewe. The siting of the engineering works for the Grand Junction Railway in Crewe led to the development of the town and Samuel held several civic offices: he was surveyor of highways from 1848 and a founder-member of the Coppenhall Local Board (and chair of the Board in 1868-69). Converted in the Burland revival in the early 1840s, Samuel was a Local Preacher and was instrumental in the building of the Market Street PM chapel (1845) and in successive and larger chapels in Heath Street (1854-55) and Ramsbottom Street (1865-66). His financial support for some twenty PM chapels was recognised in a resolution of thanks from the PM Conference and in the later naming of Ramsbottom Street as the Heath Memorial Chapel.

Samuel's daughter Mary Alice Heath (1849-1912) married the PM minister Thomas Powell (1841-1915) in 1868. They emigrated with their family to Queensland, Australia, in 1881, as PM missionaries.

Samuel Heath was married three times: to Martha Boden (1816-55), Betsey Steele (1816-77) and Mary Davies (1831-1900); five children outlived their father. Samuel died on 23 August 1882.

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Born in Bradford and baptised in St Peter's Church on 22 September 1811, Richard Crabtree followed his father James's trade, becoming a stonemason. Later he became a builder, stone merchant and contractor, first in Bradford, where his projects included Lumb Lane mill, and then in Morecambe. He was a member of the Bradford Town Council for many years and when resident in Morecambe he was a member of the Local Health Board and a Director and Chairman of the Morecambe Tramway. He managed the major civil engineering scheme to erect the Morecambe sea wall and promenade, and his generosity to the town was marked by a banquet sponsored by the Morecambe Local Board on 16 March 1877. During his time in Bradford he became a Wesleyan member and benefactor. In 1875 he was the contracted stone mason to the Green Street Wesleyan chapel in Morecambe. In 1884 he donated the land for a Chapel-school in the West-End of the town. When the memorial stone was laid by Sir Henry Mitchell of Bradford for the new chapel in 1896 it was laid in memory of Richard Crabtree the ‘Father of West-End Wesleyan Methodism’. Richard died on 24 March 1896, in Morecambe. After the funeral service in the West End Wesleyan chapel, the mourners went by train to Bradford, for interment at Undercliffe Cemetery.

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Henry Gorton was a stonemason, builder, architect, surveyor and property developer. Born in Whittle-le-woods, Lancashire, on 16 May 1826, he was apprenticed to a Leyland stonemason. He married Alice Coupe in Preston in 1848 and they raised a family of seven sons and three daughters. Around 1850 Gorton moved for work to the rapidly developing seaside town of Morecambe and he soon joined the local Wesleyan Society. Almost immediately Henry was asked to hold office and was appointed the Society treasurer. He oversaw the erection of the modest wooden chapel, underwriting the finances of the project. In 1852 a Sunday school was started in the home of Henry and Alice, and Henry served as its Superintendent until his death.

Henry Gorton was not only an important person in the development of Morecombe Methodism but also in civic life. He built residential and commercial property, as well as the market and shops. He was an elected Parish overseer for Poulton, and an active committee member of the Morecambe Ratepayers Protection Association. He was elected to the Morecombe Board of Health after an acrimonious election campaign in April 1870, but died a month later, on 31 May 1870. He was buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Poulton le Sands. The inscription on the tombstone is 'Thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ.' (2 Corinthians 2:14)

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Morecambe is a town on the Lancashire coast, facing the Irish Sea. It was created in 1889, from the townships of Poulton, Bare and Torrisholme. Linked by rail to Scotland and to the Yorkshire mill towns, these scattered fishing villages grew into a seaside resort which flourished from the late nineteenth century until the 1970s.

Wesleyan Methodism: There were occasional visits to Poulton Beach in the first quarter of the 19th century by Local Preachers on the Lancaster plan. Roger Crane (1758-1836) a Local Preacher from Preston, preached from the fish stones in Poulton Market Place. On his first visit, Crane was attacked by a mob and dragged to the nearby pond where they intended to drown him. He was rescued by a bare knuckle boxer who recognised him as the person who had shown kindness to him in Preston. Other visiting preachers at this time were William Bramwell (1759-1818) and Ann Cutler (1759-1794) known throughout the Fylde as “Praying Nanny”. When Moses Holden (1777-1864) was sent to the village in January 1811 there were 10 members in the society. In 1819 a chapel was built in Poulton. One of its members was John Stirzaker (1813-1854), who became a Wesleyan Minister. In 1836 when stationed in the Lancaster Circuit Rev John P Sumner (1809-1871) preached in Poulton le sands.

Worship and a Sunday school started in Morecambe in 1852 in the home of Henry Gorton (1827-1870) architect, builder and surveyor and his wife Ann (1828-1906). A wooden chapel, accommodating around 60 people, was opened in August 1853 by the Rev Joshua Hocken (1799-1853) Superintendent of the Lancaster Circuit. Plans were soon laid to build a permanent chapel, and the foundation stone for a chapel in Pedder Street was laid by Robert Bickerdike (1805-1881) of Lancaster in February 1855 The chapel was opened four months later and the seating was increased by a gallery in 1860. An organ was installed in 1863. In 1867 Sunday school premises were built behind and attached to the chapel. The chapel west wall and gallery was removed so that the Sunday school’s lower hall could be used during the holiday season as an overflow. The Sunday school superintendent was Henry Gorton. When these premises became too small for the congregation Mrs Kussep of Newcastle upon Tyne proposed a scheme to build a new chapel and promised a gift of £200 to the project. At a trustees' meeting in April 1874 to discuss the new chapel project there was a split vote. The majority were in favour of the scheme and the estimated cost. As a result of the vote several of the dissenters left the Wesleyan chapel and started the Morecambe United Methodist Free Church. The memorial stones for the new Wesleyan chapel in Green Street were laid on 19 July 1875. The first stone was laid by Miss Waller the daughter of Mr Charles Waller (1820-1893) of Bradford, and the second by Mrs Richard Crabtree (1824-1903). Special trains ran from Bradford and Leeds bringing friends to the ceremony. The land was given by Charles Waller and an extra adjacent plot was bought and donated to the scheme by Richard Crabtree (1811-1896) a Wesleyan in Bradford who was the contracted stone mason. In 1884 a Sunday school was added.The architect was Samuel Wright (1852-1929)

West End Wesleyan Chapel

On 25 April 1883 4 memorial stones for the West End Wesleyan chapel were laid on the site given by Richard Crabtree. A Sunday school had been started some years earlier. By 1886 an extension was added. With a growing congregation and increased summer visitors this building became too small. In 1895 a new chapel was planned with the 1883 chapel to be retained as the Sunday school. On 11 August 1896 the first foundation stone was laid by Sir Henry Mitchell in memory of Richard Crabtree who had donated the site and was affectionately known as the Father of West End Wesleyanism. The church was designed to seat 830 by Samuel Wright. Morecambe became a Circuit in 1894

United Methodist Free Church: The society was formed in April 1874 with 44 members who had seceded from the Morecambe Wesleyan chapel. They held their first service in the Music Hall on 12 April 12 1874 which they continued to use for worship and a Sunday school until October 1875. Mr Gallimore of Sheffield, a summer visitor to the chapel, promised £300 towards the cost of building a new chapel if the local people could raise an equal amount. Immediately a building committee was formed. A site in Clarence Street was purchased for the new chapel. On 18 October 1875 the foundation stones were laid, and the partially built chapel was opened on 18 October 1876. By 1881 enough money had been raised to complete the project which had 700 seats and a school room to accommodate 300 scholars.

Primitive Methodists: On 25 August 1862 Edward Dawson J.P.(1793-1876) of Aldcliffe Hall, Lancaster, laid the foundation stone. On Sunday 19 October 1862 a gale severely damaged the building which delayed the opening till Sunday 15 February 1863. As part of the celebrations on Monday 23 August 1863 there was an open air demonstration on the water front which attracted over 2000 people, many coming by an excursion train from Bradford and West Yorkshire. In 1864 the Sunday school was started. In 1883 the trustees bought the former Wesleyan chapel and schools in Pedder Street for £1200 and spent £400 on repairs and alterations.

West End Primitive Methodist chapel, Parliament Street. The congregation worshipped in a room over a shop in 1893. The following year they hired the Central Hall. A site for the chapel was secured in 1896. On 5 July 1897 memorial stones were laid for the Assembly Hall. On Monday 13 September 1897 the memorial stones for the chapel were laid. The chapel was opened on 4 May 1898 when the preacher was Rev James Travis (1840-1919), President of the 1892 Conference.

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St Helens is a town in Merseyside and in historic Lancashire. It is around six miles north of the river Mersey. During the Industrial Revolution coal mining, glassmaking, copper smelting, sail making and chemical businesses were important to the town's economy, contributing to its rapid growth in populationand status.

John Wesley visited St Helens on Saturday 13 April 1782 and preached in the home of Joseph Harris which was next door to the Navigation Tavern.

Wesleyan Methodism was introduced to St Helens by Joseph Harris who came from Kingswood to manage the Ravenshead Copper Works around 1780. The first Wesleyan meeting house was built in Market Street around 1801 and was replaced by a chapel in 1814 in Tontine Street. On Thursday 16 April 1868 Mr Thomas Hazlehurst (1816-1876) laid the foundation stone for a larger chapel in Cotham Street. The chapel was opened on Thursday 3 June 1869 when the preachers were Samuel Romilly Hall, president of the Wesleyan conference and Rev. John Bedford (1810-1879) ex-president of the Wesleyan conference.

A Primitive Methodist society was formed as a result of missions in 1842. From 1845 the society rented a chapel 'in a back street in a bad situation, few people attended it.' In 1857 the society leased a site in a better area and built a chapel, whuch was opened on 20 December 1857; the preacher was Rev James Garner (1809-95), of Liverpool. On 30 August 1875 the foundation stone for a chapel on the corner of Westfield Street and Kirkland Street was laid by Alderman Cook. In July 1902 Richard John Seddon PC (1845-1906) the 15th premier (prime minister) of New Zealand visited Kirkland Street Sunday school to view his mother’s plaque (Jane J Seddon (1816-1868)) recording her years as a teacher at the school which he attended as a boy.

The United Methodist Free Churches opened a chape in 1861 and the Independent Methodists opened Zion Chapel, West Street, in 1892.

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