Methodists

In 1738 John Wesley and Charles Wesley began the movement which soon acquired the nickname of Methodism. The Methodist Society was founded two years later. In 1744 circuits for Wesleyan preachers were established and the first national conference was held. The Wesley brothers and George Whitefield ( 1714 – 70 ) travelled throughout Britain and in the United States, preaching in churches and chapels, private houses, and in the open air. The Wesleys’ message was that salvation was possible for every believer, and that communion with God did not need the intervention of a priest; whereas George Whitefield offered hope of salvation only to a predestined elect. By 1747 Whitefield had established 31 separate societies. After his death these Calvinistic Methodists mostly followed the Countess of Huntingdon on a separate path from the Methodists; others joined the Congregationalists. Meanwhile, a Calvinistic form of Methodism had been established in Wales in 1743 under the leadership of Howell Harris ( 1714 – 73 ).

The open‐air meetings of the early Methodists often attracted hostile mobs. The visits of the famous preachers were rare highlights. The typical village green meeting is well captured in George Eliot's novel Adam Bede. Progress was slow, and the Methodists did not break from the Church of England until 1784 . Their rapid expansion did not begin until the 19th century, with a particularly successful decade in the 1830s. They then overtook the older dissenting sects in terms of membership, and by the time of the 1851 ecclesiastical census were the chief rivals to the Church of England. See

Meanwhile, several groups had broken away from the rule of the governing body, the Methodist Conference. In 1797 the Methodist New Connexion was formed from congregations that wished to have control over their own affairs. Their appeal was principally to the industrial poor, and their associations with political radicalism led to their being called ‘Tom Paine Methodists’. The Primitive Methodists broke away in 1812 and soon became the second strongest of the Methodist sects. The ‘Ranters’, as they became known, were humble people, especially the farm labourers of eastern England, the urban poor, and the miners in the new pit villages. By the 1870s the Primitives were associated with emergent agricultural trade unionism; Joseph Arch was typical in gaining experience of public speaking in the pulpit. See

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Smaller breakaway groups included the Independent Methodists, who left in 1807 , the Bible Christians (O’Bryanites) of south‐western England, who became independent in 1815 , the Protestant Methodists, who became a separate body in 1827 , and the Wesleyan Reform Movement, who set up a national headquarters in Sheffield in 1849 . In the 20th century most of these groups came together again. In 1907 the New Connexion joined with the United Free Methodist Churches to form the United Methodist Church. Then, in 1932 , the Wesleyans joined the rest to form the Methodist Church in Great Britain. See

The early Methodists accepted Church of England baptism, marriage, and burial. Only a few Methodist registers survive before the 1790s. Most start in the second decade of the 19th century, and even then the majority recorded only baptisms. In 1837 these early registers were deposited at The National Archives. Later ones are mostly kept in local record offices. Each of the 31 Methodist administrative areas has an archivist. The decline of Methodism in the later 20th century has led to the closure of many chapels and sometimes the loss of records. See also

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