Thomas Wride and Wesley’s Methodist Connexion 9780367404727, 9780429356308

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of figures and tables
List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
1 The significance of Thomas Wride
2 Thomas Wride’s story
3 Thomas Wride and John Wesley
4 Wride, women, and family life
5 Wride, preacher and physician
6 Wride’s personal and professional networks
7 Wride and the growing pains of John Wesley’s Connexion
8 Wesley, Wride, and the marketplace of ideas
9 Wesley’s Methodism and the supernatural
10 Conclusions
Appendix
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Thomas Wride and Wesley’s Methodist Connexion

This book highlights the life and writings of an itinerant preacher in John Wesley’s Methodist Connexion, Thomas Wride (1733–1807). Detailed studies of such rank and file preachers are rare, as Methodist history has largely been written by or about its leadership. However, Wride’s ministry shows us that the development of this worldwide movement was more complicated and uncertain than many accounts suggest. Wride’s attitude was distinctive. He was no respecter of persons, freely criticising almost everyone he came across and in doing so exposing debates and tensions within both Methodism and wider society. However, being so combative also led him into conflict with the very movement he sought to promote. Wride is an authentic, self-educated, and non-élite voice that illuminates important features of eighteenth-century life well beyond his religious activities. He sheds light on his contemporaries’ views on issues such as the role of women, attitudes towards and the practice of medicine, and the experience and interpretation of dreams and supernatural occurrences. This is a detailed insight into the everyday reality of being an eighteenth-century Methodist minister. As such, this text will be of interest to academics working in Methodist studies and religious history, as well as eighteenth-century history more generally. Clive Murray Norris is a research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University, UK.

Routledge Methodist Studies Series Series Editor: William Gibson

Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University, UK

Methodism remains one of the largest denominations in the USA and is growing in South America, Africa, and Asia (especially in Korea and China). This series spans Methodist history and theology, exploring its success as a movement historically and in its global expansion. Books in the series will look particularly at features within Methodism which attract wide interest, including the unique position of the Wesleys; the prominent role of women and minorities in Methodism; the interaction between Methodism and politics; the ‘Methodist conscience’ and its motivation for temperance and pacifist movements; the wide range of Pentecostal, holiness and evangelical movements; and the interaction of Methodism with different cultures.

Editorial Board:

Ted A. Campbell, Professor of Church History, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, USA David N. Hempton, Dean, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, USA Priscilla Pope-Levison, Associate Dean, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, USA Martin Wellings, Superintendent Minister of Oxford Methodist Circuit and Past President of the World Methodist Historical Society, UK Karen B. Westerfield Tucker, Professor of Worship, Boston University, USA The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism Edited by William Gibson, Peter Forsaith, and Martin Wellings Wesley, Whitefield, and the ‘Free Grace’ Controversy The Crucible of Methodism Joel Houston Thomas Wride and Wesley’s Methodist Connexion Clive Murray Norris For more information and a full list of titles in the series, please visit www. routledge.com/religion/series/AMETHOD

Thomas Wride and Wesley’s Methodist Connexion Clive Murray Norris

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Clive Murray Norris The right of Clive Murray Norris to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-40472-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-35630-8 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of figures and tables List of illustrations Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations 1 The significance of Thomas Wride

vi

vii

viii

xiii

xv

1

2 Thomas Wride’s story

10

3 Thomas Wride and John Wesley

33

4 Wride, women, and family life

56

5 Wride, preacher and physician

76

6 Wride’s personal and professional networks

103

7 Wride and the growing pains of John Wesley’s Connexion

131

8 Wesley, Wride, and the marketplace of ideas

155

9 Wesley’s Methodism and the supernatural

178

10 Conclusions Appendix Bibliography Index

199

207

208

224

Figures and tables

Figures 0.1 An example of Wride’s use of ‘blinds’ 1.1 Membership growth under Wride

ix

5

Tables 2.1 Wride’s stations 3.1 Selected recipients of extant letters from John Wesley 5.1 Texts used most frequently in Wride’s sermons in the Newry

circuit, 1772–3 5.2 Religious works and authors quoted or mentioned by Wride

24

35

78

79

Illustrations

0.1 A page from Thomas Wride’s notebooks, written using a

‘blind’ (the central section is decoded in Figure 0.1) 1.1 Thomas Wride (1733–1807) 1.2 John Wesley (1703–91) 2.1 John Furz (1717–1800), the superintendent in Wride’s first

circuit of Devon 2.2 George Gibbon (d. 1815). Wride had a bitter dispute with

him during his retirement in York 5.1 Adam Clarke (1762–1832), who came to prominence as

Wride’s career was ending 5.2 Alexander Mather (1733–1800), an exact contemporary of

Wride’s who also became a leading figure within Wesley’s

Connexion 6.1 Thomas Coke (1747–1814), one of Wesley’s principal aides 6.2 John Fenwick (d. 1787), possibly one of Wride’s few friends

amongst his colleagues 6.3 John Floyd (fl. 1770–82), with whom Wride had a difficult

relationship while serving in Ireland 6.4 James Byron (1760–1827), one of Wride’s colleagues during

his unhappy time in Norwich

x

6

7

27

27

96

97

125

125

126

126

Preface

This is an account of the life and work of one of the early preachers in John Wesley’s Connexion, Thomas Wride (1733–1807). Wride has often been characterised as merely eccentric. This is a travesty. He was a loyal, hard­ working, and rather successful preacher who had admirers as well as detrac­ tors. Though his troubled career was atypical, it was far from unique. And his extant papers, verbose but laced with humour, offer a distinctive and independent perspective on many of the issues central to the early develop­ ment of the Connexion. They portray the often tense, turbulent, and chaotic reality which lay beneath the stately and providential progress of the move­ ment memorialised in the journals, minutes, and spiritual narratives which it was so quick to publish. Wride’s legacy to us includes an autobiography, copy out-letters, verse, sermon notes, medical remedies, records of supernatural incidents, and frag­ mentary financial notes. He makes little reference to his own spiritual journey, nor to current events; his preoccupation was with carrying forward the work of Wesley’s Connexion. Unknown numbers of papers are lost; furthermore, Wride did not keep copies of all his out-letters and other papers. He claimed in the course of a disagreement with a colleague that an earlier letter of his had been misquoted, adding, ‘If I wrote so, it has escaped my memory’.1 And he once told Wesley’s London Book Steward, ‘I send you the accounts that you may settle them finally; which when done I shall destroy my own papers, as no longer useful’.2 However, Wride retained some papers; near the end of his life, he told the superintending minister of his home city of Salisbury, If William Simmons is living, my love to him, assuring him I should rejoice in his welfare, and I keep safe in my museum those monuments of his loving-kindness which he sent, directed to ‘David Evans’ and ‘the mayor of Whitehaven’, viz. four sheets to the former, and one to the latter.3 The ‘museum’ has not survived.4 It is important to consider why the papers were created by Wride. Many contemporaries wrote journals for publication, not least John Wesley.

Preface

ix

William Holder, a local preacher in Gloucestershire, kept a spiritual diary with an eye to sharing it for evangelistic purposes. In 1769, he wrote of a breakfast with a local woman: ‘By reading some of my Journal to her, & speaking a word or two as I was assisted, the Lord opened her eyes to see things more clearly’.5 Wride, however, sought privacy. In cases of particular sensitivity, he used what he called a ‘blind’.6 An example was his file copy of his 21 March 1778 letter to Wesley,7 seeking permission to marry Jenny Woodcock; an extract appears in Figure 0.1. Each page was divided into three or four sections by drawing pencil lines on a blank sheet of paper; Wride then wrote successive sections between the lines; when he erased the lines, and the reader read each line in the normal way, it was nonsense. A ‘key’ at the top of the page indicated how the lines were to be redrawn; the key in this case was ‘5768’. As Wride noted of this technique, What follows . . . is but for a blind in case it be seen by any not con­ cerned to know. Therefore get the key or remain ignorant of the pur­ port, as it doth not concern every pretender. Wride kept copies of letters which he felt would be useful in defending himself from his many critics: T. Wride’s character does not appear to have been properly understood by his brethren, whose gravity would make no allowance for his buoy­ ancy of spirit. This led to petty charges & altercations, which, on the other hand had an improper influence on his own spirit—always writing letters & keeping copies of some of them in defence of his conduct. He seemed to know that he was suspected—and afraid of misconstructions, was defending himself in private. Many of his private papers appear to A. Text as it appears on the page—see illustration 0.1, centre section If I had not told her, she I deliberately laid my own will, I knew it, for there are aside all thoughts did not choose to be but few things concerning of a wife. entangled. the Methodists but what I This was my real condition she knows well. It was when I went first to Ireland B. Text with lines inserted to facilitate decoding—to be read between the lines If I had not told her, she I deliberately laid knew it, for there are aside all thoughts but few things concerning of a wife. the Methodists but what I she knows well. It was

Figure 0.1 An example of Wride’s use of ‘blinds’

my own will, I did not choose to be entangled. This was my real condition when I went first to Ireland

Illustration A page from Thomas Wride’s notebooks, written using a ‘blind’ (the central section is decoded in Figure 0.1) Source: David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University. Used by permission

Preface

xi

have been written to [keep] in a state of readiness, when he should have been charged.8 There are significant collections of Wride’s papers at Duke University and at the University of Manchester. Wride’s papers were familiar to earlier his­ torians of Methodism, notably Tyerman, who quoted from ‘a large mass of his manuscripts in the author’s possession’;9 John Telford, who published an edition of John Wesley’s correspondence in 1931, also cited some of them.10 This book draws on Wride’s papers in order to give his account of Con­ nexional life. His spelling, syntax, and use of capitals and paragraphs often differ from current usage and may sometimes mask his meaning. This is also true of his contemporaries. The extracts which follow have been edited silently, to improve comprehension while not erasing their distinctive character. Uncertain readings, and brief explanatory material, are placed within square brackets, with a question mark where the interpolation is speculative. Chapter one examines the context of Thomas Wride’s life and work and suggests why he merits our attention. He was one of the first of John Wes­ ley’s professional preachers and was hand-picked by Wesley, who knew him well, for the mission. Chapter two uses his unpublished autobiography to discuss his first 30 years, during which he acquired a faith and a trade but did not settle. It then summarises his complicated career, which lasted almost 40 years. Chapter three explores his ambivalent relationship with Wesley, drawing on their extensive correspondence. Chapter four discusses the women in his life, including his loyal wife, Jenny. Chapter five sets out Wride’s approach to his calling as a preacher and as a physician and assesses his effectiveness. Chapter six then offers an insid­ er’s account of the personal and professional relations between Methodist preachers which bound Wesley’s Connexion together, drawing on Wride’s frank and often critical comments to Wesley and others. Chapter seven offers Wride’s perspectives on some of the other challenges facing the Connexion in these early years, including its limited human and physical resources, the difficulty of travelling and communicating over long distances, and the development and imposition of common worship practice. Chapter eight ranges widely over Wride’s theology, approach to other religious groups, and political and social thinking, highlighting his differ­ ences with Wesley. Chapter nine analyses early Methodists’ approach to the supernatural and examines Wride’s career as a ghost-hunter. The final chapter draws some conclusions from Thomas Wride’s earthly pilgrimage.

Notes 1 Thomas Wride to an unknown colleague, probably Peter Jaco (2 Novem­ ber 1772), Duke D. For these and other abbreviations, see list on pages xv–xvi. 2 Wride to John Atlay (27 February 1786), Duke C.

xii

Preface

3 Wride to (from internal evidence) Robert Crowther (7 January 1806), PLP115/ 9/16, MARC. 4 To date, I have traced only three letters to Wride from correspondents other than John Wesley: 23 July 1779 from John Cass (PLP22/65/1, MARC); 14 April 1798 from Zechariah Yewdall (PLP116/1/7, MARC); and 25 April 1800 from William Blagborne (PLP9/25/7, MARC). 5 Entry for 30 November 1769, William Holder (1740–1810), Manuscript jour­ nal, MA1977/238, MARC. 6 The Victorian historian Luke Tyerman (1820–89) commented on Wride’s copy of his 1 May 1779 letter to Wesley, written in ‘blind’ format: ‘Curious document— see the puzzle’ (MA1977/610/140, MARC). 7 Duke D.

8 Wesleyan and Christian Record, 12 August 1846.

9 Luke Tyerman, The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., Founder of

the Methodists, three vols. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1870–1), 3:466. 10 See for example Telford, 6:164, which quotes Wride’s 17 July 1775 letter to Wesley (PLP115/9/14 & 32, MARC).

Acknowledgements

I researched this book while a research associate and subsequently research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University. My main primary sources have been the collections of Thomas Wride’s papers at the University of Manchester and at Duke Uni­ versity. Much of the writing was done in the London Library. These are most congenial places for scholarly work, blessed with outstanding materi­ als and with expert and helpful staff. I have much appreciated the constant advice and encouragement of Pro­ fessor William Gibson and Dr. Peter Forsaith at Brookes. Professors Randy L. Maddox at Duke Divinity School and Isabel Rivers of Queen Mary University of London have also been most supportive. Special thanks go to Dr John Lenton, the acknowledged authority on Wesley’s early preach­ ers, for his meticulous advice and assistance, including granting me access to—and permission to quote from—his transcriptions of Wride’s papers at Manchester, as well as his preachers’ database, and to Tom Dobson, at the Oxford Centre, for research assistance. Others who helped in various ways included Dr. Gareth Lloyd at Manchester, Rev. Terry Hurst, Norma Virgoe, and Helen Taylor and Margaret Moles of the Wiltshire and Swindon His­ tory Centre. I have also valued the advice of two anonymous colleagues who reviewed my text for my publishers and the friendly and professional support of Josh Wells and his team at Routledge. Material from the collection owned by the Methodist Church in Britain and deposited in the John Rylands Library is transcribed and quoted with the permission of the Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes and the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester. Material from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University, is also quoted by permission. Some of the book’s arguments were aired in a paper given at the Methodist Studies Seminar, Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, on 3 December 2016, and subsequently published in Wes­ leyan and Methodist Studies1 and others in a paper (on Methodists and medicine) presented at the Wesley Historical Society conference in Cam­ bridge on 23 June 2018, and due for publication in the February 2020 edi­ tion of the Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society. I am grateful to the

xiv

Acknowledgements

reviewers of both articles for their helpful comments and to both publishers for permission to draw on the material. My family and friends have been constant sources of intellectual and material refreshment. Ursula and Ian Cox (Manchester) and David Brad­ bury (Oxford) have been especially kind and frequent hosts to this peripa­ tetic researcher, while my ever-supportive family have accepted with grace that I now live in the eighteenth century.

Note 1 Clive Murray Norris, “ ‘Here is the voice of the people’: Authority and Conflict in Eighteenth-Century Methodism,” Wesley and Methodist Studies 11, no. 1: 1–23. Copyright © 2019 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. This article is used by permission of The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Abbreviations

AM/MM/WMM The Arminian Magazine: consisting of extracts and origi­ nal treatises on universal redemption. London: Printed by J. Fry and Co., 1778–9, and thereafter by the Book Room; from 1798 The Methodist Magazine; from 1822 The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine. Atmore Atmore, Charles. The Methodist Memorial. Bristol: Printed by Richard Edwards, 1801. Baker Baker, Frank, ed. Letters, I–II. Vols 25–6, The Works of John Wes­ ley. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980, 1982. Campbell Campbell, Ted A., ed. Letters, III. Vol. 27, The Works of John Wesley. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2015. DMBI Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland,www.wesleyhistorical society.org.uk/dmbi/. Duke Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Frank Baker Collection of Wesleyana and British Methodism. Wride’s papers—Box CO9: Thomas Wride Manuscript Notebooks and Letterbooks (1771–90)—are referenced below as follows: Duke A: notebook, first entry 1771 B: notebook, first entry 1783 C: notebook, ‘No. 1’D: notebook, ‘No. 2’ E: notebook, ‘Mr. Wride’s account of the dreams of a female in 1761’ F: notebook, ‘Mr. Wride’s autobiography’. Heitzenrater Heitzenrater, Richard P. Wesley and the People Called Meth­ odists. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995. Jackson Jackson, Thomas, ed. The Lives of Early Methodist Preachers, Chiefly Written by Themselves . . . Six vols. London: Wesleyan Confer­ ence Office, 1871. Lenton Lenton, John H. John Wesley’s Preachers: A Social and Statistical Analysis . . . Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2009. MARC University of Manchester, John Rylands University Library, Meth­ odist Archives and Research Centre. Minutes, I Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, Vol. I: 1744–1798. London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1862. Minutes, II Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, Vol. II: 1799–1807. London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1863.

xvi

Abbreviations

Outler Outler, Albert C., ed. Sermons, I–IV. Vols I–IV, The Works of John Wesley. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1984–7. PWHS Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society. Burnley: Printed for the Society, 1898–. Rack Rack, Henry D., ed. The Methodist Societies: The Minutes of Con­ ference. Vol. 10, The Works of John Wesley. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2011. Telford Telford, John, ed. The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M. Eight vols. London: Epworth Press, 1931. Ward and Heitzenrater Ward, W. Reginald and Richard P. Heitzenrater, eds. Journal and Diaries, I–VII. Vols 18–24, The Works of John Wesley. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1988–2003.

1

The significance of Thomas Wride

Introduction Thomas Wride, a travelling preacher in John Wesley’s Methodist Connexion, is not well known. There is no reference to him on the Methodist Church’s UK website, nor in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB). He features in the Wesley Historical Society’s online Dictionary of Method­ ism and in the Encyclopedia of World Methodism1 but not in either of the two classic works on Wesley’s preachers, Charles Atmore’s 1801 Methodist Memorial or Thomas Jackson’s 1871 Lives of the Preachers.2 His corre­ spondence with Wesley appeared in a series of articles on the ‘unpublished letters’ of Wesley in the short-lived weekly Wesleyan and Christian Record in the 1840s,3 and he was the subject of an article in the first edition of the Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society.4 But there is no biography or published memoir.5 Wride received only modest recognition within the Connexion in his life­ time. His portrait, aged 55, appeared in the Connexion’s Arminian Maga­ zine in 1788,6 and he published a brief article in 1789.7 But when in 1784, Wesley picked 100 preachers to carry forward the work after his death, Wride was excluded.8

Wride’s reputation Wride’s reputation has largely been one of eccentricity. An historian of Whitehaven Methodism, writing in the 1820s of Wride’s service there in the 1770s, apparently from memory, reported, Mr. Wride a professed quack and an eccentric both in body and mind was twice stationed here.9 I think he neither profited the members nor added to their number.10 An account of Norwich Methodism claimed that when serving there in 1785–6, Wride ‘Unhappily indulged himself in eccentricities of the most ludicrous description—both in and out of the pulpit’.11 A 1909 history called him ‘an original both in the pulpit and out of it’;12 in a 1915 edition of

2

The significance of Thomas Wride

Wesley’s letters, chapter six was headed ‘To Eccentric Thomas Wride . . .’;13 and Telford also saw him as odd, though adding that ‘He had gifts, and showed no lack of energy and zeal’.14 Other preachers had acknowledged imperfections, of course. In 1807, the death notice of the leading Irish preacher Samuel Wood—five times secre­ tary of the Irish Conference—described him as A man who, during a long life, sustained a high ministerial character. . . . During an unbroken succession of forty-eight years he was an esteemed and successful labourer in our Lord’s vineyard. He may have had defects; but they were few compared with his many excellencies.15 Indeed, John Wiltshaw’s contemporary reputation was almost uncannily similar to Wride’s—he was complained against when serving with Wride in the Whitehaven circuit in 1788–9,16 was warned against his ‘practice of Quackery’ in 1807,17 and was described as ‘eccentric’ in his death notice.18 In contrast, the Wesleyan and Christian Record (12 August 1846) offered a more balanced appreciation of Wride: He was sincere, but eccentric; witty, and latterly subject to fault-finding, and strong personal prejudices. . . . He had, no doubt, much to do with himself, and he wore the worst side out. He seemed to think, that, in satire, the blow could never be dealt with too great a force, the point could never go too deep. Another historian praised his efforts on the Isle of Man (then part of the Whitehaven circuit) in 1776–7 as ‘crowned with success’.19 An official his­ tory of Irish and American Methodism even named Wride as one of the better preachers amongst the Irish Palatine community.20 The consensus of opinion has however been negative. Wride’s official death notice offered only a qualified endorsement: He was a man of a comprehensive mind, and an able Preacher; but his singularities of spirit and manners prevented him from being acceptable and useful as he otherwise might have been.21

Wride’s communications style There is no doubt that Wride was widely unpopular, largely because of his manner—he deployed direct and forceful language, especially when defend­ ing himself against criticism. He denounced one critic, a leading lay ben­ efactor of the local Methodist society, in forthright terms to the clergyman William Dodwell: I have often thought and sometimes said, that Mrs. Sellar was born on the north side of the dunghill; but being toward the evening of life,

The significance of Thomas Wride

3

transplanted to the north-west. A little sunshine of prosperity is more than she has ability to bear, and it is well if that little prosperity do not prove her destruction.22 This description of a fellow member of the York society is vitriolic. A Mr. Oliver had been briefed on a meeting which Wride felt should have remained confidential: But, if you would tell of what passed in a District-meeting, yet, you might have avoided telling of it to such a wild, obscene, scoffing, lying, swearing, ranting sinner, as your friend Oliver who, although he calls himself of the Society & Church of Jerusalem, yet he is very fit to be an inhabitant of a solitary cell in the Hospital of Bedlam.23 Wride’s letters sit uneasily within the emerging epistolary culture of the period: The ideal letter was written in an easy natural style that was clear, direct, and simple to understand. This more succinct approach differed intentionally from extravagantly written letters associated with conti­ nental letter manuals.24 His forceful language caused offence but was entirely ineffective—his cor­ respondents often did not react, leaving him in isolated fury. In an exchange in 1800 with the preacher William Blagborne, who had left letters from Wride unanswered for 18 months and admitted burning at least one of them unread, Wride observed, I have before these days found instances of persons, who found it more easy to burn my letters than to answer them; it was the case with Mr. Metcalfe of Bilsdale, Mr. Richardson of York & some others who may be passed by at present.25 However, Wride never drew the obvious conclusion, that a more temperate approach might have had more impact. James Everett noted that the preacher Daniel Isaac, an early custodian of Wride’s papers, was himself a witty controversialist: It was when he had his pen in his hand, that he dealt the most freely in the wit which exposes to ridicule the absurdity or inconsistency of an adverse argument. But he added that ‘The errors maintained, not the persons who held them, were the objects of indignation’.26 Wesley also frequently used robust and colourful expressions, including in sermons and in letters to preachers.27 There was at the time a well-developed ‘doctrine of ridicule’, associated

4

The significance of Thomas Wride

with the Earl of Shaftesbury, which saw it as a test of truth in religion and other matters—‘ridicule will not prevail against what is true’.28 Wesley had commended Joseph Addison and his Spectator magazine for using ridicule in this way,29 but for Wesley, too, Banter, irony, sarcasm, wit, satire, and so on all radiate from the warm centre of his heart. There are three main reasons for his colloquial style: the vivacity of the man, the intensely personal nature of his mission, and his determination not to fail in the use of language.30 Wride’s writings, sadly, all too often lack such generosity of spirit. The bonus for us is that although his fondness for detailed quotation tries the reader’s patience, Wride’s are among the few verbatim records of daily life and discussion amongst the early Methodist people. But how ‘useful’ was he to them?

Wride’s effectiveness The annual Wesleyan Methodist preachers’ Conference reviewed their per­ formance. One key factor was the growth (or decline) in membership in the societies for which they were responsible, but other features of the assess­ ment included their personal behaviour and their health. Preachers judged inadequate to the task were asked to ‘desist from travelling’. In 1780, Wride was asked to stand down, as were four other preachers.31 Circuit membership data were published in the Conference Minutes from the mid-1760s. Using them to assess preacher performance is however prob­ lematic. Wesley occasionally expressed concern that they overstated the spiritual health of circuit and societies, since many members were relatively uninvolved.32 Preachers worked in teams, and a high performer might well be let down by his colleagues—that was certainly Wride’s view of some of his fellow preachers. Circuit boundaries often changed, notably when an expanding circuit was split. Finally, the challenges of serving in different circuits varied hugely, and were recognised by the leadership in making sta­ tioning decisions. Growing membership might reflect local circumstances such as a revival, or inward migration, rather than the efforts of the preach­ ing team; declining membership might be slowed but not eliminated by an otherwise highly effective preacher. The following graph, derived from published returns, compares annual changes in the numbers of members in those circuits in which Wride served with overall changes across the British Isles. Three main features stand out. First, the variations in Wride’s circuits were often larger, as one would expect given the uniqueness of local circumstances. Second, setting aside the exceptional membership increases in Armagh in 1771–2 and in the Isle of Man (part of Whitehaven) in 1776–7, linked to local revivals, Wride’s performance was comparable with that of his colleagues apart

The significance of Thomas Wride

5

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

-10% Wride's circuits

British Isles

Figure 1.1 Membership growth under Wride

from the mid-1780s, when his performance dipped.33 Third, Wride was associated with an average 5 per cent increase in membership where he served, matching the national trend. Wride was—as a member of various preaching teams—jointly responsi­ ble for adding an average of 17 members a year during his career, a record comparable to that of leading contemporaries such as Christopher Hopper (1722–1802) (13) and Alexander Mather (1733–1800) (16), though these often served in larger and more demanding circuits and for some periods had major Connexional roles.34

Conclusion Thomas Wride has had a bad press. He could be a difficult colleague, and his manner both in and out of the pulpit could be inappropriate, but he was capable of being an effective preacher. If not typical, he shared many char­ acteristics with his peers. They worked long hours, travelled frequently, and often endured violent opposition, privation, and ill health, which could in turn trigger personal disillusionment and even despair; Wride’s papers offer vivid descriptions of all of this. Such evidence is unusual; David Hempton has commented that one of the ‘four most important insights on the rise of Methodism in the north Atlantic world to emerge in the last quarter of a century’ is that ‘in terms of understanding the “lived religion” of the Meth­ odist faithful in all its rich diversity the task of historical reconstruction has barely just begun.’35 I have also sought to place his life and work within the

6

The significance of Thomas Wride

broader context of eighteenth-century life, exploring for example his atti­ tudes toward women, the supernatural, and some of the issues of the day. Writing of the 1750s and 1760s, Rupp has observed that Wesley’s Meth­ odism experienced ‘tensions and arguments, backsliders and apostates’.36 In contrast to the confident record of the movement’s progress found in its offi­ cial publications or the sometimes ecstatic accounts of individual redemp­ tion bequeathed by many of its members, Wride’s papers often portray a world characterised by uncertainty, conflict, and disappointment, by effort wasted and messages misunderstood. And yet . . . In 1785, Wride ridiculed the freelance preacher (and his former colleague) Nicholas Manners, now trying to make a living by travelling around Lin­ colnshire, selling his threepenny memoir—‘a pamphlet which I think no sensible person can admire’, he told Wesley.37 But there was an undeniable nobility about Manners’s ambition, as set out in its final lines, and it was shared by most of Wesley’s preachers, including Wride himself at his best: I wish to contribute, in the future part of my life, all that I can in this and every other way; that I may glorify the Lord, do good to men, have a good conscience, leave a good testimony behind, die in peace, rise gloriously, and receive a reward.38

Image 1.1 Thomas Wride (1733–1807) Source: Image courtesy of The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (Wesley Historical Society Library), Oxford Brookes University

The significance of Thomas Wride

7

Image 1.2 John Wesley (1703–91) Source: Image courtesy of The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (Wesley Historical Society Library), Oxford Brookes University

Notes 1 Nolan B. Harmon, gen. ed., The Encyclopedia of World Methodism, Vol. II (Nashville, TN: United Methodist Publishing House, 1974). 2 Wride, did, however, feature in a key reference work, Joseph Beaumont and James Everett’s Wesleyan Takings, Vol. II (London: Hamilton, Adams and Co., 1851). There are also entries for both Wride and his wife Jane (or Jenny) in the Wesley Works Editorial Project online register of ‘contemporary persons’ main­ tained by Randy Maddox (updated 2018)—https://wesleyworks.files.wordpress. com/2018/06/bios-recurrent-persons.pdf (accessed January 2019). 3 The paper was published between 1844 and 1848. The articles reproducing Wes­ ley’s letters to Wride first appeared on 8 April 1846. 4 James Redfearn, “The Correspondence of Thomas Wride,” PWHS 1 (1898): 140–5. 5 Wride does, however, merit almost a whole paragraph in Lenton, 308.

8

The significance of Thomas Wride

6 Ultimately prompting this (apparently unanswered) enquiry in Notes and Que­ ries, 26 April 1884—‘He . . . presents very much the appearance of a Noncon­ formist divine. Can any of your correspondents say who he was?’ 7 Thomas Wride, “A Short Account of Mrs. Susannah Strong: Written by Mr. Thomas Wride,” AM 12 (1789): 417–18. 8 Rack, 951–2. 9 Actually three times, in 1770–1, 1776–7, and 1788–9—Rack, 382, 454, 649. 10 “Brief Account of Whitehaven Methodism (c. 1823),” YDFCM/2/102, Whitehaven Archive and Local Studies Centre, 5. 11 William Lorkin, A Concise History of the First Establishment of Wesleyan Meth­ odism in the City of Norwich (Norwich: Matchett and Stevenson, 1825), 27. 12 John W. Laycock, Methodist Heroes in the Great Haworth Round 1743 to 1784 (Keighley: Wadsworth, 1909), 289. 13 Augustine Birrell and George Eayrs, eds, Letters of John Wesley (London, New York, NY, etc.: Hodder and Stoughton, 1915), 183. 14 Telford, 5:221, editor’s note. 15 MM 30 (1807): 772. 16 Robert Dickinson, The Life of the Rev. John Braithwaite . . . (London: Printed for John Broadbent, 1825), 22–4. 17 Letter to John Wiltshaw (undated), MS Conference Journal, vol. 1, MA1977/585, MARC. I am grateful to Dr John Lenton for making his transcript available to me. 18 MM 41 (1818): 705. 19 James Rosser, The History of Methodism in the Isle of Man (Douglas and Lon­ don: Published by the Author, 1849), 88. 20 William Crook, Ireland and the Centenary of American Methodism (London: Hamilton, Adams and Co., Wesleyan Conference Office, and others, 1866), 68. 21 MM 30 (1807): 421. 22 Wride to William Dodwell (undated, concerning an incident on 23 Septem­ ber 1783), Duke B. Dodwell was a leading clerical supporter of Wesley, for exam­ ple attending the 1781 and 1782 Conferences—Rack, 507 n.868, 519 n.907. 23 Wride to William Blagborne (8 September 1798)—PLP115/9/38, MARC. ‘Oli­ ver’ may be the preacher John Oliver, though the contemporary published Min­ utes do not record his stationing. 24 Susan Whyman, The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 219. 25 Wride to Blagborne (1 May 1800)—PLP9/25/7, MARC. Wride’s difficulties with Rev. Metcalfe are discussed in chapters three and eight. 26 James Everett, The Polemic Divine (London: Hamilton Adams, 1839), 474. 27 As in his attack on errant clergymen in Sermon 125, “On a Single Eye,” Outler, 4:128–9. 28 Raymond L. Brett, The Third Earl of Shaftesbury (London: Hutchinson, 1951), 169. 29 In a conversation recorded by Adam Clarke, in John Telford, The New Method­ ist Hymn-Book Illustrated (London: Epworth Press, 1941), 38. 30 George Lawton, “The Slang and Colloquial Expressions in Wesley’s Letters,” PWHS 32 (1959): 33. 31 Rack, 497; and see chapter three. 32 See, for example, entries concerning Norwich for 16 January 1762 in Ward and Heitzenrater, 4:350; and for 21 February 1779, 6:118. 33 Reflecting his successive problems at Grimsby, Gainsborough, and Norwich, dis­ cussed elsewhere. 34 Calculations by author based on data published in Rack. A similar analysis, though with different results, featured in Beaumont and Everett, Wesleyan Tak­ ings, 355–9. This purportedly reviewed preachers’ entire careers, though it cov­ ered only ten years of Wride’s service during which on average he added six to

The significance of Thomas Wride

35 36 37 38

9

seven members, compared with an average for 160 preachers of 14. The most successful evangelist emerging from the analysis was Richard Reece. David Hempton, “The People Called Methodists: Transitions in Britain and North America,” in The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies, ed. William J. Abraham and James E. Kirby (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 67. E. Gordon Rupp, Religion in England 1688–1791 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 399. Wride to John Wesley (30 May 1785), Duke B. Nicholas Manners, Some Particulars of the Life and Experience of Nicholas Manners (York: Printed by the Author, and Sold by R. Spence, 1785), 40.

2

Thomas Wride’s story

Introduction I was born May the eight O. S. 1733.1 My mother died in my infancy, I sup­ pose by, or before, I was four years of age. My father was called a Church Man and sent us to Church at early ages.

Thus begins Thomas Wride’s autobiography.2 Wesley encouraged his preachers to produce autobiographies, focusing on their spiritual develop­ ment, and many were published in the Arminian Magazine.3 These typi­ cally offered a detailed account of the process, often extending over many years, through which the author secured salvation, and then provided a selective account of their subsequent career, concluding with an associate’s description of their last days and moment of death. This was a new genre of religious literature, and ‘It would be easy today to fail to appreciate how radical it was for Wesley to publish autobiographies of living authors’.4 Wride’s manuscript followed the paradigm in some respects, but it ends before his preaching career had begun, was unpublished, and ranged well beyond spiritual matters.

Wride’s family and early life Wride’s father was a tradesman in Salisbury, possibly a saddler.5 Wride was one of few amongst Wesley’s preachers who came from Wiltshire.6 Two older brothers were found places in the business, though there was no room for him. The family’s financial circumstances are unknown; there was an élite of highly prosperous tradesmen in the city—perhaps about 10 per cent of them—but we do not know if the Wrides were part of it. Eighteenth-century Salisbury was a cathedral city of some 6,500 souls,7 the centre of a diocese and a site of considerable tensions between Angli­ cans and Dissenters.8 It was a market town and regional transport hub, on the main coaching route between London and Exeter. Its location, some 80 miles from London, placed it at the boundary of the zone from which London tended to draw its economic migrants.9 It had been a major textile centre, but this industry was now in long-term decline. Leather-working was perhaps its second largest industry, including both saddlers and shoemakers;

Thomas Wride’s story

11

as late as 1851, the latter comprised almost 8 per cent of the adult male working population.10 The family expanded and became more complex over the years. After three sons, his parents had a daughter two and a half years after Wride’s birth. When his mother died prematurely, his father remarried and had another daughter (Jane) with Wride’s stepmother. Wride’s relationship with the latter was generally positive, but when she also died, his father remar­ ried again. As Wride records, after returning home from London because of illness some time in the late 1750s, when he was in his twenties, My father was lately married to his third wife, who was a widow with two sons. She was much younger than my father, whom others thought might have done without a third wife, especially as my sister Jane— daughter of my deceased stepmother—was a sober young woman, and had kept his house for seven years. The extravagance of my stepmoth­ er’s eldest son and the secret dealings of my stepmother undermined my father’s circumstances; but my father—notwithstanding the informa­ tion he had—was blind to all their faults. Nonetheless, Wride’s father was able to continue to help him financially well into his twenties, as he struggled to establish himself in London.

Wride’s education Wride’s account of his education opens thus: I was sent to school very young, according to the custom of our country— to get us out of the way, more than with a view of learning. When put to reading, I took readily to it, as also to the learning to say the catechism. At the age of six years, or something less, my master took the book out of my hand saying to me, ‘Let’s see how much thee canst say without book.’ I began with ‘What is your name?’ and ran on with question and answer to the end of the catechism, for which I got the epithet of ‘Good Boy’, often repeated. I then was sent to Church, to say the catechism on the Wednesdays & Fridays in Lent, a custom observed in our parish. I was told that the parson said, that I said my catechism exceeding well. His early progress in reading has parallels in the accounts of other eighteenthcentury religious lives. Dan Taylor, a General Baptist minister, could appar­ ently read by the age of three, while the Particular Baptist minister John Ryland Jr. began learning Hebrew aged four or five.11 And Wride’s fellow preacher George Story reported that At four years of age I had learned the Catechism, and had repeated it before the Minister in the Church. . . . In my sixth year, I had read the Bible through several times, and other books that came in my way.12

12

Thomas Wride’s story

At the age of eight, Wride was sent to ‘writing school’, where he excelled in arithmetic but had problems in writing, because of what he calls ‘an invol­ untary motion in my hand’. He explained, My mistress was a very elegant writer; she seemed by nature fitted for that, & that chiefly, for she was born with one hand, which made her father say, that if they could get her to be scholar, it would be a living for her, but she would be fit for nothing else. I suppose that writing was easily gained by her, and that she thought that it was as easily gained by others, so she was very severe upon such as did not make movement. It was a bruising experience, and many would sympathise with Wride’s reflection that ‘I have often thought it a great pity that pedagogues and parents did not consider the natural impediments of their pupils & children, that they might not exact impossibilities’. Aged around 11, Wride’s stepmother insisted that he change school: I heard her say ‘We must put him where there is a man. He is beyond the government of a woman, to be sure he is, such a great boy as he.’ In this she was greatly mistaken, for no one could possibly rule more abso­ lutely than did my mistress. However, my stepmother bore great sway in the [affair?] and I was put to school under two masters. This was not a success. A year later, when it was found that Wride’s writing had deteriorated at his new school, he recorded that My father ordered me to go there no more; my brother was sent to fetch another schoolmaster, but he was not at home, so no more notice was taken of my learning. Wride now wished to continue his studies, possibly at the city grammar school: I was very desirous of being a scholar; my father often talked of putting me to Latin School.13 I was very desirous of it, but dreadfully afraid of the discipline, which was looked upon to be very rigid. It was not to be. It seems likely nonetheless that Wride’s schooling gave him a reasonable grounding in English and arithmetic and that he contin­ ued his education as an auto-didact.14 Aged about 16, he took at least one informal reading lesson, albeit only after having satisfied himself that the teacher could provide ale. While Wride recognised his ‘unpolished way of

Thomas Wride’s story

13

speaking’,15 he took pride in his adherence to grammatical and other rules, criticising one colleague thus: I am no critic in grammar, therefore I say little about it; but this I say, that I hear of many of your blunders, with respect to Number, Person, Gender, Mood and Tense. Those hints I give you, that you may not think your self to be universally admired.16 He sometimes used complex terms and phrases and displayed knowledge of Latin and of the classics, quoting from the 7,400 line philosophical poem De Rerum Natura by Lucretius, for example,17 although he told Wesley that unlike one colleague, I have no knowledge of the learned languages, of which he makes such boast that he told Sister Charles of Rosmead that he could dispute in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.18 All this suggests that Wride’s education was slightly less extensive than was typical amongst his colleagues.19 But it equipped him to communicate flu­ ently both orally and in writing, though the results were often not what he would have wished.

Wride’s apprenticeship The family’s priority now was to find young Thomas a trade. The obvious option for a tradesman’s son was an apprenticeship, this being ‘The lead­ ing formal source of vocational skills outside the agricultural sector in pre­ modern England’.20 As elsewhere, apprenticeship in Salisbury was regulated by guilds or companies.21 Wride’s ambition was to be a clock-maker, but his father opposed this, although he retained a lifelong interest in clocks and similar mechanisms. Instead, shortly before his thirteenth birthday, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker or cordwainer. Although his master was a Dis­ senter, he allowed Wride to continue to attend Anglican worship:22 A master was picked upon in the neighbourhood whose sobriety recom­ mended him to my father’s choice. I approved of him, for drunkenness was hateful to me. Proposals were made and terms settled, so I was bound apprentice in the month of April, 1746.23 My master was called a Presbyterian, but I was to go to Church, which I did pretty constantly in the general. His father would have paid a premium to secure the apprenticeship. The standard term was seven years.24 Socially and economically, therefore,

14

Thomas Wride’s story

Wride’s background was typical of Wesley’s preachers. As Hindmarsh has commented, Most of the preachers had begun their working lives as skilled labour­ ers of one sort or another—small craftsmen, tradesmen, or artisans— and many had known (or chafed against) the discipline of a long apprenticeship.25

Wride’s early spiritual development Wride’s father was an active member of the Church of England, and in his (anonymous) letter of 26 May 1787 to John Moore, archbishop of Canter­ bury, Wride explained, I am a member of the Established Church, of which you ‘by Divine Providence’ are the Metropolitan. I was born & bred within her pale and have remained in her Communion (through the prejudice of educa­ tion, during my infancy; and since I have been of years of discretion), from a principle of conscience.26 He was one of some 40 per cent of Wesley’s preachers brought up as Angli­ cans.27 It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that he recorded that I had frequent concerns about my eternal welfare about the age of eight years. I was very desirous to know the way to heaven! I could think all were right, yet the prejudice of education made me judge much in favour of the Church. His father’s collection of books included the seventeenth-century devotional text The Meditations of John Gerhard,28 though this proved too challenging for young Wride: One day, looking among some old books of my father’s, I lighted on one of them called ‘Gerrad’s meditations’. Looking in the preface, it called to such as wanted to know the way to heaven, and told them, ‘Come to Gerrad’. My heart seemed to spring within me; I thought, this was what I wanted. I began reading, but was soon weary; it did not suit with my understanding so I soon gave it over. His grandmother instilled in him a basic regime of practical daily devotion. She encouraged Thomas and his sister to say their prayers morning and evening: About the age of eight or nine years, (as my sister & I laid in a bed near that of our grandmother’s, who constantly night and morning repeated

Thomas Wride’s story

15

many prayers), we learnt them of her, and night and morning said them ourselves. We learnt also some out of the Common Prayer-Book & some out of a book called Queen Elizabeth’s Prayer [Book?] which we constantly said night & morning. When Wride left home at the age of nearly 13, it was—as we have seen—to live with a God-fearing master. Masters were responsible for the continuing education of their apprentices, and their moral and spiritual development.29 In 1715, Daniel Defoe had described the ideal relationship in this imagined exchange between a master and a father: Master . . . must I be a Father and Master too? Father. No question of it; he is under your Family Care, as to his Body, he is your Servant, but as to his Soul, I think, he is as much your Son as any Child you have.30 (italics in original) Reality, inevitably, sometimes fell short. Thus in 1790, John Tennent, apprenticed to a grocer in Coleraine, Ireland, complained in his journal, It is great folly in parents to put their children apprentices till they be first properly learned, for their masters will assuredly take no pains to teach them any thing only what will be for their own profit & advantage.31 Wride’s experience was more positive, and soon after becoming an appren­ tice, he was encouraged to seek confirmation in the Church of England but declined, pending completion of his time: I thought that I could not be good enough while an apprentice; but when at liberty I would be confirmed and live a truly religious life; so I deliberately deferred the ceremony of confirmation for that [reason?], with a desire to have it done in the sixth year following, as then my apprenticeship would be expired. His scruples were unusual for an Anglican, in a period when ‘Britain was seen as a Christian society and therefore confirmation was part of the social package’.32 It was as a young man not yet sure of his spiritual path that Thomas Wride first encountered the Methodists.

Wride and Methodism Wride’s introduction to Methodism was unusual and was to affect signifi­ cantly his approach as a preacher. There were two distinctive aspects to his experience.

16

Thomas Wride’s story

Firstly, the local Methodist community was in turmoil. Methodism had been introduced to the Salisbury area by Westley Hall (1711–76), brother-in­ law to John and Charles Wesley, on his appointment as curate of Fisherton Anger in 1736. From the early 1740s, Hall’s attitudes had become increas­ ingly heterodox and his behaviour unconventional. He became a deist, renounced the sacraments, and both preached and practised polygamy.33 His society members used Moravian hymnals in preference to Wesley’s and cut their links with the Church of England. On 22 December 1747, John Wesley wrote to him attacking his heretical views and immoral acts. The lengthy and frank letter highlighted, amongst many other criticisms, Hall’s ability to ‘break [i.e. utter unexpectedly] a jest, or laugh at it heartily’.34 Hall deserted his wife and children and left Salisbury for good—with his preg­ nant mistress—in October 1747. A newspaper correspondent accused him of ‘gross carnality’ and of presiding over meetings which were ‘scenes of debauchery and impurity’.35 Long after his flight, knowledge of his exploits lived on. The second key circumstance was Wride’s apprenticeship. Eighteenthcentury apprentices were expected to enjoy themselves and even to cause trouble, especially on holidays and at times of political tension.36 In 1799, the Somerset parson William Holland cautioned local farmers against tak­ ing on apprentices: It seldom answers to take them for they scarce ever turn out well. At first they are a great trouble & expence, & when they come to earn anything they grudge their labour.37 By his own account, Wride was no exception. His fellow preacher Chris­ topher Hopper confessed that as a teenager he had ‘spent nights and days together in hunting, cocking, card-playing, horse-races, or whatever the devil brought to town or country’,38 and Wride later recalled that he had enjoyed horse-racing on ‘holy days’.39 Around the age of 16, though with some misgivings, he began to join other local apprentices in disrupting Methodist gatherings: I think it may be in the year 1749 that I heard Thomas Hopkins (then an apprentice to my father and [elder?] brother) say what fun they had at the Methodist preaching. The next Sunday I went there, and con­ stantly thenceforward went on Sundays & sometimes on weekdays. On the Sundays we made much foolish disturbance, on the other days, scarce any but [few?] persons were present. I was soon known for my foolish sportive tricks, to the distress of the serious & the diversion of such as myself; yet amidst this giddiness, I gave attention to the preach­ ing and gave my judgment concerning it, as it suited [my?] understand­ ing. I sometimes was doubtful with regard to my own behaviour.

Thomas Wride’s story

17

Wride became associated with the Fisherton Anger meeting established, and abandoned, by Westley Hall.40 For some months, he was a semi-detached hearer, taking particular delight in debating with the members: Sometimes some of the people would take upon them to dispute with me; but this was the wrong method, for with this I was pleased, for I was almost sure to get the upper hand; for my antagonists were restricted to truth, while I took all advantages whether right or wrong. The Methodists responded with gentle remonstrances, apparently recognis­ ing that there was some good in him: A gentle way of treatment was most prevalent with me, for I could not return roughness for reason or rudeness for softness. One gentle woman took me in hand by way of reproof, & very gently told me: ‘You should not behave so, you ought to behave better and shew good examples.’ I replied: ‘There was no good example shewn here in Mr. Hall’s days, Ma’am.’ She replied: ‘That’s not for you [illegible]; you ought to follow good examples’. One elderly man offered to teach Wride and his companions to read, enticing them with the offer (readily accepted) of ‘a good country plum-pudding’.41 The Fisherton Anger society experienced regular disruption and adjusted its practices accordingly. Wride recorded that, unlike most Methodist socie­ ties, where a (public) preaching service led on immediately to a (closed) society meeting, The Society did not usually meet as soon as the preaching ended, but dispersed & came together about half an hour after, in order to get rid of the disturbers. Wride’s involvement was opposed by both his father and stepmother, the latter seeing Methodism as a cult. As Wride noted, My father, who used to be rather pleased, now began to advise me not to go. My general answer was that I loved [to] hear what everyone had to say. My stepmother urged me not to go, for, said she: ‘Thee will be linked in with them by & by, thee will not be able to get from them.’ To this I replied: ‘I am not afraid of that.’ This was [not tr]ue, for I was not afraid of it, but earnestly desirous of it. Nonetheless, Wride became a regular attender and on one occasion testi­ fied against a group of local young men, including Hopkins, who had

18

Thomas Wride’s story

continued to harass the Methodists.42 He later recalled his parents’ evolv­ ing attitude: My father opposed with all his might; my step-mother took a more art­ ful, insinuating method, for she would sometimes say: ‘Let him alone, a young rogue. He’s no Methodist, he’s only playing tag with them. He’ll lead them on, till he gets into their Love-Feast and learns all their secrets, and then he’ll leave them’. However, Wride did not find much benefit in attending his weekly class, recalling, In the class I met were 16 young persons, none of whom professed living faith. He who was our leader was very deficient in gifts, and it may be doubted did not enjoy the faith which worketh by love. I had but little advantage by my brethren. Around Whitsunday in 1749 or 1750, he had a profound religious experi­ ence, which was succeeded by a prolonged period of spiritual struggle and doubt; this lasted until in 1755 he moved to London after completing his apprenticeship and indeed beyond then. As was typical in eighteenth-century London, Wride rented his accom­ modation, and he found companionship when forced to share lodgings with three other young men, including two Methodists.43 The house was crowded—Wride shared not just his room but his bed—but this brought some benefits: Our lodgings being all on the same floor, we agreed to have family prayer. Our landlady hearing of us, asked why we could not come downstairs, that they might join with us: this was readily complied with, and practised night and morning.44 The God of Grace con­ vinced & converted my bedfellow and gave him grace to witness that the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin. The other two who removed with me, were also made partakers of the same grace; one of whom [was] constantly importuning another lodger in the house to come with us to join in prayers. She wondered why the fellow kept plagu­ ing her about prayers (so she afterwards owned) but thought as she was among strangers (and her husband was on the seas) she might be beholden to us, so she joined us in prayer, and attended the preach­ ings &c., and the God of Mercies visited her, and gave her repentance and pardon. Wride was an active member of the London Methodist society, though lack­ ing in confidence about his spiritual state. When invited to lead a ‘select

Thomas Wride’s story

19

society’, a group of mature believers, he hesitated. He recorded how, under Wesley’s guidance, his responsibilities developed: After a while, as the members were so far distant from each other as not fully to answer the design of the Methodist discipline, we divided into two different bands; one I met on Monday evening, the other on Wednesday evening. Soon after I was appointed to take the care of a trial-band which I met on Sunday afternoon, at Spitalfields chapel.45

Wride and Methodist spirituality Randall has described the seven key characteristics of Methodist spiritual­ ity at this time: ‘conversionism’—Wesley and his followers all expected the sinner to make a clear break with the past; scriptural practice—adherents were enjoined regularly to read and reflect on the Bible; the maintenance of good order—always seen as vital, especially given the hostility which the early movement faced; regular attendance at Holy Communion; a dis­ cipline of personal, family, and collective prayer and praise;46 Christian perfection—this was seen as the ideal climax of a life-long journey of faith, though some thought it could be secured instantaneously;47 and finally, a focus on salvation—changes in people’s lives, starting now. Methodism was grounded in a ‘desire for a renewal—evangelistic and social’.48 How typical was Wride? While he emphasised good order above all else, the evidence suggests that he supported the other elements listed in the pre­ ceding paragraph, for example, by instituting household prayers in his Lon­ don lodgings. But what of his personal faith? Was Wride ever ‘converted’ in the traditional evangelical sense? His autobiography recorded the first stage in the traditional process, that of becoming convinced both of his own sin and of the possibility of salva­ tion. As a teenager in 1749 or 1750, following a Whitsuntide sermon by the itinerant preacher William Tucker, The Lord opened mine eyes to see my fallen and totally depraved condi­ tion, He also gave [me] full conviction that it was a work of his Spirit, in order to bring me to the knowledge of myself; that He might bring me to the saving knowledge of Himself, whom to know is Life Eternal. This persuasion of the Gracious [Des]ign of God toward me not only kept me from that tormenting fear & painful despair which I heard others speak of, and which I earnestly desired, and eagerly sought to obtain; but also brought into my soul real joy; not from a supposition that my sins were forgiven, but that they would be. Wride then spent a prolonged period—‘sometimes I have thought it ten days, sometimes seventeen days, sometimes twenty-four days’—in prayer,

20

Thomas Wride’s story

reading, reflection, and seeking counsel from Methodist and other friends, until one morning he awoke ‘clearly satisfied that my sins were forgiven’. This did not however bring peace of mind, and there followed several years during which he remained in an ‘unsettled state’, until his move to London in the spring of 1755. This, again, was not unusual, and can be seen as typical, as Olson has noted, ‘In Puritan theology assurance normally came years later, after one’s faith had been tested and proved genuine’.49 Wride’s colleague Thomas Mitchell, for example, wrote in his official autobiography of a long phase when he was convinced of his sinfulness but awaiting salva­ tion, followed by one ecstatic moment of conversion when ‘all my doubts fled away’,50 while John Haime, like Wride, recorded several episodes when he experienced a sense of personal salvation, succeeded by repeated periods of backsliding and despair until ultimately he ‘found my soul in perfect peace.51 Wride’s account of his years in London focuses on his personal quest for ‘holiness’ or ‘perfection’, where views amongst the Methodists differed:52 My desire for holiness increased and I was often encouraged by hear­ ing of others speak who were made partakers of it. My views of it were somewhat different from the manner with which others spake of it. Some spake of it as a needful thing—absolutely needful in order for eternal glory, which however true, did not appear to be the most excel­ lent way of speaking of it. It appeared to me to be a privilege to which every believer in Jesus was entitled, as being by grace a joint heir with Jesus and by union with him, [an]d a right to expect ask and receive. Yet I reasoned on the thing, I thought so great a work would require time. I thought it would require twelve months’ time. As the months passed, ‘the number of the witnesses of perfect love continu­ ally increased’ and with it his own desire for perfection. Finally, he felt that he had attained this blessed state but was reluctant to share this conviction with others; however, he was questioned on the matter by Wesley, who was persuaded. This is Wride’s ambiguous account of these developments, dat­ ing probably from 1762: My peace, power and love much increased, so that in the general I could rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks. I was sparing as to making profession, but when the season came for renewing the tickets [at] the quarterly visitation 176–, I spoke of the peace and love with which the Lord favoured me, but Brother Olds interfered and said that God had purified me. This made Mr. Wesley ask se[veral] questions which I answered in simplicity & sincerity. Mr. Wesley received my testimony and marked my ticket for the Select Society,53 with whom I met thenceforward, to my great profit.

Thomas Wride’s story

21

After a further bout of uncertainty, ‘thenceforth I do not remember that I had the shadow of a doubt for three years’. Wride later admitted to Wesley that his spiritual journey had been far from smooth, explaining in a letter of 8 December 1780 that Brother Tunney in his letter tells me (not as his own words, but in the third person) that my ‘soul is not alive to God’.54 That is abundantly too strong. Indeed I own that I am far short of what I was in the years 1762–63–64 & 65. But yet Sir I doubt not to say that I have more grace now than I had in the year 1768. At which time you had so favourable an opinion of me, as to say that I had more grace than all Salisbury Society.55 Wride’s account, though often confused and complicated, rings true.

Wride at 30: an uncertain future In the mid-1760s, aged around 30, Wride was under pressure, partly because of long-term health problems. These were exacerbated by the physical demands of his shoemaker’s work and also—one suspects—by his intense commitment to the London Methodist society: I now had plenty of opportunities and work. I had about eighteen times of meeting in the week (publick and private, great and small). I was still growing weaker, so that it was hard work especially if I stooped forward to work, write or read; but if I was on my feet, I could walk at the rate of four mile in the hour. In the evening, indeed, I was usually so weak that I was obliged to use much caution, for fear that my staggering should be mistaken for drunkenness. He had experienced a prolonged bout of ‘nervous fever’ in his twenties, suffering mild headaches and extreme physical weakness. A fellow member of the London Methodist society recommended treatment by a Dr. Jones; however, within ten days, this had proved ineffective. Wride explained that I then heard of a practitioner, who was looked upon to be almost infal­ lible, and also very moderate in his bills. This I much needed, for my long affliction had much reduced my circumstances. I applied to him. He asked me what was my disorder. I told him that he must find that out, for some called it a consumption, some called it an hectic-fever,56 some call it lowness of spirits, and some call it laziness.57 He asked several questions about my eating, drinking & sleeping. I told him, that I could eat, drink and sleep with anyone. ‘But can you work with anyone, he says?’ ‘No’, said I, ‘I must leave that to somebody else’. ‘Well’, said he, ‘I believe we can cure laziness’.

22

Thomas Wride’s story

Wride then returned in desperation to Dr. Jones, who recommended a daily cold bath, so Wride Borrowed money and purchased a ticket for admittance to the cold bath, which I followed about six days in the week. . . . This discipline I underwent for about eleven months but grew still worse. The doctor then concluded that I must leave London; that if I per­ sisted to stay in London, I must die. He thought, if I could get the country-air, but especially my native air for three months, I might recover. I was very unwilling to leave London, for the prosperity of my soul made me unwilling to leave the means I then enjoyed, and espe­ cially as I knew that religion was at a low ebb in my own country. . . . I reluctantly consented. Nonetheless, he was contemplating becoming a Methodist preacher, though apprehensive about the demands involved: I frequently had serious but confused notions about preaching, but a deep consciousness of my inability kept me from making any offer of the kind. One day, one of the [preachers?] Mr. J[ohn] J[ones] spoke to me,58 ‘Tommy, I have often thought of thee, what art thee good [for?] Thee art a mere cumberground;59 thee art good for nothing in Church or State. Thee hast talents for preaching: Why wilt ye not use them?’ At this critical juncture, Wride faced two further challenges. One was some dispute, possibly with a fellow member of the London society, which Wes­ ley was called upon to resolve and eventually did in Wride’s favour. And second, perhaps as the prescribed health cure, Wride borrowed money from his father to visit Salisbury, where he met his new stepmother (his father’s third wife) for the first time. The visit went badly: ‘My stepmother soon influenced my father, that he turned me out of doors, and soon afterwards he did the same by my sister’. Wride’s autobiography ends when he was aged around 30—overworked, uncertain about his future, unwell, and experiencing conflict both with his parents and with his adopted family in the London Methodist society. In Salisbury and in London, he had been exposed to two contrasting models of charismatic leadership in Methodism—first to that of the flamboyant, looseliving, wise-cracking and heterodox Westley Hall and then to the sober, disciplined determination of Wesley himself. Which path would he follow? The answer, as we will see, was both.

Wride’s career as an itinerant preacher, in brief John Wesley’s itinerant preachers were constantly on the move. First, they were stationed successively in different localities, typically—by this

Thomas Wride’s story

23

time—for periods of one year, where they worked in teams, often of three preachers, of whom the senior preacher had a supervisory role and was known as the ‘assistant’. Second, once on station, they also travelled round the area—known as a ‘circuit’—visiting its various chapels and other preaching places.60 So the basic rhythm of Wride’s career as a preacher was his annual rotation from one circuit to another and, within each year, his travels around the circuit. When in 1765 Wride returned to Salisbury, he continued to work as a shoemaker but also became a part-time unpaid ‘local preacher’, preaching within the local circuit, with Wesley’s approval (dated 9 September): I advise you to go to Mr. Henderson [the assistant in the circuit] and relate to him what you mentioned to me. I have no objection to your speaking at those times and places which he shall think proper.61 After several years, Wride finally decided that he was called to preach fulltime; as an unsympathetic observer commented to Wesley, He (having a great stock of assurance, & long quite weary of the shoe­ maker’s stool) offered his service as a preacher to Mr. Wesley, which was accepted. . . . Mr. Wesley imposed him as a preacher on the Methodists in Devonshire.62 For at least part of 1768–9, he preached in Devon, though he was not listed in the Conference record—the full-time preachers in the circuit then were John Furz (the assistant) and John Magor.63 In 1769, he was recorded as ‘remaining on trial’ (i.e. on probation) for 1769–70,64 evidence that he had been a probationer itinerant preacher during the previous Connexional year.65 Wride was therefore aged around 35 when he began to travel full-time, well above the average age of 27 at which Wesley’s preachers began their career.66 This was an important moment in the development of a national cadre of full-time itinerant preachers—the 1768 Conference had banned such preachers from having secular employment, and Wride was one of the first for whom entry to the ministry necessitated reliance on their modest Connexional stipend and allowances.67 Wride moved to Haworth in 1769, and in 1770, Wesley decided to pro­ mote him as the assistant in the new circuit of Whitehaven, which was a major territory, extending to Carlisle and the Isle of Man, but had a small membership—below 200.68 Wride interpreted the move as a sign of Wesley’s belief in him and later told Wesley that his success in this posting justified such confidence.69 Such early promotions were typical at this time; Wesley sought ‘younger, more energetic men’ to supervise circuits.70 In all, Wride served seven times as assistant, but his career was chequered—his time at York

24

Thomas Wride’s story

(1773–4) was troubled, and his service in Athlone in 1774–5 prompted consideration of his expulsion from the Irish itinerancy;71 in 1780, he was suspended from itinerating throughout the British Isles, charged with being ‘droll, light, trifling and slothful’.72 In 1782, he was readmitted and continued travelling until 1790. The Conference then posted Wride to the new and promising circuit of Bideford,73 but he refused to go, partly because of his wife’s infirmity; by October, Wesley had accepted that Wride had retired, because of his ‘want of health’.74 The 1791 Con­ ference paid him a pension of £22.10s.0d. from the Preachers’ Fund ‘for the past year’. In this way, aged 57, Wride’s career as a full-time itinerant preacher ended, though he remained active within Yorkshire Methodism until his death in 1807.75

The aftermath of Wride’s career as an itinerant preacher There were two broad options for a Wesleyan preacher whose travelling days were done. One was to become a supernumerary preacher—these

Table 2.1 Wride’s stations (* indicates when he was the assistant) 1768–69 1769–70 1770–71 1771–72 1772–73 1773–74 1774–75 1775 [part] 1775–76 1776–77 1777–78 1778–79 1779–80

Devon Haworth Whitehaven* Armagh* Newry* York Athlone* Limerick Sligo Whitehaven [second]* The Dales Yarm Scarborough

1780–82

Suspended from preaching

1782–1783 1783–1784 1784–1785 1785–1786 1786 [part] 1786–1787 1787–1788 1788–1789 1789–1790

Grimsby Gainsborough Epworth Norwich* Yarmouth Kent Newcastle Whitehaven [third]* The Dales [second]

1791(?)–1807

York [retired/supernumerary]

Thomas Wride’s story

25

were stationed in the normal way and were paid from circuit or central funds but were regarded as extra members of the circuit preaching team and given a reduced workload. The second option was to superannuate— such preachers had retired and received a pension from the Connexion’s Preachers’ Fund.76 After withdrawing from the itinerancy in 1790, Wride and his wife moved to York. Initially, Wride seems to have superannuated—he received his pension annually from 1791 until his death, the last payment—of £25—being allocated in summer 1806.77 However, from 1803, his name appeared as a supernumerary in the list of preachers at York.78 He fea­ tured again in each of the next three years.79 As such, he was part of a large team of itinerant and local preachers—the circuit’s ‘Sunday Plan’ for the latter half of 1809, for example, deployed 20 preachers across 35 preaching places.80 John Braithwaite recorded that when the itinerants of the York District were called to a meeting in May 1792, ‘as Mr. Wride now lives at York, he was permitted to assemble with us’,81 and in a 1798 letter, Wride referred to his having attended another district meeting in 1797.82 In 1798, he took the minutes for another such meeting.83 But even this late phase in Wride’s career was troublesome. There were four main drivers of his discontent, possibly connected. First, he suffered increasing ill health. When William Blagborne left the circuit in 1798 with some business unfinished, Wride wrote explaining that he felt physically unable to chase after him: I went to Peaseholme Green on the Monday morning; Fanny told me you had been gone about ten minutes. Time has been that I could have come up with you before you could have got clear of the environs of York; but those times are over. Such an attempt now would certainly throw me into spasms, and probably endanger my life.84 And on 1 May 1800, he told him, ‘You knew in times past that I was slow of pen, and you will hardly imagine that I am improved now, when my powers are vastly impaired.’85 Second, Wride felt that he was not treated fairly by his colleagues when preaching duties were allocated. In a letter possibly written in 1803, he complained that he never preached in the city but was constantly sent to rural preaching places: I came to York and found the local preachers preferred to the pulpit, and I was to be silent in York & yet to take the country plan from York. I could not help thinking, that I was used in an unbrotherly manner.86

26 Thomas Wride’s story Third, he engaged in a series of one-sided personal disputes with York preachers and others; though he was sharply critical of the preachers Wil­ liam Blagborne and George Gibbon, one ground for Wride’s ire was their lack of response.87 Such conflicts must have been disruptive within the cir­ cuit as well as disturbing for the immediate participants and probably left Wride isolated. In a 1790s letter written from York, Wride acknowledged that ‘I have private information, that I was accused last Conference of quar­ relling with my brethren’.88 And when in 1804 the York society launched a project to build a new chapel, he played no role.89 Finally, Wride felt that as a senior preacher, though retired, he was not accorded due respect by the new generation. This was probably a factor in his prolonged dispute with Blagborne, who was 20 years younger. His bit­ terness was evident in this comment, probably made to Gibbon: Although I read in Scripture, ‘Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee’,90 yet I have found but few who give this proof of their wis­ dom. . . . The ancients used to think that a kind of reverence was due unto the aged; but now some so slight the aged as to esteem them as the offscouring of things; so that the advice of Brother [Samuel] Bard­ sley was not without some reason, viz. ‘Pray my dear brethren, do not live to be old’.91 Thomas Wride died in the earlier part of 1807. With typical Methodist punctiliousness, that summer, the Conference recorded recovering £5.19s.0d from his pension, suggesting that he died at Easter.92

Conclusion It is difficult to make sense of Thomas Wride’s life and work. He was in many respects typical of his generation of Wesley’s preachers. He came from a modest background, had a limited education, and learned a trade as an apprentice. He underwent a religious conversion experience and was an active member of his local Methodist society. He served first as a part-time local preacher before entering the itinerant ministry full-time. He travelled widely across the British Isles. However, there were some less usual features. Wride had enemies, and his time in some circuits was troubled. He was threatened with expulsion and suspended from full-time preaching in 1780. Rehabilitated in 1782, he travelled for less than a decade before standing down. He then had a long retirement in York, during which he continued to preach locally but still found contentment elusive. A crucial factor in Wride’s story—and an anchor for much of his career—was his complicated relationship with John Wesley, to which we now turn.

Figure 2.1 John Furz (1717–1800), the superintendent in Wride’s first circuit of Devon Source: Image courtesy of The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (Wesley Historical Society Library), Oxford Brookes University

Figure 2.2 George Gibbon (d. 1815). Wride had a bitter dispute with him during his retirement in York Source: Image courtesy of The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (Wesley Historical Society Library), Oxford Brookes University

28

Thomas Wride’s story

Notes 1 That is, ‘Old Style’, the date according to the Julian calendar, replaced by the Gregorian calendar in 1752, when dates were shifted forwards 11 days. See Rob­ ert Poole, “ ‘Give Us Our Eleven Days!’: Calendar Reform in Eighteenth Century England,” Past and Present 149 (November 1995): 95–139. He was presumably the Thomas, son of ‘John and Mary Ride’, who was christened at Salisbury’s St. Thomas’s church on 29 May 1733. My thanks to Margaret Moles at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre for this information. 2 Duke F. Direct quotations in this chapter are from this source unless otherwise indicated. 3 Many were subsequently republished by Jackson and are cited in this book. 4 D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 231. 5 There are references to a ‘John Wride, sadler’ in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal (30 December 1751 and 22 August 1763). 6 Lenton records only five Wiltshire-born preachers out of 339 born in England— Table 3, 424. 7 A 1775 count by the corporation produced a total of 6,856—Robert Benson and Henry Hatcher, Old and New Sarum, or Salisbury (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, 1843), 822. On Salisbury’s coaches, see Jeremy Black, English Nationalism (London: Hurst and Company, 2018), 99. 8 William Gibson, “English Provincial Engagement in Religious Debates: The Salisbury Quarrel of 1705–15,” Huntingdon Library Quarterly 80, no. 1 (2017): 21–45. 9 Adam Crymble, Adam Dennett, and Tim Hitchcock, “Modelling Regional Imbalances in English Plebeian Migration to Late Eighteenth-Century London,” Economic History Review 71, no. 3 (2018): 747–71. 10 John Chandler, Endless Street (Salisbury: Hobnob Press, 1983), 33–5, 69–70, 132, 232–3. 11 Isabel Rivers, Vanity Fair and the Celestial City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 106. 12 George Story, “A Short Account of Mr. George Story [Written by Himself],” AM 5 (1782): 14–20, 70–8, 122–8, at 14, 15. 13 There were two grammar schools in Salisbury at the time, one run by the church and one by the civic authorities. The former had acquired the character of a cathedral choir school, so Wride was probably considering attendance at the latter. See Chandler, Endless Street, 181–2. 14 Though perhaps not with the intensity of his colleague George Story, who claimed to have read more than 300 books by the age of 16—Jackson, 5:222–3. 15 Wride to John Moore, archbishop of Canterbury (26 May 1787), PLP115/9/37, MARC. 16 Wride to George Gibbon (October–November 1802), PLP115/9/39, MARC. 17 As one critic has commented on the poem, ‘The language is often knotty and difficult, the syntax complex, and the overall intellectual ambition astoundingly high’—Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve (London: The Bodley Head, 2011), 182. 18 Wride to Wesley (17 July 1775), PLP115/9/14 & 32, MARC; referring to John Floyd. 19 Lenton, 59–61. He estimates that their average age of leaving school (where known) was ‘just over 14’. 20 Chris Minns and Patrick Wallis, Why Did (Pre-Industrial) Firms Train? (Lon­ don: Department of Economic History, London School of Economics, Working Paper no. 155/11, 2011), from the Introduction, unpaginated.

Thomas Wride’s story

29

21 Edward E. Dorling, A History of Salisbury (London: James Nisbet & Co. Ltd., 1911), 155–6. 22 Wride features as a cordwainer in a court record of 1752—John Chaffey case papers, A1/260, Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. 23 From 1710, tax was payable on apprentices’ indentures, which were registered by the authorities. Most of the registers for Wiltshire in this period survive, but the records between December 1745 and October 1750 are missing—Christabel Dale, ed., Wiltshire Apprentices and Their Masters, 1710–1760 (Devizes: Wiltshire Archaelogical and Natural History Society, Records Branch, 1961), xi. 24 Ibid., xiii. 25 Hindmarsh, Evangelical Conversion, 241. 26 PLP115/9/37, MARC. 27 Lenton, 44. The total includes members of both the Church of England and Church of Ireland. 28 Ralph Winterton, ed., The Meditations of John Gerhard (Cambridge: Printed by T. and J. Buck, 1627). A prefatory verse by T. Gore reads in part, ‘Thou that desir’st on Earth a blessed ende, And seek’st the way to th’Heavens to ascend, Resort to Gerhard’. 29 Olive J. Dunlop, English Apprenticeship & Child Labour (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), 172–98. 30 Daniel Defoe, The Family Instructor (London: Sold by E. Matthews and J. But­ ton, 1715), Part II, 262. 31 Entry for 19 January 1790, in Leanne Calvert, “The Journal of John Tennent, 1786–90,” Analecta Hibernica 43 (2012): 111. 32 Phillip Tovey, Anglican Confirmation 1662–1820 (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 167. He notes however that for those with ‘evangelical lean­ ings’, such as the Methodist Mary Bosanquet-Fletcher, confirmation meant much more (99). 33 Entries on Westley Hall in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Vol. 24 (1890), and in ODNB, both accessed online September 2019. 34 Baker, 2:269–73, at 272. 35 Gentleman’s Magazine, report dated 30 October 1747, Vol. 17 (Novem­ ber 1747): 531. 36 Alysa Levene, “ ‘Honesty, sobriety and diligence’: Master-Apprentice Relations in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England,” Social History 33, no. 2 (2008): 183–200. 37 Journal entry for 30 November 1799, William Holland papers, A/BTL 2/2, Som­ erset Heritage Centre. 38 Jackson, 1:184. Hopper added that ‘gentlemen, clergymen, mechanics, and peas­ ants made up the crowd’. 39 By the 1790s, the Salisbury races took place over three days in July or August— The Salisbury Guide (Salisbury: Printed and Sold by E. and J. Easton, 1793), 15. Horse-racing was widely popular amongst all classes and conditions of people, though as the century wore on it was increasingly attacked by a ‘moral minor­ ity’, including Methodists—see Mike Huggins, Horse Racing and British Society in the Long Eighteenth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2018), especially 117–21. 40 The 1752 court case involving Wride concerned an incident after the Methodist meeting and was recorded as occurring in Fisherton Anger—John Chaffey case papers, A1/260, Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. 41 Plum-pudding, along with roast beef, was an archetypal dish for an Englishman. As a contemporary poet wrote, ‘Time was, a wealthy Englishman

30

42 43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

54 55 56

57

Thomas Wride’s story would join / A rich plumb-pudding to a fat sirloin . . .’ “Of Taste, An Essay,” in James Cawthorn, Poems by the Rev. Mr. Cawthorn (London: Printed for W. Woodfall, 1771), 112. Cited in Kirstin Olsen, Daily Life in 18th­ Century England (Santa Barbara, CA and Denver, OH: Greenwood Press, 2017), 245. For details, see chapter eight, see pages 170–1. On London rental accommodation, see John Styles, “Lodging at the Old Bai­ ley: Lodgings and Their Furnishing in Eighteenth-Century London,” in Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America 1700–1830, ed. John Styles and Amanda Vickery (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale Center for Brit­ ish Art and Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2007), 69. He suggests that weekly rents for furnished rooms averaged 3s.0d., though shared rooms were available for around 1s.0d. a week. Most rooms were let by women, though they were not necessarily the owners— ibid., 70. The reference to (in the original) ‘Spittle Fields Chapple’ suggests these events took place in the late 1750s or early 1760s, when Wride was approaching 30. See ‘Mr. Wride’s account of the dreams of a Female in 1761’, Duke E. Thus Wesley told Miss March (27 June 1760) that ‘It is therefore undoubt­ edly our duty to pray and look for full salvation every day, every hour, every moment.’—Campbell, 201. For the Wesley brothers’ differing perspectives on this, see Julie A. Lunn, “The Concept of Sanctification in John and Charles Wesley,” Proceedings of the Charles Wesley Society 14 (2010): 41–59. Ian Randall, “Methodist Spirituality,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism, ed. William Gibson, Peter Forsaith, and Martin Wellings (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 289–306, at 306. Mark J. Olson, Wesley and Aldersgate (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2019), 3. Jackson, 1:248. Ibid., 1:309. This distinctive Wesleyan doctrine is discussed further in chapter eight. Membership of the ‘select society’ was reserved for members of local Method­ ist societies who had achieved such spiritual progress—though not necessarily attaining perfection—that they could be freed of many of the rules governing the rank and file. ‘The select society was the pinnacle of early Methodism, the place where Methodists were incited to love one another even more and to press after perfection even more intentionally’—Kevin M. Watson, Pursuing Social Holi­ ness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 67–8. William Tunney was stationed in Salisbury in 1780–1 (Rack, 497) and was per­ haps reporting to Wride local opinion on his life and conduct there. PLP115/9/40, MARC. The distinction was not clear-cut. Johnson defined a ‘consumption’ as ‘a waste of muscular flesh. It is frequently attended with a hectick fever’ and a ‘hectick fever’ as ‘that kind of fever which is slow and continual, and ending in a consump­ tion’—Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), two vols. (Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1968). Consump­ tion was becoming quite fashionable at this time—Clark Lawlor, Consumption and Literature (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). ‘Laziness’ was defined in Johnson’s Dictionary as ‘idleness; sluggishness; heavi­ ness to action’. Though it could be synonymous with ‘idleness’, it carried the nuance of an explicit unwillingness to work. On idleness within eighteenth­

Thomas Wride’s story

31

century culture see Sarah Jordan, The Anxieties of Idleness (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2003). 58 ‘Mr. J. J.’ is presumably John Jones (1721?–85), a Cambridge graduate and early Wesley associate—Rack, 281, n.979. 59 ‘Cumberground’: ‘A thing or (esp.) person that uselessly cumbers the ground; a useless or unprofitable occupant of a position. (See Luke xiii. 7.)’—Oxford English Dictionary (accessed online March 2018). 60 On circuit organisation, see Lenton, 136–42. 61 Campbell, 445–6. 62 ‘A member of the Church of England’ to Wesley (18 October 1770), PLP115/9/30, MARC. 63 Rack, 354. John Furz (1717–1800) became an itinerant preacher in around 1758 but retired to Salisbury in 1782, later suffering from mental instability (DMBI). See also the account of his life in Jackson, 5:108–34. John Magor may be the Cornish-born preacher and farmer—see John Magor notebook, DD/A/AM1 c/3/25, Somerset Heritage Centre. 64 Rack, 366. 65 The Connexional year began upon the conclusion of the annual preachers’ con­ ference, typically in August. 66 Lenton, 79. 67 Clive M. Norris, The Financing of John Wesley’s Methodism c. 1740–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), chapters one and two. 68 The 1769 figure reported to Conference was 163. There was no membership return in 1770—Rack, 371, 384. 69 Wride to Wesley (9 December 1785), Duke C. 70 Lenton, 83. 71 Wesley to Wride (22 July 1775), Telford, 6:165. 72 See below. 73 The circuit appeared first in the Minutes in 1788—Rack, 647. In 1789, Samuel Bardsley briefed Wesley that the prospects there were good—see Wesley to Bard­ sley (21 July 1789), Telford, 8:155. 74 Wesley to Bardsley (29 October 1790), Telford, 8:244–5. On Bardsley, see DMBI. 75 June 1798, Minutes of York District Meeting, PLP115/9/20, MARC. 76 Lenton, 372–4. On the Preachers’ Fund, see Norris, Financing, 50–65. 77 Rack, 763; Minutes, II, 354. 78 Minutes, II, 177. Garlick, however, records Wride as moving to York as a super­ numerary in 1791—Kenneth B. Garlick, Mr. Wesley’s Preachers . . . (London: Pinhorns, 1977), 54. 79 Minutes, II, 227, 277, 333. 80 “The Sunday Plan of the Travelling and Local Preachers in the York Circuit,” July–December 1809—Mary Lyth papers, MA1993/5, MARC. 81 Dickinson, Life of the Rev. John Braithwaite, 123. 82 Wride to William Blagborne (8 September 1798), PLP115/9/38, MARC. 83 June 1798, York Minutes, PLP115/9/20, MARC. 84 Wride to William Blagborne (8 September 1798), PLP115/9/38, MARC. 85 Wride to William Blagborne (1 May 1800), PLP9/25/7, MARC. 86 PLP115/9/39, MARC. An incomplete manuscript, with no addressee or date. 87 Blagborne was the York superintendent in 1797–8. He then moved away, before returning as a supernumerary in 1803, serving alongside Wride—Minutes, I, 384; Minutes, II, 173, 227, 277, 333. Gibbon was a preacher in the circuit in 1802–3—Minutes, II, 128. Wride’s exchanges with them are discussed further in chapter six.

32 88 89 90 91 92

Thomas Wride’s story Wride to an unnamed preacher, 18 July 179–, Duke D.

York Methodist Society Minutes and Accounts, MAW Ms.427–33, MARC.

Proverbs 9:8, King James Version.

Wride to George Gibbon (October–November 1802), PLP115/9/39, MARC.

Minutes, II, 415. Probate was sworn on 1 July—Abstract of [final] Will of

Thomas Wride, 1 July 1807, IR/26/428, The National Archives (TNA).

3

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

Introduction Wesley and Wride were in periodic contact for three decades, from the time of their first encounter, when Wride was a new recruit to the London society, until shortly before Wesley’s death in 1791.1 In the early years, they met regu­ larly in London, for example during Wesley’s ‘quarterly visitation’ to the Lon­ don society, as in this 1760s account in Wride’s manuscript autobiography: At the next quarterly visitation Mr. Wesley spoke to me about the band: and thought they were too many for me & that they might be divided and Brother R_ might take a part of them. At our next meeting I pro­ posed it. But Brother R_ declined it, thinking the number was not too great; accordingly we continued to meet all together.2 From 1769, Wride was itinerating as a ‘preacher in connexion’ with Wes­ ley, and he had undertaken some preaching duties outside London during the preceding year. They continued to encounter each other thereafter, of course, at the annual Conferences (though Wride was not always present). Thus, on the eve of the 1784 Leeds Conference, Wride wrote to warn Wes­ ley that the errant preacher Nicholas Manners planned to attend.3 He later thanked Wesley for taking him seriously: A little before & at the last Conference I took the liberty to write unto you my thoughts about the works of N. Manners. You was pleased to take my design in good part & you took all that notice of my extracts that I could have desired.4 They also met in the course of Wesley’s travels around the British Isles. In 1771, for example, they travelled together during Wesley’s visit to Ireland. On one occasion Wride’s dilatoriness led to Wesley missing a preaching appointment. The latter recorded in his journal Having waited for a chaise to go to Ballingarrane as long as I could, I at length set out on horseback. But T[homas] Wride loitering behind,

34

Thomas Wride and John Wesley I might as well have spared my pains; for though I came to the town at the time appointed, I could find neither man, woman, nor child to direct me to the preaching-house.5

This would have greatly irritated Wesley; the 1753 rules for preachers urged that they ‘break a limb’ rather than ‘disappoint a congregation’.6 In 1773, Wride recalled in a letter to Wesley a conversation about another preacher which they had in Ireland, during one of Wesley’s visits to Lisburn in June that year:7 I had a reason for not publishing J[ohn] H[elton] by name; it was the remembrance of what you said to me at Sister Cumberland’s at Lisburn, when you opened a letter concerning him.8 And in April 1775, they again met in Ireland, following which Wride was transferred from the Athlone circuit to fill an unexpected vacancy at Limer­ ick. A decade later, Wesley visited Wride in Norwich. Our main evidence concerning Wride’s relationship with Wesley comes however from their letters. One surviving letter from Wesley to Wride dates from 1765, and from 1769, letters between them appear regularly in the record.9

The corpus of correspondence A significant body of their correspondence survives.10 Most of Wesley’s let­ ters have been published more than once;11 Wride’s can be found in the archives at Manchester and Duke Universities, and most have also been published. Sixty-four letters have survived from a period of 24 years, an average of approaching three letters per year.12 This raises two questions. First, how many letters have disappeared? And second, how significant was Thomas Wride amongst Wesley’s correspondents? There are occasional references—or at least hints—in the papers about letters which are no longer extant: perhaps 15 in total, suggesting that at least 80 letters were exchanged. A quarter of the surviving letters were sent while Wride was in Norwich. On average, 1.3 letters are extant for each month of his service there, and if this frequency was typical of his entire career, that would imply that, in all, some 300 letters were exchanged, yield­ ing a survival rate of some 20 per cent. This is consistent with Campbell’s estimate that the 3,530 surviving letters written by Wesley represent only 20 per cent of the total which he wrote.13 However, Norwich was the circuit which Wride perhaps found the most troublesome, so it is likely that letters were written more frequently then. Alternatively, if one reviews the coverage of Wride’s surviving notebooks, there are apparent gaps; notably, there are no extant copy letters between May 1778 and June 1784 and between April 1786 and August 1790,

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

35

representing around half of his full-time preaching career.14 If we assume that Wride wrote to Wesley throughout this period, and that equal propor­ tions of both Wesley’s and Wride’s letters have been lost, this would suggest that 150 or more letters were exchanged.15 However, there is no reason to doubt that the extant letters are an extensive sample of their correspondence. Second, how important is Wride’s place within the body of John Wesley’s correspondence? Here, of course, we are at the mercy of unknown survival rates, but the data below are at least suggestive that he was one of Wesley’s more significant correspondents.

Why did Wride write to Wesley? Wride often expressed some hesitation in writing to Wesley, for several rea­ sons. Sometimes he simply acknowledged the pressures on his leader and sought not to add to them. Thus his 7 September 1785 letter to Wesley, sent shortly after his arrival in Norwich, began, Reverend Sir, Although I have so lately wrote unto you, yet I judge it needful to trouble you again, because there are great complaints for want of preaching.16 Wride claimed that he only wrote to Wesley when he had significant things to say, telling him on 13 January 1777, Ten or eleven weeks ago I wrote to you about the condition of this circuit, according to the knowledge I then had of it; but having nothing

Table 3.1 Selected recipients of extant letters from John Wesleyi Name

Relationship to Wesley

Letters sent by Wesley

Charles Wesley Joseph Benson Christopher Hopper John Valton Ebenezer Blackwell Samuel Bradburn Adam Clarke Thomas Wride Henry Moore John Fletcher Thomas Carlill John Atlay Thomas Coke

brother senior preacher senior preacher preacher friend and financial adviser senior preacher preacher preacher member of leadership team member of leadership team preacher preacher and book steward member of leadership team

125 68 56 52 45 36 34 32 28 or 29 16 14 10 7

i Calculations by author based on Wesley Works Editorial Project data.

36

Thomas Wride and John Wesley to say about the island,17 & so little good of other parts, I did not think it worth sending to you. So I gave the letter to the fire. This is the reason (& I hope you will take it as a sufficient one) why you have received no account from me.18

On occasion, Wride himself said that he had been too busy or unwell to write; perhaps the physical difficulty he had in writing when a child per­ sisted.19 But his other inhibition arose from fears that his exchanges with Wesley, which were often on sensitive matters, would not remain confiden­ tial. He told Wesley on 3 June 1784, I know not how to direct immediately to you, nor have I known all the year: otherwise I should have wrote months ago. But I was told that you had left a discretional power (to whom I was not told) to open your letters in your absence, and to forward or suppress them as judged best. Therefore, I could by no means think it safe to expose my affairs in the hands of some whom I may call my friends: much less to pass the view of any whom I should not so name.20 This issue troubled other preachers too, but Wride was especially keen on privacy. His claim of reticence was pure self-deception, however, since his letters to Wesley included verbatim accounts of the most banal conversa­ tions and, on one occasion, a report on his wife’s bowel movements.21

The format of the letters There is no doubt that this was a power relationship. Wride invariably addressed Wesley as ‘Reverend Sir’; Wesley’s replies were almost always addressed to ‘Dear Tommy’—Wesley typically used such familiar forms when addressing his preachers.22 The two exceptions—Wesley’s letters of 9 September 1765 and 10 September 1780—both opened with ‘Dear brother’.23 The closure of the letters similarly reflected their difference in status. Wride typically signed as ‘Your Dutiful Son’ or ‘Your Devoted Serv­ ant’. This reflected not simply their respective roles within the Methodist movement but the social distance between them—Wesley was a graduate and gentleman, while Wride was a man of trade. This imbalance is evident in the contrasting length and style of the exchanges. Wesley’s letters to Wride were always short and usually business­ like, falling squarely within the ‘task-orientated’ genre of his correspond­ ence.24 Their average length (as published) was less than 100 words.25 Often this reflected the fact that they were offering decisions in response to heavily documented problems, but sometimes Wesley’s letters to Wride and oth­ ers reflected the pressure on his time, as evident in this 20 June 1784 letter to two young local preachers from Manchester, who had approached him separately:

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

37

My Dear Brethren, Having very little time, I take the opportunity of answering you both together. You have great reason to bless God continually.26 Wride’s letters to Wesley varied greatly in length but were often discursive if not rambling, including irrelevant circumstantial detail such as verbatim quotations; they averaged around 900 words in length, and several exceeded 2,000 words.27

Topics addressed in Wride’s letters Though many of the letters ranged widely, there were six main subjects. Wride often wrote seeking clarity or a change relating to his own personal or professional circumstances; he repeatedly sought advice or guidance on how to manage some problem with the membership, such as the substan­ tial correspondence over irregularity in hymn-singing, and he frequently briefed Wesley, typically in disparaging terms, about various of his col­ leagues. Some of his letters updated Wesley on the state of his current circuit. An example is Wride’s 7 September 1785 letter on his early experi­ ences in Norwich, which takes the form of a ‘journal letter’, written over several days.28 Other letters passed on items of news, and finally, many of the letters—whatever their other topics—explained, often in extraordinary detail, Wride’s trials as a preacher, especially problems relating to his health and to the difficulties of travelling. Indeed, they were often defensive in tone and perhaps purpose. As an example of the first category, on 8 November 1773, Wride wrote to Wesley following reports that he was about to be moved from his new posting as second preacher in the York circuit:29 Reverend Sir, When I write, it is either from [conscience] or necessity, for I would willingly avoid it, and to you especially, as I know something of the importunities you are often troubled with; and it is by advice of friends that I now comply. My intelligence is confused, but I have plain proof that some officious person or persons has wrote to you in order to get me removed, to make way for Brother Rogers.30 Wride’s letter comprised some 800 words and described the reports in some detail before making his case to remain in post. Wesley’s reply (12 Novem­ ber 1773) was prompt, concise, and unambiguous: Dear Tommy. The matter is short; I see no reason yet why you should remove from York Circuit. Do all the good you can there. Observe and enforce all our Rules. Exhort all the believers to go on to perfection, and be gentle to all men.31

38

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

Often Wride sought Wesley’s advice or help in managing the membership (the second category noted earlier). An extreme case came in April 1786, when Wride was prevented from preaching in the Norwich chapel by rebel­ lious local society members, including James Hey and William Life. He urged Wesley to act firmly, though the immediate response is unknown: Sir, permit me to be your counsellor; you are stabbed through my sides. It is high time to lay your claim to Norwich House; if it be not done you will soon find that force, not law or reason will decide. It is with all possible respect to your person and place that I tell you, I think it quite right that Hey & Life be immediately expelled from the Society and that a writ from the King’s Bench be served on Life, and that it be never dropped until Life publicly ask pardon, in one or two public newspapers.32 Wride’s comments on his colleagues in his letters to Wesley (my third cat­ egory) were trenchant and sometimes highly critical. Here, for example, is his description (c. 15 January 1774) of John Helton: As for John Helton, it was a sufficient offence that I did not endeav­ our to make him popular. What claim he has to popularity, I know not; except (what he is careful to speak in private, & has not failed to pub­ lish in a Sunday evening congregation) his independent fortune. I have heard him spoke of, as a great preacher; what he has been I cannot say. I have heard him three times, & if I may speak, I think he has no just right to claim applause.33 That said, Wride did also send Wesley periodic updates on the spiritual and material conditions of his circuits, as did other preachers, sometimes on first taking up a new appointment.34 In the same letter, for example, he offered a snapshot of the York circuit: Whoever tells you of a revival at York is (at least in my judgment) mistaken. The truth is, we have on Sunday evening a large congregation— the house nearly full above & below—what wonder in a city, in short days and cold weather. But as for new members, convictions, conversions, or any remarkable deepening of the work, I know of none. At Tadcaster there is a good prospect—members added & souls quickened—this is the most promising place in all the circuit.35 On occasion, Wride also passed on items of news to Wesley (my fifth cat­ egory), as in this letter about a new medical technique: Reverend Sir,

My haste must be my advocate and may excuse my inaccuracy.

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

39

Yesterday I heard something new & odd, viz. a method (discovered in France) of curing diseases by what they call magnetism.36 Finally, many of the letters—whatever their other topics—explained, some­ times including verbatim quotations, Wride’s trials as a preacher, such as illhealth or the difficulties of travelling. When moving to the Norwich circuit in 1785, for example, Wride and his wife underwent a long and complicated journey, made intolerable by his ill health. All was explained to Wesley in his 28 August letter of over 600 words, which made explicit Wride’s anxiety about his delayed arrival: Reverend Sir, I am under the necessity of troubling you with this, for fear misinfor­ mation should make you misjudge my conduct. I was in a fever the 12th. of July so that I was in bed until noon, the 13 & 14 I was wholly laid up & on the 15 confined in bed until noon . . . In London I still grew better, & when on ye 4 of Augt. I set out for Lincolnshire I had no doubt of getting back with ease. But on Friday the 5th I had a return of the fever so that I could hardly support [it]. I had also a very painful inflammation in anno together with what seemed to be an abscess which made me apprehensive of an approach­ ing fistulae. I could hardly bear horse or chair or indeed to lie in any other posture than on my face. These things made me glad on the 6th to turn off the road unto Shillington where I stayed that & the follow­ ing night.37

Wesley’s view of Wride Wesley’s overall attitude towards Wride can be summarised as one of affec­ tion and exasperation, in equal measure—such feelings may well have been reciprocated. As we have seen, the two probably first met around 1755, when Wride was in his early twenties and had just moved from Salisbury to London to pursue his work as a shoemaker. Wride became actively involved in the London Methodist society and was encouraged by Wesley to assume progressively more responsibility within the society. When talked about as a possible itinerant preacher, Wride was reluctant, fearing that he could not fulfil Wesley’s expectations. In his autobiography, he described an approach in the late 1760s from a London preacher, ‘T.J.’,38 who Said that there were preachers wanted, and I might travel, & that if I would consent he would speak to Mr. Wesley about it. I did not con­ sent. I was not in the least afraid of any unkindness in Mr. Wesley, but I was much [afraid] that Mr. Wesley would judge too favourably of me, and thereby give me opportunity to show my weakness, in attempting what I really found myself unfit for.39

40 Thomas Wride and John Wesley In fact, at the outset of Wride’s preaching career, Wesley was uncertain whether Wride, who initially served as a local preacher, had the qualities needed of a travelling preacher in his Connexion but thought he should be given a chance. As we have seen, when John Furz, the Devon assistant, reported problems with Wride’s performance in the circuit, Wesley replied counselling patience.40 But these initial doubts persisted. Wesley believed that Wride had the potential to be an effective preacher but was continually let down by his lack of application (a charge Wride strenuously denied), frivolous manner, including in the pulpit, and his clumsy and tactless han­ dling of people. This 14 February 1771 letter revealed that doubts over Wride’s approach had not been allayed: Now, Tommy, you have good encouragement to stir up the gift of God that is in you. Labour to be steadily serious, to be weighty in conversa­ tion, and to walk humbly and closely with God.41 We should of course not think that Wride’s colleagues were always ‘serious’ or ‘weighty’. Here for example is Joseph Bradford reporting to his fellow preacher Charles Atmore on the state of the Bristol circuit, which Atmore had just left, in late summer 1797: Bristol is much the same as you left it . . . [reports on recent love-feast] In prayer another exclaimed ‘Lord, I be happy in thy love and with thy people, but I be afraid to go home to my ungodly wife, she do jaw me zo. Lord do thou convert her, and she will gid over jawing’.42 And shortly after the death of the senior preacher Alexander Mather in 1800, Samuel Bradburn—then stationed in Manchester—sent Joseph Taylor a daring poem: 4. Yet do not fear my dearest Joe,

In Manchester I many know,

Who love me very well

Nor are provisions there so scant,

But we shall have whate’er we want

Were M— gone to —l . . .43

Amen.44

But such humour was rarely on public display. Wesley expected all his followers—preachers and people—to act with decorum and modesty; in 1743, for example, on a visit to the Newcastle society, he expelled ‘nine­ and-twenty for lightness and carelessness’.45 On 17 January 1777, Wesley wrote to Wride urging him and his col­ leagues at Whitehaven to be ‘zealous and active’.46 Two years later, despite

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

41

some positive reports from the field, Wesley felt that Wride was still falling far below expectations, not least in his spiritual immaturity: I am afraid your soul is not alive to God and that you are not deeply and steadily serious. I am afraid your common conversation is not weighty and meet to minister grace to the hearers. O Tommy, stir yourself up before the Lord! . . . Labour to be serious, earnest, edifying in your daily conversations!47 Further calls to personal renewal followed Wride’s readmission in 1782; Wesley’s letter of 5 September 1785, for example, urged him to rise early and use each day well.48 One of Wesley’s biggest concerns was Wride’s abrasive manner with his colleagues, society members, and others. This was evident in these pleas from the 1770s: ‘Be mild!’;49 ‘Be gentle to all men’;50 ‘Be mild, be gentle toward all men’.51 But Wride did not change. By 29 August 1774, Wesley had lost patience, telling him that he was an insufferable colleague: You have now confirmed beyond all contradiction what many of our preachers, as many as have had any intercourse with you, alleged con­ cerning you . . . I know not what to do. You know not what spirit you are of. Therefore there is small hope of cure. . . . You have neither lowli­ ness nor love. What can I say or do more?52 Wesley remained anxious about Wride’s coarse language, both spoken and written, in his repeated attacks on the probity and competence of his col­ leagues. When he met Wesley in Ireland in May 1775, he had complained bitterly about his colleague Floyd, following it up with a detailed letter of grievances. This infuriated Wesley, leading to demands for his expulsion from service in Ireland. As Wesley explained to him, The present question concerns not John Floyd but Thomas Wride. The words which I heard you speak at Limerick were such as no civi­ lized Turk or heathen would have suffered to have come out of his mouth. I hoped this would have been the last time; but you now repeat the same in cold blood. Your letter was read at the Conference,53 and our brethren desired me to inform you you are no longer fit for our Connexion.54 In practice, Wride was permitted to remain as a travelling preacher, though not as an assistant. All these points were re-emphasised in Wesley’s crisp and unambiguous 1780 letter following Wride’s suspension from the Connexion.55 In the mid-1780s, when Wride was the assistant at Norwich, Wesley remained

42

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

anxious that he might not have the right approach to managing his team of two young preachers, advising him, ‘Have patience with the young men, and they will mend upon your hands. But remember! Soft and fair goes far.’56 Wesley recognised, of course, that Wride had virtues, though references to them are rare. Specifically, Wesley commended the attention which Wride gave to Connexional discipline. He told the preacher John Mason in 1775 that ‘T. Wride aimed at discipline exceeding well for a raw begin­ ner’.57 And in 1785, he congratulated Wride for his approach on arriv­ ing in Norwich, telling him, ‘You do well in insisting on every person showing his ticket’.58 Birrell and Eayrs published this anecdote which they thought probably concerned Wride and revealed Wesley’s admiration of his liveliness: Said Wesley, pointing to a dock weed in the field where they were walk­ ing, ‘Tommy, touch that.’ He did so. ‘Do you feel anything?’ Wesley asked. ‘No’, was the reply. ‘Touch that’, said Wesley, pointing this time to a nettle. Tommy did so and was stung. Wesley added, ‘Some men are like docks; say what you will to them, they are stupid. Others, like nettles, resent even a touch. Tommy, you are a nettle; and for my part, I would rather have to do with a nettle than a dock’.59 But the cumulative impression left by Wesley’s letters to and about Wride is one of frustration and regret that the potential for effective spiritual leader­ ship which Wesley had identified in the young shoemaker from Salisbury had never been consistently realised.

Wride’s expulsion and exile 1780–2 The 1780 Conference discussed a number of charges against Wride, in his absence. He was one of five preachers who stood down, one for health reasons, the others apparently for reasons of conduct or performance. Such suspensions were not rare, though they were not publicised. Of 427 preach­ ers leaving Wesley’s Connexion identified by Lenton, 49–11 per cent—were ejected. Though often no reason was given, he concluded that 16 were removed as unsuitable, 13 for immorality, and eight for drunkenness.60 Wride had to leave the itinerancy and retired to his wife’s home village of Welbourn in Lincolnshire, from where he wrote to Wesley giving his side of the story. Wesley had arranged some continuing financial provision for him, for which he expressed gratitude, though he felt the punishment keenly: It may be that there is no real vacancy; but yet Sir if you please I am persuaded you can find me work enough; and it is only work that I want because you have been kind enough to supply me with money more than enough.61

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

43

His letter set out both the charges and his defence. Wride suggested that there were four key and overlapping accusations, only three of which he sought to rebut. The evidence related largely to his two previous postings, in Yarm (1778–9) and Scarborough (1779–80). The first charge was that Wride was irresponsible and had not taken his duties in the Scarborough circuit seriously. Wride rejected this completely, clearly finding this suggestion hurtful. He told Wesley, A long preface would [not] be agreeable to you and [would be] painful to me; but I hope that you will excuse my odd method of placing an old plan in the front of this letter; the plain reason is, to prove that I had an account of the circuit, and could give you what I doubt not will have your approbation, at least so far, that you will judge that I did take some notice, & keep some account, of what you committed to my care. Nothing short of a steady persuasion of duty towards God would ever have made me so contrary to my natural disposition to offer myself unto you as a Son in the Gospel. Wride argued indeed that he went well beyond the basic requirements of the preachers’ role, seeking to impose discipline and good order even in unpro­ pitious circumstances, as at Whitehaven in 1776–7: While it was known that you was my support, I did attempt and carry supposed impossibilities, for instance, at Whitehaven. No preacher for several (I think for ten years) had dared to have a Band-Love-Feast; and probably you will remember that you had dispensed therewith suppos­ ing that the point could not be gained. But Sir, this point was gained— we had, that year, three general Love-Feasts for the bands alone. The second charge was that of ‘drollery’, defined in Johnson’s Dictionary as ‘idle jokes’ or ‘buffoonery’. Wride denied this, while accepting that there was some evidence to substantiate it, arising from a 1779 exchange with a local clergyman when Wride was in Yarm. Wride had condemned the cleric, James Metcalfe, as a drunk, a ‘reprobate’, and—perhaps even worse—a Calvinist.62 The key point in 1780 was again that Wride’s language—notably in his 1779 letter to Metcalfe—was inappropriate for one man of God to use to another. Wesley had made his position on this clear in a 1746 open letter to a clergyman: I must explain myself a little on that practice which you so often term ‘abusing the clergy’. I have many times great sorrow and heaviness in my heart on account of these my brethren. And this sometimes con­ strains me to speak to them in the only way which is now in my power, and sometimes (though rarely) to speak of them—of a few, not all in

44

Thomas Wride and John Wesley general. In either case I take an especial care: (1), to speak nothing but the truth; (2), to speak this with all plainness; and (3), with love, and in the spirit of meekness.63

His line in a 1787 sermon was similar: Let us not then trouble and embroil ourselves and our neighbours with unprofitable disputations, but all agree to spread, to the utter­ most of our power, the quiet and peaceable gospel of Christ. Let us make the best of whatever ministry the providence of God has assigned us.64 However, if forgiving of theological differences and personal weaknesses, Wesley had no time for clerics who did not take their pastoral duties seriously: Indolent clergymen, pleasure-taking clergymen, money-loving clergy­ men, praise-loving clergymen, preferment-seeking clergymen; these are the wretches that cause the order in general to be contemned. These are the pests of the Christian world, the grand nuisance of mankind, a stink in the nostrils of God.65 Wride’s defence was undermined by his admission to Wesley that In some epistolatory correspondence between the Rev. James Metcalf and John Cass one of his pupils and me, there was something of droll­ ery; but not what you will esteem criminal on my part. I endeavoured to answer fools according to their folly.66 He claimed however that although he had theological differences with the clergyman, his real concern was with his personal behaviour (though they apparently had never met). He had told Metcalfe in July 1779, I reverence good men. I assure you that I have known some that (I sup­ pose) were of opinion with you, who (if report of you say the truth) were of consciences so tender, they would shun your behaviour, as a timorous person would the plague. So I think opinions erroneous are not necessarily productive of evil.67 Metcalfe had apparently dismissed Wride as ‘a good mountebank’, which elicited this brutal (and undeniably ‘droll’) personal insult: In my country the common people by ‘mountebank’ mean a ‘Merry Andrew’ alias an ‘artificial fool’.68 If you intended me this compliment, you did me more honour than I seek or you was aware of. To be an

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

45

‘artificial fool’ requires the careful deportment of an apt genius; but to be a real fool, needs not ability greater than your own. After a vigorous attack on Metcalfe’s Calvinist theology, Wride proffered this comprehensive critique: At Christenmass it seems you have the art of pleasing the company wonderfully. By your spiritual Christian conversation? No, but by your excessive lightness such as is shameful to be found in a man, more so in a clergyman, but most of all in one who professes the gown & the gos­ pel. Oh! Blush. But, as if lightness was not enough, you must edify your congregation (I mean at christening feasts) by what I call obscenity, with your lightness. What else is that sneering, snickering & loud laughing when you mention, what ought to make your ‘heart bleed’. ‘Hah, hah, hah! Heh, heh, heh! I have never married a couple since I have been at Bilsdale, but what the woman has been double-ribbed:69 heh! heh! heh!’ Oh! Mr. Metcalf. Blush! Blush! For shame.70 But even great things become small when compared with greater. I hear of a certain clergyman who went (I think to Yarm) to preach a Club-Sermon; after sermon he went to the beer shop. What for? To act as superintendent? To keep up the strict rules of temperance and sobri­ ety? No, but to get so wretchedly drunk, as to be unable to walk, & therefore obliged to be led away, like any other drunken sot. Oh! Blush! Blush! Blush! for shame. We cannot now recover the truth about Metcalfe’s conduct, though we might note that in 1747, Wesley wrote from St. Ives complaining that hardly 10 per cent of clergymen he had known were virtuous, adding, The two clergymen of this place, on a late public occasion, were led home at one or two in the morning in such a condition as I care not to describe.71 And in 1799, the Rev. William Holland recorded in his journal the death of an unlamented local colleague thus: ‘A worthless little man & a disgrace to his profession. He killed himself by drinking’.72 Metcalfe’s pupil John Cass wrote immediately in response to Wride’s ‘malicious, and scurrilous epistle’.73 He dismissed Wride as a buffoon: I shall now give you a few of the outlines of your character as drawn by one of your perfect brethren. . . . He says you have constantly been a Tomey Tickle,74 as you know so well how to explain the word Merry Andrew, [I] suppose you will know the meaning of the above. 1st. his reason is your uncommon gestures. 2nd. by your tooth drawing with­ out pain, and not only drawing but replacing again. 3rdly your art in

46 Thomas Wride and John Wesley legerdemain, in placing a pair of tongs upright upon a floor, command­ ing them to fall at what hour you pleased.75 If Cass’s account was accurate, such tricks were highly inappropriate for a man of God to perform, as an Arminian Magazine article ‘Thoughts on the Magic Art’ explained, Artificial Magic is what we call legerdemain, or slight [sic] of hand, whose effects are far from what they seem. They are deceptions and impostures, far from exceeding the power of art, and yet, what many times pass with the vulgar for diabolical.76 Cass presented Metcalfe as a man of prayer, substance and sobriety, and if he had married couples where the woman was pregnant, most were Methodists: Another is his not having married a couple since he came to Bilsdale but that the woman has been what you call double ribb’d, in part it is too true, but if you had known how many of that number were in con­ nection with Mr. Wesley, [I] suppose you would not have touched upon that string. If you would insinuate that it is the effect of the Calvinistic doctrine I shall only tell you that you are a stranger to it and also to the power of the life of godliness upon the soul. Cass concluded, Wishing that you may have a clearer head, and a better heart, and when you sit down to write again may your pen be better employ’d [than] in doing the Devil’s work. Whatever the truth behind this exchange, it was unseemly and unproductive. The third charge which Wride faced was the related accusation that he could be ‘light and trifling’ in manner, and this he readily accepted, offering little in mitigation: As to my being ‘light, trifling’, I here own myself in fault. To deny it is to double it, I do not attempt to excuse it. I wish it had been otherwise, and by the help of God, I do not fear but it will. Yet if I wanted to justify myself in this point it would not be difficult to tell time place and person when and where one of my fellow labourers & me were slightly spoken of, because we did not laugh like unto our other fellow labourer. The fourth and final charge against Wride was that he was ‘slothful’. This he denied vehemently, asserting that he often worked himself to the point of near-collapse:

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

47

As to my being ‘slothful’, I deny it absolutely, and I defy all the men in the world to prove it. My efforts last year were full proof to the contrary. For at the time when I was so ill that I could not eat, and at the times of deep snow—& I among the Dales where I could not ride on account of the snow—yet I pursued my way by leading my horse through such difficulties, as my fellow-labourers, at the same place did not dare to follow my steps. However, such complaints had long dogged Wride. While serving in Devon in 1768, the assistant John Furz complained to Wesley about him, to which Wesley responded—with some generosity, Brother Langdon and you are not much mistaken concerning Thomas Wride. A great part of the accusation against Thomas Wride is owing to prejudice. But it is only his own zeal and activity and patiently blameless behaviour which can effectually speak for him.77 An unnamed correspondent from Wride’s birthplace described him in these terms in 1770, in a letter warning Wesley that his recent appointment to Whitehaven would cause problems: Thomas Wride is a native of Salisbury, & was very remarkable here & in London for laziness, & running into debt. He was a member of Mr. Wesley’s Society here, for some time. But his conduct was such at last, as caus’d Mr. Wesley’s preacher here, to look upon him as a person not fit for a Christian Society. He claimed that in Devon Wride Went by the name of the ‘sleepy preacher’! But they soon discover’d the cheat! and accordingly the Methodists of all the principal places in that circuit would not let him preach at all! Since that Mr. Wesley (not willing to lose so honourable a servant!) sent him to Rochdale &c. in Lancashire; & now to Whitehaven &c.78 The charge of laziness seems unfair; indeed Wride’s records offer evidence that at least in some circuits he was an energetic travelling preacher. Setting aside his administrative duties, sick visiting, and so on, his six-week round in Newry in 1772–3, for example, typically involved preaching once a day after walking an average of seven miles between preaching-places; in the previous year, he had been stationed in the more compact circuit of Armagh, but this still entailed a five-week round of five miles on average daily.79 And Wride’s papers also reveal his physically punishing travel schedule when he lost the use of a horse in Norwich a decade later. But it is clear from his auto­ biography that he experienced periods of low energy, which he attributed to

48 Thomas Wride and John Wesley an underlying medical condition, and the rigours of a preacher’s daily life must have exacerbated the problem. For now, Wesley replied immediately to Wride’s letter of defence, explain­ ing how he could rehabilitate himself. It is evident however that Wesley believed the charges against Wride to be broadly justified. He wrote, Dear Tommy, What I wish for you is— 1 2 3 4

That your soul may be truly alive to God. That you may be steadily serious and profitable in conversation. That you may rise as early in the morning as health will permit. That you may abstain from satire, both in speaking and writing.

I think (if these points were secured) you might now be useful as a local and by-and-by as a travelling preacher.80 No record of Wride’s response survives, but he was not in exile for long. As often happened with preachers leaving the itinerancy under a cloud, Wesley showed him leniency and offered him a second chance. Lenton has noted that most preachers who returned to the Connexion after leaving then later left again, suggesting that ‘the problems Wesley had already identified had not changed’.81 But whatever the future might hold, in 1782, the Conference readmitted Wride as a ‘preacher on trial’, and his travelling career began once more.82 It was to last less than a decade.

Wride’s view of Wesley Wride usually treated Wesley with deference.83 In his 8 November 1773 letter, for example, when he feared that there were efforts afoot to move him from the York circuit, he concluded his long argument against this by acknowledging Wesley’s authority: I could have letters sufficient in my behalf, if I chose to encourage it; but I do not want to give you needless trouble. However you please (under God) to dispose of me I am content, & desire as in conscience bound to prove myself Reverend Sir, Your Devoted Servant Thomas Wride.84 And in 1785, he wrote to Wesley about his forthcoming visit to Norwich, clearly anxious to please: In your usual course I expect we shall have the satisfaction of seeing you in Norwich soon. I should be glad with instructions with regard to where you would please to lodge, and what shall be provided for you

Thomas Wride and John Wesley

49

if you have any preference . . . I should be glad to know as soon as it is determined, when you will be with us, that I may contrive to be with you, and to get notice into the country, as well as to provide what con­ veniences we can while in the city.85 Wride thought that Wesley worked hard and admired his intellect. These points are implicit in this draft, probably dating from around 1784. In it, Wride first suggested production of a new hymnbook and continued: It obliged many of the Christian world to see Mr. Wesley’s Answer to Dr. Taylor.86 If any have will & skill to disprove what Mr. Wesley there lays down, he has doubtless a right to take the field & try his strength.87 Wride also appreciated Wesley’s personal kindness, not least the financial support provided during his suspension from the itinerancy in the early 1780s. And he opened his 21 March 1778 letter seeking Wesley’s approval for his marriage with the comment ‘I depend on your kindness to permit me to be plain, whether you shall see good to approve or disapprove’.88 In his 9 December 1785 letter to Wesley, Wride expressed his admiration for the energy and strength with which Wesley supported his preachers: I am content to bear the blame [for problems at Norwich] rather than you should; well knowing that you can bring forty of us out of the mud, when forty of us cannot do the like for you.89 He felt however that Wesley was a poor judge of character. When discussing one preacher with whom Wride had crossed—William Hunter—he wrote to a colleague in 1777, Alas! When will dear Mr. Wesley be willing to know, between man & man? Strange that a man of his well-known abilities, that in preaching or writing can split a hair, yet in other things is so easily, often & long led captive by those who are far from being fast friends to either his person or doctrine.90 Two years later, Wride again accused Wesley of being too readily influenced by his (unnamed) untrustworthy associates, in considering accusations then being made against Wride by his colleagues. In doing so, he echoed the common argument of recalcitrant medieval barons that the king’s wicked advisers were the source of his problems.91 Sir, excuse me if say I know there are some who (at least) seem to love you, and yet have said behind your back what I suppose they have never said to your face . . . I think you cannot defend or even excuse yourself being not only ready to believe the most improbable absurd lies of one

50

Thomas Wride and John Wesley of the most horrid liars I ever knew (let not this be attributed to my heat, I want no such excuse; for I affirm in the presence of God), it is my delib­ erate judgment; and I have no doubt but I am capable before any unpreju­ diced judges to make ample demonstration of my assertion. But as if that was a light thing, you largely reward such as you ought utterly to reject.92

Such views were far from unusual—Alexander Knox, who knew Wesley well, remarked on Another of Mr. Wesley’s liabilities [one was his readiness to believe in ‘extraordinary manifestations’]; namely, his tendency to yield himself to those who, with or without just claims, had obtained his confidence. He was apt to conceive strong attachments; and they who were thus distin­ guished by him did not always appear to impartial persons as worthy of that preference.93 Perhaps the most difficult time in their relationship came towards the end of Wride’s troubled posting to the Norwich circuit, in early 1786.94 Wride was baffled by Wesley’s attitude. He felt that he had sought his leader’s guidance on various problems as appropriate and followed it to the letter. But the ultimate result was that he was punished (for that is how Wride saw it) by being removed from his post as assistant and indeed from the circuit itself. Despite his admiration for his leader, Wride came to believe that in Norwich Wesley had let him down by appointing inadequate preachers to work with him and then failing to ensure that they gave their assistant whole-hearted support. He told him on 9 December 1785, If Sir you can but make my fellow labourers know and do their proper work, I do not fear my opposers. You may recollect that you sent me from Haworth to Whitehaven on purpose to work with a people full as obstinate though not quite so stupid as Norwich. The end was to your wish, and Sir if you can either mend or change my companions, I do not despair of such success in Norwich.95 Wride’s hurt, confusion, and despair were evident in this early 1786 letter to Wesley: By Doctor Coke’s letter of December. ye 10th., and yours of December ye 24th. I thought that I was favoured with your approbation, although you thought it might be better to remove me from hence, to make way for one who might with less trouble complete, what had cost me broken bones to begin. But if I infer right from what I hear & see, I am under your displeasure for striving to fulfil your directions . . . Perhaps Sir, I may escape the charge of being too soft; but I have no right to the character of an honest man, longer than I endeavour to

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support your rule and your reputation; when I am determined to do so no longer, you shall know it by my acknowledgement, but shall never be at the expense of coming at it by easy inferences from undisputed premises.96

Conclusion Wesley initially had considerable regard for Wride and saw in him the capacity for spiritual growth and for leadership. But that potential was never fully real­ ised because of Wride’s obvious character flaws, including his abrasive style with people, and his coarse manner. In two significant respects, the relationship was of course one-sided. First, Wesley had all the power, but although Wride had huge respect for Wesley’s ability and kindness, he was not over-awed— he felt, in particular, that Wesley was let down by poorly chosen associates. Second, although Wesley sometimes offered Wride spiritual counsel, this never led to exchanges on spiritual matters; the focus of his letters was on practi­ cal advice, often quite blunt, including on Wride’s personal behaviour. In that sense, the correspondence is untypical of Wesley’s exchanges with his preach­ ers, which as Mack notes, ‘Offered theological discussion, practical advice and instruction, and, very occasionally, personal counseling and criticism.’97 And though Wesley clearly retained considerable affection for Wride, the pair never progressed beyond what was primarily a civil business partnership. For Wride, the low point came with his sudden removal in early 1786 from the catastrophically dysfunctional circuit of Norwich, from a crisis for which Wesley held him principally responsible. Wride’s 7 February response to Wesley’s decision was bitter: As things now stand I am likely to be miserable and useless. It is taken for granted that you dislike me and my ways, Brother Hodgson does not need my help; and to see all that I have with so much pain (in pursuance of your directions by word and pen) strove for, at once trampled on, will be to my opposers a glorious sight, but, to me a tormenting one. There­ fore Sir, I entreat you, let me be where I shall be out of sight of Norfolk.98 One final point. Even at the end of both of their careers, in the last letter from Wesley to Wride which survives (dated 5 May 1790), a still-frustrated Wesley yet again encouraged Wride to mend his ways: ‘I hope you have now got quit of your queer, arch expressions in preaching, and that you speak as plain and dull as one of us.’99 But Wride’s tragedy was that he could not change—he never became ‘one of us’.

Notes 1 The last surviving correspondence is Wride’s letter to Wesley of 26 August 1790. 2 Duke F.

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3 Wride to Wesley (26 July 1784), Duke B. The conference opened the following day—Rack, 551. 4 Wride to Wesley (30 May 1785), Duke B. 5 Entry for 15 May 1775, Ward and Heitzenrater, 5:450. 6 Rack, “Large Minutes 1753–63,” [§50], 860. Wesley’s 16 December 1772 letter to Wride (Telford, 6:6–7) made the same point. 7 Wesley was there on 14 and 20–22 June 1773, towards the end of Wride’s time in the Newry circuit—see Richard Green and Henry J. Foster, “An Itinerary in Which Are Traced The Rev. John Wesley’s Journeys from October 14, 1735, to October 24, 1790,” PWHS 6 (1908), Supplement to Proceedings: i–cxxxiv. 8 Wride to Wesley (8 November 1773), Duke A. On Wride and Helton, see chap­ ter six. 9 The Wesley Works Editorial Project has produced a checklist of surviving John Wesley letters, available online, which includes 32 sent to Thomas Wride— Randy Maddox (updated 2019), “John Wesley’s Surviving Letters,” https:// wesleyworks.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/jw-surviving-letters-list.pdf (accessed August 2019). 10 On Wesley’s letters to his preachers, see Baker, 1:1–140, Introduction, and Lenton, 70–2. 11 At present, the most comprehensive edition is John Telford’s eight volumes of 1931. 12 For details, see Appendix. 13 Ted A. Campbell, “John Wesley as Diarist and Correspondent,” in The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley, ed. Randy L. Maddox and Jason E. Vickers (Cam­ bridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 129–43, at 131. 14 Wride was not active as a travelling preacher in 1780–1 or 1781–2. 15 This assumes that Wride made copies of all his letters to Wesley. 16 Duke D. The preceding letter in the notebook is dated 28 August. 17 The Isle of Man, where Methodism was already strong, and which was then within the Whitehaven circuit. 18 PLP115/9/31, MARC. 19 See chapter two. 20 Duke B. His letter to Wesley of 23 July 1785 (PLP115/9/35, MARC) made a similar point. 21 Wride to Wesley (27 October 1786), PLP115/9/36, MARC. 22 Lenton, 72. 23 See Telford, 4:311 and 7:32. Telford suggested that the former was sent to the preacher Richard Walsh, but the holograph in the John Rylands University Library (English Ms 343/13a) is addressed to ‘Mr. Tho. Wride, Shoemaker, Sar­ um’—Campbell, 445–6. Circumstantial evidence points to Wride as the recipient of the latter. 24 Campbell, “John Wesley,” 132–3. For example, Wesley’s 15 April 1773 letter to Wride (63 words) concerned money and an outstanding order for furniture. 25 Calculations by author, based on texts as published in Telford. 26 See also William Entwisle, Memoir of the Rev. Joseph Entwisle (Bristol: Printed and Sold for the Author, 1848), 21. 27 Calculations by author, based on Wride manuscripts. These are extant copies of out-letters, and some are clearly incomplete. 28 Duke D. 29 Duke A. The appointment was announced at the 1773 Conference—Rack, 417. Wride’s assistant was William Hunter. 30 Duke A. James Rogers (1749–1807) had been preaching in the area and proved highly popular. 31 Telford, 6:54.

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32 Wride to Wesley (24 April 1786), Duke C. 33 Duke A. 34 Such as John Valton, who reported to both Wesley brothers on moving to Man­ chester in 1780; see his letter to Charles Wesley (12 October 1780)—“Ms. Let­ ters and Papers Relating to the Wesley Family, and to Wesleyan Methodism, Vol. II,” DD WES2, MARC. 35 On Methodism in York and Yorkshire, see Edward Royle, “The Church of Eng­ land and Methodism in Yorkshire, c. 1750–1850: From Monopoly to Free Mar­ ket,” Northern History 33, no. 1 (1997): 137–61. 36 Wride to Wesley (17 October 1786), PLP115/9/36, MARC. 37 Wride to Wesley (28 August 1785), Duke D. 38 This was probably Thomas Janes, who was stationed in London 1767–8—Rack, 344. 39 Duke F. 40 Wesley to John Furz (25 June 1769), Telford, 5:139. 41 And Wesley’s 7 September 1771 letter to Wride (Telford, 5:277) urged him to be ‘zealous, serious, active!’ 42 Charles A. Bradford, The Life of the Rev. Joseph Bradford (London: Printed for R.F. Hunger, 1931), 37. 43 i.e. ‘Were Mather gone to hell’. 44 Joseph Taylor to Mrs. Bradburn (19 August 1816), Early Preachers’ Letters, transcribed by Everett, Vol. 2, MA1977/487, MARC, ff.215–6. The poem was written after Mather’s death in August 1800 but before Bradburn left Man­ chester in summer 1801. Mather had been playing a leading role in managing Connexional finances—see Norris, Financing, 110–11. Taylor thought the poem unsuitable for publication. 45 Entry for 12 March 1743, Ward and Heitzenrater, 2:318. 46 Telford, 6:251. 47 Wesley to Wride (10 August 1779), Telford, 6:352–3. 48 Duke D. 49 Wesley to Wride (5 November 1772), Telford, 5:346. 50 Wesley to Wride (12 November 1773), Telford, 6:54. 51 Wesley to Wride (22 January 1774), Telford, 6:71. 52 Telford, 6:109. 53 A reference to the Irish Conference, held probably on 19–20 July 1775—Rack, “Irish Minutes,” 960, n.14. 54 Wesley to Wride (22 July 1775), Telford, 6:165. 55 Wesley to Wride (14 December 1780), Telford, 7:42. 56 Wesley to Wride (14 December 1785), Telford, 7:305. 57 Wesley to John Mason (1 November 1775), Telford, 6:186. 58 Wesley to Wride (16 September 1785), Telford, 7:290–1, at 291. 59 Birrell and Eayrs, Letters, 184. 60 Lenton, 291–2, 297–300. 61 Wride to Wesley (8 December 1780), PLP115/9/40, MARC. 62 Wride to James Metcalfe (16 July 1779), Duke D. Wride’s copy has no addressee but was clearly written to Metcalfe, who was the curate of Bilsdale, North York­ shire, from 1768—CCED clergy database. 63 “The Principles of a Methodist Farther Explain’d . . .,” in The Methodist Socie­ ties: History, Nature and Design, ed. Rupert E. Davies (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1989), 159–237, at 235–6. 64 Sermon 104 of 7 October 1787 “On Attending the Church Service,” Outler, 3:464–78, at 478. See also Heitzenrater, 296–7. 65 Sermon 125, “On a Single Eye,” written 25 September 1789, Outler, 4:120–30, at 128–9.

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66 Wride to Wesley (8 December 1780), PLP115/9/40, MARC.

67 Wride to Metcalfe (16 July 1779), Duke D.

68 A definition of ‘Merry Andrew’, which receives some confirmation from the title

of an anonymous 1770s attack on Methodism—The Adventures of an Actor, in the Characters of a Merry-Andrew, a Methodist Preacher, and a FortuneTeller . . . (London: Printed for the Author, 1770?). Wesley used the phrase in his 1750 open letter to Bishop Lavington—“A Second Letter to the Author of the Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compar’d,” in The Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion and Certain Related Open Letters, ed. Gerald R. Cragg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 377–429, at 381. See also Lawton, “Slang,” 28. 69 The context suggests that this means ‘pregnant’. A translation of Terence used it thus: ‘that same woman of Andros, whether she be wife to Pamphilus, or but his love, I know not, but great with childe shee is by him; she is now double­ ribbed’—Richard Bernard, Terence in English . . . (Cambridge: Printed by John Legat, 1598), Act I Scene III, 19. Cf. Henry Abelove, “The Sexual Politics of Early Wesleyan Methodism,” in Disciplines of Faith, ed. Jim Obelkevich, Lyndal Roper and Raphael Samuel (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987), 97, 99n.14. 70 Cf. John Wesley to Bishop Lavington: ‘Blush, blush, sir, if you can blush. You had here no possible room for mistake’—“Second Letter”, 401. 71 Wesley to ‘John Smith’ (10 July 1747), Baker, 2:246. 72 Journal entry for 12 December 1799, William Holland papers, A/BTL 2/2, Som­ erset Heritage Centre. 73 John Cass to Wride (23 July 1779), PLP22/65/1, MARC. 74 There are still clowns performing as ‘Tommy Tickle’. 75 This latter charge may have been slightly unfair—Wride’s ‘trick’ was a mechani­ cal contrivance, reflecting his lifelong interest in clocks. 76 “Thoughts on the Magic Art. [Extracted from a late Writer],” AM 13 (1790): 607–8. 77 Wesley to John Furz (25 June 1769), Telford, 5:139. 78 ‘A member of the Church of England’ to Wesley (18 October 1770), PLP115/9/30, MARC. 79 Calculations by author based on Wride’s sermon registers. 80 Wesley to Wride (14 December 1780), Telford, 7:42. 81 Lenton, 340. 82 Rack, 520. 83 Though there is a reference to John Wesley as ‘Jack’ in Wride’s poem ‘On reading the Heroic Poem of R_ H_ Esqr.’, a response to the 1773 anti-Methodist poem by Sir Richard Hill—PLP115/9/29, MARC. 84 Duke A. 85 Wride to Wesley (3 October 1785), Duke C. 86 Wesley’s publication The Doctrine of Original Sin (London: Printed by J. Paramore, 1784). This was an extract from his similarly titled 1757 work, written in reply to a publication on the topic from the Norwich Dissenting minister Dr. John Taylor (1694–1761). 87 Grimsby circuit accounts, 1776–8; followed by notes/letter on hymnbooks etc.— PLP115/9/35, MARC. 88 Duke D. 89 Duke C. 90 Wride to Joseph Bradford (8 November 1777), Duke D. 91 Joel T. Rosenthal, “The King’s ‘Wicked Advisers’ and Medieval Baronial Rebel­ lions,” Political Science Quarterly 82, no. 4 (1967): 595–618. 92 Wride to Wesley (1 May 1779), MA1977/610/140, MARC.

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93 Alexander Knox, “Remarks on the Life and Character of John Wesley,” in The Life of Wesley and Rise and Progress of Methodism, ed. Robert Southey, two vols. (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1846), 2:409–504, at 435. 94 For further discussion of Wride’s problems at Norwich see chapter seven. 95 Duke C. 96 Wride to Wesley (7 February 1786), Duke C. 97 Phyllis Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment: Gender and Emotion in Early Methodism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 137. 98 Duke C. 99 Telford, 8:219.

4

Wride, women, and family life

Introduction Thomas Wride came across many different women during his life, and we have already seen the impact which his grandmother, mother, and step­ mothers had on his early life.1 This chapter discusses his adult experience of women, both short-term encounters and longer-term relationships, begin­ ning with an incident in London in 1762.

An encounter with street-walkers On 30 June 1762, walking through central London with two fellow members of the London Methodist society, Wride and the others were approached by four women—Sarah Church, Eleanor Smith, Mary Ball, and Elizabeth Nap­ pier. They were presumably street-walkers; these typically solicited in pairs.2 The women were Charged on the path of Josiah Dornford, Lake Houlton and Thomas Wride for being loose, idle and disorderly persons and common night walkers and for picking them up in the streets. They were then committed to the Bridewell.3 At the time, such women’s guilt ‘Was by and large taken for granted once the arresting officer had sworn an oath to that effect’.4 The capital had a thriving sex industry.5 One magistrate claimed that there were well over 3,000 full-time prostitutes within the area of the London Bills of Mortality.6 Though we cannot always be sure of the identities of individuals in con­ temporary records, one Sarah Church, a single woman and domestic serv­ ant, was tried for murdering her newborn baby in April that year. In her defence, she had explained that her mistress had threatened her with evic­ tion should she give birth, and she was acquitted.7 In 1766, a Sarah Church was again one of a group of four women arrested for Being loose, idle and disorderly women, picking up men on Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street at night, having no visible way of getting their liv­ ing, nor giving any good account of themselves.8

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One Mary Ball was similarly indicted with another woman on 25 July 1765 for Being taken in as disorderly house in Fleet Lane, whither they had car­ ried a strange man whom they had picked up in the street, and for being in a loose, idle and disorderly house.9 Mary (or her namesake) was admitted as a pauper aged 28 to the St. Mar­ tin’s Workhouse on 22 October 1772, dying two months later.10 Eleanor Smith seems also to have had a record of prostitution and petty crime. In early 1761, she was accused of stealing and pawning ‘two cloaks, a bedstick, and a candlestick’,11 and shortly afterwards, she was arrested as a street-walker.12 The following year, she appeared in the Bridewell court records alongside Mary Ball in the category of ‘old prisoners’.13 A further trial for theft in 1769 led to a whipping and ten days in prison,14 but after conviction for a repeat offence a month later, Eleanor was sentenced to transportation for seven years.15 Both Dornford (1734–1810) and Houlton (1739–1816) were merchants. Dornford was an almost exact contemporary of Wride’s but became a wealthy wine trader and leading city figure—and an active prison reformer. Little is known of Houlton, but he also prospered, partly due to a dyeing business in London.16 He died unmarried and childless, leaving substantial legacies, including property and investment holdings totalling £2,250.17 He remained in contact with Wride for some years, and in 1785, Wride sug­ gested to Wesley that he join his new preaching team at Norwich, where Houlton had business links. Dornford was also for a time a local constable, who arraigned women as street-walkers on other occasions, so it is possible that the three young men were in some sense on police duty. Alternatively, they may have been walking to or from a Methodist meeting or on some social visit or business errand. The action that they took was however consonant with the punitive approach towards prostitution typical of London at this period, when the vigilantes of the Societies for the Reformation of Man­ ners harassed prostitutes, and Bridewells formed part of a harsh regime under which both prostitutes and their clients were regularly whipped.18 It may also suggest that Wride took a strict line on the rules of public behaviour. But attitudes were changing, and growing numbers of commentators were coming to portray such women as victims of poverty and other circum­ stances rather simply than dissolute criminals. The new mood was exempli­ fied by the foundation in 1758 of the first Magdalene Hospital for Penitent Prostitutes, though conditions there were still strict.19 Indeed Dornford’s own views on the treatment of ‘lewd women’ evolved—in a 1785 pamphlet, he proclaimed that ‘The present method of sending these unhappy crea­ tures for a month to bridewell is ineffectual. They only harden one another, when confined together’.20 And in 1794, the Arminian Magazine published

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a heart-rending story—‘The Prostitute. A Fragment’—in which pity rather than blame predominated: The girl before me was an object demanding assistance. . . . She was hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and a stranger . . . she is unfortunate. But I will take care of thee, Magdalene.21

Methodist women Most members of Methodist societies at this time were women.22 Many undertook local leadership roles, sometimes including preaching,23 and some gave significant financial and other support, such as Elizabeth Clu­ low of Macclesfield, who made a generous donation to the new Methodist society, co-signed the lease of its meeting-room, oversaw its renovation, and then paid the workmen when the chapel was built in 1764.24 Indeed, as Hempton has commented, Before 1810 female domesticity on the whole was not paraded as a model in Methodist publications; women were admired rather for their religious experience, progress in holiness, and contribution to the reli­ gious and social mission of the church.25 Methodist women feature repeatedly in Wride’s papers, in a wide range of roles. Many were rank and file members. In the 1770s, for example, ‘Sis­ ter Moore’ of Athlone gave oral evidence to Wesley in a dispute between Wride and his colleague Floyd.26 But then there was Mary Gooch, whom he upbraided in Norwich in 1785 for her poor attendance at class, telling Wesley, Meeting of the class (what is called the Preacher’s Class) I found Mary Gooch had met but twice in the former part of the paper, from the 10th. of March to the 8th of August both inclusive. I spoke by way of reproof for her negligence and told her that to have the names, & not the people, was of no use &c. &c. She told me that if I did not like her name to be there I might put it out. I did so, and her violent temper and unbridled tongue spread the matter, and made others fear what they were to meet with.27 Another Norwich woman member was ‘Sister Booty’, perhaps the wife of the class leader William Booty, who in 1786 gave Wride welcome positive feedback at a time when he was feeling under severe pressure, as he told Wesley, In the afternoon, I went into the preaching-house an hour before the time, and had a large congregation for that time of day. Sister Booty

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said it was larger than usual and the people at coming out showed more marks of esteem than usual.28 Some women referred to by Wride were his patients—his remedies included a cure for ‘the dropsy in pregnant women’,29 and he treated one ‘Sister Charles’ while serving in Athlone.30 Preachers’ wives also featured, though typically seen as a burden, specifically because of the care they needed in pregnancy and childbirth.31 Other women had ancillary roles in the local society, paid or unpaid. A Mrs. Porter was the ‘chapel housekeeper’ at Nor­ wich in the 1780s,32 while Miss Want was recorded as undertaking some secretarial work (possibly unpaid) in the Dales circuit.33 Wride accorded even domestic servants respect. In a 1785 letter to Wesley,34 for example, he quoted the servant-maid of a local Dissenting minister. And of course many women provided hospitality to visiting preachers; for example, Wride mentioned a meeting at ‘Sister Cumberland’s’ in Lisburn, Ireland, in 1773,35 and he lodged for a time with Sister Wilkinson (presumably Jane, the wife of his colleague Robert Wilkinson) while serving in the Dales in 1777–8.36 Yet other women clearly had positions of influence if not leadership within the local society. Wesley greatly admired ‘Sister Ruth Hall’, for exam­ ple, who briefed Wride on the plot to move him from the York circuit.37 She claimed to have achieved perfection or ‘full sanctification’, and Wesley published some of her letters to him in the Arminian Magazine, to encour­ age others.38 In 1777, Wride explained to Wesley that he was working with one Elizabeth Clark, a leading member of the Dalby society on the Isle of Man, to discourage a local initiative to station a preacher permanently on the island.39 And when in Norwich in 1785, Wride clearly gave great weight to the views of ‘Sister Flight’,40 telling Wesley that he had spoken ‘largely’ with her about the state of the Norwich society and reporting her views in detail.41 Wride’s dealings with a Mrs. Sellar in 1783 were less happy. A wealthy milliner, she was a leading light in the Normanton society in the Gainsbor­ ough circuit, Lincolnshire. He objected to her and her friends talking loudly before the service, telling a local clergyman, Their tongues burst into such a jangling noise, that was enough to remind one of Steven Duck’s female hay-makers, ‘All love to speak, and yet all seem to fear, That though they speak so well, the rest won’t hear.’42 The tongue of Mrs. Sellar was by far the most noisy, one might more rationally have thought her accustomed to crying of fish in London streets, than soberly to talk to customers in a milliner’s shop. She talked so loud as (I steadily believe) to be distinctly heard for the distance of fifteen yards, and continued to do so for some time.43

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Such misogynistic attitudes did not go unchallenged, even in the eighteenth century—the poem by Stephen Duck (who was also from the Salisbury area) quoted by Wride triggered a robust response from a Hampshire washer­ woman called Mary Collier. Her poem ‘A Woman’s Labour’ documented the hard work which accompanied the sociability ridiculed by Duck (and implicitly, in turn, by Wride).44 When Wride and Mrs. Sellar met to discuss the matter subsequently, he complained also about her frequent absence from class. Her response was revealing and led Wride (in the same letter) to label her sarcastically as ‘her ladyship’: Mrs. Sellar made several excuses. . . . ‘They (the people of Normanton) ought to yield to me, I am so great an instrument for the support of the work’, says Mrs. Sellar. I replied: ‘You ought not to make account of that, for if you do it for the glory of God, and continue unto the end, it will redound to your own account.’ ‘It is not a little thing for me to go so far &c. for I am not young’, &c. I owned that it might be attended with some inconveniences, but that we should do what we could, ‘For it is a maxim in divinity as well as in physic, “Use legs & have legs.” ’ But notwithstanding this so ‘very low’ (if not very wicked) expression to so great a lady, yet Her Ladyship & I parted, as far as was known to me, full as friendly as we met. In contrast, there are frequent accounts in Wride’s papers of the prophetic witness of women and girls, especially as borne through dreams and visions. His extensive records of such events include a notebook inscribed by Tyer­ man as ‘Mr. Wride’s account of the dreams of a female in 1761’.45 And the afore-mentioned ‘Sister Flight’ of Norwich seems to have some kind of pro­ phetic gift, as Wride explained to Wesley, She says that she has felt a particular burden of late for the work here, and that it was strongly applied unto her, ‘He will thoroughly purge his floor.’46 This she expects to be accomplished. I wish we may lose noth­ ing but chaff.47

Jenny Woodcock, and the prospects of marriage At around the age of 40, Wride fell in love. He met Jenny (sometimes Jane) Woodcock while stationed in York in 1773–4. He had considered marriage several times before, in his early thirties, but did not pursue the possibility once he became a full-time travelling preacher. Attitudes towards marriage were in fact highly divergent amongst the early preachers. Wesley himself was ambivalent. One issue was whether the rigorous demands of the travelling preacher’s life were compatible with

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marriage.48 Mack has argued that, although on occasion supportive of preachers seeking to marry, Wesley was especially concerned that itinerant preachers identify with the communities they served rather than with their biological families; indeed, one purpose of the circuit system was to help preachers become less attached to family and neighborhood and more single-minded about their vocation as evangelists.49 Secondly, Wesley and other leaders were concerned by the financial burdens on the Connexion which wives and children would bring, and self-supporting spouses were preferred.50 This was a concern, especially in poorer circuits, such as those in Ireland, since there was a general expectation at the time that the husband would ‘maintain’ his wife.51 In 1777, for example, the Conference had discussed allegations that some married preachers had sought financial support for their wives when they did not actually need it: Q.19. Do any of the preachers take money for wives who do not want [ie. lack] it? A. So it has been frequently asserted. But upon enquiry we found it an absolute slander.52 The third issue was sex. The temptations to which travelling preachers were exposed were well recognised, and they were vulnerable to accusations of impropriety. Walsh has noted that ‘The popular imagination in England luxuriated in the idea that the closed and often nocturnal gatherings of the Methodists were a cover for obscene practices’,53 and Gibson and Begiato have observed that ‘Seduction by Methodist preachers soon became a popu­ lar literary trope’.54 Wride himself faced the accusation from a colleague, when in Athlone in 1774–5, ‘That in the parlour of Sarah Toace I took off my stockings & rubbed between my toes, let my breeches knees open, & my breast bare’,55 while Richard Reece, appointed to Norwich in 1788, aged a mere 22, commented that ‘The women in Norwich are forward and have often proved a snare to the young preachers sent there’.56 Wesley’s initial policy, enunciated at the first Conference in 1744, was sim­ ple: ‘Touch no woman. Be as loving as you will, but hands off’.57 Over time, however, the leadership came to see marriage as a means of enabling preach­ ers to remain sexually continent. It did not always work. The preaching team at Whitehaven in 1783–4, Hugh Moore and Thomas Ellis, split up when Moore attempted to seduce Mrs. Ellis.58 As a society member later recalled, Mr. Moore was a great preacher but a bad man, he told me that he could preach eighty sermons without study. Mr. Ellis had a wife, Mr. Moore

62

Wride, women, and family life had none that we knew of. They had not been together very long, till the latter attempted an undue freedom with Mr. Ellis’s wife . . . Moore took his departure.59

Many preachers were cautious about marriage, such as John Allen, who warned another preacher in 1769: Somebody told me they thought thou would soon be married. ‘Poor boy!’ thought I, ‘what will he do with a wife?’ However, if thou close this I hope thou wilt do it to the glory of God only if thou art master of thy self, thou art far better as thou art. If thou art married thou art sure of one promise, ‘To have trouble in the flesh’. I hope thou wilt not be married without thy good reasons.60 That said, even Allen was not implacably opposed to marriage. He told another correspondent, As you still wished me to recommend a person to you for a wife, tho’ I had but bad luck when I did before, yet I venture to say that we have several good, and nice girls in Wakefield that I think might do very well. Miss [Lapidge?] is a bonny lass.61 For other preachers, a wife was an almost indispensable helpmeet.62 In the early 1760s, continued ill health drove Nicholas Manners to seek the sup­ port of a wife—‘I must either go home or marry’, he wrote. His memoir described the selection process in somewhat unromantic terms: A person of my acquaintance, and with whom I had some interest, had two daughters, one of whom I believed would answer my purpose. She had a tolerable share of every thing one could wish for in a woman. And although the will of every woman is not to be known by her ways; yet I had some reason to think I was not disagreeable to her . . . we agreed to be married.63 Indeed, a growing proportion of Wesley’s preachers married—70 per cent of Wride’s contemporaries were married at some point, though some only in retirement—and many had children.64 The Connexion’s developing cor­ pus of rules recognised both the risks and the opportunities that this repre­ sented. Thus in 1780, the Conference pronounced that A preacher’s wife should be a pattern of cleanliness, in her person, clothes and habitation. Let nothing slatternly be seen about her: no rags, no dirt, no litter. And she should be a pattern of industry: always at work, either for herself, her husband, or the poor.65

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Such concerns lay behind the requirement—dating from at least 1753—that preachers, as Wesley’s ‘sons in the gospel’, should consult him before mar­ rying. A preacher who married rashly thereby forfeited any right to Con­ nexional financial support for his family.66 But for many preachers, Wesley’s role was not merely to offer formal approval. As Wride’s contemporary Michael Moorhouse recalled, In 1777 I was married, after much consultation with Mr. Wesley about it, for I had such a regard for him, that I would not take one step; nor lift my hand to displease him, so I had his full consent and approbation.67

Wride’s courtship and marriage Within months of meeting Jenny, a mantua-maker from Welbourn in Lin­ colnshire,68 Wride had decided to marry her.69 The clothing industry had a mixed reputation at the time, and some held its workers in low regard, especially those like Jenny who worked in the fashion sector. Charles Horne condemned it in strong terms in 1783: There are many professions parents should be cautioned against, such as milliners—mantua-makers—haberdashers—and all dealers in vanity— it is not barely the odium entailed on these trades, but they are actually seminaries of prostitution.70 He went on to instance mantua-makers as being amongst ‘the lowest order of the community’. Such views were however not universal—one historian has described mantua-making as one of the ‘genteel occupations for daugh­ ters of the middling ranks’.71 Wride’s earliest extant letter to Jenny dates from November 1777, when he was based in the Dales. The hardships that she would face as the wife of a travelling preacher still concerned him: My Dear, . . . My health through mercy is pretty good. This circuit is a very try­ ing one to travel on. We have very bad roads & some of them danger­ ous, but we have in some parts of the circuit some very gracious people. This is a very indifferent place for a wife—we have but five days in six weeks72—but yet I should be glad if all hindrance was removed; but a little patience is yet wanted. I still hope that all things will yet turn out for the best. But be assured, that I am constant in my regard for you, & wait only for the order of Providence to confirm my love to you.73 After failing to brief Wesley on his plans in person, Wride finally wrote to him in 1778 to make his case.74 The reason for the long delay—perhaps

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surprising, given that the couple were in their forties—is unclear. Such prolonged courtships were unusual but not unique; Thomas Rankin, for example, reached an understanding with his bride-to-be before he went to America in 1773 but only married after his return, in 1779.75 In contrast, after Samuel Bradburn’s first wife died on 1 February 1786, he soon met a Miss Cooke ‘who, in many respects, resembles my Betsy’. He proposed to her on 21 March76 and married her on 10 August 1786, less than six months after meeting her, the rapidity perhaps reflecting his anxieties, as Betsy lay dying, about his ability to bring up his three children aged under four.77 But this was unusually quick—the average courtship lasted from one to four years.78 Wride was anxious to secure Wesley’s agreement, but since both men were constantly travelling, this was not straightforward and undoubtedly con­ tributed to the delay. As the preceding letter suggests, Wride had concerns about the viability of married life for a travelling preacher, and given his constant movement, the romance seems to have progressed only in fits and starts, entailing long periods apart punctuated by the slow-paced exchange of letters.79 This was an era when marrying from choice rather than necessity, in search of companionship if not undying passion, was becoming increasingly common.80 One recent study has argued that ‘the languages and customs of romantic love were completely transformed as the century progressed’, reflecting developments such as rising literacy and the increasing efficiency of the post office, which underpinned the emergence of a new culture of print and of letter-writing.81 But as Gowing puts it, ‘Courtship involved not just rational choices, but irrational dramas of love.’82 Many publications offered young people counsel on the choice of a spouse, as in this advice book for young ladies: ‘The chief Things to be regarded in the Choice of a Husband, are a virtuous Disposition, a good Understanding, an even Tem­ per, an easy Fortune, and an agreeable Person’.83 One of Wride’s colleagues, William Fish, set out 15 characteristics of the ideal wife for a Methodist itinerant, in a letter to the preacher Alexander Kilham. Though these included ‘solid piety’ and ‘christian fortitude’, he concluded: ‘If to all these good properties, she have as much fortune as will maintain herself, her husband, and children, if need be, she will be no worse but better’.84 John Braithwaite, contemplating marriage in 1795, sought a similar paragon but also insisted that his wife should be a non-smoker. He told a friend, Were I to describe the woman with whom I could wish to be united; I should first mention her piety. . . . In a wife, I would have a bosom friend; one with whom I could take sweet counsel, one that sympathy would move, and humility adorn; but she should also be young, hand­ some and intelligent. How awkward I should appear in company, if my partner were to sit moping in a corner, smoking a pipe.85

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Wride’s 21 March 1778 letter to Wesley, written when he was 44 and Jenny 45, reads in part like a marriage application form and covered much of the preceding ground: When I began to travel I deliberately laid aside all thoughts of a wife. I refused several offers, one (that was called a) good one; for as I had power over my own will, I did not choose to be entangled. This was my real condition when I went first to Ireland; but the cus­ tomary behaviour of the Irish woman, tried me not a little.86 (Irish women seem to have had a reputation, at least among Methodists, for being forward. In 1769, Wesley had cautioned one of his preachers on this.)87 I was often thoughtful of marriage, but willing to avoid the probable con­ sequences of it. I was well nigh taken by a good woman, against whom I saw no objection, but the probability of a train of children (she being younger than me). This was a difficulty I did not care nor dare to face. About four years ago I became acquainted with one in Yorkshire. The acquaintance has continued ever since; time nor distance makes any diminution. She knows my thoughts towards her, and my obligations to you. I told her from the first that I could do nothing without you, that I was at your disposal as if you was my father . . . I may be suspected of partiality, but Sir I assure you, I shall be as hon­ est as I can while I describe the person &c. Her age was 45 last August. Her stature—rather short, I suppose about 5 feet. Constitution— healthy in general, but not strong. As for beauty, neither adorable nor despicable. Her religion—she has known the Lord, I think, above twenty-five years, and has in the general walked in the light of his coun­ tenance. Her character I believe is unimpeachable. Her circumstance— she has a brother from whom she hopes for great things,88 but as for that, I depend on nothing from him but what is pressing; if I wait for the shoes of a man until he is dead, I may happen to walk bare-footed. Wride concluded by formally seeking Wesley’s permission to marry, explain­ ing that I could not marry without passion; it may serve as a spur at my heel, but is not fit to hold the reins. Now, Sir, I desire your advice, and if you please to give me your consent, I have no design nor desire to use it at the expense of my reason, nor to proceed without consulting of you from time to time, as far as you shall see needful to direct. This striking letter suggests strongly that Wride loved Jenny, and their sub­ sequent life together, as reflected in the surviving correspondence, confirms

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this. That said, Wride’s view of the married state was primarily a practical one. In particular, it brought with it unwelcome responsibilities, though he expressed relief that one of these—the arrival of children—was not going to be an issue for the couple. Wesley replied a month later, giving brusque consent: I do not remember J. Woodcock. But if the account you give of her be just (and I have no reason to believe the contrary), I cannot see any objection to your choosing her; although you do well not to depend on her brother, for his humour may easily change. Whatever you do should be done with much prayer, as the matter is of no small importance.89 Wride quickly relayed this to Jenny.90 The demands of the Dales circuit imposed severe practical constraints on their relationship meantime, as he explained, ironically because his colleagues were already married, I intend to take opportunity to see you, but I cannot fix on the time, for very lately Mr. Robertshaw has been to see his wife, and Mr. Wilkinson (the other preacher) is at present with his wife (who was brought to bed this morning); but I hope to spend a day or two with you as soon as I conveniently can. I expect to be here again on Saturday the 6th of June; against that time let me hear from you all particulars.91 In his letter of 9 May to Wesley, Wride explained that he now intended to proceed with the wedding;92 but his itinerant life frustrated his attempts to see his fiancée and make the arrangements. He wrote again to her in June, expressing his regret at the situation.93 The wedding finally took place in Bulmer, North Yorkshire on 22 July 1778.94

Jenny Wride as a preacher’s wife Wride’s marriage was the central and most successful relationship of his life, though (unsurprisingly, and as expected) childless. Jenny offered her hus­ band sustained and loyal support. Wride once commented of her attitude, ‘Let my wife be judge, and I am of more importance than any five men in the Connection’.95 But she sometimes found the pressures too great, and Wride’s account of these illustrated the ambivalent attitude of Wesley’s Connexion towards preachers marrying. The costs to the Connexion of maintaining her soon became an issue. At the 1779 Conference, Wesley apparently gained the impression that Jenny would be self-supporting, but Wride denied ever giving such an assurance: I hear you told the Conference that I told you that ‘My wife would not be burthensome to a circuit’ &c. &c. &c. If you had said that John Floyd told you that I said so, I had not wondered in the least. But Sir

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I do wonder at your mistake. A little reflection may remove it, as first, I never spoke a word to you (in private) good or bad about my wife. I never wrote about her to you, but while you was in Ireland last, and but two letters in the whole (the copies I have still).96 In 1780, Wesley wrote reminding Wride that ‘When a preacher travels with­ out his wife, he is exposed to innumerable temptations’.97 However, Jenny apparently preserved Wride from any lapse—in the 1790s, he told one col­ league proudly that ‘I have not yet learned that my unconscionable foes have laid to my charge one bastard child, or even one act of simple fornication’.98 Furthermore, like Wesley’s own mother,99 Jenny sought to support her husband’s mission, including by carrying on the work in his absence. When the preaching team at Norwich had problems in 1785, she tried but failed to ensure that the new preacher (James Byron) followed her absent husband’s instructions on hymn-singing, as Wride explained to Wesley, My wife told Mr. Byron concerning his singing contrary to Mr. Wesley’s rule, but he said that ‘they sing very well and I could hear them ever so long.’ So they had the singing according to their own will until Sat. ye 19th of November when your letter of the 17th came to hand. Mr. Byron was very pressing with my wife to open the letter which at last she did.100 He added that the other Norwich preacher, John McKersey, was equally dismissive of her attempt to enforce Wride’s wishes: My wife spoke to Mr. Muckarsay about going contrary to the directions given by Mr. Wesley, but he replied: ‘It is not worth making of words about.’ So they went on as before. Unfortunately, like her husband, Jenny made enemies easily. In his 10 Sep­ tember 1780 letter, Wesley told the newly suspended Wride, You cannot travel with your wife till she is so changed as to adorn the gospel. It seems, therefore, all you can do at present is to act as a local preacher.101 Relations between Wesley and Mrs. Wride seem to have been more positive by 1785, when Wesley signed off a letter to Wride with I am, with love to Sister Wride, dear Tommy,

Your affectionate friend and brother.102

There is evidence of more serious problems from the period when the Wrides were stationed in Kent, in 1786–7.103 One allegation from the

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Chatham society, as reported by Wride to Wesley, was that Jenny was a burden: My wife tells me that Mr. Meares had used her with language not very kind,104 viz., ‘What an imposition you are upon us, to have fire, house-room, and candle and can do nothing.’ Indeed, some was so kind to tell her, that she was to do what she could, and what she could not do, she should get done for hire.105 Another was that Jenny was untrustworthy, specifically in handling the preachers’ mail. Wride’s detailed defence of his wife had four components. It revealed much of the couple’s relationship, one of mutual dependence borne of the perception—if not the reality—of shared adversity and sus­ tained physical effort. First, she was frequently unwell. He explained to Wesley that he had been treating her himself: ‘My wife is 54 years of age; at the turn of life. She needed medicines, with which I provided her’. Second, Jenny was broken physically and emotionally following two bereavements and notably the death of her mother, whom she had nursed— round the clock—in her final weeks: My wife had for 20 years been a careful attendant of her aged infirm mother. In June, 1785 her mother had her last sickness. For six weeks my wife closely attended her, day and night, having (properly speaking) no rest for that time, her cloaths never being off, all the while, unless to change her linen. . . . The toil of body that she went through, by the sickness of her mother, and her distress of mind occasioned by her death, has made no small impression on her constitution. But, in the month of May last she received an account of the death of her only brother; one whom she loved (I think) to a degree of idolatry. (It was perhaps this series of bereavements which prompted Wride to make a will, signed on 14 July 1786, leaving all his possessions to Jenny.)106 Third, Wride argued, these demands had fallen upon his wife after the stress of the family’s previous posting to Norwich: ‘the usage she met with at Norwich’ had clearly, he implied, been harsh. Finally, Wride claimed that the pressures now faced by his wife, as the sole preacher’s wife in a circuit deploying four itinerants, while living in a crowded preacher’s house, were simply unreasonable:107 She is I am fully persuaded unable to do the work that four preach­ ers (beside her husband) stand in need of; I say 4 beside her husband, because we have a preacher from London every four weeks; and many persons who call on journeying to & fro.

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It was clear that the precise status of the preacher’s house, especially when it adjoined the chapel, was contested—was it primarily the preacher’s family home or church premises? Wride continued, Besides the lower part of the house is as common as a publick house; several having keys for our lower door & of the preaching-house; so that it is not very easy to keep all things clean below stairs. His comments reflected a broader social trend of the time: A blurring of the boundaries between public and private as, over the course of the century, parlors became less formal and served both for the reception of guests and for family relaxation.108 Religious folk could find this challenging, because The household was vital to Evangelicals, as it had been to the Puritans before them, providing as it did a secure haven from the pressures of the outside world and a place of peace in which master and mistress could exercise control over their children and servants.109 Maintaining a modicum of family privacy in a modest preacher’s house, adjoining a busy chapel, must have been a significant challenge for preach­ ers and their wives. Wesley’s rebuttal of Wride’s case was nonetheless imme­ diate, firm—perhaps even unsympathetic—and characteristically brief: Mr. Mears did not tell me (that I know) anything about letters one, two, three. Women told me at Chatham. ‘We called on Mrs. Wride and offered her any service in our power; but she was so sullen and surly, we had not the heart to go again.’110 Jenny died on 23 October 1805, aged 72.111 In a period when ‘a loving marriage [was] seen as essential to lasting and perfect happiness’,112 Wride enjoyed a strong and supportive partnership with his wife.

Wride’s extended family Until her marriage, Jenny was financially dependent upon her brother. We have little information about her family, but in a manuscript memorandum dating from some time between 1801 and 1807, Wride recorded brief details about some of them: Elinr Woodcock died Aug. John (her son) May 10. Susan Harrison Jan 3. Tristram while we were in Kent about six months after John Woodcock.

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Wride, women, and family life John Harrison 20 of July while we at Whitehaven. Eliz Hind about a year after we came to York. Chas Harrison in 1801.113

Elinor was Jenny’s mother and John her brother—both died, as we have seen, in 1785–6.114 The identity of the others is uncertain. Wride’s letter to Jenny of 4 May 1778 mentions only one brother and one sister.115 It is unclear whether the others were part of Jenny’s family, but she lost at least two close relatives in 1785–6. Wride himself had at least two brothers, one sister, one half-sister, and two stepbrothers. On 18 November 1802, long after his retirement from fulltime ministry, he wrote to the two preachers stationed in Salisbury, William Aver and Edward Roberts, seeking news of his family there.116 He explained that had not returned to Salisbury for 25 years. He had had no contact with one of his sisters, apparently because he had pursued her husband in court over an unpaid debt. He also mentioned another sister, and other relations, seeking news of them and of any children. And on 7 January 1806, around a year before his death, Wride wrote plaintively to the superintendent at Salisbury, Robert Crowther, naming several long-lost relatives and adding, I have other relations in Salisbury, but I know them not, having (to my knowledge) never seen them. I shall be obliged to you (as far as opportunity gives leave) to find them and assist them in the way to [being a] Christian. I know not if any or either of them have their face Zion-ward, but shall be glad to hear well of them. May God bless your endeavours for their welfare. . . . I should be glad to see my friends in Salisbury, but probably never shall on this side [of] the grave: distance, expence, age and infirmities seem to forbid it.117 Such absences—and regrets—were only part of the price paid by John Wes­ ley’s travelling preachers.

Conclusion Women were ubiquitous in early Methodism, fulfilling a wide range of roles, paid and unpaid. In many cases, Wride worked happily alongside women. He often cited their views, including testimony of supernatural events, sometimes without question. But occasional comments betray the unsur­ prising fact that he operated within the framework of various contemporary tropes, such as that women tended to talk too much, were too interested in non-serious matters, were prone to sentimentality, and were physically and emotionally fragile. In one key respect, however, Wride’s accounts of women were atypical. As Gibson and Begiato have commented, Methodism stereotyped women; in the same way that conversion narratives became convergent and normative, so did the ways in which

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women were depicted. Phyllis Mack has identified three evangelical female stereotypes, all of which related to marital status and sexual activity: the ‘fallen woman redeemed by faith’, such as Sarah Ryan who was a ‘slave’ to sex but became a confidante of Mary Bosanquet, John Fletcher, and also John Wesley; the ‘ardent virgin’ who was passionate and chaste in her faith; and the ‘venerable mother in Israel’ who was often an older widow who supported the movement financially.118 In contrast, Wride portrayed real women, not archetypes—his ‘mother in Israel’, Mrs. Sellar, for example, was grumpy and not whole-heartedly reli­ gious. And while Wride’s marriage seems to have been happy, and Jenny gave her husband unstinting personal support, their partnership fell well short of the Connexion’s ideal; in particular, she was not actively involved in society life, for example, as a class leader. On the contrary, she seems to have been highly unpopular amongst Methodist women, and her ill health, com­ bined with periodic involvement with her own family, distracted Wride from his preaching duties—as he had feared. The story of Thomas and Jenny Wride thus offers melancholy testimony to the sacrifices which Method­ ist itinerant ministry demanded of both marriage partners, demands which underlay Wesley’s own ambivalence towards the institution.

Notes 1 See chapter two. 2 Tony Henderson, Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London (London and New York, NY: Longman, 1999), 36. 3 Entry for 30 June 1762, Minutes of the Court of Governors of the Bridewell and Bethlem Hospital (1762–81), BCB-23, Bethlem Museum of the Mind (accessed via London Lives). 4 Henderson, Disorderly Women, 133. 5 On which see Henderson, Disorderly Women, and Ephraim J. Burford, Wits, Wenchers and Wantons: London’s Low Life: Covent Garden in the Eighteenth Century (London: Robert Hale, 1986). 6 Saunders Welch, A Proposal to Render Effectual a Plan, to Remove the Nui­ sance of Common Prostitutes from the Streets of This Metropolis . . . (London: Printed for C. Henderson, 1758), 13. 7 Entry for 21 April 1762, Old Bailey Proceedings, Accounts of Criminal Trials and Punishment Summaries (accessed via Old Bailey Online). On the crime of infanticide, see Anne-Marie Kilday, A History of Infanticide in Great Britain c. 1600 to the Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). She refers to the Sarah Church case (42) and notes that opinion towards such defendants in infanticide cases was softening in this period (19–20). 8 Entry for 26 November 1766, Bridewell Minutes (1762–81), BCB-23, Bethlem Museum of the Mind. 9 Ibid. 10 Workhouse Admissions and Discharge Registers (22 October–29 Decem­ ber 1772), St. Martin’s Workhouse Registers (accessed via London Lives). 11 Entry for 19 January 1761, Middlesex Sessions Papers—Justices’ Working Doc­ uments, MJ/SP/1761/01/011, London Metropolitan Archives (accessed via Lon­ don Lives). Saunders Welch was the presiding magistrate.

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12 Entry for 30 July 1761, Minutes of the Court of Governors of the Bridewell and Bethlem Hospital (1751–61), BCB-22, Bethlem Museum of the Mind (accessed via London Lives). 13 Entry for 3 August 1762, Bridewell Minutes (1762–81), BCB-23, Bethlem Museum of the Mind. 14 Entry for 5 April 1769, Old Bailey Proceedings. 15 Entry for 10 May 1769, ibid. 16 On Dornford, see DMBI. See also his entry in Joseph O. Baylen and Norbert J. Gossman, Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals, Vol. 1: 1770– 1830 (Hassocks and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Harvester Press, 1979), 132–3. When Dornford married in 1759, Wesley gave the bride away—Josiah Dorn­ ford, Some Memoirs of the Life and Death of Mrs. Eleanor Dornford (London: Printed by Andrews and Son, 1790), 20. Houlton was a local preacher, became a trustee of Wesley’s City Road chapel, and was buried in its grounds—see Spi­ talfields Chapel Account Book, N/M/42/005, London Metropolitan Archives; George J. Stevenson, City Road Chapel London and Its Associations (London: George J. Stevenson, 1872), 329; and the brief account of Houlton by ‘A Former Correspondent’ in the Wesleyan and Christian Record, 21 October 1846, 501. 17 Last will and testament of Lake Houlton, 31 January 1816 (plus codicil), PROB11/1579, TNA. 18 Burford, Wits; also Julie Peakman, Lascivious Bodies (London: Atlantic Books, 2004). The classic account of the societies is Josiah Woodward, An Account of the Societies for Reformation of Manners . . . Second edition (London: Printed by J.D. for the Author, and Sold by R. Simpson, 1698). 19 Peakman, Lascivious Bodies, 16.

20 Josiah Dornford, Seven Letters to the Lords of the Privy Council on the Police . . .

(London: Printed by J. Walter, 1785), Letter III, 30. 21 AM 17 (1794): 105–6. 22 Clive D. Field, “The Social Composition of English Methodism to 1830: A Mem­ bership Analysis,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library 76, no. 1 (1994): 153–78, especially 155–8. Approaching 60 per cent of members were women. On the historiography, see Margaret Jones, “Methodism and Women,” in Ashgate Research Companion, ed. Gibson, Forsaith, and Wellings, 157–74. 23 See, for example, Vicki Tolar Burton, Spiritual Literacy in John Wesley’s Meth­ odism (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 151–75. 24 Gail Malmgreen, “Domestic Discords: Women and the Family in East Cheshire Methodism, 1750–1830,” in Disciplines, ed. Obelkevich, Roper, and Samuel, 58. 25 Hempton, “People,” in Oxford Handbook, ed. Abraham and Kirby, 81; Mack, Heart Religion, for example 128–9. 26 Wride to Wesley (17 July 1775), PLP115/9/14 & 32, MARC. 27 Wride to Wesley (3 October 1785), Duke C. 28 Wride to Wesley (24 April 1786), Duke C. 29 Wride, medical notes (1800–01), PLP115/9/3, MARC. 30 Wride to Wesley (17 July 1775), PLP115/9/14 & 32, MARC. 31 For example, in his discussion of the costs of supporting preachers’ wives in Grimsby (Grimsby circuit accounts, PLP115/9/35, MARC). 32 Wride to Wesley (24 April 1786), Duke C. She is recorded as such in the cir­ cuit accounts—entry for 1786, Norwich Circuit Book, FC/16/1, Norfolk Record Office. 33 Wride to Wesley (9 May 1778), Duke D. 34 Wride to Wesley (30 May 1785), Duke B. 35 Wride to Wesley (8 November 1773), Duke A. She was the wife of Hans Cumberland—the couple ran a bakery—see R.D.E. Gallagher, “John Wesley

Wride, women, and family life

36 37 38

39 40

41 42

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60

73

in Lisburn,” Bulletin of the Wesley Historical Society (Irish Branch) 2, no. 6 (1993): 9. As noted in chapter seven, Wride found the arrangement unsatisfactory. Wride to Wesley (8 November 1773), Duke A. The chronology of Hall’s spiritual development is not at all clear. Her letter to Wesley of 10 January 1759 seemed to place her attainment of full sanctification in the late 1750s—AM 4 (1781): 497–8. However, her letter to Wesley of 18 January 1783 offered a different account and suggested that she had an unstable spiritual life until achieving sanctification in the 1770s—AM 14 (1791): 105–7. Wesley’s admiration for Hall is however beyond doubt—see also Rivers, Vanity Fair, 308. Wride to Wesley (24 May 1777), MA1977/610/140a, MARC. Mary Flight was listed as a member of the preacher’s class in the Norwich Meth­ odist society in 1785. In 1787, she was class leader of the ninth class, and in 1788, she was again listed as a class leader (Norwich Circuit Book, FC/16/1, Norfolk Record Office). I am grateful to Norma Virgoe for drawing this to my attention. Wride to Wesley (30 December 1785), Duke C. See also the discussion of the problems at Norwich in chapter seven. The quotation is an imperfect recollection of Duck’s lines: ‘All talk at once; but seeming all to fear, That what they speak, the rest will hardly hear’, from ‘The Thresher’s Labour’ in Stephen Duck, Poems on Several Occasions (London: Printed for the Author, 1736), 19. Wride to William Dodwell (undated, concerning an incident on 23 Septem­ ber 1783), Duke B. Stephen Duck and Mary Collier [1730, 1739], The Thresher’s Labour; and The Woman’s Labour (London: Merlin Press, 1989). Duke E. Matthew 3:12, King James Version. Wride to Wesley (30 December 1785), Duke C. Janet Kelly, “Presenting a Ministry of Wives: A Moving Picture from the Main­ stream Methodist Press,” in Angels and Impudent Women: Women in Method­ ism (Loughborough: Wesley Historical Society, 2007). Mack, Heart Religion, 88. Norris, Financing, 26. Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 169. Rack, 471–2. John Walsh, “Methodism and the Mob in the Eighteenth Century,” in Popular Belief and Practice, ed. G.J. Cuming and Derek Baker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 224–5. William Gibson and Joanne Begiato, Sex and the Church in the Long Eighteenth Century (London and New York, NY: I.B. Tauris, 2017), 146. In a letter of late 1784 / early 1785, probably to John Fenwick, Duke B. Entry for 8 August 1788, Richard Reece Journal, MA1977/273, MARC. Rack, 140, Q.3.A.(3) and n.182. Their appointment is recorded in Rack, 534. Ellis was the assistant. “Brief Account of Whitehaven Methodism,” YDFCM/2/102, Whitehaven Archive and Local Studies Centre, 6. Moore had a history; in 1782, for example, he was warned by Wesley after proposing marriage to a woman without the consent of her parents—John Wesley to Hugh Moore, Telford, 7:120. He subse­ quently moved to Ireland and ‘desisted’ in 1790—Rack, “Irish Minutes,” 1003. John Allen to Samuel Bardsley (11 December 1769)—John Allen Manuscript Let­ ters, MA1977/688, MARC. The manuscript is dated 1793, but the geographical

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locations of both preachers suggest that the letter was written in 1769—see Rack, 367–8. 61 John Allen to Allen Edmondson ([?] April 1788)—John Allen Manuscript Let­ ters, MA1977/688, MARC. 62 Lenton, 106–7. 63 Manners, Some Particulars, 29. 64 Lenton, 90–93; Wride formed part of Lenton’s ‘third cohort’ of 135 preach­ ers, those who entered the itinerancy between 1761 and 1770. See also Norris, Financing, 25–6. 65 Rack, “Large Minutes, 1780–89,” [§69], 931. 66 Rack, “Large Minutes, 1753–63,” [§37.4], 853, 854; and [§69], 870. See also Lenton, 94–5. 67 Michael Moorhouse, The Defence of Mr. Michael Moorhouse . . . (Leicester: Printed and Sold by Ann Ireland, and Others, 1789), 10. 68 A ‘mantua’ was ‘an open [lady’s] robe with a trained skirt and petticoat’—Olsen, Daily Life, 223. 69 His subsequent letter seeking Wesley’s permission suggests that he had hoped to raise it in person during Wesley’s 1775 visit to Ireland. 70 Charles Horne, Serious Thoughts on the Miseries of Seduction and Prostitu­ tion . . . (London: Printed for Swift and Son, 1783), 51. See also Henderson, Disorderly Women, 14–15. 71 Beverly Lemire, Dress, Culture and Commerce (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmil­ lan, 1997), 4. 72 Presumably meaning that the travelling preacher was at home only five days out of every six weeks. 73 Wride to Jenny Woodcock (17 November 1777), Duke D. 74 Wride to Wesley (21 March 1778), Duke D. 75 Lenton, 88. 76 Diary entry for 31 March 1786, Eliza W. Bradburn, Memoirs of the Late Rev. Samuel Bradburn (London: Richard Edwards, 1816), 103. 77 Diary entry for 31 January 1786, ibid., 100–1. 78 Sally Holloway, The Game of Love in Georgian England (Oxford: Oxford Uni­ versity Press, 2019), 13. 79 It is even possible that Wesley posted Wride back to Ireland, after his year in York in 1773–4, in order to test the strength of his attachment to Jenny. 80 Julie Peakman, Amatory Pleasures (London and New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2016), 103–5. 81 Holloway, Game, 1. 82 Gowing, Domestic Dangers, 174. 83 Wetenhall Wilkes, A Letter of Genteel and Moral Advice to a Young Lady (Dub­ lin: Printed by and for O. Nelson, 1741), 14–15. 84 William Fish to Alexander Kilham (10 March 1788), John Blackwell, Life of the Rev. Alexander Kilham (London and Manchester: R. Groombridge and the Methodist New Connexion Book Room, 1838), 107–8. 85 John Braithwaite to Robert Dickinson (14 March 1795), Dickinson, Life of the Rev. John Braithwaite, 237. 86 Duke D. 87 John Wesley to Richard Steel (24 April 1769), Telford, 5:132. Steel was then in Armagh; Wesley warned him to ‘avoid all familiarity with women. This is deadly poison both to them and you. You cannot be too wary in this respect’. 88 It seems, from Wride’s letter to Jenny of 4 May 1778 (Duke D), that she also had a sister. 89 Wesley to Wride (20 April 1778), Telford, 6:309.

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90 Wride to Jenny Woodcock (4 May 1778), Duke D. Wride, then travelling around the Dales circuit, apparently received Wesley’s letter of 20 April—sent from Ireland—on Saturday 2 May. 91 Jeremiah Robertshaw and Robert Wilkinson were Wride’s colleagues on the Dales circuit—Rack, 467. 92 Wride to Wesley (9 May 1778), Duke D. 93 Wride to Jenny Woodcock (14 June 1778), Duke D. 94 Archbishop of York Marriage Licences Index (1613–1839) (accessed via Find­ mypast database). 95 Wride to Wesley (30 May 1785), Duke B. 96 Wride to Wesley (23 October 1779), PLP115/9/42, MARC. 97 Wesley to Wride (10 September 1780), Telford, 7:32. 98 Wride to an unnamed preacher, 18 July 179–, Duke D. 99 Susanna Wesley organised a house group when her husband, Samuel, was away, on at least one occasion hosting more than 200 people—see her letter to Samuel (6 February 1712), Adam Clarke, Memoirs of the Wesley Family (London: Printed by J. T. Clarke, 1823), 328–32. 100 Wride to Wesley (9 December 1785), Duke C. 101 Telford, 7:32. 102 Wesley to Wride (16 September 1785), Telford, 7:291. 103 Rack, 598. 104 On Meares, a local preacher based in Rochester, see Wesley’s letter to him of 15 August 1790, Telford, 8:233. 105 Wride to Wesley (27 October 1786), PLP115/9/36, MARC. 106 Wride later made a new will, presumably after her death. 107 The other preachers stationed in Kent were George Shadford, William Bramwell, and James Gore—Rack, 598. 108 Olsen, Daily Life, 266. 109 Catherine Hall, “The Sweet Delights of Home,” in A History of Private Life: IV, ed. Michelle Perrot (Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990), 55. 110 Wesley to Wride (29 October 1786), Telford, 7:348. 111 She was buried three days later—see Bishops’ Transcripts of Burials for York­ shire (Ainsty and City of York), Borthwick Institute for Archives (accessed via Findmypast). 112 Holloway, Game, 168. 113 PLP115/9/15. Cited in Telford, 6:309, editor’s note. 114 Wride to Wesley (27 October 1786), PLP115/9/36, MARC. 115 Duke D. 116 PLP115/9/41, MARC. 117 PLP115/9/16, MARC. 118 Gibson and Begiato, Sex and the Church, 128.

5

Wride, preacher and physician

Introduction Wride began his career at a crucial time in the development of Wesley’s preacher cadre. After the failure of Wesley’s repeated attempts to develop an ‘evangelical alliance’ with leading Anglican clergy, the Conference had turned its mind to the financing of its own network of preachers. Significant steps included the introduction in 1768 of a ban on preachers pursuing secular trades and the enhancement of support for preachers’ wives in the following year.1 Wride was one of the first of a new breed of salaried, full-time ministers. Wesley’s preachers had various pastoral and administrative as well as preaching duties. As defined by the 1744 Conference, their first responsibil­ ity was ‘to feed and guide, to teach and govern the flock’, but they were also charged with resolving disputes amongst the membership, disciplining the ‘disorderly’, supervising the work of ‘the Stewards, the Leaders, Schoolmas­ ters and Housekeepers’,2 and sometimes even hunting for ghosts.3 Some, including Wride, also offered medical services.

Preaching Wride and his colleagues led worship, both amongst members and at pub­ lic preaching services. The context varied hugely, from small gatherings in private homes to mass rallies in the open air, but the typical pattern com­ prised prayers, preaching and hymn-singing. The preacher was responsible for choosing the hymns and any Bible readings and leading the prayers, as well as delivering the sermon.4 Wride’s sermons seem in many respects to have been typical of those of his contemporaries in Wesley’s Connexion, though no complete texts have survived. His papers do however feature some (undated) notes on sermons, including on I Timothy iv. 7—‘and exercise thyself rather unto godliness’— and on II Peter i. 3–4, on the same theme. Like other preachers, he kept a sermon register of the Bible texts on which he had preached, including the date and location. This reduced the risk that the same people would hear the

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same message twice.5 Several of Wride’s registers are extant, notably from his service in Ireland in the early 1770s. The demand for sermons from Wesley’s preachers was enormous—in his year at Newry, for example, Wride’s (incomplete) sermon register shows that he preached at least 289 times.6 Unsurprisingly, Wesleyan and indeed other preachers frequently recycled material. Before his rise to Connexional prominence, the young Adam Clarke was appreciative of the practice, noting in his journal—of his first appointment in Bradford, Wiltshire—that The Preachers rarely stopped two days in the same place, and were almost constantly on horseback. This circumstance was advantageous to a young preacher, who could not be supposed to have any great vari­ ety of texts or of matter, and consequently not able as yet to minister constantly to the same congregation.7 Wride’s approach was similar. When in Newry, he used 55 Bible texts over the year, on average preaching 5.25 times on each, suggesting repeated deliv­ ery of similar though not necessarily identical sermons. Some texts were particular favourites, as the table overleaf shows. Notably, Wride recorded preaching at least 25 times from Revelation 2:17, a text not recorded as ever used by Wesley himself. The nine texts featured in the table accounted for more than half of Wride’s sermons on this circuit. Wride claimed always to preach extemporary sermons. Wesley himself published many sermons and spoke from notes, although ‘Quite often, it seems, his preaching went off into the realm of telling stories’.8 Wride told one colleague who had criticised one of his sermons: ‘You cannot expect me to give an account, verbatim, of what I say in preaching; I never wrote a sermon; I seldom use a skeleton’.9 If he did indeed preach extempore, this accorded with the practice of leading preachers such as Samuel Bradburn (1751–1816)10 or the Irish evangelist Thomas Walsh (1730–59), of whom Wesley wrote to his brother Charles (28 June 1755): ‘I love, admire, and honour him, and wish we had six preachers in all England of his spirit’.11 After Walsh’s premature death, Wesley’s Book Room published his sermons but advised readers that He wrote but few Sermons; perhaps not above a Dozen in all; and these he wrote, after having first preached them. They were the free Pourings out of a Heart deeply penetrated with invisible Realities, and in a rapid Flow of scriptural Oratory.12 However, there is some evidence that preachers sometimes used others’ ser­ mon notes—William Blagborne borrowed some of the late James Oddie’s ‘written sermons & skeletons’ and offered to buy the rest.13

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Table 5.1 Texts used most frequently in Wride’s sermons in the Newry circuit, 1772–3 Text

King James Version

Times used

Revelation 2:17

‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.’ ‘Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.’ ‘Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.’ ‘He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.’ ‘The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.’ ‘Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.’ ‘Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.’ ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ ‘Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.’

25

1 John 3:1

Psalm 119:165 1 John 3:8

Nahum 1:7 2 Peter 3:14 Revelation 3:20

John 8:32 Psalm 89:15

24

19 16

16 15 13

12 11

If Wride claimed to preach extempore, some of his extant sermon notes are in continuous prose. Possibly he read out sermons on occasion, or per­ haps, like Wesley, he wrote up some sermons for publication. And preach­ ing extempore did not imply the absence of preparation. On the contrary, Wride’s sermons were the fruit of some study.14 When based in the Armagh circuit in Ireland in 1771, he explained to Wesley, I have travelled on foot hitherto. But I have no thought of being capable to continue it. I cannot carry clothes sufficient. Much less can I carry books, that (for me however) is indispensably needful. I cannot preach

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without reading. I can talk for an hour it is true, but if the people are as sick of me as I sometimes am of myself, they would not hear me.15 Wride would of course have often heard Wesley preach. He was in Lon­ don in the late 1750s and associated with Spitalfields chapel, so may well have heard Wesley’s 17 November 1758 sermon there on 1 John 3:1, a text on which Wride himself preached frequently when in Newry in 1772–3. He also had access to the small libraries of books held in many preachers’ houses. We have no record of his own holdings, but some idea of other sources upon which he drew can be gleaned from the few references to reli­ gious works in his papers:

Table 5.2 Religious works and authors quoted or mentioned by Wride Work

Source

(1559) Book of Common Prayer (1662) Book of Common Prayer Alleine, J. (1691), An Alarme to Unconverted Sinnersi Baxter, Richard—unspecified workii Coke T. (1785), The Substance of a Sermon on the Godhead of Christ Derham, W. (1731), Astro-Theology Hill, R. (1773), Logica Wesleiensis, or The Farrago Double Distilled Kempis, Thomas à—unspecified workiii Robinson, unknown hymnal Sellon, Walter—unspecified work Spence, R. (1783), A Pocket Hymn Book Designed as a Constant Companion for the Pious Tillotson, J. (1720), The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson, Sermon XIIiv Watts, I. (1706), Horae Lyricae Wesley, J. (1745), A Word in Season Wesley, J. (1775), A Sermon on 1st John v. 7 Wesley, J. (1784), The Doctrine of Original Sin Wesley, J. and C. (1742), Hymns and Sacred Poems Wesley, J. and C. (1749), Hymns and Sacred Poems Wesley, J. and C. (1753), Hymns and Spiritual Songs Winterton, R. (1627), The Meditations of John Gerhard

Duke F Duke D, Duke E Duke F Duke F Duke C PLP115/9/15, MARC PLP115/9/13, MARC PLP115/9/35, MARC PLP115/9/35, MARC Duke F PLP115/9/35, MARC Duke F PLP115/9/28, MARC PLP115/9/25, MARC PLP115/9/39, MARC PLP115/9/35, MARC PLP115/9/26, MARC Duke E; PLP115/9/24, MARC PLP115/9/35, MARC Duke F

i A version of which was published in Wesley’s Christian Library, which may have been Wride’s source. ii Some Baxter material also featured in the Christian Library. iii But presumably one of Wesley’s editions of The Imitation of Christ. iv Wesley published two of Tillotson’s sermons in his Christian Library but not this one.

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Wride’s other preparations included choosing hymns which were relevant to his message, which is why he fought so hard to prevent his choirs and congregations from taking control of chapel music.16 Wride tailored his sermons to his audience, in two related respects: in the extent to which he preached in order to win their conversion, as distinct from teaching his hearers how to live better lives, and in the theological sophistication of his message. He tended to preach evangelistic sermons on Sunday evenings, because it was these services which typically attracted the largest numbers of visitors. On other occasions, where the congregation pri­ marily comprised society members, he delivered teaching sermons of some theological depth and complexity, designed to help them in their continuing journey of faith. He explained to Wesley on 8 November 1773, I think there is some few in York who is not well pleased with my manner in preaching: I find they want me to ‘preach to the people that are without, not speak of perfection except in close Society.’ I cannot comply with this. . . . On a Sunday evening I speak principally to such, but at other times I find other work. . . . I am sorry for those who . . . want a preacher to be continually talking of hell and proving half-way through every discourse that man is a sinner, that he cannot save him­ self, that he must repent &c. Those who think it their duty thus to speak always may do it; but I think it my duty to build as well as lay the foundation, & there are those in York who can receive it. And young men must not be starved, because fretful children will not (or even if they cannot) eat.17 This approach mirrored that of Wride’s assistant at York, William Hunter. One of his hearers (and admirers) there later recalled, I remember to have heard him [i.e. Hunter] say, that when he first entered upon the laborious work of a Methodist preacher, his discourses were confined chiefly to the first principles of religion, exhorting and inviting sinners to repent, and pointing them to Jesus Christ, in order that they might obtain, through faith, the pardon of their sins. But after a season his mind was more engaged in building up believers in their most holy faith.18 And in 1785, Charles Bland, then at King’s Lynn, wrote of the benefits of sermons on ‘perfection’ or ‘holiness’: In general, the people love holiness, and many of them have been lately brought thro’ great struggles of soul, to the experimental knowledge, and enjoyment of it. I am sure when I am preaching this to them, I find more light in the word of God, and life in my soul, than when I am not speaking of it.19

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As Abraham has pointed out, Wesley himself always sought the ‘appropriate balance’ between preaching the good news of the gospel and the demands of following God’s law, day by day: He proposed that the preacher should begin with a promissory note of the good news of the gospel, then focus on the law as a means of awakening conviction of sin, and finally move to the exposition of the gospel.20 The content of Wride’s sermons seems to have been entirely orthodox, in terms of consistency with Wesley’s theology, but if his overall approach was in line with the best of contemporary practice in Wesley’s Connexion, he was less at ease with evangelistic preaching, and preferred to deliver teach­ ing sermons. He was, for example, highly critical of the gospel preaching of Jonathan Hern, with whom he served on the Athlone circuit in Ireland in 1774–5. Hern had a good reputation in the Connexion—Samuel Bard­ sley, who was himself held in high esteem, described him to a colleague as ‘a person of great abilities’.21 Wride begged to differ, telling Henry Moore, I think I never heard Jonathan preach but four times in the whole, but I have been told that he has a pleasing way, viz. by telling people how happy they will be when they get to heaven. Such a way of preaching may please fools but will not help many into heaven.22 Such comments echoed Wesley’s earlier concerns over James Wheatley’s ‘Soft, sentimental form of preaching that focused exclusively on the prom­ ises of the gospel and set aside the demands of the law’.23 Wride was simi­ larly troubled when serving in Norwich in 1785–6 alongside the young and enthusiastic James Byron, whom he described to Wesley as ‘[a] man of fire, and calculated for the outer-court worshippers chiefly’ (i.e. for those inter­ ested in the gospel but as yet unconverted).24 Indeed, the most extensive of Wride’s extant sermon notes relate to Psalm 119 vs. 165: ‘Great peace have they which love thy law; and nothing shall offend them’.25 As we have seen, his sermon grids show that he preached 19 times on this text when on the Newry circuit in 1772–3, so the notes may well date from that period. Wride’s exposition, now amongst his autobio­ graphical notes, was structured as follows: I. Enquire, What are we to understand by this law? Called, ‘thy Law’. II. What is intended by loving of it? III. Who are the persons that do love it? And, Why do they love it? IV. Show the peace they have: and by various arguments, prove it to be great peace. V. Explain and prove the promise: Nothing shall offend them. VI. And lastly, make improvement of the whole.26

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Wride did not always preach in the straightforward and simple style which was a widely remarked characteristic of Wesley and most of his preachers. Samuel Johnson had commended the ‘plain vulgar manner’ of Methodist preaching,27 while in 1800, the Somerset parson William Holland observed that the local people: Love to have their faults pointed out to them in the most common lan­ guage, & if you abuse them a little, so much the better. ‘’Tis a deadly fine discourse’, they say. It is thus Methodism gains ground; they send them all to perdition at once & this pleases their palates hugely.28 Another clergyman warned his colleagues that Every refined and sententious expression, every rhetorical ornament, and that classical diction, by which we are taught to embellish our com­ positions, elevate them far beyond the level of a vulgar comprehension.29 A plain preaching style was central to Wesley’s purpose, as he explained to a clerical friend, Clearness in particular is necessary for you and me, because we are to instruct people of the lowest understanding. . . . We should constantly use the most common, little, easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords.30 Wride made some effort to preach in this style; at any rate, he excoriated the York preacher George Gibbon for not doing so. In a series of letters, he was merciless in critiquing sermon after sermon for being unduly complicated, as in this example: Your explanation of the mystery of the Trinity excels all others, at least all that I have lighted on. You gave us for proof, as well as illustra­ tion, the Two Olive-Trees, and the Oil dropping from the Trees into the Bowl . . . Mr. Wesley observed (from Dean Swift) that ‘it was an unfor­ tunate hour when men began to explain the Trinity’.31 You may see in Mr. Wesley’s sermon expressly on the Trinity, he owns that he does not understand it32; therefore he does not attempt an explanation. Pity but you had been so wise.33 Wride may have been a powerful preacher, at least on occasion. The preacher John Braithwaite was brought up in Whitehaven and was converted in 1789, during one of Wride’s periods of service there. Though his memoirs do not mention Wride, he paid this tribute to the preachers he had encountered: They prayed with such apparent devotion, and explained the scriptures with such plainness and simplicity, giving the natural and spiritual sense

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and meaning thereof, as to afford me the greatest pleasure and enter­ tainment, at the same time that my soul was instructed and edified.34 Wride’s use of earthy and direct language, though problematic in his profes­ sional relationships, might have served him well in preaching, especially to his less sophisticated congregations. One historian has attributed the success of Methodism in rural Ireland in part to the fact that ‘The itinerant preachers . . . were expert at explaining difficult theological ideas in simple rustic par­ ables’.35 Wride’s service in large and predominantly rural circuits, and especially in Ireland and the Isle of Man where English was for many a sec­ ond language, might have reflected the leadership’s positive recognition of this characteristic of his sermons, although when Wesley initiated a summer evangelistic campaign on the Isle of Man in 1777, he ordered Wride to stay on the mainland.36 Contemporaries’ comments suggest that Wride’s preaching style was often idiosyncratic to the point of eccentricity. This exasperated Wesley, who warned him in 1779, ‘At least, be serious in the pulpit! Let nothing queer, odd, or ludicrous pass your lips there!’37 We cannot be sure what was at issue, but in 1776, his ‘strains of sarcastic wit’ had caused offence on the Isle of Man.38 Vigour and even theatricality in preaching were not of course unique to Wride. A 1776 newspaper article contrasted leading Anglican clergymen with ‘Methodistical’ preachers, while rating the former highly for ‘argument’, ‘elegance’, ‘pathos’, and ‘graceful action’, the Methodists stood out for their ‘energy’ and ‘extravagant action’ in the pulpit.39 Wride did not always find it easy to maintain the effort required in pre­ paring and delivering sermons. On 8 November 1777, he wrote to a col­ league, Joseph Bradford, after almost a decade as a travelling preacher: I can truly say that nothing short of—nor nothing beside—the glory of God & the welfare of souls, inclined me to think of being a preacher. Yet I often find my lukewarm proceeding, in a work on which I entered with such trembling, that makes me ashamed. It is true I yet do con­ stantly retain a view of this, but it is as it were at a distance: I have not the fire that I once had.40 In fact, as we have seen, by the admittedly crude index of membership trends in circuits in which he served, Wride maintained his effectiveness until the early 1780s, but then his performance collapsed.

Discipline For Wride, next to preaching, his priority was to maintain discipline, both in terms of adherence by preachers to Conference decisions and the adherence of members of local societies to Connexional rules. His obses­ sion with discipline is striking; as Frank has noted (drawing primarily on American scholarship), ‘The most notable feature of discipline as a topic of

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Methodist Studies is the dearth of scholarship addressing discipline per se in the Methodist traditions.’41 Wride frequently criticised his predecessors and colleagues for their laxity and rebutted vigorously any suggestion that he himself fell short. Wesley recognised and respected this trait.42 But discipline was a constant source of friction between Wride and his colleagues and the local societies.43 And though the reality is hard to ascertain, it is evident that his unbending approach reduced his effectiveness and was more rigid than Wesley’s.44

Pastoral work Wride took his pastoral role seriously. Wesley had for example encouraged all his preachers to visit the sick, suggesting in 1753, ‘Would it not be well for the Minister in town to visit the sick on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday?’45 He saw this as a fundamental part of his mission, him­ self founding a sick visiting programme in London, on which he later com­ mented: ‘Upon Reflection, I saw, How exactly in this also, we had copied after the Primitive Church’.46 On arrival in Norwich in 1785, Wride immediately introduced a rigorous system for sick visiting, reporting to Wesley, At the meeting of the Leaders, I desired they would make a point of giving in writing an account of every sick member in their respective classes, their name & place of abode that the preacher on the spot may visit them; for I said it was a shame that a preacher should be so long in N[orwich] and not visit the sick.47 Wride also took great interest in the welfare and spiritual development of children. This, too, had been a preoccupation for Wesley. His detailed instructions of 1766 to preachers included this: 2 Go to each house, and give, with suitable exhortation and direction, the Instructions for Children.48 3 Be sure to deal gently with them, and take off all discouragement as effectually as you can. See that the children get these by heart.49 Where numbers permitted, preachers were told to establish specific chil­ dren’s classes: Wherever there are ten children in a society, spend at least an hour with them twice a week. And do this, not in a dull, dry, formal manner, but in earnest, with your might.50 Some of Wride’s colleagues gave similar priority to work with children. In 1769, Samuel Wells presided over a children’s meeting at Painswick,

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Gloucestershire, as William Holder noted, ‘I was at ye meeting of ye chil­ dren. Mr. Wells met them, I felt great love to them’.51 And in 1782–3, while on the Birstal circuit, John Valton recorded that ‘This afternoon I catechised the children at Hanging-Heaton’.52 But other preachers felt that they had no gift for such work, earning this rebuke from Wesley: ‘But I have no gift for this’. Gift or no gift, you are to do it, else you are not called to be a Methodist preacher. Do it as you can, till you can do it as you would.53 Wride supported the approach and thought that it worked, but his experi­ ence confirms that its implementation by others was patchy. On arriving in the York circuit in 1773, he was dismayed to find that the practice had ended. He tried to reinstate children’s classes at Tadcaster, as he explained to Wesley, On Sunday January 2nd I gave notice for the children to meet me, and I took the names of forty. How many will stand, let time prove, but the past success gives ground for hope for some good.54 On moving to Norwich in 1785, Wride again found that the convening of children’s classes had lapsed, and as he reported to Wesley, he encouraged the society to reinstate them: I spoke about collecting of the children together. I told them of some of the good I had seen by this means, desiring they would use their influ­ ence with their parents, & get them to send their children.55 In all these areas, in short, Wride as a pastor was a loyal follower of good practice as defined by the leadership.

Wride’s wider Connexional role Wride’s duties as a preacher included the marketing and distribution of books produced by Wesley’s Book Room.56 While assiduous, he did not enjoy the role. His papers include fragmentary Book Room records for Armagh (1771–2), Newry (1772–3),57 and Limerick (1775).58 In 1786, how­ ever, Wride told John Atlay, the London Book Steward, that he had first been given responsibility for Book Room affairs when serving in Grimsby in 1782–3. He found the role frustrating largely, he explained, because of problems in securing sufficient supplies of popular titles: Believe me, I never desired to have the care of the books; it was first put upon me at Grimsby. During that piece of a year, I had more trouble with them than I needed to have in the space of twelve years. . . . But

86

Wride, preacher and physician I venture to say that I gave you as little needless trouble as any corre­ spondent, you have had, or are likely to have.59

Wride supported the work of the Connexion in other ways. The 1782 Conference, for example, expressed concern about the number of chapels which had been acquired and held under deeds other than the ‘Model Deed’ approved by Conference, designed to ensure that only authorised preachers had access to chapels.60 In response, Thomas Carlill, the Grimsby assistant, sought copies of all the chapel deeds in his circuit, and Wride responded, I have taken account of the preaching-houses as far as I have been able, but could do nothing at Boston, for I could not learn where the writings are. . . . I cannot find Grimsby deeds, but I am told you are a trustee, and may know something about them.61 In 1786, Wride worked with Thomas Coke editing some document, pre­ sumably for publication, an assignment with which he struggled.62 He was also active in raising funds for Coke’s overseas missionary enterprise and was thanked for his efforts.63 Despite this corporate behaviour, when Wesley set out a new legal framework to support the work of his Connexion after his death, Wride was not one of the 100 preachers named in this 1784 Deed of Declaration, the ‘Legal Hundred’.64

Financial management Wride presented himself as a diligent manager of both circuit and Book Room finances. But although the Connexion developed increasingly sophis­ ticated financial rules over the years, practice in the circuits remained highly variable, especially when the poverty of the membership undermined their capacity to meet their commitments. This frequently caused Wride difficulty. His dispute with the leadership over the finances of Grimsby circuit illus­ trates the point. Wride had been posted there in 1782, following his period of suspension. At the 1783 Conference, it was proposed that the circuit should pay full allowances (£3 a quarter) to two wives in future. Wride objected, claiming that the debt-riddled circuit could not afford it, and its accounts for the period confirm his view.65 Wride argued that the circuit had only coped financially because one of the preachers, Isaac Brown, had mis­ appropriated a donation from a wealthy lay ‘friend’ called John Lill: Mr. John Lill of Marsh Chappel66—once a remarkable scraping worldly man—being visited by God, with somewhat of a dead palsey in his stom[ach] & a shaking one on his conscience, he became in many par­ ticulars a New Man, doing several liberal things. Among them, he gave Mr. Brown £20.0s.0d. Out of this £20 Mr. Brown supplied the last

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year’s deficiencies . . . I am told that Mr. Lill, when he gave him the £20, told him that he might give it to the school at Kingswood, or do what he would do with it. If this be true, in my opinion, Kingswood ought to have had it; that Brother Brown was not a proprietor but a trustee, and that he violated his trust, by this method of supplying ‘deficiencies’.67 It is hard to see what Brown did wrong, and at the very least, Wride’s atti­ tude can be seen as nit-picking. Towards the end of his life, the same detailed and legalistic approach was evident in his proposed changes to the rules for the York Methodist society’s sick visiting scheme.68 His recommendations included tighter discipline at the regular oversight meetings: I would also recommend, that while the names are reading, that no one speak but the Treasurer, or unto the Treasurer; and in those cases, let it be loud enough for all to hear, or the end of reading the names is defeated. But such an attitude could be seen as consistent with Wesley’s own approach; in 1772, he had told Wride, then coming to the end of his service in Armagh: ‘Tho. Dixon or Jo. Wittam may bring over your accounts to the Conference. Be exact in everything!’69

Wride and his generation By the time of Wesley’s death in 1791, a generational shift was under way amongst the preachers, evident in changing standards of both professional and personal conduct. Wride was increasingly out of step with the new mood. A sermon given before the Conference in 1789 by the eminent physi­ cian and Methodist local preacher James Hamilton (1740–1827) had lauded the humble origins of the early preachers, chosen by God: A race of spiritual men; men taken, as formerly, from the trades and common occupations of our land, shepherds and farmers, fishermen and tentmakers. He has fitted these men for the work; filled them with divine light, life, and love.70 A decade later, the senior itinerant preacher John Pawson (1737–1806), with approaching 40 years’ experience,71 pursued a similar line in his address to new recruits, challenging them (and himself, to be fair): ‘Have we put on the ornament of an humble, meek, gentle, mild, quiet and patient spirit?’72 He commended to them the simple spirituality and lack of book-learning of their forebears—indeed the former rendered the latter superfluous: They had very little time or opportunity for improvement, whether by reading or prayer, having seldom any place to retire into: But they were

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Wride, preacher and physician taught of God, and made use of the best helps they could; and they found him all-sufficient.73

New entrants, argued Pawson, had an easier life: ‘Our Circuits are greatly contracted, our journeys are in general short, our accommodations for the most part comfortable. We have time enough for reading, meditation, and prayer.’ But this brought its own dangers, including that of an over-intellectual approach: I fear that some are in no small danger of losing their way, by endeav­ ouring to gratify an unbounded curiosity, in a variety of ways which have nothing to do with the work of the Ministry, or with saving souls.74 Pawson, a builder by trade, had learned his preaching craft on the job. The modernist Adam Clarke (1762–1832) was in contrast a formidable scholar, albeit largely self-taught.75 His Letter to a Methodist Preacher (1800),76 though targeting the same audience, offered a different vision of the min­ istry, and proved highly popular amongst young Methodist preachers— much more so than Pawson’s.77 Clarke envisaged more sophisticated congregations which sought sermons of some intellectual weight. His focus was on preaching as technical performance and sermons as Biblical exposition. In terms of sermon content, there was a sharp divide between the two men. Pawson advocated ‘hell-fire preaching’, which exploited people’s fear of sin and death, asking preachers to consider, Is our preaching in general sufficiently alarming? Do we see the neces­ sity of our hearers being deeply awakened, so as not only to see, but also to feel their lost and ruined state?78 In contrast, Clarke advised delivering an upbeat message which built on the best in people and urged preachers to ‘Beware of discouraging the people, therefore, avoid continually finding fault with them. This does very great hurt’.79 In two key respects, however, they were in full agreement. First, both were wary of preaching which sought to analyse Scripture with too much com­ plexity or subtlety. In 1805, Pawson denounced the young preachers’ ten­ dency to ‘try to refine & philosophise upon divine truth’;80 similarly, Clarke cautioned, Beware of too much dividing, and subdividing: by these means the word of God has been made to speak something, any thing, or nothing, according to the creed or prejudices of the Preacher.81 Neither would have appreciated John Floyd’s sermon on Deuteronomy 18:18–19, in which he sought to compare Moses with Jesus Christ by listing no fewer than 23 points of similarity.82

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Second, both insisted that levity had no place in the preacher’s portfolio. In Pawson’s words, In our conversation with them, are we not sometimes too light and tri­ fling? . . . I cannot help thinking, that it would be far better never to visit the people at all, than that they should hear any thing light or trifling, foolish or vain, from a Preacher.83 While Clarke insisted, in terms which might surprise a modern reader, When in the pulpit, be always solemn: say nothing to make your con­ gregation laugh. . . . Avoid all quaint and fantastic attitudes . . . queer noddings, ridiculous stoopings and erections.84 Where do we place Wride on this spectrum? In some respects, he conformed to the stereotypical ‘first generation’ of preachers exemplified by Pawson— of relatively humble origins, largely self-educated, and in his sermons emphasising the need for personal salvation and collective discipline. How­ ever, there is scant sign in his extant papers of the humility, meekness, and patience which Pawson also saw among the early preachers, and this was a constant criticism which Wesley made of him. Turning to the common concerns of both Pawson and Clarke, it seems quite likely that Wride avoided the over-complication of his message which they both warned preachers to avoid—at any rate, he deplored complexity in others’ sermons.85 Plain and simple sermons using colourful and some­ times colloquial language—and occasional humour—might well have been appropriate in the rural areas in which Wride primarily served. However, it seems undeniable that his pulpit and personal demeanour was characterised by a lack of seriousness, for which he was heavily criticised by Wesley and other contemporaries. This was his undoing.

The age of quackery Wride’s medical practice, which critics dismissed as ‘quackery’, needs to be considered within two contexts—the lively and largely unregulated market for medical services in the eighteenth century,86 and the approach to health and medical care developed by Wesley and his associates. While there were highly educated and licensed medical practitioners, especially in the cities, most people were reliant on a wide range of medical services, including folk healers, self-taught clergy, or ‘quacks’. Quacks relied neither on tried and tested remedies nor on the accepted corpus of medical knowledge.87 Typical ailments for which they offered cures were serious but not immediately fatal conditions, such as asthma, worms, and arthritis.88 There was however a permeable membrane between the worlds of the quacks and conventional medical practitioners; and satirists bracketed Methodist preachers with quacks and other confidence tricksters.89

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Methodists and medicine Religion and medicine had a ‘symbiotic relationship’ in the period.90 Sick visiting was an important role for Anglican clergymen and often extended into the provision of medical advice and remedies.91 John Wesley’s greatgrandfather Bartholomew Wesley had studied medicine as well as theology, and when ejected from his living following the 1662 Act of Uniformity had made his living as a medical practitioner.92 Wesley’s medical interests fell within this tradition, although for him both prayer and ‘regimen’ (such as diet and exercise) were also essential to health.93 In the 1740s, he established dispensaries in London and Bristol,94 but his most ambitious and longestlasting medical initiative was the production of a best-selling self-help man­ ual of medical remedies, Primitive Physick (1747).95 Many of Wesley’s itinerant preachers offered medical services of various kinds.96 Some of the first generation of his preachers combined their role as itinerants in his Connexion with selling patent medicines. One such was Matthew Lowes, who sold a proprietary balsam, until the 1768 Conference ban on preachers carrying on a trade; at this point, he left the itinerancy, though continuing to serve as a local preacher.97 The ban reflected concerns that business would distract preachers from their preaching duties (and associated studies) and about the reputational risk entailed. It referred specifically to the sale of medicines or ‘drops’ but offered preachers a partial exemption from the new requirement: And even as to the drops that many sold, if their wives sell them at home, well; but it is not proper for any preacher to hawk them about. It has a bad appearance. It does not well suit the dignity of his calling.98 Some preachers did however run medical practices, even after the 1768 ban on trades. Presumably they charged only for the medicines used and not for their time, which as unlicensed practitioners, they were entitled to do. One of these was Wride, especially when he was itinerating in Ireland in the mid-1770s.

Thomas Wride, medical practitioner The preachers usually kept small notebooks which served multiple pur­ poses but in essence were compendia of useful information—vital travelling companions, much as a smartphone might be today. Given their prolonged absences from home, they had to take responsibility for their own health, and their notebooks often included medical remedies. Those of George Story are typical; he recorded memoranda on medical remedies, which he called ‘med. mem.’.99

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Wride was an avid collector of remedies, culled from various sources, especially newspapers and popular medical publications. Some may have been intended for self-medication, but others were clearly not; he claimed, for example, that to ‘Take betony & date stones in powder, & drink it’100 would ‘cause delivery [of a baby] speedily’.101 Wride’s medical activities were a key reason for the breakdown of rela­ tionships within the Athlone circuit preaching team in 1774–5, amidst a suite of mutual accusations of unethical medical practice. Wride complained to Wesley that John Floyd had accused him of falsely claiming medical qual­ ifications and counter-attacked by criticising Floyd’s medical incompetence: As J[ohn] F[loyd] has said in my hearing, as well as several beside (but believe it who can), that he hath spent a good fortune in physick. But for an instance of his profound skill: Sister Clay of Blackwater was much afflicted with an overflowing of her monthly visits. She apply’d to J[ohn] F[loyd] for advice. He ordered her to take powder of vale­ rian & tincture of castor every morning; of the latter a teaspoon-full every morning (I am not certain how much of the former). Did ever the most ignorant quack prescribe in a more unmerciful, senseless manner? His good fortune is spent to bad purpose.102 This was possibly unfair in the light of the fact that Floyd was devoting increasing time and energy to medical study. By 1775, he was signing pre­ scriptions as ‘John Floyd, Surgeon’,103 and styling himself ‘J. Floyde, M.P. & S.A.T.C.D.’—presumably suggesting that, as well as being a Methodist preacher, he was a surgeon apothecary and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin.104 He left the itinerancy in 1782, setting up as a surgeon and apoth­ ecary in Yorkshire.105 Three questions arise from Wride’s medical work. First, on what basis did he offer medical services, and what were they? Second, what remedies did he prescribe? And third, what impact did his practice have? Wride’s papers show that he provided medical services—as an unlicensed practitioner—when travelling in Ireland in the mid-1770s. An early nineteenth-century historian, drawing on his own recollections, described him as acting as a ‘quack’ while serving in Whitehaven around the same period.106 Wride offered consultations and courses of treatment; he did not simply sell drugs. Thus, one of his undated prescriptions concluded: ‘If anything happen amiss let me see you. Otherwise, you may stay [i.e. wait] until Monday, four o’clock in the afternoon’.107 The limited evidence sug­ gests that Wride’s patients were primarily Methodists. Amongst his papers, for example, is a complicated medical remedy apparently annotated by a preacher colleague, whom it clearly did not impress, for he wrote, ‘J. Rob­ ertshaw. I don’t like it’.108

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The financial basis on which Wride provided his medical services is unknown. He may have followed the apothecaries’ approach of charging for medicines but not for medical advice—the following patient record, dating from Wride’s retirement in York, and one of a few in his surviving papers, bears that interpretation: ‘1801. Ann Shepherd of Walmgate, right hand, January 10–’.109 It is not clear either to what extent he offered medical advice and assis­ tance beyond the Methodist community. When in Norwich in the 1780s, he criticised a local General Baptist philanthropist and doctor for offering such services as a means of attracting recruits.110 One of his remedies suggests, however, that Wride may have treated non-Methodists: Levigated [i.e. finely powdered] antimony: ziv Lignum Guiacum: ziv Purified nitre: zii Lig. Salsafras: ziv Liquorice root: zii Water sixteen quart: boil to half; it may be boiled a second time. Dose of the strong, half a pint: 3 times per day, the second at will; eat no meat. Drink nothing but the decoction.111 The ingredients cited had multiple uses—Wesley himself, for example, pre­ scribed lignum guiacum for rheumatism and to prevent abortion.112 But all were also well known remedies for venereal diseases.113 This raises the possi­ bility that Wride was treating non-Methodists for such conditions or, which would be more surprising, that he was treating members for them or (even more unlikely) that he was treating himself, though as we have seen, he denied ever committing ‘fornication’.114 What remedies did Wride prescribe? The accusations of ‘quackery’ seem unfair—Wride, like Wesley, drew his medical remedies from well-established sources. Some were similar to those found in Primitive Physick, though the overlap is not great. Wride made detailed notes from other publications, such as Marryat’s much-reprinted Art of Healing.115 He had a lifelong inter­ est in the healing arts—his papers include a remedy written on the reverse of a page taken from an 1801 publication, a decade after his retirement from full-time ministry.116 The limited evidence suggests that Wride was generally a cautious practi­ tioner; in 1786, he briefed Wesley on this course of treatment for his wife: An acquaintance of hers, for want of proper care at that season, was labouring under great affliction, which made my wife so very careful to avoid the same, that she took anything which I advised for her. But she over-did the thing; my general prescriptions were, to take as much as to

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have three or 4 stools; but in my absence, and without my knowledge, she would procure perhaps to the number of 30. The thing then feared is now far enough from her; but Sir, you need not be told what conse­ quences were likely to follow such a practice.117 The range of medical problems which for Wride recorded remedies was much in line with that of the typical unlicensed medical practitioner. Of the 14 common ailments noted earlier for which such practitioners offered services in the eighteenth century, Wride recorded remedies for at least ten.118 He did however share Wesley’s interest in new medical technology. In 1786, he briefed him on a new medical technique which the operator called ‘magnetism’ but seems more like hypnotism—Wride was in any case sceptical: Yesterday I heard something new & odd, viz. a method (discovered in France) of curing diseases by what they call magnetism. This name was given because at first they made use of a magnet in the operation, but one of the pupils by experiment found that the motion without the magnet would do the same. . . . First a person adopted is (not only independent of his own will but in spite of his or her own resolution) put to sleep, without either medicine or any previous watching. In his sleep he is made to describe in an anatomical manner the seat & nature of the disease, and then to remove it. If they can persuade themselves to call it magnetism, I must beg the liberty to think it magic.119 In one respect, Wride was unorthodox, and that was in his practice of ‘corpse medicine’ or ‘medicinal cannibalism’. The medical use of human body parts and products had been widespread in Europe since ancient times—human blood, fat, mummified flesh (‘mummy’), and bone were all commonplace remedies.120 Powdered human skull, in particular, had been popularised by Charles II, as part of a formula called ‘Goddard’s Drops’, comprising ‘Five pounds of human skull (of a person hanged or dead of some violent death), two pounds of dried vipers, two pounds of hartshorn, and two of ivory’.121 This was not mere superstition or folk medicine, though especially in rural societies such beliefs were intertwined with the practice.122 It drew on longstanding beliefs in ‘sympathetic medicine’, whereby ingestion of body parts (and other substances such as iron) transmitted to the patient the qualities of the substance (physical strength in the case of iron). Fur­ thermore, leading contemporary authorities such as the physician George Cheyne, whose works formed a key source for Wesley’s Primitive Physick, and reportedly the scientist Robert Boyle, also endorsed human skull prod­ ucts, often for epilepsy and other neurological disorders.123 Madden has

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noted that ‘Contemporary critics and modern scholars have castigated him [i.e. Wesley] for simply lifting whole sections of Cheyne’s work and adapting them for his own use’.124 By the mid-eighteenth century, however, medicinal cannibalism was in decline, largely because of Enlightenment attitudes amongst the emerging medical profession. A 1751 dictionary entry for ‘Goddard’s Drops’ read, ‘A medicinal liquor . . . at present it is but very little used’.125 The entry for ‘mummy’ in Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary captured the changing mood: At present we are wise enough to know, that the virtues ascribed to the parts of the human body are all either imaginary, or such as may be found in other animal substances: the mummy and the skull alone of all these horrid medicines retain their places in the shops. This ambivalence was evident in the disagreement between Floyd and Wride on the matter. Floyd criticised Wride for prescribing powdered human skull. Wride defended the practice directly in his 1775 letter to Wesley but was clearly uneasy at the accusation: While I was on Athlone circuit, Sister Charles was ill. I gave her what I thought fit. The success she will I suppose tell you, as I expect she is now in Dublin. Sister Charles wrote this in a letter to Limerick and some in Limerick told J[ohn] F[loyd] of it. He told them that what I gave Mrs. Charles was powder of ‘Human Scull’. How mean this, if true! How wicked, if false! However, this I say—that I have not for full two years given a single grain of ‘Human Scull’ to any one; not but that I have given to many in time past, & should again, if occasion & opportunity offered.126 The extent of Wride’s use of medicinal cannibalism is unknown. It may have comprised only the occasional use of human skull, and it may well have been confined to his service in Ireland. The skulls used were ideally taken from young men who had recently been executed or died some other violent death, and such skulls were thought to be relatively easily obtainable in Ireland.

Conclusion Like Wesley, Wride saw himself as part of a preaching tradition dating back to the Apostle Paul, who was, in Wride’s view, himself a Method­ ist. He explained the central importance of this in a 1798 letter to Wil­ liam Blagborne, a colleague whose preaching he felt stood outside this tradition:

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I can tell you when, where and how you publickly disowned the need of God giving Jesus Christ to die for our salvation. I can also tell you when and where (ie. if your preaching go for orthodoxy) you made all Real Methodist preachers, St. Paul included, to be a group of fools.127 He was a thoughtful preacher, who prepared his sermons (and the services of which they formed the core) with care and sought to match his mes­ sage to the audience. His forte was teaching rather than evangelism, but his wordy, humorous, and combative approach did not suit everyone. We will explore its impact further in later chapters. Wride clearly had the capacity to be an effective preacher and pastor and typically added significant numbers to the membership rolls of the circuits in which he served. But he was not an enthusiastic evangelist and certainly no revivalist. His manner in the pulpit offended some and sometimes lacked gravitas. And by 1780, after more than a decade on the road, his energy was beginning to flag. His approach to the wider aspects of the preacher’s role engendered criti­ cism, often quite fierce. He paid great attention to discipline, but as we will see, this was not always appreciated by his flock. He took his pastoral role seriously, yet seems often to have sown discord and distrust. He worried over money and over his Book Room responsibilities; it is not at all evident that he performed well in these areas either. While Wride’s medical practice was in some respects unorthodox, it would be unfair to dismiss him as a ‘quack’; he made an effort to understand and then treat his patients’ specific symptoms, rather than prescribing universal nostrums. Indeed, in 1775, he complained to Wesley that John Floyd, who like him offered medical services, prescribed a remedy without even taking a patient’s history: It appeared that he took it for granted without reason or enquiry that it was a g[onorrhea?] virulent. But, how was this likely to cure? Here was no regard paid unto nor indeed enquiry after any of the usual concomi­ tant symptoms of this disease.128 What impact did Wride’s practice have? Contemporary expectations were modest—as one celebrated Edinburgh practitioner commented, It is always . . . in the power of the patient, or of those about him, to do as much towards his recovery as can be effected by the physician’.129 Though the evidence is simply lacking, Wride was probably no less suc­ cessful than his medical contemporaries, of whom Porter observes, ‘The net contribution of physicians to the relief and cure of the sick remained marginal’.130

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What is beyond question is that Wride’s ministry was often disrupted by opposition from within the Connexion and beyond. Fortunately for us, Wride recorded his side of the story in great and occasionally comic detail, and it is that rich record of the human drama found in early Methodism that we will now explore further.

Figure 5.1 Adam Clarke (1762–1832), who came to prominence as Wride’s career was ending Source: Image courtesy of The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (Wesley Historical Society Library), Oxford Brookes University

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Figure 5.2 Alexander Mather (1733–1800), an exact contemporary of Wride’s who also became a leading figure within Wesley’s Connexion Source: Image courtesy of The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (Wesley Historical Society Library), Oxford Brookes University

Notes 1 2 3 4

Norris, Financing, 24, 45.

Rack, 139, [§72]. See also Lenton, 129–31.

As we will see in chapter nine.

Lenton, 133–4. The preacher’s control over the form and content of worship

was however increasingly contested, as Wride’s experiences showed. On Meth­ odist worship within its contemporary context, see Bryan D. Spinks, Liturgy in the Age of Reason (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008).

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5 This reuse of material was a central feature of the itinerant ministry in Wesley’s Connexion. Field’s analysis of the Victorian Charles Prest (1806–75), for exam­ ple, shows that over the periods 1845–48 and 1851–54, he left ‘fully decipher­ able’ records of preaching 869 sermons using only 264 texts—Clive D. Field, “Sidelights on the Victorian Wesleyan Ministry: The Diary of Charles Prest, 1823–75—A Quantitative Analysis,” PWHS 52 (2000): 176–83. 6 Duke A. He preached his first recorded sermon in the circuit on 7 Septem­ ber 1772 and his last on 9 July 1773, an average of virtually one sermon a day. However, no sermons are recorded between 11 and 24 June 1773, nor again between 24 June and his apparent departure from the circuit on 9 July. 7 Joseph B.B. Clarke, An Account of the Infancy, Religious and Literary Life, of Adam Clarke (London: T.S. Clarke, 1833), 1:179. 8 Richard P. Heitzenrater, “John Wesley’s Principles and Practice of Preaching,” Methodist History 37, no. 2 (1999): 104. 9 Wride to Thomas Carlill (12 April 1783), Duke B. Mainstream Anglican prac­ tice was different: ‘Extempore preaching was not something people were pre­ pared to do’—William M. Jacob, The Clerical Profession in the Long Eighteenth Century 1680–1840 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 260. 10 In 1805, he published a sermon which he had preached ‘in several places . . . without ever writing what would make two pages’—Samuel Bradburn, God Shining Forth from Between the Cherubim (Bolton: Printed for the Author, 1805), iii. 11 Baker, 2:565. Wesley also commended Walsh for his ‘plain-dealing’—Wesley to Wride (1 November 1779), Telford, 6:360–1. On his career, see Robert H. Gal­ lagher, Pioneer Preachers of Irish Methodism (Wesley Historical Society [Irish Branch], 1965), 3–5. 12 James Morgan, The Life and Death of Mr. Thomas Walsh (London: Printed by H. Cock, 1763), in the ‘Advertisement’, i.e. preface. 13 Blagborne to Eli Jowett (13 August 1791)—Early Preachers’ Letters, transcribed by Everett, Vol. 1, MA1977/485, MARC, f.66. 14 For an Anglican parallel, see Michael Stone, ed., The Diary of John Longe (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, for the Suffolk Records Society, 2008). Longe also kept a sermon register, in which he additionally noted the various sources on which he had drawn. 15 Wride to Wesley (12 October 1771), Duke A.

16 This topic is explored in detail in chapter seven.

17 Duke A.

18 As recounted by ‘F.P.’ in a memoir of Hunter dated 6 October 1797, in Jackson,

2:257. 19 Bland to James Oddie (15 November 1785)—Early Preachers’ Letters, tran­ scribed by Everett, Vol. 1, MA1977/485, MARC, ff.105–6, at 105. 20 William J. Abraham, “Wesley as Preacher,” in Cambridge Companion, ed. Mad­ dox and Vickers, 98–112, at 106. 21 Bardsley to Thomas Tatham—Correspondence of Samuel Bardsley, PLP5/6, MARC. 22 Wride to Moore (undated, but probably 1784), Duke B. 23 Abraham, “Wesley,” 106. 24 Wride to Wesley (14 November 1785), Duke C. Their relationship is discussed in more detail in chapter six. 25 In the King James Version. 26 Duke F. 27 Entry for 30 July 1763, James Boswell, London Journal 1762–1763 (London: Penguin Books, 2010), 296. Though Johnson knew Wesley, the reference may be to George Whitefield and associates.

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28 Journal entry for 22 June 1800, William Holland papers, A/BTL 2/7, Somerset Heritage Centre. 29 Robert A. Ingram, The Causes of the Increase of Methodism & Dissension . . . (London: Printed for J. Hatchard, 1807), 13–14. 30 Wesley to Samuel Furly (16 July 1764), Campbell, 381. At one stage, Wesley hoped to recruit Furly (c. 1732–95) into his movement—see Maddox, online register of ‘contemporary persons’. 31 An imperfect recollection of Wesley’s endorsement of a judgement by Jonathan Swift that the Trinity was beyond explanation, as referred to in Wesley’s Ser­ mon 55 “On the Trinity”: ‘It was in an evil hour that these explainers began their fruitless work’—Outler, 2:373–86, at 377. This sermon was written and preached in Ireland in May 1775. 32 A not unreasonable if crude summary of Wesley’s stance in this sermon. 33 Wride to Gibbon (October–November 1802), PLP115/9/39, MARC. 34 Dickinson, Life of the Rev. John Braithwaite, 9. 35 Myrtle Hill, “Protestantism in County Fermanagh, c. 1750–1912,” in Ferman­ agh: History and Society, ed. Eileen M. Murphy and William J. Roulston (Dub­ lin: Geography Publications, 2004), 396. 36 Wesley to Wride (7 May 1777), Telford, 6:264–5. 37 Wesley to Wride (10 August 1779), Telford, 6:352–3. 38 Isle of Man Conference Minutes, MA1977/447, MARC. 39 St. James’s Chronicle, 10–12 September 1776. 40 Duke D. 41 Thomas E. Frank, “Discipline,” in Oxford Handbook, ed. Abraham and Kirby, 245. There is also an extended discussion of preachers’ ‘reasons for leaving’, including disciplinary matters, in Lenton, 291–309. 42 Wesley to John Mason (1 November 1775), Telford, 6:186. 43 See chapter seven. 44 Thus Rack talks of the old Wesley’s ‘flexible response to pressure from below and his eye for providential guidance through the work of his followers’—Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast (London: Epworth Press, 1989), 552. 45 Rack, “Large Minutes 1753–63,” 851, [§26]. 46 John Wesley, A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists, second edition (London: Printed by W. Strahan, 1749), 27. 47 Wride to Wesley (7 September 1785), Duke D. 48 John Wesley, Instructions for Children (London: Printed for M. Cooper, 1745). 49 Rack, 336. 50 Ibid., 341. 51 Entry for 28 November 1769, William Holder journal, MA1977/238, MARC. 52 Entry for 3 March 1783, Joseph Sutcliffe, The Life and Labours of the Late Rev. John Valton (London: John Mason), 108. Hanging Heaton is near Dewsbury, Yorkshire. 53 Rack, 341. 54 Wride to Wesley (c. 15 January 1774), Duke A. 55 Wride to Wesley (7 September 1785), Duke D. 56 Lenton, 147–8; see also Norris, Financing, 164–7; and Jennifer Snead, “Sacred Colportage: Readers and Agency in Early Methodist Book Distribution,” Jour­ nal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 41 (2018): 179–91. 57 Duke A. 58 The financial notes are in manuscript PLP115/9/14, MARC, and are dated ‘Lim­ erick, July 17th, 1775’. The membership total cited—185—relates to that circuit rather than to Athlone: see Rack, 444. 59 Wride to Atlay (27 February 1786), Duke C. 60 Rack, Introduction, 84–5.

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61 Wride to Carlill (3 March 1783), Duke B. 62 See chapter six. 63 8 August 1788, Circular letter addressed to the subscribers to the West Indian mission, PLP28/6/22, MARC. In a manuscript note on the reverse of Wride’s copy, Coke commended his financial support (Wride was then at Whitehaven). 64 The Legal Hundred were chosen by Wesley out of the more than 200 itinerant preachers in the Connexion and, Rack suggests, excluded known dissidents. See Rack, 546–9. 65 Horncastle Circuit, Methodist Steward’s Quarter Book (1782), vols 12, Duke. 66 Marshchapel is a coastal village some 11 miles from Grimsby. 67 Grimsby circuit accounts, PLP115/9/35, MARC. 68 1806 (probably), Visitation rules, York, notes by Wride, PLP115/9/16, MARC. 69 Wesley to Wride (30 June 1772), Telford, 5:325. 70 James Hamilton, A Sermon Preached at Leeds, July 29th, 1789, Before the Methodist Preachers (London: Printed by the Author, 1790), 13–14. See also Margaret Batty, James Hamilton of Dunbar (Emsworth: World Methodist His­ torical Society, 1998). 71 He became an itinerant preacher in 1762 and won a reputation as both an out­ standing preacher and administrator (DMBI). 72 John Pawson, A Serious and Affectionate Address to the Junior Preachers in the Methodist Connection (London: Unknown Publisher, 1798), 6. 73 Ibid., 9. 74 Ibid., 10. 75 See his entry in ODNB, in which Ian Sellers describes him as ‘a late developer and autodidact’. His doctorate was honorary. 76 Clarke, Letter, London: Printed for J. Butterworth and W. Baynes. 77 Mack, Heart Religion, 275. This section draws on her perceptive analysis of the two authors’ differing approaches. 78 Pawson, Address, 23. 79 Clarke, Letter, 8. 80 Pawson to George Merryweather (8 August 1805)—Early Preachers’ Letters, transcribed by Everett, Vol. 1, MA1977/485, MARC, ff.33–4. 81 Clarke, Letter, 13. 82 John Floyd sermon notes: “Heads of Sermons preach’d at different Times by J. Floyde, M.P. & S.A.T.C.D. Vol. I. 1775,” MA1977/521, MARC. The passage begins (in the King James Version): ‘I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren . . .’ On Wride’s bitter wrangles with Floyd, see chapter six. 83 Pawson, Address, 7. 84 Clarke, Letter, 12. 85 See the account of Wride’s difficulties with William Blagborne and George Gib­ bon, detailed in chapter six. 86 See for example Roy Porter, “The People’s Health in Georgian England,” in Popular Culture in England, c. 1500–1850, ed. Tim Harris (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995), 124–42; and Irvine Loudon, “The Nature of Provincial Medical Practice in Eighteenth-Century England,” Medical History 29 (1985): 1–32. On Ireland, see James Kelly and Fiona Clark, eds, Ireland and Medicine in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010). 87 Roy Porter, Quacks: Fakers & Charlatans in English Medicine (Stroud: Tempus, 2000), 11. 88 Ibid., 122. Porter lists 14 such ailments. 89 Samuel Johnson of Gawsworth (‘Hurlothrumbo’), A Curious Letter from a Mountebank Doctor to a Methodist Preacher . . . (Edinburgh [?]: Printed for the Book-Sellers, 1797).

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90 Deborah Madden, A Cheap, Safe and Natural Medicine (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2007), 171. 91 See for example Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971), 275; and on the colonial American experience Patricia A. Watson, The Angelical Conjunction (Knoxville, TN: University of Kentucky Press, 1991). 92 Southey, Wesley, 1:4. Southey notes that his uncle Matthew also trained in medicine. 93 Roy and Dorothy Porter, In Sickness and in Health (London: Fourth Estate, 1988), 174–6, 263. Wesley believed that ‘many diseases . . . are either occa­ sioned or increased by diabolical agency—Sermon 72 “Of Evil Angels,” Out­ ler, 3:25. 94 The Bristol dispensary soon closed, partly because of difficulties in securing med­ icine supplies—Alfred Wesley Hill, John Wesley Among the Physicians (London: Epworth Press, 1958), 47. See also Jonathan Barry, “Piety and the Patient: Medi­ cine and Religion in Eighteenth Century Bristol,” in Patients and Practitioners, ed. Roy Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 174. 95 On his wider medical activities, see Hill, Wesley. On the background of Meth­ odist attitudes to sickness, health, and healing, see Henry D. Rack, “Doctors, Demons and Early Methodist Healing,” in The Church and Healing, ed. Wil­ liam J. Sheils (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982), 137–52. 96 Lenton states that ‘at least twelve preachers became physicians, surgeons, doc­ tors, druggists or “quacks” of some kind’—324.

97 Ibid., 323–4.

98 Rack, 360.

99 See for example notebook no. 6, George Story Papers, Duke.

100 Betony was a widely used herbal remedy. 101 Duke A. 102 Wride to Wesley (17 July 1775), PLP115/9/14 & 32, MARC. 103 Ibid. 104 As inscribed on the cover of the first volume of his 1775 sermon notes, MA1977/521, MARC. There is no record of Floyd in the definitive list of Trin­ ity College alumni, Burtchaell, George D., and Thomas U. Sadleir, Alumni Dublinenses (Dublin: A. Thom and Co., 1935). 105 Atmore, 79; see also Rack, 520. A ‘Mr. Floyd’ held an appointment as a sur­ geon at the Leeds General Infirmary—see The Medical Register, for the Year 1783 (London: Printed for Joseph Johnson, 1783), 121. Wesley visited him when in Leeds in 1788—journal entry for 5 May 1788, Ward and Heitzenrater, 7:81. He had some regard for Floyd’s medical expertise, passing on some of his advice to another preacher, Lancelot Harrison on 31 March 1781—Telford, 7:53. 106 “Brief Account of Whitehaven Methodism,” YDFCM/2/102, Whitehaven Archive and Local Studies Centre, 5. 107 PLP115/9/6, MARC. 108 PLP/115/9/8, MARC. This evidence suggests that Wride was treating Robert­ shaw while they were serving together on the Dales circuit in 1777–8. 109 PLP115/9/3, MARC. 110 According to Wride, the gentleman—a Dr. Hunt—also ran a dating agency, again for evangelistic purposes. See chapter eight. 111 Medical notes, (1800–01), PLP115/9/3, MARC. Wride’s 17 July 1775 letter to Wesley (PLP115/9/14 & 32, MARC) also refers to John Floyd apparently treat­ ing a patient for gonorrhea. 112 John Wesley, Primitive Physick (London: Printed and Sold by Thomas Trye), 88–9; ninth edition (London: Printed by W. Strahan, 1761), 29.

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113 See J. Johnston Abraham, “Some Account of the History of the Treatment of Syphilis,” British Journal of Venereal Diseases 24, no. 4 (1948): 153–60; T.J. Wyke, “Hospital Facilities for, and Diagnosis and Treatment of, Vene­ real Disease in England, 1800–1870,” British Journal of Venereal Diseases 49 (1973): 78–85; and Marjorie Bloy, “In Spite of Medical Help: The Puzzle of an Eighteenth-Century Prime Minister’s Illness,” Medical History 34 (1990): 178–84. 114 Wride to an unnamed preacher, 18 July 179–, Duke D. 115 Thomas Marryat, The Art of Healing, fifth edition (Birmingham: Printed by M. Swinney, 1776). 116 Wride, medical notes (1800–01); on a sheet apparently from John Haygarth, A Letter to Dr. Percival on the Prevention of Infectious Fevers (Bath: Printed by R. Cruttwell, 1801)—PLP115/9/3, MARC. 117 Wride to Wesley (27 October 1786), PLP115/9/36, MARC. 118 And possibly for more—medical terminology at the time was not precise. 119 Wride to Wesley (17 October 1786), PLP115/9/36, MARC. 120 Richard Sugg, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2011); Louise Noble, Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Mod­ ern English Literature and Culture (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). 121 Jonathan C. Goddard, “Goddard’s Dropps: A Paradox of the C17th,” Urol­ ogy News 19, no. 6 (2015): 2. The king paid £1,500—possibly as much as £6,000—for the rights to the formula. 122 Mabel Peacock, “Executed Criminals and Folk-Medicine,” Folklore 7, no. 3 (1896): 268–83. 123 Thus Cheyne recommended Goddard’s Drops for treating ‘children’s convul­ sions’—George Cheyne, The English Malady . . . (London: Printed for G. Stra­ han and J. Leake, 1733), 220–1. 124 Madden, Cheap, Safe and Natural Medicine, 184. She explains that Wesley’s key Cheyne sources were his 1725 and 1742 works, neither of which included cannibal remedies. 125 Entry for ‘Guttae Anglicanae, English drops, volatile English drops, or God­ dard’s drops’ in John Barrow, A New and Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (London: Printed for the Proprietors, 1751). 126 PLP115/9/14 & 32, MARC. 127 Wride to Blagborne (8 September 1798)—PLP115/9/38, MARC. St. Paul’s pur­ ported Methodism was a persistent trope; in a 1903 sermon, George Jackson spoke of ‘the evangelism in which zeal and culture, religion and theology, the heart and the intellect, are yoked in one common service, the evangelism of John Wesley and the Apostle Paul’—George Jackson, The Old Methodism and the New (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1903), 60. 128 Wride to Wesley (17 July 1775), PLP115/9/14 & 32, MARC. 129 William Buchan, Domestic Medicine (London and Edinburgh: Printed for W. Strahan and others, 1776), viii. 130 Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind (London: Harper Collins, 1997), 266.

6

Wride’s personal and

professional networks

Introduction As an itinerant preacher based in a Methodist circuit, Thomas Wride was at the centre of a complex web of power and of mutual obligation, accountable not only to Wesley but to his changing teams of senior aides. To be effective in spreading the gospel during a posting of less than one year, he also needed rapidly to build productive relationships with his fellow preachers on the circuit, with the circuit and society stewards, with chapel trustees, with any wealthy ‘friends’ in the area, and with other people of influence both within and beyond the Methodist community, such as (at least on occasion) local clergy and Dissenting ministers. Wride struggled with this. We look first at Wride’s relations with his preacher colleagues. During his full-time career, he served in circuits alongside some 40 different preachers. He also often met other preachers, for example when they accompanied Wesley on his periodic visits to circuits and at the annual preachers’ Confer­ ence, either in Ireland or in England—we know that he attended the Leeds Conferences of 1781 and 1784, the Bristol Conference of 1783, and the London Conference of 1785.1 His often critical comments on his colleagues may have been ill-judged, but they were not without evidence.

Wride and the central Connexional leadership Wride dealt with John Atlay (b.1736) primarily in Atlay’s capacity as Lon­ don Book Steward. Wride’s two surviving letters to him concerned discrep­ ancies in the Norwich book accounts, and the letters were respectful, if not deferential, in tone, such as here: S[amuel] Hodgson was in a great hurry to take the books; I was in a very poor state of health & would have willingly postponed it; but he was as important about it, as if it was to execute a Royall Mandate . . . You have too much work on hand to be fond of needless trouble, but I think you will own, that the present writing is needful in order that matters may be settled truly.2

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They showed the detailed interest which the central team took in the man­ agement of local Book Room finance, and as we have seen, Wride was trou­ bled by the suggestion that there was a financial shortfall apparent in his accounts, for which he was being held personally liable. For some years in the 1770s and 1780s, Joseph Bradford (c. 1741–1808) served as Wesley’s travelling companion and frequently acted on Wesley’s behalf, in effect as his secretary. Wride’s 1777 and 1778 letters to him, how­ ever, were more in the nature of mutual updates on circuit and Connexional matters than specific pieces of business; thus in 1777, Wride reported on a recent sermon he had given and discussed the poor state of the circuit’s roads.3 This was more than a professional relationship; Bradford knew Jenny Woodcock, and two other mutual friends were mentioned. But the tempo of the correspondence does not suggest a close friendship; Bradford’s reply to Wride’s letter of early November was sent in late December, and Wride responded only on 18 March 1778.4 By around 1780, Thomas Coke (1747–1814) had become one of Wesley’s principal aides, often acting as an ‘enforcer’ in Connexional matters on Wes­ ley’s behalf.5 However, Wride’s only surviving exchanges with him date from early 1786. When Wride’s relationships with his colleagues and congregations in Norwich broke down in late 1785, it was Coke who wrote, telling Wride that he was being forcibly transferred elsewhere.6 Wride’s 19 January 1786 letter to Coke was brief and business-like and took as read Coke’s position of authority over the preachers. After commenting on the practical difficulties he foresaw in delivering another part of the new arrangements, the reunion of the adjoining Norwich and Yarmouth circuits, Wride concluded, ‘I must entreat you without delay to give me instructions respecting my particular conduct’.7 Wride’s next letter to Coke (26 February) was a mixture of circuit gossip and Connexional business (though perhaps Wride did not make such a clear distinction). It is surprising that Wride thought the following worth passing on: I was saying to James Byron that it galled me to hear Mr. Wesley spoke of in so contemptible a manner and said that they called Mr. Wesley ‘Old Woman’. James Byron said ‘that was only on account of ye singing’; so it fully appears this manner of speaking has been deliberately repeated. But Doctor, you are not to escape the compliments of Norfolk. They not only criticise on your sermon, but also say that you are ‘A Young Man’;8 this was overheard by Sister Flight on the Tuesday night that you was at Norwich.9 The main purpose of this letter, however, was to explain to Coke some fea­ tures of a document which Wride had been editing on his behalf.10 Wride was highly defensive about his work, offering a series of explanations of any shortcomings: Your late receiving this is not my fault; much business has laid on my hands & heart. Colds and weariness (occasioned by my want of an

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horse) has made the progress of my attempts slow.11 Yet if I had received your Alphabet I had been something sooner and much more Methodical than I have now time to be. It is unsurprising that there is scant sign of any personal warmth in the exchanges between Wride and Coke. Coke had played a central role in Wride’s 1780 suspension; they differed, too, on polity—Wride suspected Coke of countenancing if not actively encouraging the Connexion’s separa­ tion from the Church of England.12 Rack has described Coke as A highly controversial and suspect figure within Methodism. . . . The picture often given is of a man too busy, too interfering, taking too much upon himself and, above all, too ambitious.13 It is evident however that he had Wride’s respect, as Wesley’s right-hand man, such that he looked to him for instructions and felt the need to offer Coke detailed explanations of any perceived shortcomings in his own performance. In 1784, when itinerating on the Epworth circuit, Wride was in con­ tact with another member of the central leadership, Henry Moore (1751– 1844).14 In the mid-1780s, Moore, who had joined the itinerancy in 1779, was part of the small team which gave Wesley personal administrative sup­ port. Moore had written to Wride seeking information on a recent series of supernatural occurrences in the Lincolnshire village of Leverton.15 Wride’s reply was peppered with explanations for what he feared would be seen by Moore and Wesley as his ‘negligence’ in responding late and only briefly to their interest. His letter opened with a complaint about the shortness of the notice that had been given, ‘My Dear Brother, Yours of the 2nd of October came to hand. It is impossible for me to give a proper answer in a short warning’, and ended with this apology: You may think me backward in writing; but the want of conveniency for postage is the reason why you will wait so long; for this I cannot be gotten to the Post-Office until Monday next.16 Moore replied promptly on 18 November, and in his response, Wride described his own supernatural experience.17 Some time in the spring of 1785, he sent Moore an update on the Leverton events.18 They were in contact again in early 1786, when Moore became involved on Wesley’s behalf in Wride’s transfer from the turbulent Norwich circuit. At this stage, the proposal was that Wride should work under the supervi­ sion of Samuel Hodgson, assistant in the neighbouring Yarmouth circuit, as Wride explained to him, You may be ready to suspect me chargeable with negligence, but it is not more than half an hour ago that I received a letter from London,

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Wride’s personal and professional networks wrote by Mr. Moore in pursuance of directions given by Mr. Wesley, who can think of nothing better at present, than that I should, when the circuits are united, labour with you, who will be assistant. But Mr. Wesley advises that I keep wholly on the Yarmouth side.19

Hodgson immediately rejected this suggestion and wrote to Wesley urging that Wride be transferred out of the region altogether. When Wride learned of this, he in turn appealed to Wesley for a ruling.20 What this episode suggests is that while preachers accepted that Londonbased aides, such as Moore, acted in good faith on Wesley’s authority, they were ready to appeal directly to the leader if they found such instructions unacceptable. Overall, Wride’s letters to Moore were devoid of personal touches—this again was purely a professional relationship, in which Moore was seen simply as holding Wesley’s pen. Wride’s exchanges with these various members of the central leadership team were deferential—sometimes even fearful—in tone. He accepted that they were acting directly on Wesley’s behalf and was keen to meet their expectations, not least in providing timely and informative responses. Some of Wride’s letters suggest that there was a more than professional relation­ ship involved; others were terse and functional. But in every case, Wride was keen to please and to avoid any charge of dilatoriness or ‘negligence’.

Wride’s relations with the assistants The responsibilities of the assistants evolved over time but by 1753 included the following: 1. To see that the other preachers in his circuit behave well, and want noth­ ing. 2. To visit the classes quarterly in each place; to regulate bands, and deliver new tickets. 3 . . . 5. To hold Quarterly Meetings, and therein dili­ gently to inquire both into the spiritual and temporal state of each society.21 Despite often serving as an assistant himself, Wride had little time for most of the senior preachers under whom he served. One exception seems to have been Peter Jaco (1729–81). Jaco had become an itinerant preacher in 1754 and was highly respected; as Atmore noted, ‘His talents for the works of the ministry were very considerable; and he was as a scribe well instructed in the things of the kingdom of God’.22 Since 1768, the Dublin assistant had general oversight of Irish Method­ ism, including the preparation of annual reports on finance and member­ ship.23 In a 1772 letter to an unnamed addressee, Wride ranged widely over Connexional business in Ireland, suggesting that it was sent to Jaco, then the Dublin assistant: Yours dated Oct 2 I received. I have not seen Mr. Murray;24 but I sup­ pose it his choice to be on this circuit, as he is going on. According to

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your instructions, I have sent Brother Jno. Price to Armagh25; I did not think it so well to send N[ehemiah] P[rice] because he hath travelled a year on that circuit.26 I would take liberty to offer you my thoughts: J[ohn] F[Lloyd] is a good young man,27 but he knows nothing of dis­ cipline; Brother Wittam is full as unacquainted with it28; and I have undoubted information that Armagh circuit (as to discipline) is swiftly going to confusion. An assistant is much wanted. I hear Brother J[ohn] Watson was desirous of travelling Armagh circuit. I think it would be agreeable to the people to change Brother Wittam, as his gift is worn out, both on Armagh & Newry. I have took liberty in brief to give you my thoughts; hoping you will take it as I design it; not as if I thought myself your dictator, which thought is far from me.29 There are a number of striking features to this passage. First, Wride obvi­ ously acknowledged Jaco’s authority, but felt nonetheless that it allowed him some local discretion. Second, Wride wrote with confidence, feeling comfortable in offering succinct and not always positive assessments of his colleagues. Third, he reported that he had not yet seen John Murray, three months after his appointment. And finally, Jaco and Wride were together deciding on the disposition of itinerant preachers across at least three of the Northern Irish circuits, indicating the existence of some loose governance arrangement at the regional level. More often, however, Wride proved troublesome, frequently challeng­ ing his assistant’s decisions and appealing against them to Wesley himself. The grounds for contention were many and varied. Assistants were clearly expected to give their preaching team feedback on their performance, and this Wride resented. They policed Connexional rules and practice, for example on the use of only authorised hymnals, but Wride followed his own strict interpretation of such requirements. He challenged the author­ ity of some assistants simply because they were younger than he. Another key problem for Wride was that assistants were ultimately responsible for the deployment of preachers in-year and gave an end-year report on them to the Conference. All too often, Wride lashed out against this power and accused them of conspiring against his interests. Since both the assistant and the other preachers were constantly itinerating around the circuit, they might meet only occasionally, perhaps only at the quarterly meetings. Mutual trust was therefore essential; where that was lacking, the system could not work. In 1773–4, Wride was based in the York circuit, reporting to the assis­ tant William Hunter. They could not have been more different—Hunter was described by one of his York congregation in these terms: ‘Mr. Hunter’s deportment was grave and serious, without any mixture of lightness or tri­ fling’.30 Wride lost confidence in him shortly after taking up post in York. One issue was Wride’s ultimate belief that Hunter was complicit in a con­ spiracy to replace him with James Rogers, another preacher who was felt

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less able to travel extensively because of health problems. Initially, Wride thought Hunter was not involved, as he explained to Wesley, offering con­ siderable circumstantial detail: The motive (as I first learnt was) ‘Mr. Rogers is weakly & cannot bear an hard round, but Mr. Thomas Wride is able to bear his way any­ where, but Mr. Rogers should be near the waters’ &c. I should have thought little of this, . . . but they had not honesty enough to let me know a shadow of the design, but one let it drop to Sister Ruth Hall, and she thought herself bound in conscience to inform me of it . . . I do not know that Brother Hunter knows of—much less would have a hand in—such a plot. If he has, he is not the man I take him to be; I have not seen cause to suspect him of such a dishonest deed.31 He also accused Hunter of assisting in the circulation of unauthorised hym­ nals in York.32 It prompted him to send Hunter—his line manager—this blunt written warning on 27 December 1773, which Wride tactlessly copied to Wesley: There is some verses composed & printed to be sung among us at this season. I have refused to sing them, because it is contrary to the Rule of Conference. This has displeased some. But this comfort remains, that there will be ‘many hundreds of the copies at the Love-Feast, and then they will be sung’, because Mr. Preston says, I shall not rule there. The event will prove; but until that proof is given, I will not believe you will thus publicly fly in Mr. Wesley’s face. I thought it needful to give you this caution. I love peace, but it is bought too dear, at the expense of truth or discipline.33 Within days, relations between the two seem to have broken down. Wride told Wesley that Hunter was deliberately excluding him from the conduct of key circuit business and was indeed one of the conspirators: The scheme was laid while John Helton & William Hunter was present with the rest of the schemers. How this is reconcilable to common hon­ esty, I cannot see; for I thought we had been as one, & yet at the same time he was stabbing me in the dark. The bitterness never left Wride; he had a long memory. The estrangement between the two seems to have been complete and permanent. In April 1778, Wesley had accepted Wride’s proposal that he marry Jenny Woodcock, but the wedding was not to take place until July.34 Wride was nervous that something might go wrong. In the early summer, he was still in the Dales, Jenny was living in the York area, and Hunter was in Scarborough.35 In his

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4 May 1778 letter to Jenny, Wride revealed his anxiety about what Hunter might say to Wesley in the run-up to the planned wedding: If he attempted anything (of what he said to you, it appears that) he has lost his labour, for Mr. W[esley] doth not appear influenced by him . . . I do not suppose he would do me a favour, if it lay in his power, but as it happens, I have none to ask of him.36 In 1777–8, Wride served in the Dales circuit under Jeremiah Robertshaw (d.1788) and alongside Robert Wilkinson. Both were held in high regard. Robertshaw was an experienced preacher, who had joined the itinerancy in 1762.37 His death notice in the 1788 Minutes extolled him as ‘A good soldier of Jesus Christ, . . . a pattern of meekness and gentleness to all men, and of simplicity and godly sincerity’.38 Wilkinson had been admitted into full connexion in 177039; his death notice, in the 1781 Minutes, was equally fulsome: ‘An Israelite indeed, a man of faith and prayer, who, having been a pattern of all good works, died in the full triumph of faith’.40 We have only one brief and curious reference to the year in Wride’s surviving papers—a letter from the 1790s suggests that his relationship with Robertshaw was not close; indeed, it was as distant as his previous relationship with Hunter: At the Conference, following my year of labour with Brother Robert­ shaw, he told the Conference of me that: ‘We have not had a single word all the year’. Very true, but I thought such sayings were as improper as if they had said: ‘It is certain that Thomas Wride is not so tall as that giant, said to be conquered by Guy, Earl of Warwick; for he is so far from a gigantic stature; as, that he is not six foot high’.41 Some nine years after his initial breach with Hunter, Wride—who had just been readmitted to the itinerancy on trial—had a similarly troubled rela­ tionship with Thomas Carlill (d.1801), his assistant on the Grimsby circuit (1782–3).42 They had similarities—Carlill, like Wride, was criticised because ‘his discourses were not always sufficiently guarded from the sallies of an exuberance of facetious wit’.43 Indeed, they worked well together for much of the year—Wride’s 3 March 1783 letter to him was friendly in tone, and its topics included the transaction of routine Connexional business. How­ ever, as we will see, there was tension between them over what Wride saw as Carlill’s relaxed approach to local variations from standard Connexional worship practice.44 Carlill had also warned Wride about the injudicious terms in which he had criticised an unnamed third party (the ‘Bird of Prey’) in recent correspondence. Wride accepted the point: It is true I spoke very plain, but then it was in a letter directed to a third person, and enclosed in a letter unto ‘Woodcock’ in enigmatical

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A month later, relations had clearly deteriorated sharply. Wride was affronted that Carlill had been listening with apparent sympathy to various local criticisms of Wride’s behaviour, and his lengthy response to Carlill was aggressive in tone. Wride felt both betrayed and victimised and was bitter too that his own loyalty to his assistant was not being reciprocated. His 12 April 1783 letter challenged Carlill, Let me without displeasing of you ask—Do you think that you have a right to hear anything of me behind my back? And to carry it unto other places, and yet at the same time to conceal it from me? Will you say it is kind? I can tell place & person, where & by whom it was said, that ‘Mr. Carlill says they complain of you (meaning me) everywhere’ &c. I have not acted so by you; but when you have been spoken against I have turned it aside, or else made the best excuse I could for you. And I have not more than once, & then unto but one person so much as hinted anything that has been said against you; and then I was careful to say that I did not believe what was said.47 After detailed rebuttals of all the complaints, Wride concluded in a manner which suggested that his relationship with Carlill had by then completely broken down: When you have weighed things in an even balance, I suppose you may find that you too easily credit the brainless tittle tattle of those who are more fitted for sceptics than critics, & whose greatest wisdom would be to hold their tongue, and learn to reason before they commence judges of Your Affectionate Friend & Brother. T. Wride.48 For several years, we have little detailed evidence about Wride’s relationships with his assistants. He was readmitted into ‘full connexion’ by the 1783 Conference; for the next year, he served under Thomas Corbet (d.1788) in Gainsborough.49 Whether they worked well together initially we do not know, but by the end of the posting, relations had deteriorated; Wride’s 3 July 1784 letter to Wesley suggests that Corbet too had objected to his col­ ourful and controversial manner of preaching. This was perhaps unsurpris­ ing, given Corbet’s reputation as ‘a plain, honest, pious man’.50 Wride again appealed direct to Wesley against his assistant, offering this defence: The bearer hereof is John Caulkwill, on whose information Br. Corbit accused me of preaching about sparrows going to church without being converted. Br. Caulkwill remembers his speaking about this to

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Br. Corbit, but it was in a way of free conversation, not as any fault in me; much less did he think that it would be made an article of accusation. If you, Sir, please to be at the trouble to ask, then will you from his own mouth be informed, which bears the highest place in the esteem of Br. Caulkwill, whether it be Br. Corbit, or him who in sincerity subscribes, Reverend Sir, Your Dutiful Son, Tho. Wride.51 A passing reference to Corbet in late 1783 suggests however that at least until then they remained on speaking terms.52 In 1784–5, Wride served under Thomas Longley (1743–1809) in the Epworth circuit. The only evidence of their relationship is a letter which Wride sent him on routine circuit business, shortly after taking up post, in which he reported on his approach towards the issuing of tickets to mem­ bers of one of the local societies. Even at this early stage, however, there is a sarcastic hint that Wride had limited respect for his young superintending minister: I thought it convenient to send you an account of my proceedings at Thorne, that you might alter what you disapprove of. I did what I thought best, but cannot be sure that you will approve of it. Yet [I] hope you will make a reasonable allowance for the deficiency of my intellect.53 When Wride was posted to Norwich in 1785, it was as the assistant. How­ ever, by January 1786, much to his annoyance, Wesley had decided to move him from the troubled circuit. After some discussion of possible transfers to Colchester or London, Wride was sent to neighbouring Yarmouth.54 Here he came under the authority of Samuel Hodgson (1759–95), who was a generation younger than Wride.55 Wride referred repeatedly and negatively to Hodgson as ‘a young man’. The circumstances by which Wride came under Hodgson’s supervision were of course personally stress­ ful, entailing the sudden loss of his assistant post and the associated home and other support arrangements. But Wride also thought that the pro­ posed merger of the Norwich and Yarmouth circuits was unworkable, as he told Coke: Brother Hodgson & Brother Button are now here in order to [sic] the reunion of the circuits. We foresee difficulties almost insurmountable. When we come to a conclusion, you may expect a full account.56 Hodgson simply wanted Wride to leave the region, though he was prepared for his wife to remain temporarily if need be; both propositions outraged Wride, as he explained to Wesley on 7 February 1786, by when he was des­ perately seeking an immediate move from East Anglia:

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Wride’s personal and professional networks Rev. Sir, I am truly sorry to give you any trouble, yet I hope you will bear [with] me, although I expect the matter this brings will be no way pleasing . . . Brother Hodgson (I found) had wrote to you, . . . what he wrote I know not, but if I may guess, it was to contradict you, to distress me, & to kill my wife. It does not seem good to him to let me labour on the Yarmouth side of the circuit nor yet to let my wife have a lodging at Yarmouth or Lowestoft; although by Brother Moore’s pen you directed both. He wants me to be in another circuit & to leave my wife at Norwich until Conference; this Sir you will allow is talking like a young man indeed; I doubt this would kill her.57

Hodgson had apparently argued to Wesley that Wride could not be effective in Yarmouth because he had acquired such a bad reputation amongst the people of Norwich. Wride countered that both Hodgson and his Yarmouth colleague George Button were even less popular than he was: Brother Hodgson says that the people on the Yarmouth side (by means of their intelligence from Norwich) do object my being there; it may be so, but this will prove too much if it proves anything at all, for they object [to] him also; [object]ing Brother Button far before him. Perhaps he does not know it, but I really do; and have known it a considerable time. Even in Norwich, I know that there are those who already think less of him than of me, & they have spoke it—not to me (for then it may be thought to be flattery) but behind my back. Wride reported to Wesley also that Hodgson was encouraging irregular practice in hymn-singing at Norwich: I had the mortification this afternoon to hear your directions set at defi­ ance: three times singing, viz. before prayer, between the first prayer & the text, and after sermon; but neither of the tunes belonged to us. The last of them was like a minuet, such a tune I was grieved to hear. I was told that it was just the same last Sunday. Brother Hodgson cannot plead ignorance, for on the 19th of last month I told him ‘Mr. Wesley desires & requires that there be no more than twice singing at one service’. But how you are regarded, let fact speak. Therefore, Sir, if things must be in this sort, I beg you to let me be, where I may not see it. Wride treated Hodgson with contempt, on display in this bitingly sarcastic critique of his proposed preaching plan for the two circuits: Although I am sufficiently sensible of your importance and my own impotence, and am as fully satisfied as I am like to be, that your

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decisive decree—‘I shall do as I please’—ought to silence, if not sat­ isfy, one who moves in a sphere so much below you; yet permit me at an humble distance, to say that I have perused your adopted plan, and must own that the utmost stretch of my poor capacity cannot think that it ought to be published, because it is not possible to be fulfilled, when published.58

Wride’s relations with those who served with him Wride himself served as an assistant on seven occasions:59 Whitehaven (1770–1), Armagh (1771–2), Newry (1772–3), Athlone (1774–5), Whitehaven again (1776–7), Norwich (1785–6), and finally Whitehaven for a third time (1788–9). The evidence suggests that he had as much difficulty in exerting authority effectively as in accepting it. Age may again have been a factor; he did not find it straightforward to work with preach­ ers much younger than himself. His surviving papers concentrate on the problems which he experienced when at Athlone (where his colleagues were John Floyd and Jonathan Hern) and Norwich (where he worked with James Byron and John McKersey) and during his active retirement in York from 1790 (where he preached alongside William Blagborne and George Gibbon). Wride’s first impressions of John Floyd were positive,60 but he was deeply angered by the financial decisions which Floyd and Jonathan Hern took even before he had taken up post in Athlone. His accusations were recorded in a lengthy letter which has survived without date or addressee being recorded.61 Internal evidence, however, suggests that it was written in late 1784 or early 1785; if true, Wride had been harbouring this grudge for a decade. An intriguing possibility is that the intended recipient was John Fenwick (d.1787).62 Fenwick had succeeded Wride in Whitehaven in 1777; they were neighbours in 1779–80 (Fenwick at York, and Wride at Scarbor­ ough)63 and, as we will see, friends. The letter was long and complicated— which Wride realised, hence splitting it into numbered sections. The first 13 sections essentially detailed Wride’s grievance that, before he had arrived in Athlone in 1774, his two new junior colleagues had held a quarterly meeting and divided the available cash between themselves, leaving him nothing. When an ‘extraordinary collection’ was made for the preachers, Wride again lost out. The dispute dragged on for years. Wride complained to Wesley at the time; Wesley’s reply was sympathetic but did not condemn the preachers’ action: At a Quarterly Meeting, if the collection is only six pounds and two preachers are present, they commonly share it between them. In this case I do not say they defraud a third preacher who is expected; but I say they act unkindly.64

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Wride criticised Hern for laziness, a charge of course made against him. He warned, XIV. When I came first unto Coolylough John Floyd was there. Enquir­ ing about the condition of the circuit, John among other things said: ‘It will lie well if you can keep Brother Hern to his circuit’, for indeed he was a most shameful neglecter of it. He accused Hern of financial malpractice, alleging that Hern had allowed a society member to pay for his child’s inoculation but then also accepted a donation from the congregation towards the cost. Wride also claimed that he was a closet Calvinist: XXIII. What he is as to being a Methodist, judge you from a letter which I saw, wrote by John Christian soon after he avowed himself a Calvinist.65 ‘I hope that Brother Glasbrook and Brother Hern will not longer deny the truth by concealing it, for I know they have long been of the same opinion as myself’.66 As we have seen, Wride felt that Hern was an ineffective preacher.67 He was condemned also for being lax in matters of discipline, for example in allow­ ing a dueller to remain in membership.68 He was also ungrateful, spurning the friendship which Wride said he had offered: XXVI. As to his gratitude, he may profess what he please. I have been his friend, he owes me gratitude . . . I have done much for him, cover­ ing his faults until in conscience I could do it no longer. And when I informed Mr. Wesley of his neglecting the circuit, I did not say all that might with truth have been said. I have also lent him money, but I think it is not easy to fix any sense of obligation upon him. It is difficult to reconcile Wride’s contemptuous demolition of Hern’s char­ acter and performance with his contemporary reputation, which was much more positive. In 1771, Eliza Bennis wrote from Limerick to commend him and his family to Wesley. Brother Hern and his family leave town tomorrow, he was much blessed here, and has left an increase of sixteen to the society, he is indeed a good, upright, faithful labourer.69 And Hern’s 16 April 1773 letter to her portrayed someone who, after years of intense spiritual struggle, had acquired a deep and living faith.70 Wride was equally critical of Floyd. By the summer of 1775, their relation­ ship was ruptured beyond repair. In a lengthy letter to Wesley (17 July),71 Wride countered the various criticisms which Floyd had made of him and

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which he was planning to put to the coming Irish Conference, denouncing them all as lies: John Floyd has threatened how he will oppose me. I know not what he intends to say, but if you give me the liberty of a common highwayman, I will not fear his wrath or court his favours, for in my esteem, they are of equal worth. In a mirror image of Wride’s attack on Hern, Floyd had apparently accused Wride of neglecting the Athlone circuit, which Wride vigorously denied. Floyd also asserted that Wride was claiming falsely to have medical and legal qualifications. Wride in turn reported the accusation to Wesley: In Limerick I told the people that I was apprenticed to a counsellor, and that I told that I was apprenticed to a physician, &c. . . . Now Sir, how improbable is this; but how much more so, that in the same place I should say, that I was apprenticed to a physician. But how are these things to be proved? Why, on the evidence of Sister Moore (if John Floyd is to be credited). But Sister Moore in your presence (together with John Floyd & myself) said, she never said it, nor ever heard me speak such a thing. As already seen, there was even according to Wride, an accusation of unseemly behaviour, that Wride had partially disrobed when in female company.72 Some at least of Floyd’s concerns had been aired directly with Wesley in April 1775, when he had met the Athlone preaching team at Tyrrell’s Pass.73 To Wride’s astonishment, as he now reminded Wesley, he had been accused of unsound preaching: I must add that at Tyrrells Pass he told you: ‘By his preaching he appears to have no notion at all of the Methodist doctrine &c.’ This is quite a new objection, unheard of (at least) by me before this year—my most malicious foes never (to my knowledge) dreamt of this objection. Wride offered not just a vigorous defence against Floyd’s accusation; he counter-attacked. He suggested that Floyd exaggerated his educational accomplishments, claiming knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He also condemned him for falsely advertising medical qualifications74 and accused him of lack of motivation, heterodoxy, lying, and disloyalty: J[ohn] F[loyd] will travel no longer than until he can find opportunity to settle to his satisfaction; his heart is not in the work of God. . . . That his tongue scorns the sounds of truth I have too much reason to know. John Floyd is mightily displeased that I call him liar. . . . But have I not as much right to call him so as he me?

116 Wride’s personal and professional networks Wesley’s prompt reaction to the dysfunctional Athlone preaching team was to disband it. The sole preacher based in Limerick had recently killed him­ self, and he despatched Wride as his replacement. Wride’s service as the assistant in Norwich (1785–6) was probably the most turbulent period of his career.75 His colleagues were two young preach­ ers, James McKee Byron and John McKersey. Byron (1760–1827) was converted in 1784, in his mid-twenties.76 He soon became an ‘exhorter’77 and in June 1785 was introduced to Wesley as a poten­ tial itinerant preacher. Wesley was immediately impressed, recruited him as a travelling companion while he was in Ireland, and then in August that year summoned him to England. In late 1785, when it transpired that Thomas Jones would not be taking up his appointment, Wesley sent him to join Wride at Norwich, presenting him as ‘an amiable young man’.78 In Crookshank’s summary, Byron ‘travelled in England for thirty-eight years with general acceptance and considerable success’.79 As an official memoir put it, If he may not be ranked with the first class of his contemporaries for brilliance of talent, there are not many of them who have been superior to him in the greatest of all ministerial excellence,—usefulness.80 On first meeting Byron in Norwich in November 1785, Wride judged that he would be an effective evangelist, though he had some concerns. He reported to Wesley that He professeth himself ready to follow any direction that may be given him; but I find that in the little time he has been in England he has learned to let the people sing anthems, yea, to give out the anthem for them, not knowing that he therein acted against any Rule. But as I have told him your mind, I hope that he will fulfil it.81 Wesley may have seen Wride and Byron as offering complementary gifts, with the young evangelist’s drive and enthusiasm supported by the experi­ ence and administrative ability of the senior man.82 If this was the strategy, it was a spectacular failure. Within weeks, Wride was complaining to Wesley about Byron’s disobedience: I gave him as full instructions as my opportunity and ability would admit, and fearing that he might forget, I gave him written instructions respecting what I would have him do: I did not doubt but that he would, as well as he could, fulfil them, for he so promised, as freely as could be desired. But he broke his word without delay. He also found him rash: I fear Brother Byron will be a gentleman too soon. He begins to com­ plain of the circuit already. He says that he believes it is the worst cir­ cuit in England. Surely he has made the tour very rapidly, or else he

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concludes very rapidly, for he has not yet seen many of the circuits in England, & when he delivered his judgment so freely, he had seen but three of the country places in this circuit.83 By Christmas 1785, relations between the two can only be described as frosty. Wride now felt that Byron was in effect seeking to supplant his authority as assistant, by seeking to establish new preaching-places in the circuit, when in Wride’s view they lacked the human and material resources to supply them. He told him, It would be no impeachment of your understanding to consult with me; you have not all the Wisdom of Solomon. You should allow that I have had a little more opportunity to know the people and their disposition than you have, and therefore am as likely to be able to foresee conse­ quences as you are.84 Wride’s relationship with the other preacher assigned to him at Norwich was strained from the start, largely because he found John McKersey (d.1800) lazy. He had only been admitted on trial in 1784.85 This was his second post­ ing. As Wride complained to Wesley, From the first I have desired Brother Muckarsay to preach at Norwich at 5 in the morning, but he does not. He says that he cannot; he says that he can rise soon enough; but, he cannot preach without his break­ fast! If I laboured under this difficulty I really would carry my intended breakfast to bed with me, that I might eat it, when the clock struck four. If it be a trouble to preach early, we have not much of it, for it is only at Norwich and North Walsham that we can get hearers.86 This was not a trivial matter, given the contemporary pattern of working hours: Between 1750 and 1850 almost all employed people, particularly in the towns, were to be found at work between the hours of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday . . . there was a recognizable working day and working week.87 And Wride’s concern also reflected his view that late rising was bad for one’s health. His notes on medical remedies included this maxim (from an uni­ dentified source): ‘Too long lying in bed will weaken & relax nerves; early rising the contrary’.88 Wesley initially applauded Wride’s stance, telling him, ‘None can be a Methodist preacher unless he is both able and willing to preach in the morning, which is the most healthy exercise in the world’.89 That said, McKersey’s attitude was not unique. In 1765–6, when based at Haworth, Nicholas Manners had similarly relinquished 5:00 a.m. preaching—and in

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consequence early rising—since so few people were able to attend, in this large rural circuit.90 In general, however, Wesley’s Methodists timed their meetings to facilitate attendance before the start of these long working days, so McKersey’s approach was potentially costly for the mission. A few weeks later, a frustrated Wride reported to Wesley that McKersey’s behaviour had not improved. However Wride showed some sympathy for his colleague, going on to suggest to Wesley that McKersey might spend more time at Norwich, where the later working days typical of the winter months meant that such early morning preaching was perhaps unnecessary: I really believe he is weakly; but cannot think that it would at all hazard his life to preach early. But an easier way of escape might have been found at Norwich: for it seems that [they] have not been used to morn­ ing preaching because the rich will not attend & the poor cannot—for after preaching, until eight o’clock in Winter, they have not how to dispose of themselves. They do not go to work until eight, & they have no fire to go unto at home; so that the want of hearers would have been a far more decent excuse.91 Another cause for concern was that McKersey continued to allow three rather than two hymns to be sung at preaching services, which was against Wesley’s rules, as he reminded both McKersey and Byron on 14 December.92 There was a link to McKersey’s apparent indolence, as Wride had warned Wesley on 14 November: Long ago, I desired Brother Muckarsay to forbear the singing between prayer and the text, but he still goes his own way. His avowed reason is that it saves him labour and fills up the time.93 Wride had several other grievances against McKersey, notably that he was neglecting to meet the ‘select band’ of Norwich members and failing in his duties towards the society’s children: When I first went out of Norwich which was Sept. 22 I left the class paper and the Select Band list for John Muckarsay, but on my return I found that he had not met the Select-Band . . . I also told him of the children which he had neglected to meet, and he said that he had rather go twelve miles than meet children; but I told him that he must do it. At last he consented to meet the children & the Select-Band.94 Wride’s wide-ranging criticisms of both these two young preachers were however only part of the case which he put to Wesley to explain and excuse the tension and disharmony which plagued his time in the Norwich circuit. Wesley’s response—which, after urging them to support their assistant, was ultimately to move Wride—hurt Wride deeply, as he told Wesley:

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Now Sir, give me leave to tell you, what in fact I told you in time past viz. if I had with me fellow labourers who would be ruled by you, the disturbance would never have ‘rose to any considerable height. You did for a while support me, & required John Muckarsay & James Byron to follow the directions that you had given me. . . . But Sir, how are you regarded? If actions may speak, they regard you as one to whom they owe no regard . . . I really think it hard, that I must be slighted for obey­ ing of you, and they caressed for setting you at defiance.95 When in retirement in the York circuit, Wride took great exception to the beliefs and behaviour of William Blagborne (1754–1816), who was the superintendent in 1797–8 (when Wride was active in local Connexional affairs, though not yet formally a supernumerary). Our first evidence comes from Wride’s copy of a letter he sent Blagborne on 8 September 1798, shortly after the latter had moved to Leeds.96 The cause of the problems is not entirely clear, though the 20-year age gap may have been a factor. Wride was offended that Blagborne had left without saying goodbye, since Wride owed him money. He was also incensed that Blagborne had passed on what Wride felt were confidential details of comments which Wride had made at a District Meeting. But the underlying issue was that Wride objected to Blagborne’s theology and his preaching, accusing him of Calvinism and of subscribing to ‘wretched Antinomian nonsense’. The dispute rumbled on for several years. Though we have no record of any reply from Blagborne, Wride wrote to him again on 17 Novem­ ber 1798. Eighteen months later (25 April 1800), Blagborne wrote to Wride apologising that he had destroyed this second letter unread: Having a vast of business on hand I at that time omitted to read it, & now it is not in my power as I know not where it is, only I think it was burnt before I read a line of it.97 He asked for another copy, adding, somewhat hyperbolically, If therefore you judge me yet worthy & will be at the pains of copying ye letter of Nov. 17th, 98 (for I presume you have kept a copy) I will assur­ edly thank you for so much pains & labour, & if ten thousand thanks will be more pleasing than a thousand I do hereby promise so many. Wride’s response was immediate (1 May) and uncompromising: I have my copy, and (God willing) will at a convenient season transcribe & send it by some friend who may be so kind as to forward it to you. I have long been sick of the nonsensical systems of Calvinism & Anti­ nomianism. To convince a well-meaning blunderer is, in my judgement, worth some considerable labour. I have often attempted it, but often

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Is of the same opinion still.98

If my friend Mr. Blagborne should by my labours be convinced of his Antinomian and Calvinistic whims, an ingenious acknowledgement of the errors will be more acceptable than the ‘thousand’ or the ‘ten thou­ sand thanks’ promised.99

The copy was sent to Blagborne a few days later, but there is no record of whether the two were ever reconciled.100 George Gibbon (d.1815) was a preacher stationed in the York circuit in 1802–3, and Wride was sharply critical of his attitude and performance. His papers contain copies of several letters and other notes to or about him, but there is no record of any responses, which triggered further criticism from Wride. In a lengthy missive of 1802, Wride complained that Gibbon had not replied to ‘a long letter dated October 15’, suggesting that he was even less grateful than his predecessor, Blagborne: For a much less letter, I had the promise of ten thousand thanks. Why you have shown me no mark of your thankfulness, you best know. I was long in doubt whether or no the letter had miscarried; but last Saturday, one told me who had seen a letter in your hand which exactly answered the description of mine. I should have rejoiced to have received your thanks for my labour, together with an acknowledgment of your being convinced of your blunders.101 Wride’s assault on Gibbon was comprehensive and vitriolic. He argued that Gibbon preached over-complicated sermons and was completely out of his depth. He told him to ‘let mysteries alone, and confine your self in time to come unto plain obvious truths, more suitable to your capacity’. His sermon of 27 September 1802 was full of ‘unintelligible jargon’, while another ser­ mon prompted this sarcastic appraisal: I now take liberty to acknowledge your singular abilities as a divine, and own that if you can maintain all you have asserted, I shall look upon you to be the greatest of the Earth-born Race, if not superior to the Angelic Host. For on Sunday morning, June 13, you revealed such a mystery, as none but your self could or can understand. You said, ‘Trin­ ity is not in Scripture, but it is Scriptural’. Strange indeed! He that can maintain these two points is very fit to be a Papist priest, for he will with ease reconcile transubstantiation with common sense. In summary, wrote Wride, ‘Be advised, choose plain subjects. Do not aim at high mysteries. You are not equal to the task’.

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Wride also attacked Gibbon for his mismanagement of hymn-singing— ‘You seem to be copying some untaught or ill-taught parish clerk’, he wrote,102 and accused him of ingratitude when Wride took on his preaching assignments during Gibbon’s illness. In short, Gibbon could do nothing right. Amongst preachers for whom Wride had a high regard, John Fenwick stands out. If the identification of the addressee of Wride’s long letter of late 1784 / early 1785 is correct, then Fenwick and Wride were good friends. This view is confirmed by the fact that Wride defended him vigorously when he was accused of drunkenness. He wrote to Wesley in 1785, As I heard all that was said against Jno. Fenwick at York, so I had great opportunity of knowing his conduct on the Scarborough circuit; and it is but a piece of justice to declare (and I am ready to do it when called upon) that I have frequently observed that at a whole dinner, his drink­ ing has seldom amounted to half a pint, frequently within the quantity of one third part of a pint. Now Sir, as to the truth or falsehood of what he is this year charged with, I can say nothing: but [of] his character on the Scarborough circuit & his enemies on the York circuit I know as much as most, & am willing to declare it when & where you please.103 Wesley clearly had some respect for Fenwick. In 1783, he deployed him in correcting publications for his Book Room in London,104 and in a 3 Decem­ ber 1769 letter to Joseph Benson, he had also commended his straight­ forward approach.105 Nonetheless Wride’s defence proved unsuccessful, perhaps because Fenwick also had his critics. Michael Moorhouse described him in 1789 as A man who had twice failed in business, was over head and ears in debt when he was taken into the priest’s office for a maintenance . . .; he would rise at five o’clock and preach about holiness, and then visit two or three and sometimes more gin-shops before dinner.106 Following Fenwick’s expulsion by the 1785 Conference, Wride stood by him. When, that October, he was struggling in his new Norwich circuit for want of a third preacher, he suggested to Wesley that Fenwick would be a possibility: If Sir you cannot get Brother Houlton to come, and if Brother Jones will not be here soon, I beg you will think of & send some other, for we have very great complaints. If you are at a loss permit me to ask, are you satisfied with regard to the penitence of John Fenwick? If so, I have no objection to him; and if a favourable report of him can be given at the ensuing Conference, old things may perhaps be buried.107 Wride’s comments on Robert Johnson (d.1829), who was the assistant at York in 1802–3,108 were unusually positive. In criticising Gibbon over the

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way in which he announced hymns during worship, he portrayed Johnson as an exemplar: I hardly expect you will ever equal Mr. Johnson (I know of none among the preachers who are his equals) but it is a pity you have not learned in some degree to imitate him. You are never likely to find his superior, and it is probable you will not travel with so good a reader again.109 He admired his exact contemporary Alexander Mather as a strong discipli­ narian, telling Wesley of the reaction of a local steward, Roger Preston, to Mather’s stationing in York: As soon as he knew that Mr. Mather was to come, he would be no longer steward, because he knew he could be no longer master—master and steward being in York, synonymous terms.110 Similarly, Wride praised Thomas Rankin (1738–1810) for his energy and attention to discipline.111 When serving in the Dales circuit in 1777–8, Wride reported, Here are many that are truly gracious souls: but there are weeds in this part of the vineyard, & they are like to remain this year. Discipline has not been strictly attended to in time past: & now, a little of Brother Rankin’s fire is wanted, for to effect, what should have been done in time past.112 Other preachers were however the object of significant criticism. Wride fell out with John Helton when serving in the York circuit in 1773–4. Hel­ ton had been highly regarded by Wesley. By 1765, he was an assistant; in 1768, a colleague lauded him as ‘a man of wisdom, of sound faith, and a good disciplinarian’;113 and in 1769, he was given significant Connexional financial responsibilities.114 In the mid-1770s, Helton pressed for efforts to improve the quality of the preaching cadre, which was one factor leading to the minor purges at the 1775 and 1776 Conferences, and Wesley’s attitude towards him changed.115 By 1777, he had resigned as the Bristol assistant and left the Connexion, turning Quaker.116 Wride, however, distrusted him, believing that he had conspired to remove him from the York circuit, and told Wesley, John Helton likewise (I am informed) has engaged to write to you, but I say he is as dishonest as the others, for he hath not let me know a word of his design. I know not wherein I have offended him, excepting, that in giving notice for his preaching I did not mention his name.117

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In a 1774 letter to Wesley, Wride also criticised his preaching and suggested that he was doctrinally heterodox—in which events proved him correct: His matter and his manner is (in my judgment) inferior to Brother Hunter and I believe, he is far from being a Methodist in principle. Par­ ticulars I at present forbear; as I must come nearer the present time.118 Wride had little time for another contemporary, Nicholas Manners (1732–), whom he also accused—justifiably—of believing unsound doctrine, disrup­ tive behaviour, and disloyalty, writing in 1784, I cannot think it right for any, who calls Mr. Wesley by the name of father or friend, to visit him in seeming friendship, and with a short dagger secretly prick him under the rib. Yet such (to me) appears to be the conduct of Nicholas Manners—preaching among Mr. Wesley’s friends & selling of books containing bare-faced Pelagianism.119 Manners’s case was discussed at the 1784 Conference, at which he was probably expelled.120 Wride had briefed Wesley about Manners’s planned Conference appearance: You may expect N. Manners at the Conference. He was at Gainsbor­ ough last Friday, I believe that his errand was to gain a critical transla­ tion of some Hebrew words, particularly the word which is translated, ‘iniquity’. I suppose that he is preparing for the defence of his doctrine, ie. Pelagianism. What little I have extracted I hereby send, lest you should not have the opportunity of seeing his books.121 After his expulsion, Manners continued to travel round various circuits, selling copies of his autobiography122; this further outraged Wride, as this letter to Wesley shows: The late production of N. Manners brings old things up. He has lately been vending in various parts of Epworth circuit a pamphlet which I think no sensible person can admire. When I came to Thorne on the 2 of April I heard that Nicholas had been on the evening before publish­ ing a pamphlet price 3d. (to the poor 2d.) and ‘they are to be sold at the door of the preaching-house this evening’, said they. In my way to the preaching-house Samuel Meggott showed me the stock left with him for sale, and asked me to speak of them after preaching. I told him, he might be sure I would not be cats-paw for Mr. M[anners]. I was certain such a book never met with the approbation of Mr. Wesley, and I would not publish it without.123

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Before all these difficulties, however, Manners seems to have had a reputa­ tion as a good preacher, as suggested by this 1769 letter from America, seek­ ing to recruit English itinerants: In all the places of America, where I have been, there is as much need of the Methodist preachers, as in any town of England . . . will none of the Preachers come here? Where is Mr. Brownfield? Where is John Pawson? Where is Nicholas Manners? Are they living, and will they not come?124

Conclusion Wride’s dealings with senior Connexional colleagues were generally brusque. They issued him with instructions; he responded with reports, including detailed explanations of any lapses as he judged necessary. Both parties were ready to refer to Wesley as the final arbiter. There is little sign of any per­ sonal warmth, though it is not entirely absent. His exchanges with the various assistants for whom he worked suggest that he rarely gave them his unconditional support. While he acknowledged their authority, he often felt that they themselves were not following the Connexional rules, for example in tolerating irregular practice on hymnsinging, and saw himself as older and wiser. Frequently, therefore, the bonds between Wride and his assistants fell far short of the mutual support and encouragement which Wesley and the Conference envisaged. Wride’s concerns about his colleagues in Athlone and Norwich were virtually a mirror image of adverse comments which had been made about him, some­ times by Wesley himself. It is hard to escape the conclusion that he was exter­ nalising and explaining his own self-evident shortcomings and frustrations by blaming others, while underpinning his bitter disputes with William Blagborne and George Gibbon in York was his sense of marginalisation. The harshness of Wride’s judgements on these six preachers is clear from even a brief look at their subsequent careers. Most strikingly, the young James Byron who had so irri­ tated him matured into an exceptionally effective and long-serving evangelist. John Floyd had a relatively short career—he joined the itinerancy in 1770 and stood down in 1782, ‘without blame’—but seems to have been well-regarded.125 Mather described Blagborne in 1792 as ‘a sensible & deeply pious man’.126 For several years around 1810–15, Blagborne served in the United States, where he arrived, according to Francis Asbury’s letter of introduction, ‘well recom­ mended to me by Doctor Coke and others’,127 and on his own deathbed in 1818, the itinerant William Bramwell praised ‘the blessed, blessed, state of that man of God, Mr. Blagborne, when he was about to depart!’.128 Wride’s views were however not those of a maverick. His severe doubts about John Helton and Nicholas Manners proved soundly-based, as both were expelled from the itinerancy; equally, his admiration for Alexander Mather and Thomas Rankin was widely shared. But his inability, in some of his circuits, to develop and sustain effective team-working in the gospel cause was a serious handicap.

Figure 6.1 Thomas Coke (1747–1814), one of Wesley’s principal aides Source: Image courtesy of The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (Wesley Historical Society Library), Oxford Brookes University

Figure 6.2 John Fenwick (d. 1787), possibly one of Wride’s few friends amongst his colleagues Source: Image courtesy of The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (Wesley Historical Society Library), Oxford Brookes University

Figure 6.3 John Floyd (fl. 1770–82), with whom Wride had a difficult relationship while serving in Ireland Source: Image courtesy of The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (Wesley Historical Society Library), Oxford Brookes University

Figure 6.4 James Byron (1760–1827), one of Wride’s colleagues during his unhappy time in Norwich Source: Image courtesy of The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (Wesley Historical Society Library), Oxford Brookes University

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Notes 1 According to Wride’s own papers and/or the published Minutes. For example, Wes­ ley wrote to Wride on 8 July 1785 asking him to attend that year’s Conference— Telford, 7:279. 2 Wride to Atlay (30 March 1786), Duke C.

3 Wride to Bradford (8 November 1777), Duke D.

4 Duke D.

5 See DMBI; Rack, 475, n.730; and Rack, Enthusiast, 495–6.

6 See Wride to Wesley (29 December 1785), Duke C.

7 Duke C.

8 At the time, Coke was in his late thirties, and amongst gentlemen, this could

be used as a term of disrespect. When in 1726 Major Oneby was sentenced to death for murdering a Mr. Gower in a sword-fight, ‘The main point on which the judgment turned was the evidence of “express malice” in the remark “I will have your blood” and the contemptuous appellation of “young man” ’—Robert Baldick, The Duel (London: Chapman & Hall, 1965), 72. 9 Duke C. 10 It is not obvious which document was concerned. It may have been the Minutes of the 1785 Irish Conference, though Coke was not present—see Rack, 974, n.58. 11 On the vital importance of horses to preachers’ welfare and work, see chapter seven. 12 See chapter eight. 13 Rack, Enthusiast, 496. 14 One of the preachers based in London—Rack, 554. On Moore’s career, see DMBI. 15 See chapter nine. 16 Wride to Moore (9 November 1784), Duke B. 17 Wride to Moore (25 November 1784), Duke B. 18 This letter is mentioned in Wride’s 30 May 1785 letter to Wesley, Duke B. 19 Wride to Hodgson (26 January 1786), Duke C. 20 Wride to Wesley (7 February 1786), Duke C. 21 Rack, 865–6, [§63]. 22 Atmore, 117; see also Jackson, 1:260–8; and DMBI. 23 Rack, 358, Q.21. There were parallel arrangements for Scotland, involving the Edinburgh preachers. See also Lenton, 208–10, and John H. Lenton, “British Preachers in Ireland and Irish Preachers in Britain: The Importance of the Irish Dimension in the 18th Century,” Bulletin of the Methodist Historical Society of Ireland 16 (2011): 5–38. 24 John Murray, stationed in Newry by the 1772 English Conference—Rack, 408. There was no Irish Conference that year. 25 John Price, another Newry preacher. 26 Another Newry preacher. Price had served alongside Wride in Armagh the previ­ ous year: Rack, 398. 27 A preacher based in Londonderry. 28 The preacher John Wittam, based in Armagh—Rack, 408. 29 Wride to an unknown colleague, probably Peter Jaco (2 November 1772), Duke D. 30 As recorded by ‘F.P.’ in a memoir dated 6 October 1797, in Jackson, 2:258. There is a similarly warm appreciation of this ‘eminently holy man’ in Atmore, 110–16; while Thomas Rutherford praised him as ‘that blessed man of God’ who led to his conversion—“Memoir of Mr. Thomas Rutherford,” MM 31 (1808): 337–46, 385–94, 433–42, 481–93, 529–38, 577–82, at 389. 31 Wride to Wesley (8 November 1773), Duke A.

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32 For Wride’s attempts to impose regularity in hymn-singing practice in various circuits, see chapter seven. 33 Wride to Wesley (c. 15 January 1774), Duke A. 34 For details of Wride’s courtship and marriage, see chapter four. 35 Rack, 369, 467. 36 Duke D. 37 Rack, 294. 38 Ibid., 645; Atmore, 200. 39 Rack, 379–80. 40 Ibid., 507. For accounts of his life, see Jackson, 6:211–22, and Atmore, 274. 41 Wride to an unnamed preacher (18 July 179–), Duke D. 42 Carlill entered the itinerant ministry in 1760 and died as a preacher in 1801— William Myles, A Chronological History of the People Called Methodists (Lon­ don: Methodist Conference Office, 1813), 447. 43 Anthony Steele, History of Methodism in Barnard Castle . . . (London: Vickers, 1857), 68. 44 See chapter seven. 45 Presumably Wride’s wife, née Woodcock, or one of her family. 46 Duke B. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Rack, 531, 534. 50 Atmore, 85. 51 PLP115/9/35, MARC. 52 Wride to William Dodwell (undated, concerning an incident on 23 Septem­ ber 1783), Duke B. 53 Wride to Longley (14 October 1784), Duke B. 54 His letter-books show that he was at least visiting Yarmouth and Lowestoft in February–March 1786. 55 For a life of Hodgson, see Atmore, 191–9. 56 Wride to Coke (19 January 1786), Duke C. 57 Duke C. 58 Wride to Hodgson (8 April 1786), Duke C. 59 He was not always named as such—the working assumption in cases of doubt is that the assistant is the preacher named first in the published stations. 60 As noted earlier, he described him to Peter Jaco as a ‘good young man’. 61 Duke B. 62 John Fenwick became a travelling preacher in around 1750, serving until about 1758, and rejoined the itinerant ministry in 1777, when he was ‘admitted on trial’. He then served until 1785, when he was expelled ‘for the sin of drunken­ ness’. The 1787 Minutes included a cursory death notice: see Rack, 464, n.666, 569, n.89, 624, Q.4. Atmore commented: ‘His ministerial gifts were but small, yet he had a considerable degree of zeal, but this was not always tempered with Christian knowledge’—Atmore, 123. 63 Rack, 454, 467, 487. 64 Wesley to Wride (24 February 1775)—Telford, 6:141. 65 John Christian was the assistant on the Castlebar circuit in Ireland, in 1773–4— Rack, 418. 66 James Glasbrook ‘desisted from travelling’ in 1774—Rack, 427. He later became a Presbyterian minister in New York—Ward and Heitzenrater, 4:139, n.53. 67 Chapter five. 68 On duelling see Baldick, Duel, and Stephen Banks, A Polite Exchange of Bullets (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010).

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69 Bennis to Wesley (15 October 1771), in Eliza Bennis, Christian Correspond­ ence . . . (Philadelphia, PA: Printed by B. Graves for Thomas Bennis, 1809), 63. 70 Ibid., 182–5. 71 PLP115/9/14 & 32, MARC. 72 As Wride had explained to (probably) John Fenwick in a letter of late 1784 / early 1785; and see chapter four. 73 Ward and Heitzenrater, 5:447, n.64; also Charles H. Crookshank, History of Methodism in Ireland: Vol. I (Belfast: R.S. Allen, Son and Allen, 1885), 294. 74 See chapter five. 75 Wesley visited the circuit in October 1785, shortly after Wride took up post, but his published Journal makes no reference to Wride. 76 This section draws on Benjamin Andrews, “Memoir of the Rev. James McKee

Byron,” WMM 52 (1829): 577–91; and Crookshank, Methodism, 393–4.

77 I.e. a lay leader authorised to deliver improving addresses but not to preach

from the Bible itself. 78 Wesley to Wride (8 November 1785), Telford, 7:299. 79 Crookshank, Methodism, 394. 80 Andrews, “Byron,” WMM 52 (1829): 589. 81 Wride to Wesley (14 November 1785), Duke C. 82 The same strategy may have lain behind Wride’s posting to Kent in 1786–7 alongside the young evangelist William Bramwell, who went on to become the leading light of the 1790s ‘Great Yorkshire Revival’—see John Baxter, “The Great Yorkshire Revival 1792–6: A Study of Mass Revival Among the Method­ ists,” in A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain, Vol. 7, ed. Michael Hill (London: SCM Press, 1974), 46–76. 83 Wride to Wesley (9 December 1785), Duke C.

84 Wride to Byron (23 December 1785), Duke C.

85 Rack, 553.

86 Wride to Wesley (14 November 1785), Duke C.

87 Paul Glennie and Nigel Thrift, Shaping the Day (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2009), 105. 88 PLP115/9/10, MARC. 89 This was his response to Wride’s letter of 14 November. 90 Manners, Some Particulars, 35. 91 Wride to Wesley (9 December 1785), Duke C. 92 Telford, 7:304–5. 93 Duke C. 94 Wride to Wesley (9 December 1785), Duke C. 95 Wride to Wesley (24 April 1786), Duke C. 96 PLP115/9/38, MARC. 97 PLP9/25/7, MARC. 98 ‘He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still’: from Samuel Butler, Hudibras, the Third and Last Part (London: Printed for Robert Horne, 1679), Canto III, 202. 99 PLP9/25/7, MARC. 100 However, they worked together as colleagues at York from 1803, when Blag­ borne returned as a supernumerary—Minutes II, 173. 101 Wride to George Gibbon (October–November 1802), PLP115/9/39, MARC. 102 See chapter seven. 103 Wride to Wesley (30 May 1785), Duke B. 104 Wesley to John Atlay (3 September 1783), Telford, 7:189. 105 Telford, 5:164–5. 106 Moorhouse, Defence, 46; and see Lenton, 297.

130 107 108 109 110

Wride’s personal and professional networks

Wride to Wesley (3 October 1785), Duke C. See Minutes II, 128. Wride to George Gibbon (October–November 1802), PLP115/9/39, MARC. Wride to Wesley (30 May 1785), Duke B. Mather joined the itinerancy in 1757. He was close to Wesley in Wesley’s later years and served as president of the conference in 1792. See Jackson, 2:158–239, and DMBI. Atmore described him as ‘This truly great man, and eminent servant of the Lord Jesus Christ’—256. 111 Rankin became an itinerant preacher in 1761. In 1773, he was sent by Wesley to America as the ‘general assistant’ of American Methodists, returning to Eng­ land in 1778—see DMBI, also Jackson, 5:135–217. 112 Wride to Joseph Bradford (8 November 1777), Duke D. 113 Thomas Taylor to Wesley (11 April 1768)—Russell E. Richey, Kenneth E. Rowe, and Jean Miller Schmidt, The Methodist Experience in America, Vol. II (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000), 48–51, at 51. Taylor wanted Helton to join him in America. 114 Rack, 304, 374–5, Qs.17–18, and 376. 115 Rack, 463, n.663; see also Wesley to John Fletcher (18 August 1775), Telford, 6:174; Ward and Heitzenrater, 6:64, n.16. 116 John Helton, Reasons for Quitting the Methodist Society . . . (London: Printed by J. Fry and Co., 1778). See also Wesley’s entry for 8 August 1777 in Ward and Heitzenrater, 6:65—‘We let him go in peace’, Wesley concluded. 117 Wride to Wesley (8 November 1773), Duke A. 118 Wride to Wesley (c. 15 January 1774), Duke A. 119 Letter to an unknown addressee, probably written in 1784, PLP 115/9/35, MARC. 120 The 1784 Conference resolved to expel any preacher who ‘denies original sin’, as Manners did—Rack, 562, Q.20 and n.67. 121 Wride to Wesley (26 July 1784), Duke B. 122 Manners, Some Particulars. 123 Wride to Wesley (30 May 1785), Duke B. 124 Thomas Bell (in America) to George Cussons (1 May 1769)—MM 30 (1807): 46. James Brownfield was admitted on trial in 1765 and into full Connexion the following year but stood down in 1770—Rack, 303, 315, 380. He then became a Congregationalist minister in Whitby, taking much of his local Meth­ odist society with him—Lenton, 320. 125 Rack, 380, Q.3, and 520, Q.4. 126 Mather to William Marriott (20 September 1792), Early Preachers’ Letters, transcribed by Everett, Vol. 2, MA1977/487, MARC, ff.260–1, at 261. 127 Asbury to Mr. J. Stockton (12 May 1810), Bridwell Library Special Collections, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. 128 James Sigston, Memoir of the Life and Ministry of Mr. William Bramwell (New York, NY: J. Emory and B. Waugh, 1830), 229. Blagborne had died in 1816. His memorial at City Road Chapel commended his ‘amiable temper’ and ‘good ministerial abilities’—Stevenson, City Road Chapel, 529.

7

Wride and the growing pains

of John Wesley’s Connexion

Introduction Thomas Wride’s papers testify to many of the practical challenges faced by Wesley’s growing Connexion in the later eighteenth century. In this chap­ ter, we examine three of these through Wride’s personal experiences—the Connexion’s often critical shortages of human and financial resources; the challenge of travel and communications; and, above all, its long struggle to define and impose common standards of practice in worship.

Human and financial resource constraints Given the expanding scale and geographical footprint of Wesley’s Connex­ ion, it was continually short of preachers. Reflecting on almost 40 years as an itinerant, John Pawson wrote, It would be happy for us if we had a sufficient number of acceptable men in the connection, so that we might give full satisfaction to our friends eve­ rywhere, but this we never had since I was acquainted with Methodism.1 Wesley’s preachers were therefore worked hard, as two extant preaching plans used by Wride demonstrate. A 1771 plan for the Armagh circuit lists 27 preaching places to be served in five weeks,2 while a 1782 plan for Grimsby details some 50 locations to be visited over eight weeks.3 Wride’s calling required constant travel, by foot or on horseback; extended working hours, including leading morning worship as early as 5:00 a.m.; open-air preaching, perhaps in poor weather; a succession of face-to-face interactions with society members and others; overnight stays in sometimes insalubrious environments; and long absences from home. The poor quality of food, drink and accommodation did not support such a strenuous lifestyle. Travelling in Ireland, Wride’s contemporary Michael Moorhouse found that The living in Ireland is so different to what it is in England. Potatoes and butter milk for breakfast. Potatoes and butter milk for dinner, sometimes

132 The growing pains of John Wesley’s Connexion a dish of bad tea in the afternoon, and sometimes none; potatoes and butter milk for supper, preaching once, twice, and thrice a day besides travelling all sorts of weather, and lying in damp beds, my constitution was soon broke down.4 But in England, too, preachers often faced harsh conditions, as Wride found in the Dales circuit, when in 1777, he complained to his host, Mrs. Wilkin­ son, about her hospitality: I think it mighty odd that you want to bring the preachers to brown—or rather, black—bread, & to drink water. If any do it for choice, well: but I cannot think it consistent for you to attempt to impose it. I cannot easily believe that any, who has but small regard for the gospel or the preachers of it, would desire us to live at such a rate. . . . However, the eating such bread, I have not been accustomed unto, & I am unwilling to learn, until some better reason than your will induce me; & as for drinking of water, I did it at one season of my life, but have declined it for more than 23 years, and now I am neither able nor willing to resume it.5 Wride’s dissatisfaction reflected the changing tastes of a time when the bulk of the population were seeking to distance themselves from the subsistence diet of the past, as Clark has commented: Water, like brown bread, still carried the stigma of social deprivation . . . most ordinary people were only too happy to demonstrate their newly acquired prosperity by turning up their noses at water and drinking alehouse beer instead.6 One further dietary issue for Wride was his dislike of bacon. This was the most popular meat eaten by the labouring classes, because it was cheap, easy to store and cook, and could often be bought in small quantities.7 But it made Wride ill, though he argued to Thomas Carlill that his dietary needs were nonetheless modest: ‘If I cannot eat bacon, I can without dif­ ficulty eat milk, cheese, or butter: for I am as far from an epicure as from a skeleton.’8 Unsurprisingly, preachers’ health sometimes suffered. The biography of the Irish preacher Thomas Walsh claimed, The Manner of his Preaching, intense Study, little Rest, and frequent outward Fatigues, broke the very Frame of His Nature, and brought him in a short Time to such a Habit of Body, as Medicines were never after able to remove. An eminent Physician once said to him, ‘Mr. Walsh, I would not use my Horse as you use your Body’.9

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Wride was similarly stretched at times, as seen in this account of one espe­ cially demanding winter preaching trip: When I came into Norwich last Saturday, I was on foot (my horse being dead). Brother Hodgson wanted me to go out again. I did so, although unable to walk farther. It was fourteen miles. I got carriage in a cart; we were more than seven hours on the road, so that it was between nine and ten at night before I got to North Walsham. It was indeed very cold; it was far too much for me. I was obliged to go to bed in the day time on Sunday, and could not rise to preach in the mornings following.10 He suffered repeatedly from ill health, even in his retirement, as is evident from this 1790s letter, which also confirms that Wride regarded himself as a medical practitioner: I have been some little time under the care of a physician (Dr. Crowther) who is of opinion that my disorder is a rheumatism in the head; but for my own part, I am fully persuaded, that it is a defluction from the brain.11 [If] ‘doctors differ’, who can help?12 Money was often tight for Wesley’s preachers. As a young man, Wride was accused of bad faith in not clearing his debts. An anonymous 1770 letter to Wesley gave no fewer than five examples, including Another of his creditors here, told me a little time past, that he should have sent a writ after him long ago, had it not been that he has a great regard for his father. That he had not only omitted paying him, but had us’d him exceeding ill with his tongue.13 But at root the problem was simply that many circuits were poor and strug­ gled to support their preachers; there are frequent references in Wride’s papers to this. In 1772, he briefed Peter Jaco on his new circuit of Newry, where the preaching team had just been increased from three to four.14 Now that you may not think that I wrote without some reason: the collections at Q[uarterly M[eeting] amounted to £6.16s.0½d. English for 3 P[reachers]: now when shoes, turnpikes, buying or repairing of furniture, and many other unavoidable expenses is defrayed, (to say nothing of changing or buying of a horse), what will keep us from going in rags?15 His predecessor as assistant, Alexander McNab, had also suffered great hardship.16 Because of the financial pressures, Wride had postponed

134 The growing pains of John Wesley’s Connexion organising in the locality the nationwide collection towards Connexional expenses mandated by the Conference.17 He noted, I have not attempted the General Collection. Money is remarkably scarce, it usually is so at this time especially; & I am informed it will be more for the advantage of the cause, to defer it ‘till after Christmas. He took similar action after moving to the Whitehaven circuit in 1776, describing the Methodists of the Isle of Man to Wesley as ‘a young people and in general poor’.18 Like colleagues such as Samuel Bradburn,19 Wride often lived hand to mouth. At the end of his career, he protested that he could not afford the trip from the northern town of Barnard Castle to his next station of Bideford, Devon: Brother Holder has given me three guineas for travelling expences,20 but I verily believe I that cannot get my wife to Bideford for less than twelve guineas; and I have not so much money in hand; neither do I know which way to get it, without considerable time. I have much more owing me, but my bills are not current in inns & turnpike roads.21 It is not clear what income or assets Jenny brought to the marriage; perhaps her brother continued to pay her £5 a year. Wride may have inherited money or property in the mid-1780s, though Wesley’s comment in his letter of 29 October 1786 probably refers instead to Jenny’s inheritance (possibly dis­ puted) on the death of her mother and brother in 1785–6: But is it true, Tommy, that you have an estate left you? I fear it is not so large as the Duke of Bedford’s! I should be glad to bring you all to a good agreement. If I knew how.22 There is a hint that he was short of money in retirement in the late 1790s, in this letter from a colleague: I would have wrote sooner, but I thought your finances would not well admit of the expense of postage. However, as mine are better I have found out an expedient to get a letter franked, viz. paying for it when I put it in.23 Wride died, a childless widower, leaving an estate worth less than £200. The abstract of his last will and testament begins, After willing his debts to be discharged, & bequeathing several legacies each under £20, amounting together to £50, he gave £50 in trust to be applied in aid of the Preachers’ Fund in the Methodist Connection.24

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Some limited evidence about the wealth of other itinerant preachers is avail­ able.25 John Pawson—almost an exact contemporary of Wride’s—had £790 in financial investments upon his death.26 Joseph Benson (1748–1821) left £1,700.27 These two preachers had long careers and rose to the top of the Connexional hierarchy, both indeed serving two terms as president of its Conference. Similarly, Lancelot Harrison, another Wride contemporary, who died in 1806 after 39 years as a preacher,28 left some £1,500.29 However, Jacob Rowell (1722–84) left legacies of just over £240,30 and the estate of Joseph Cownley (1723–92) was valued at under £100.31 Both these were also long-serving preachers, and Wride’s modest accumulation of capital followed their pattern.

Travel and communications In reviewing the 6,000-year relationship between humanity and the horse, Kelekna has claimed that each of the four largest world religions— Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism—owes its eminence at least in part to diffusion on horseback. They are all, in her phrase, ‘horse-sped religions’.32 John Wesley’s brand of Methodism readily fits this mould. Preachers usually made the annual journey between postings by horse, but the availability of horses for use within circuits varied.33 In large circuits, they were indispensable, but they were costly to buy, equip, and maintain.34 For the senior preacher Samuel Bradburn, they were ‘a great burden on the connexion’.35 Access to horses was a common preoccupation of Wesley’s preachers and stewards, as it was too for those of the Countess of Hunting­ don’s Connexion.36 Wride’s writings are peppered with references to his horses, and often they caused him concern. Inevitably, a close bond could develop between a preacher and his horse, based on shared effort and often privation. Thus in 1780, in defending himself to Wesley against the charge of ‘slothfulness’, he reported as we have seen on the Dales circuit in 1777–8: Among the Dales where I could not ride on account of the snow, yet, I pursued my way by leading my horse through such difficulties as my fellow-labourers, at the same place, did not dare to follow my steps.37 Wride was troubled by the lack of both horses and preachers to meet the demands of the Norwich circuit as soon as he arrived there after the 1785 Conference, pleading with Wesley, Brother McKersey has no horse.38 I hope Sir, that whom you send will have one, or we are like to stick in the mud. We cannot do without two horses and I do not see how we can buy one.39

136

The growing pains of John Wesley’s Connexion

He took seriously the Conference injunction to preachers to take good care of their horses, as this letter to McKersey shows—at the time, he was using a horse provided by an anonymous benefactor: I am much obliged to you for the favour of offering me your help with regard to the expense of the horse; but I must consider the horse is not my own. What friend it is that is so kind to let me have the horse I know not, but gratitude requires that it be taken care of.40 The provision—or lack—of a horse was in fact a key factor in Wride’s think­ ing about where he might serve. When based in Epworth, he reported to a colleague, My horse was dangerously ill when I received yours [ie. your letter], this laid me under a necessity of using my feet rather more that my strength would bear & has made me very poorly in my health.41 Indeed, it was Thomas Wride’s horse which in a way triggered his retire­ ment. When based once more in the Dales, he was posted to Bideford by the 1790 Conference.42 This entailed a journey of some 300 miles which, although long, was not unique—in 1777, James Rogers, though suffering from prolonged ill health, was required to move from Edinburgh to Corn­ wall, a distance of 500 miles.43 However, Wride explained to Wesley that the journey was simply impracticable, and he refused to move south. I know not that it is possible to get my wife there at all, without the manifest danger of death. My horse is good, but far too small for such a journey double.44 Wesley, Wride, and other preachers were almost constantly on the move, and this greatly complicated their ability to communicate. Despite the increasingly reliable postal service,45 this led in particular to delays in the transmission and implementation of Connexional decisions. Thus in November 1772, Wride reported from Newry that the grant voted by Con­ ference had yet to arrive: They want money for their rent, as their landlord is in a hurry for it. They have not got the money from Conference, nor any account from whom they may expect it. I have heard nothing of it, nor did I know but that it was paid; whether the bills (if any has been sent) is delayed by the negligence of the post, or what else I know not. I find by the Minutes, there was £6.0s.0½d. for them.46 It meant also that preachers found it difficult to keep up to date with col­ leagues’ news; thus in 1798, Zechariah Yewdall wrote to Wride while unsure

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whether Jenny was still alive, signing off his letter: ‘Now I must conclude with my love to your other self of whom I hope is yet alive!’47 Even when letters were delivered in good time, the recipient might well be absent, and this also caused problems. In early 1786, Wride wrote to the Colchester assistant, Joseph Algar, about a proposal from Coke that he should transfer in-year from the troubled circuit of Norwich to Colchester, where he would replace the second preacher, Thomas Shaw.48 In Algar’s absence, Shaw opened the letter. Wride then reported events to Thomas Coke: Brother Shaw . . . tells me that—seeing the Norwich post stamp, and knowing that Brother Algar had no private friends in Norwich, and the letter being sealed with my cypher—he concluded that the let­ ter was of public business, therefore opened it, and has forwarded it toward Brother Algar, to whose hand it will not get in less than about a week. It appears that Brother Shaw had no knowledge of his removal until he saw my letter.49 His negative reaction killed off the plan, and Wride went to Yarmouth instead. The handling of correspondence was a critical issue in early Method­ ism, given the frequency of preachers’ absences and the sensitivity of some of their correspondence. Wesley’s anger over his wife’s ‘irritating habit’ of unnecessarily reading private letters undermined their relationship,50 and in 1786, Wride’s wife was accused of mishandling other preachers’ mail in the Kent circuit. Wride told Wesley, I hear that Mr. Meares told you that she (my wife) would not loose the letters that came. I am really sorry for him; I wish he could blush. I cannot call this a mistake, for not to say only, at that very moment stood a post letter on the mantle-piece, directed to Mr. Shadford,51 which my wife had released & referred for Mr. Shadford. But some time before that, she took of the post directed for Mr. Meares a letter charged 9½ [pence]—yea, she not only released it for him, but carried [it] to him.52

Worship practice A few key issues proved repeatedly troublesome throughout Wride’s career. One was the precise place of hymn-singing within Methodist worship, which led to bitter disputes between Wride and his congregations in York in 1773–4, Grimsby in 1782–3, Gainsborough in 1783–4, and Norwich in 1785–6.53 The Methodist approach to hymn-singing had secured John Wes­ ley’s detailed attention.54 Temperley has described

138

The growing pains of John Wesley’s Connexion The Wesleyan ideal: tunes must be of good quality, regardless of their origin; must be uttered and understood by all; and must be sung with energy and devotional feeling.55

In a 1757 letter, Wesley emphasised that his preachers must control both the selection and the timing of hymns during Methodist worship: What they sing is therefore a proper continuation of the spiritual and reasonable service; bring selected for that end, not by a poor humdrum wretch who can scarce read what he drones out with such an air of importance, but by one who knows what he is about and how to con­ nect the preceding with the following part of the service.56 Hymn-singing therefore had a ‘central place in articulating Methodism’s fundamental beliefs’.57 It was the most important—but by no means the sole—battleground in Wride’s series of struggles with the people.58 Wride’s first recorded battle with society members over hymns came in York in 1773–4 and arose from the popularity of a hymn written by the Methodist preacher Thomas Olivers, ‘The God of Abraham Praise’. First published around 1770, by 1773, it had reached its eighth edition. Given that print runs were typically 2,000 copies,59 it had perhaps sold 20,000 within five years.60 While sales were not necessarily limited to the 30,000 to 35,000 members of Wesley’s Connexion,61 Wride’s account suggests that the hymn was immediately and widely welcomed by Methodists. Preachers were expected to market and sell only official Book Room pub­ lications. Wride was therefore taken aback when one of his York members asked him to sell Olivers’s pamphlet. He explained to Wesley, Some time ago the hymn ‘The God of Abraham praise’ was in high esteem; and there being none of them with our Book-Steward, some of our private members caused them to be reprinted, and sold them to oth­ ers.62 One brought me half a hundred to sell in the country. I told him it was against Rule, and therefore I could not do it.63 This stance was entirely in line with Connexional policy—in 1768, the Conference had instructed that preachers should be ‘Recommending none but those which we recommend, and selling none else, which will effectu­ ally prevent the improper publications either of itinerant or local preach­ ers’.64 The 1770 Conference passed a similar provision.65 Wride claimed, however, that the circuit assistant, William Hunter, was conniving with the practice. Worse had followed. On Christmas Day 1773, Wride had been urged by members of the York society to give out a hymn from an unauthorised pam­ phlet of Christmas hymns during the evening service.66 They had apparently been used by a local preacher on Christmas morning. Wride refused, this

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time quoting a rule first promulgated in 1747: ‘Sing no hymns of your own composing’,67 but the members persisted. His letter to Wesley suggests that by the mid-1770s, the use of unauthorised hymnals was widespread and was supported by some itinerants as well as local preachers, stewards, and the rank and file. Wride also implied that love-feasts, an established part of Methodist practice, were under the control of the stewards rather than the preachers: It was in the course of my Plan to come to York Christmas Day in the afternoon; almost as soon as I had a pamphlet shown me (some hymns printed for Christmas) & ‘hoping you will oblige us with one of them this evening.’ I told him no; for it was against rule. . . . About half an hour before preaching time comes Richard Preston (one of our stewards). . . . He asked if I had the rule in print. I told him, ‘Yes’; that it forbid us to sing hymns of our own composing and by consequence those of other persons until they had Mr. Wesley’s appro­ bation. ‘Well’ (he replied). ‘Here is the voice of the people.’ I told him the voice of the people was no reason for me to break a rule; that they should keep the rules; & not make rules . . . [He] told me, ‘There will be some hundreds of them in the love-feast & then they will be sung; for you will not rule there’. The immediate outcome of these disputes is not known, but Wesley gave Wride his full support in his reply of 22 January 1774: You did exactly right in not countenancing hymns not publicly received among us. Were we to encourage little poets, we should soon be over­ run. But there is not the least pretence for using any new hymns at Christmas, as some of my brother’s Christmas hymns are some of the finest compositions in the English tongue.68 However, while Wesley and Wride possibly won this battle, Wesley may well have lost the war. The popular pressure to sing Olivers’s hymn proved irresistible, and it was soon incorporated into the official Wesleyan canon. It featured on the publication list of Wesley’s Religious Tract Society, founded in 1782,69 and became hymn 95 in Wesley’s 1785 pocket hymnal.70 Some ten years later, Wride faced conflict with the society on the Grimsby circuit, where the preachers had ceded control over key aspects of local preaching services to their Grimsby congregation. Wride gave two examples. The first was over the local practice for services to conclude with a ‘hymn or verse’ chosen by the congregation rather than the preacher. Given the intense competition locally between Wesleyans and Calvinists, Wride thought such breaches of discipline particularly dangerous, even though—as in York—it seemed that his assistant, Thomas Carlill, tolerated the practice, as Wride complained,

140

The growing pains of John Wesley’s Connexion A custom has here prevailed, for people after service ended, to give out some hymn or verse at pleasure, without ever consulting the preacher. This has a tendency to produce something worse than nothing. A while ago the fashion was, ‘Hark how the Gospel trumpet sounds!’ This was sung so common, that it grew thread-bare, became a song for the children in the street, and the hearers so tired, that they would go out and leave it. The preachers have countenanced it, (by not forbidding it) at least many of them; I think Brother Carlill among the rest; so that he is in danger of being thought ill natured, who will not swim with the tide. I quite dislike it, as it serves to introduce fashion instead of devotion, whimsical tunes instead of our own, and the Calvinist hymns. These may serve to make way for the Calvinist books, and next for the Calvin­ ist tenets.71

There was good reason for Wride’s concern. First, as he rightly observed, the use of only authorised hymns was crucial to the identity and success of Wesley’s cause. In the words of Clarke, It is individual hymns that can, through participative performance of words and music, make a lasting impression on those who sing or hear them. Early in Methodism’s history, this was particularly significant in promoting the Arminian theology of the Wesley brothers and rejecting the Calvinism of other Methodist leaders such as George Whitefield and Howell Harris.72 And second, their dominance within the Connexion was indeed under threat. ‘Hark How the Gospel Trumpet Sounds!’ was a text by the Baptist minister Charles Cole.73 While it may have been circulating in broadsheet or manuscript form, it was also included in the pocket hymnal published— without Wesley’s authority—by the Methodist York bookseller Robert Spence.74 This publication alarmed Wride, and in notes which date from around 1784, he developed a proposal for a response by Wesley. Mean­ while, he acquired the unhelpful habit of announcing hymns from approved hymnals by using the page number and the first line of the second verse of the hymn—those using Spence’s hymnal were thereby unable to look it up in their own books, which had different pagination and indexed only the first verse. The status of these notes is unknown, but Wesley did in fact produce his own pocket hymnal:75 The sale of such books must proportionately lessen the sale of Mr. Wes­ ley’s; and render Mr. Wesley less able to help such, as for years past have been helped by the profit of the books sold for Mr. Wesley . . . If all who call themselves Sons of Mr. Wesley would act like what they call themselves, not only would they forbear publishing from pulpit and

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press their own hymns, but soon would Mr. Robinson’s & Mr. Spence’s be out of date, like an old almanac . . . I often find that when I begin an hymn, out comes the ‘Constant Companion for the Pious’, instead of one of Mr. Wesley’s books. But I can often disappoint them, when the sense will admit to transpose or to omit the first verse—they seeking in the index, seek in vain. I think it would answer a good end to publish a little hymn-book sup­ pose about the size of Kempis.76 Wride’s second example in his letter to Carlill was that—on at least one occasion—the timing of the evening preaching service at Grimsby had been decided and announced by a local lay leader and not by him, with the result that many people deserted the Wesleyan chapel for the local Calvinist chapel: The congregation was much smaller than usual, and the Calvinists much larger; even that they called it a ‘crowded congregation’. This they may thank Brother Saufleet for; for at noon our congregation was in the usual way. As soon as I had done I published preaching as usual, not mentioning the time as they knew it so well; but Brother Saufleet shouted out, that it would be at seven o’clock. I thought it might have been in pursuance of your directions, therefore I did not contradict it, although I did not like it. By this means we lost a great part of the hear­ ers; for about six o’clock the door was frequently opened, and as we had not begun, they went off to the chapel. I really think Brother Saufleet should be taught to know his place, or else his well-meant blunders, and ill-timed activity, may help the Calvin­ ists now, as honest Brother Whittam’s did in time past. Wride’s fears of division in the society on doctrinal grounds were, again, not far-fetched. Twenty years previously, the Horncastle society—only 30 miles distant—had split over belief in predestination.77 There were broader problems too. Carlill was told that Wride was excessively criti­ cal of the people in his charge, had spoken disparagingly of the Church of England, and even that he was too pernickety about his diet. Wride strongly challenged all these accusations in a second letter, telling Carlill on the first point, You told me that I frightened the people by my criticisms, and particu­ larly by saying ‘Well explain yourself’ &c. &c. I wanted to know where this was said, and you said it was ‘everywhere’. Strange indeed. If you will furnish me with sufficient proof of 5 places out of the 50 I am con­ tent to give 5 guineas for your trouble.78 There were serious strains between Wride and his Grimsby flock by the end of his tenure.

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Wride had further problems immediately after moving to his next circuit, Gainsborough, in 1783. The issue here was not hymn-singing, but poor congregational discipline in chapel. This was as we have seen a general con­ cern across the Connexion, the subject of detailed guidance in 1780, on which Wride acted with a will. But when in the village of Normanton, he was shocked at the extent of chatter before the service, even once he had entered the pulpit, as he reported to a local clergyman, William Dodwell, in an (undated) letter, concerning an incident on 23 September 1783: It was my turn to preach at Normanton. Some time before the preach­ ing, as I was in the room above stairs, I heard a most shameful jangle of female-tongues in the place appointed for preaching. The indecency of their tittle tattle brought me down somewhat sooner than otherwise I should have come. I expected this would have stopped the noise, but was disappointed; the loud talking still continued in defiance of all rules of decency and good manners. I got into the pulpit, opened the book in order to begin the service, but still the tattling continued in defiance of all religious decency, and to the full manifestation of a total want of all breeding . . . Mrs. Sellar (whose name I did not then know) was the principal actress in this scene.79 Such ill-discipline was not confined to Gainsborough, of course, and other preachers had also acted firmly against it. A year earlier, when in Leeds, Joseph Benson had rebuked late-comers, noting in his journal, At noon, I was much grieved to see the greatest part of the congrega­ tion come late, both for their own sakes, and because they disturbed the attention of others. I spoke very plainly to them, and warned them of the danger they seemed to be in of despising or neglecting the word of God.80 Wride attempted to end the practice by meeting Mrs. Sellar at home, but the encounter did not go well. He was troubled by her confession that ‘Indeed I am not a Methodist in principle’, and told Dodwell that ‘It gave me no good opinion of Mrs. Sellar to hear her talk in so senseless and graceless a manner’. Though Wride was following the Conference’s explicit instruc­ tions, Mrs. Sellar, for all her defects, was a leading ‘friend’ of the local soci­ ety and active in its work amongst the poor. While Wride dismissed her as a ‘stately dame’, such wealthy supporters were invaluable. These successive difficulties were dwarfed by the depth and ferocity of the disputes which Wride experienced in Norwich.81 On his arrival in Septem­ ber 1785, he immediately faced a serious problem with leading members of his congregation. This arose from a monument erected in the chapel by the

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widow of Robert Turner. As Wride told Wesley on 7 September—only four days after reaching Norwich: His much distressed and almost inconsolable widow, to perpetuate his memory and publish her own incomparable poetical talents, has erected a monument in the preaching house: without any leave obtained or asked, of you.82 Wesley’s rule was that chapels should be ‘Built plain and decent, but not more expensive than is absolutely unavoidable’.83 As well as cost considera­ tions, Dolbey has suggested that There was . . . lack of incentive to erect other than the plainest and most utilitarian buildings when the tide of public opinion could so easily turn to violence and destruction. He notes that also that the evidence suggests that larger eighteenth century Methodist chapels ‘were devoid of superfluous ornament and severely func­ tional in character’.84 Ornamentation was indeed rare in early chapels, one exception being that opened at Lurgan, Ireland, in 1778, where a painting of an angel was placed above the pulpit.85 This was probably not the first chapel memorial to a deceased Methodist, nor even the first in verse. When Peter Jaco died in 1781, he was buried at Wesley’s City Road chapel, and shortly afterwards a tablet bearing the fol­ lowing verse by Charles Wesley was placed on its east wall: Fisher of men, ordain’d of Christ alone,

Immortal souls he for his Saviour won;

With loving faith, and calmly potent zeal,

Perform’d and suffer’d the Redeemer’s will;

Stedfast in all the storms of life remain’d,

And in the good old ship the haven gain’d.86

John Wesley’s objection however was not to the principle of erecting a memorial in the chapel but to the poor quality of the inscription.87 His reply confirmed Wride’s judgement that the monument should go: ‘Those dog­ gerel verses must not remain in the chapel’.88 While welcoming Wesley’s support, Wride—still new in post, of course— was unsure how to put it into effect. He wrote in reply to Wesley, on 3 October, I rather hesitate as to what one method I had best take. I wrote to Mrs. Turner, that was in order to signal my disapprobation; and to desire her to send a workman to remove them & put the wall into the same order that it was before . . . I have not sent the letter, but wait

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The growing pains of John Wesley’s Connexion your directions to proceed, either in that, or any other method you are pleased to appoint.

Wesley’s further advice was clear. He was planning a visit but meantime wrote to say that ‘The verses must be effaced some way before I come down’, adding, ‘Be as exact in discipline as you please’.89 Wesley arrived in Norwich on 17 October90 and took stock of this and other issues with Wride and the membership, as he later reported to another preacher, ‘I heard all the complaints in Norfolk face to face, and trust that they will go on well’.91 Wesley repeated publicly his request that the monu­ ment be removed, but Wride told him, What you said about the monument on the chapel wall was enough for a grateful people; and one would have supposed that the stone would have been down as soon as your back was turned: but there it still stands in defiance of common sense.92 Wride now took drastic action and covered the monument with some black substance, perhaps tar or shoe-, lamp-, or hearth-black. This outraged both Turner’s widow (who had remarried a local Baptist preacher, Joseph Proud) and the Hey family, influential members of the Norwich society. As Wride explained to Wesley, He (George Hey) also said that it was an evil deed to black the monu­ ment, and that I knew it was an evil deed or else I had not done it in the night &c . . . While I was writing the preceding line, I was called downstairs, and told that some wanted me in the chapel. I there found Mr. & Mrs. Proud who wanted to talk to me about the monu­ ment &c. &c. I told her that it might not remain there, but she said it should, if it cost her a hundred pound. Mr. Proud told me that you have no right to take it down; that ‘the trustees have a right to put the house to what use they think it proper for’; and said that if any depredation was done to that monument again, he would take the law of them, if it cost him fifty pounds. So now, Sir, you are fairly set at defiance.93 Wesley’s response has not survived. By this stage, however, for this and other reasons, he had decided that relations between Wride and the circuit had broken down irreparably; for this dispute was not the only cause of tension between Wride and the Norwich membership. There were two other areas of difficulty. One was Wride’s strictness on disciplinary matters. On arriving in Nor­ wich, he set to work in restoring what he felt were suitable standards in areas such as the issuing and showing of membership tickets, children’s classes, and sick visiting, telling Wesley,

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Last night [4 September] at meeting of the leaders I told them we were all confusion; that I could see little hope of prosperity except we set up discipline. For on Sunday evening, when I undertook to meet the society it appeared that we had more than double the number present. This is entirely owing to the not showing of tickets; if I could get some faithful helpers, this soon may be remedied, that it would be no great trouble to bring & show a ticket, that none of sense would be displeased, &c. & c. . . . The leaders promised they would help me all they could, & expressed pleasure at the prospect of having discipline restored & the children cared for.94 A month later, Wride updated Wesley: Yesterday I began meeting of the classes; I find less trouble in this part of the work than I expected at first coming. If the expression would not be too sportive I would say that ‘The terror of my countenance has awed them’, several having owned to me that they were afraid of me.95 But as in York a decade before, it was a series of disputes over hymn-sing­ ing practice which poisoned relations between Wride and the membership. His main opponents were members of the Hey family, who dominated the choir.96 Two related issues, as in York and Grimsby, were who decided what was sung and whether the congregation could sing hymns which were not in an authorised Connexional hymnal. There is evidence that unauthorised hymns were in use elsewhere in the region—Charles Bland, based in King’s Lynn, wrote to a colleague in 1785 seeking the tune for ‘Vital Spark of Heavenly Flame’, a popular Alexander Pope poem which had been published by Wes­ ley but was not yet in a Connexional hymnal.97 In Norwich, as in Grimsby two years previously, the people’s choice was ‘Hark How the Gospel Trum­ pet Sounds!’ When George Hey tried to lead the congregation in singing it, Wride intervened to stop him. As he explained in his 29 December letter to Wesley, Hey objected, citing the hymn’s use by the Grimsby Methodists: The ground of disturbance among the Heys & party now is, my refusing to let them sing their own way; not only in respect of tunes not our own but also of hymns, for last Tuesday it was said that ‘I (George Hey) began to sing “Hark how the Gospel trumpet sounds!”, and you stopped me, and yet you have owned yourself, that you knew it sung in Lincolnshire.’ Wride’s papers also include these notes on the incident: I told them that it was a contradiction to call ourselves Mr. Wesley’s people and at the same time go contrary to his repeated desire. . . . Much

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The growing pains of John Wesley’s Connexion altercation passed about the tunes of the Countess [i.e. of Huntingdon], and how much better; this for argument’s sake I allowed, but said that the ear differed as much as the taste, that some must set the Rule or all would be confusion.98

Linked to Wride’s distaste for such indiscipline was of course his concern that the preacher should retain control of what hymns were sung, so that they underpinned the message of the sermon. He told Wesley on 7 September, It was contrary to common sense for any to sing what they pleased independent of the preacher, as what they choose to sing may be as wide of the subject to be delivered, that they may no more agree than a harp and a harrow.99 And, like Wesley, Wride felt also that inappropriate choices of tunes could lead to the meaning of hymns becoming obscured—he especially objected on these grounds to the Norwich congregation’s singing of ‘anthems and fugues’.100 But Wride again found himself isolated, as—contrary to an explicit instruction from Wesley—his colleague John McKersey continued to allow three hymns rather than the customary two to be sung at preaching services, permitting one to be chosen by the congregation. As in York and Grimsby, therefore, the underlying issue here was that of control—was it the member­ ship or the preaching team who had the final say on matters of worship and practice? By the time of his departure from Norwich, Wride clearly felt that his fellow preachers had ceded too much power to the membership, and especially to the Hey family. He blamed not just his Norwich colleagues but also one of his predecessors as assistant, Joseph Pilmore:101 It was a grievous error in Mr. Pilmore that he did not put both the Heys out of Society; I am told they were closely concerned in a most villain­ ous affair, cheating Mr. Campion of near £20. But Mr. Pilmore would not put them out of Society for a very weighty reason, viz. ‘They are the only singers we have got and if I turn them out of society we shall have no singing’. So being then and thenceforth of such importance on account of singing, it is no wonder they are so enraged when the Apple of the Eye is touched . . . I may thank Mr. Byron and Mr. Muckarsay for so far encouraging them by their submission; for else I believe the war would have ended without another battle—yea, without another blow.102 Wesley sent the preaching team mixed messages in response to these ten­ sions. In November, he wrote offering Wride cautious support, though he clearly saw fault on both sides: ‘Deal plainly yet tenderly with James Byron, and he will be a very useful labourer. . . . Be mild, be serious, and you will

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conquer all things’.103 A month later, Wesley wrote a letter to Byron and McKersey jointly, expressing full-hearted support for Wride: If you do not choose to obey me, you need not: I will let you go when you please and send other preachers in your place. If you do choose to stay with me, never sing more than twice, once before and once after sermon. I have given Mr. Wride directions concerning the singers; pray assist him in seeing these directions observed. You are young; I am in pain for you. Follow his advice. He is older and wiser than you. You would do well to meet the children and the select society, though it be a cross. I will thank you if you will do all you can to strengthen Mr. Wride’s hands. Beware of strengthening any party against him. Let you three be one. Nothing will give greater satisfaction than this to Your affectionate brother104 But while Wride must have appreciated this intervention, his own letter from Wesley was less welcome. Wesley warned him, Have patience with the young men, and they will mend upon your hands. But remember! Soft and fair goes far . . . I pray let that doggerel hymn [i.e. ‘Hark How the Gospel Trumpet Sounds’] be no more sung in our chapel. If they do not soon come to their senses at Norwich, I will remove you to Colchester.105 Wesley was equivocating, only too aware perhaps that no good outcome to this situation was deliverable. Later that month, Wride was told by Thomas Coke that he was being removed from the circuit following ‘complaints from the stewards and leaders’ to Wesley. In responding to Wesley on 29 December, Wride first suggested that some if not all of the Norwich class leaders’ signatures were forged. But even if genuine, their views were of little account: We are indeed poorly off on account of leaders. Brother Booty, I look upon to be a steady good Methodist; John Senior, little inferior; Samuel Best I do not object. John Johnson a good man, but vastly wanting in gifts. Of Edward Flegg I say little. The two Heys, I seriously believe, are such as I should count it an unspeakable mercy if God would be pleased to send them out of our sight. William Kilburn I hope is a good man, but he is a very bad leader . . . I am told that he frequently goes visiting of the people at preaching time & so keeps the people from attending. Monday evening last his class was to meet, but he was not there, neither was his paper. I told you Sir when at Norwich why I thought that William Kilburn was a Calvinist . . . I will not undertake to prove that Mr. Kilburn is a

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The growing pains of John Wesley’s Connexion Topladian Calvinist, but I have no doubt of proving that he has deliber­ ately and repeatedly said that no one ever perished that had known the love of God; but that God would bring them back again some time or other, before they died.106

Whoever signed the letter, and in spite of Wride’s misgivings, the leadership evidently found this and other evidence persuasive that it was Wride and not the local leadership who was at the root of the society’s problems. Wride’s obsession with the preacher’s role in choosing hymns and tunes and leading this key aspect of worship continued in his retirement in York. Thus in 1802, he castigated his colleague George Gibbon’s ineptitude in such matters: I do not remember to have heard you read one, without killing it; for by false pointing, false accenting, false emphasis and false pronunciation, you have killed much good poetry. But yet, if you should be arraigned for your blood-shedding, get me upon the jury, and I will use my efforts to procure as favourable a ver­ dict as in truth & justice I can . . ., viz. ‘hymn-slaughter’. I know not how to excuse you for spoiling so many hymns.107 Wride was of course far from being the sole preacher who had difficulties in his relationship with stewards, members, and hearers. The Great Yarmouth society, for example, was in almost continuous turmoil from the 1760s until the late 1780s. It split in 1765, when (as Wesley put it) Poor Benjamin Worship was converted to Calvinism. Immediately he declared open war, tore the society in pieces, took all he could to him­ self, wholly quitted the Church, and raised such a scandal as will not soon be removed.108 Ten years later, the damage had still not been repaired when John Simp­ son, reportedly an Antinomian, led another secession. In the early 1780s, rivalry between two local preachers, Samuel King, a class leader and local preacher, and James Hindmarsh, a retired itinerant, led to further dissension and another breakaway (led by King), though in 1790, Wesley noted in his journal that harmony had finally been restored: ‘I went to Yarmouth; and, at length, found a society in peace, and much united together’.109 Crookshank described problems in Limerick in the mid-1770s: Mr. Wrigley, who had been in Cork, and exchanged with Mr. Hern, was now Assistant of Limerick. He was abrupt and imperious in his manner, a strict disciplinarian, rather inclined to stand on his official dignity, and of unbending integrity; yet withal having a kind heart. He had evidently come into collision with the young men of the Society, written a vehe­ ment letter to Mr. Wesley, and expressed his determination to put them

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out if they did not acknowledge their fault. Mr. Wesley quietly replied, ‘I never put any out of our Society for anything they say of me’.110 In 1782, there were severe tensions within the Hull circuit, leading to the premature departure of one of the preachers, William Dufton. His colleague Samuel Hodgson recorded the problems in his journal, for example, Middleton, 29 May 1782. This morning I parted with my worthy friend Mr. D[ufton]. He came to sleep with me at Garton in his way to Scar­ borough. He is driven out of the circuit by the ill usage of some of our people at Hull.111 Adam Clarke later recalled that in 1785 he was transferred to the Plymouth Dock circuit, at the request of local people, following a secession led by his predecessor William Moore. Over the ensuing year, Clarke claimed that he had encouraged some of the seceders to return and also added over 100 new members.112 Around the same time—in a clear parallel with Wride’s problems—Joseph Thompson, then based on the Whitehaven circuit, was in conflict with the town’s society because he did not share their enthusiasm for hymn-singing. As a participant in the events recalled in the 1820s, Said he from the pulpit in the midst of the most correct singing I ever witnessed, ‘I would as soon hear a cow grunting’. . . . I informed Mr. Wesley of our situation who returned for answer: ‘Dear Brother, Keep together and while Brother Thompson remains with you confine your­ selves to the tunes contained in Sacred Harmony and I think he will not interrupt you. I am coming down shortly’.113 And in 1787–8, there were several disputes in the Bradford circuit; there was reportedly ‘unhallowed strife’ over control of Eccleshill chapel, while in the city of Bradford ‘ “the bond of peace” was broken’, leading to a sig­ nificant drop in membership.114 At the same time, one preacher reported opposition from within the Aylesbury society: Feel my mind pained on hearing an account of the division of the Aylesbury Society, occasioned by Thomas Higgins, who has made it his practice to go from house to house among the friends to depreci­ ate our character and preaching as soon as we are departed from the town.115

Conclusion As for many of his colleagues, Wride’s life as one of Wesley’s itinerants was hard. He had a heavy workload and travelled extensively, often in poor weather. The food and lodging which he received was simple, though his

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dietary preferences did not help. He was constantly short of money, reflect­ ing the poverty of the circuits to which he was usually assigned. The frequent ill health which both Wride and his wife suffered must have exacerbated their financial problems. Added to such stresses was that of isolation. Communications within a circuit preaching team and with the Connexional leadership were not straightforward, and delays and misunderstandings were frequent. While the annual Conference debated and purported to resolve a succession of issues of doctrine and discipline, there were significant variations in the practice of individual preachers and societies. Wride found these hard to stomach. Though there were many dimensions to his struggles with his flocks in York, Grimsby, Gainsborough and Norwich, the most critical issue was the organisation of hymn-singing in chapel. Specifically, in York in 1773–4, Grimsby in 1782–3, and Norwich in 1784–5, Wride found various forms of irregular practice—the use of unauthorised texts, tunes, and hymnals, including Baptist texts; hymns being chosen by the congregation rather than by the preacher; and the singing of three rather than the standard two hymns during what was primarily a preaching service. While many Methodist documents give the impression of continual pro­ gress towards a set of shared goals, the reality was of course that there were not infrequent setbacks; Wride’s career was in this sense not unique.116 What was unusual was the persistence of his problems with local Methodists and their supporters, across the country, and the detail—indeed, the relish—with which he recorded them. But while it was perfectly reasonable for Wride to expect John Wesley’s support as he fought to safeguard his strict stance on these essential practices, he did not always receive it.

Notes 1 John Pawson to George Merryweather (10 October 1799), Early Preachers’ Let­ ters, transcribed by Everett, Vol. 1, MA1977/485, MARC, f.32. 2 Armagh circuit plan (1771), T2125/17/1, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. 3 Grimsby circuit plan (1782), PLP115/9/34, MARC. 4 Moorhouse, Defence, 9. Moorhouse was stationed in Enniskillen (1773–4), Castlebar (1774–5), and Athlone (1775–6)—Rack, 418, 430, 442. 5 Wride to Sister Wilkinson (22 November 1777), Duke D. 6 Peter Clark, The English Alehouse (London and New York, NY: Pearson Longman, 1983), 214. 7 Olsen, Daily Life, 240–1. 8 Wride to Carlill (12 April 1783), Duke B. Bacon was salted and may well there­ fore have been stored for long periods in unsanitary conditions. 9 Morgan, Walsh, 136. 10 Wride to Wesley (7 February 1786), Duke C. 11 Johnson’s Dictionary defined ‘defluxion’ as ‘a flowing down of humours’. 12 Wride to an unnamed preacher (18 July 179–), Duke D.

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13 ‘A member of the Church of England’ to Wesley (18 October 1770), PLP115/9/30, MARC. 14 Rack, 398, 408. 15 Wride to an unknown colleague, probably Peter Jaco (2 November 1772), Duke D. 16 Crookshank, Methodism, 253. 17 Rack, 413, Q.12. 18 Wride to Wesley (13 January 1777), PLP115/9/31, MARC. 19 ‘Thou triest me with poverty, that I may feel for the poor’—entry for Novem­ ber 1790, Samuel Bradburn Memorandum Book, MA1977/296/1, MARC. 20 George Holder was the newly-appointed assistant on the Dales circuit, which Wride was due to leave—Rack, 716. 21 Wride to Wesley (26 August 1790), Duke D. 22 Telford, 7:348. 23 Zechariah Yewdall to Wride (14 April 1798), PLP116/1/7, MARC. I am grateful to Rev. Terry Hurst for drawing this letter to my attention and making a tran­ scription available. At this period, postage was normally paid by the recipient. 24 Abstract of [final] Will of Thomas Wride, 1 July 1807, IR/26/428, TNA. 25 Though Wride witnessed Thomas Mitchell’s will of 30 March 1770, that con­ tained no figures; he simply left everything to his wife—PROB11/1134. 26 Abstract of Will of John Pawson, 11 April 1806, IR/26/427/126, TNA. 27 Last Will and Testament of Joseph Benson, 10 February 1821, PROB11/1640, TNA. 28 MM 30 (1807): 416–17. 29 Abstract of Will of Lancelot Harrison, 26 February 1807, IR/26/428/166, TNA. 30 Last Will and Testament of Jacob Rowell, 14 May 1774, M/BC/87, Durham County Archives. 31 Geoffrey E. Milburn, “A Travelling Preacher’s Will (The Will of Joseph Cownley, 1723–1792),” Bulletin of the Wesley Historical Society, North East Branch 49 (1988): 16–22. 32 Pita Kelekna, The Horse in Human History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 388. 33 Lenton, 142–4. 34 Norris, Financing, 141–2. 35 Entry for April 1798, Samuel Bradburn Memorandum Book, MA1977/296/1, MARC. 36 See for example her letter (no. 364) of 31 March 1785 to Mr. Carpenter: ‘I will make all walk of students that go to the ordination, that no expense may be incurred by horses’—John R. Tyson with Boyd S. Schlenther, In the Midst of Early Methodism (Lanham, MD, Toronto, ON, and Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 2006), 281. 37 Wride to Wesley (8 December 1780), PLP115/9/40, MARC. 38 John McKersey was Wride’s colleague at Norwich. Thomas Jones had also been appointed to serve at Norwich but had not yet arrived—see Rack, 569. 39 Wride to Wesley (7 September 1785), Duke D. 40 Wride to McKersey (15 March 1786), Duke C. 41 Wride to (probably) John Fenwick (late 1784/early 1785), Duke B. 42 Rack, 681, 714. 43 Jackson, 4:301. His stations are recorded in Rack, 455, 466. 44 Wride to Wesley (10 August 1790), Duke D. 45 Baker, 1:20–8. 46 Wride to an unknown colleague, probably Peter Jaco (2 November 1772), Duke D. 47 Yewdall to Wride (14 April 1798), PLP116/1/7, MARC.

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48 Rack, 569. 49 Wride to Coke (19 January 1786), Duke C. 50 Kenneth J. Collins, “John Wesley’s Relationship with His Wife as Revealed in His Correspondence,” Methodist History 32, no. 1 (1993): 4–18. 51 George Shadford was the assistant in Kent—Rack, 598. 52 Wride to Wesley (27 October 1786), PLP115/9/36, MARC. 53 See also George Stampe, “Early Unauthorised Hymn-Books,” PWHS 4 (1904): 99–101. 54 See, for example, the detailed instructions presented to the 1780 Conference— Rack, 919–20. 55 Nicholas Temperley, “John Wesley, Music, and the People Called Methodists,” in Music and the Wesleys, ed. Nicholas Temperley and Stephen Banfield (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 24–5. 56 Wesley to ‘A Friend’ (20 September 1757), Telford, 3:226–8, at 227. 57 Martin V. Clarke, British Methodist Hymnody (Abingdon and New York, NY: Routledge, 2018), §14.21. 58 This account draws on that in Norris, “Authority and Conflict”. 59 Norris, Financing, 168. 60 See Thomas Olivers, A Hymn to the God of Abraham (Nottingham: Printed by S. Creswell, 1770?). 61 Membership was recorded as 31,484 in 1772 and was on a rising trend—Rack, 410. 62 The bookseller Robert Spence was a member of the York society and may well have been the source of this edition. 63 Wride to Wesley (c. 15 January 1774), Duke A. 64 Rack, 361. 65 Ibid. Q.28 A.(2), 391. 66 Telford suggests that this may have been William Ramsden, Hymns on the nativity . . . (York: Printed by A. Ward for the Author, 1775). 67 Rack, 207, [§69] Q.12 A.(2). 68 Telford, 6:71. 69 Rivers, Vanity Fair, 58–9. 70 John Wesley, A Pocket Hymn-Book for the Use of Christians of all Denomina­ tions (London: Printed by J. Paramore, 1785), 96. See also Telford, New Meth­ odist Hymn-Book, 19–20. 71 Wride to Carlill (3 March 1783), Duke B. 72 Clarke, Methodist Hymnody, §19.13. 73 David W. Music, “The Tune GOSPEL TRUMPET: Its Origin and Transmission in American Tunebooks,” American Music Research Center Journal 15 (2005): 19. 74 Robert Spence, A Pocket Hymn Book Designed as a Constant Companion for the Pious (York: Printed for the Author, 1783). 75 Wesley, Pocket Hymn-Book. 76 Grimsby circuit accounts, PLP115/9/35, MARC. 77 Manners, Some Particulars, 32–3. Other doctrinal splits included those at Nor­ wich (for example, in 1760 over the administration of Holy Communion by itinerant preachers)—Heitzenrater, 206–7. 78 Wride to Carlill (12 April 1783), Duke B. 79 Duke B. Conceivably Wride was taking his cue from St. Paul’s comments on the subject, as in I Corinthians 14:34—‘Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak’ (King James Version). Few present-day commentators read this literally, however. 80 Entry for 1782, Richard Treffry, Memoirs of the Rev. Joseph Benson (London: John Mason, 1840), 102.

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81 On contemporary Norwich Methodism, I have drawn on David J. Hart, “The Emergence and Development of Wesleyanism in Norwich 1754–1802” (PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 2010). 82 Duke D.

83 Rack, “Large Minutes 1780–89,” 930–1, Q.65.

84 George W. Dolbey, The Architectural Expression of Methodism (London:

Epworth Press, 1964), 61, 84. 85 John Malcomson, “Memoir of Mrs. Margaret Malcomson, of Bluestone, Near Lurgan, Ireland,” WMM 50 (1827): 801. 86 Charles Wesley’s epitaph for Jaco, as published in 1781 in AM 4: 621. Accord­ ing to George Stevenson, a reference to Jaco’s wife, who died in 1794, was added later. However, in 1870, the memorial fell off the chapel wall and was destroyed—Stevenson, City Road Chapel, 443. The aptness of the imagery in Charles Wesley’s verse derived from the facts that Jaco was a pilchard fisher­ man from the Cornish port of Penzance and shared his first name with Saint Peter, another former fisherman whom Jesus had designated as a ‘fisher of men’—Matthew 4:19, King James Version. 87 While I have not studied the subject in any detail, I note for example that in 1810 the preacher John Braithwaite commented on the fact that a local benefactor had donated at least £1,000 to Macclesfield chapel and had been commemorated therein by a marble tablet—Dickinson, Life of the Rev. John Braithwaite, 422. 88 Wesley to Wride (16 September 1785), Telford, 7:290.

89 Wesley to Wride (8 October 1785), Telford, 7:296.

90 This date is given in Wride’s letter to Wesley of 9 December 1785 (Duke C) and

confirmed by Wesley’s journal entry—Ward and Heitzenrater, 7:120–1. 91 Wesley to Thomas Tattershall (13 November 1785), Telford, 7:300. 92 Wride to Wesley (9 December 1785), Duke C. 93 Wride to Wesley (29 December 1785), Duke C. 94 Wride to Wesley (7 September 1785), Duke D. 95 Wride to Wesley (3 October 1785), Duke C. 96 The Hey (or Hay) family were active members of the Norwich society. Both George and James Hey appear on the membership roll for June 1785 (Nor­ wich Circuit Book, FC/16/1, Norfolk Record Office). In 1785, both Heys are described as ‘weavers’. James Hey was named as a class leader, and in 1786, he was described as a ‘clothier’, suggesting that he may have been one of the elite of master weavers who dominated the city’s textile industry—see Ursula Priestley (ed.), The Letters of Philip Stannard, Norwich Textile Manufacturer (1751–1763) (Norwich: Norfolk Record Society, 1992), 6–9. George Hey and his wife, Sarah, later moved to Diss, where they became master and mistress of the workhouse—DMBI. 97 Bland to James Oddie (15 November 1785), MA1977/485, MARC. Wesley published it in 1744, but it first appeared in a Methodist hymnal in 1820 (Can­ terbury Dictionary of Hymnology, accessed online July 2019). 98 Fragment of unidentified letter or journal, relating to events when Wride moved to Norwich in 1785, Duke D. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid. In 1770, the conference had specifically condemned the use of ‘complex tunes which it is scarce possible to sing with devotion’: Rack, “Large Minutes, 1770–72,” 905, [§79]12. 101 Joseph Pilmore served as assistant in Norwich in 1778–9—Rack, 476. 102 Wride to Wesley (9 December 1785), Duke C. 103 Wesley to Wride (17 November 1785), Telford, 7:301.

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104 Wesley to Byron and McKersey (14 December 1785), Telford, 7:304–5. This dispute is discussed in John A. Vickers, Thomas Coke, Apostle of Methodism (London: Epworth Press, 1969), 65–6. 105 Wesley to Wride (14 December 1785), Telford, 7:305. 106 Wride to Wesley (29 December 1785), Duke C. The names of the leaders are confirmed by the Norwich Circuit Book, FC/16/1, Norfolk Record Office. Wride named George Hey as a class leader also. 107 Wride to George Gibbon (October–November 1802), PLP115/9/39, MARC. 108 Entry for 13 January 1766, Ward and Heitzenrater, 5:28. 109 Entry for 14 October 1790, ibid., 7:193. See also Abraham Watmough, A His­ tory of Methodism in the Town and Neighbourhood of Great Yarmouth . . . (London: Printed for John Kershaw, 1826), 92. 110 Crookshank, Methodism, 285–6. The incident seems to date from 1773–4, when the Minutes record Francis Wrigley as the assistant at Cork and Jonathan Hern as the assistant at Limerick—Rack, 418. 111 Adam Clarke manuscripts, “A Short Account of Saml. Hodgson,” MA1977/239, MARC. 112 Clarke, Account of the Infancy, 229. Moore’s departure from the Connexion was briefly reported in the 1785 Conference Minutes—Rack, 569. 113 “Brief Account of Whitehaven Methodism,” YDFCM/2/102, Whitehaven Archive and Local Studies Centre, 7. Joseph Thompson was stationed in Whitehaven in 1784–5 and 1785–6—Rack, 556, 571. Wesley did not however visit until 1788—see journal entry for 10 May 1788, Ward and Heitzenrater, 7:82. 114 William W. Stamp, Historical Notices of Wesleyan Methodism in Bradford and Its Vicinity (London: Mason, 1841), 72. Overall circuit membership fell from 1,128 in 1787 to 1,040 in 1788—Rack, 635, 658. 115 Entry for 4 July 1788, Richard Reece Journal, MA1977/273, MARC. On 14 February 1789, Reece reported that Higgins had been expelled from the society. 116 For an Anglican example, we might note that in 1800 the leader of the Rev. William Holland’s parish church choir objected to the participation of some visiting instrumentalists in the service; he ‘cannot well comprehend this grunt­ ing & tooting’, Holland noted in a journal entry for 23 February—William Holland papers, A/BTL 2/3, Somerset Heritage Centre.

8

Wesley, Wride, and the marketplace of ideas

Wride’s theology Wride’s papers give only incidental evidence of his views on theological mat­ ters. There are however a few sermon notes and occasional remarks in his correspondence. From these, it is possible to discern his thoughts on some key aspects of Methodist doctrine. Wride felt that he had a firm grasp of theology. His confidence was evident in a 1786 letter to his colleague John McKersey containing a sus­ tained theological joke at the expense of their assistant (superintending minister), Samuel Hodgson. This revolved around the doctrine of ‘imputed righteousness’, the view that ‘the righteousness on the basis of which the sinner is justified is not his own righteousness, but a righteousness which is given to him by God’.1 Wride complained that the responsibilities which Hodgson had placed upon him were unsustainable, as he had no horse: ‘If an imputed righteousness will do for Mr. Hodgson, an imputed horse will not carry me; neither will an imputed strength make me able to walk the circuit’.2 Wesley was repelled by the Calvinist concept of ‘unconditional reprobation’—he could not reconcile his belief in a loving and merciful God with the doctrine of predestination as preached by some contempo­ rary Calvinists, who claimed that God cannot be thought of as doing something by default: he is active and sovereign in his actions. Therefore God actively wills the salva­ tion of those whom will be saved, and the damnation of those who will not.3 The struggle against Calvinism was a defining battle for eighteenth-century Wesleyan Methodists and one in which Wride became an enthusiastic par­ ticipant, perhaps because he had entered the itinerant ministry at precisely the time—around 1770—when the dispute was at its height.4 Like Wes­ ley, he also found the doctrine full of contradictions. He summarised his

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position in his 16 July 1779 letter to James Metcalfe, an Anglican clergyman whom he suspected of Calvinist inclinations: It appears . . . absurd to suppose the God of Love to damn eternally millions of souls for doing his ‘adorable will’ (as every reprobate must do it in everything, if what you say be true). And yet to call this horrid news by the name of ‘gospel’, and God the supposed author of all this misery he will sometimes call the Father of Mercies.5 Later in the letter, Wride urged his correspondent to study Wesley’s stance on the matter: I really wish you attentively to read over a final pamphlet called ‘Predes­ tination calmly considered’ pub[lished] by Mr. Wesley.6 I hope it may be a means of helping you to a better understanding, if not better morals. And I hereby pledge myself that if you—or any or all you choose— can, will and actually do furnish me with a plain, clear, scriptural and rational answer to the said pamphlet, I will not only forbear speaking against Mr. Calvin’s Mahometan notions, but will cry them up as much as I have opposed them, and commence a worshipper of your God; although as some of you describe him, he must be worse than the Devil. A central tenet of Luther’s Reformation was that sinners were saved not through their own efforts, such as ‘good works’, but through the external action of God in offering a salvation which was quite undeserved.7 This was a core belief for Wesley too, as he explained in a sermon of 1746: ‘Faith therefore is the necessary condition of justification. Yea, and the only neces­ sary condition thereof’.8 Wride shared this understanding and ridiculed the idea of ‘salvation by works’ in his 12 April 1783 letter to Thomas Carlill: Jesus says what will amount to as much. ‘Many will say to me in that day, “We have eaten and drunken in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets” &c. Yea, many will say unto me, “Lord! Lord! Have we not prophesied in thy name, cast out devils in thy name, done many wonderful works?” Yet [they] will be rejected, with “Go ye cursed, I never knew you, ye workers of iniquity.” ’9 But although for Wesley and his followers, personal salvation did not depend upon the individual’s ‘good works’, these were an essential consequence and outward sign of salvation. As Wesley wrote in his sermon on ‘The Scripture Way of Salvation’, ‘It is incumbent on all that are justified to be zealous of good works’.10 And as his General Rules for the Methodist people made clear, ‘It is expected of all who continue in these Societies, that they should continue to evidence their Desire of Salvation. . . . By doing Good’.11

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Some surviving fragments of a sermon by Wride make the point clear—it was not enough for the Christian to be merely ‘harmless’: To be without spot must be in the first place to forsake every open outward sin, or our spots are so conspicuous as to be seen even by any observer. But what if we go no farther? If we only get as much of what we call religion as to be as harmless as a post or a stone? We are not to trouble ourselves about doing good; because we think we do but little evil. . . . But it is very plain that such are not without spot, much less are they blameless. I conclude that to be without spot intends the being such as no judicious, impartial eye can accuse us, either as to the practice of sin or the neglect of duty.12 We have however no direct evidence of social action by Wride himself. When in Ireland in the 1770s, he admired the work amongst the poor of two wealthy friends of Methodism, Samuel and Lucy Handy: I have seen the parlour of Samuel Handy Esq. at Coolylough in the Kingdom of Ireland, well-furnished with poor people, yet neither Mr. Handy, nor Lucy his wife ever talked of this their ‘great condescension’; but it was the rejoicing of their heart, to see what they hoped would redound to the glory of God, in the salvation of souls.13 And in retirement in York, Wride had some role in reviewing the society’s sick visiting programme.14 But other than that, we know nothing. A key and distinctive doctrine for John Wesley was that of ‘Christian per­ fection’ or ‘entire sanctification’. Wesley did not suggest that believers were necessarily sanctified immediately upon their conversion. Instead, the believer is expected to make gradual progress in holiness toward the goal of perfection, and believers can experience this goal of entire sanctification in this life . . . the perfected believer neither pos­ sesses perfect knowledge nor is free for infirmities. . . . Rather it is a certainty of perfect love for God and neighbor, and it comes generally when one is facing death.15 As we have seen, Wride may have thought at one stage that he had himself achieved perfection,16 but he recognised that it was a difficult doctrine for many people, and he was not alone in that view. The Gloucestershire local preacher William Holder recorded his personal wrangling with the doctrine: This morning I was very much tempted to give up sanctification think­ ing. I did not enjoy what is imply’d therein, but as I was praying ye Lord to shew me, ye cloud broke & my soul greatly rejoiced; yet I was greatly

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Wesley, Wride, and the marketplace of ideas tempted all day & looked too much at it. The Lord shewed me I lived too much in my self & not enough upon him, which caused my trouble; in ye evening I met my band & was greatly refreshed, one of my breth­ ren said he believed ye Lord had delivered him from sin.17

Jonathan Hern, who entered the itinerancy in 1769,18 told Eliza Bennis in a letter of 16 April 1773 that he had often struggled with this teaching.19 Indeed, Rack described it as ‘peculiar to Wesleyanism in this period and highly controversial even within that body’.20 On arriving in the York circuit in 1773, Wride himself found that some of the members thought it too problematic to raise in sermons, which were aimed at the wider congregation of hearers, as his early November letter to Wesley explained.21 And he alluded to its unpopularity in reporting to Wesley, on 7 September 1785, on his first meeting with the ‘select band’ of believers in his new station of Norwich: Last night (viz. Friday Sep. ye 9) I met with the few who meet as a selectband. There were seven present, six of whom gave a plain rational account of the work of God, such as may well be received by such as are not prejudiced against the hated doctrine of perfection.22 In what seem to be fragmentary sermon notes, Wride accepted that perfec­ tion is attainable by humankind, in discussing God’s ‘imitable perfections’: By Godliness may be understood the being like unto God in his imitable perfections as in 2 Peter 1: 3 & 4 we find it: ‘According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us unto glory and virtue. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust’.23 And while he was living in York in the late 1790s, one prominent local Methodist, the bookseller Robert Spence, told a preacher, ‘Of late, my gra­ cious Lord has shined upon my mind. I think he has destroyed unbelief, pride, and every unholy temper’.24

The religious marketplace John Wesley recalled in a 1787 sermon, Near fifty years ago, a great and good man, Dr. Potter, then Archbishop of Canterbury, gave me an advice for which I have ever since had occa­ sion to bless God: ‘If you desire to be extensively useful, do not spend your time and strength in contending for or against such things as are

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of a disputable nature; but in testifying against open notorious vice, and in promoting real, essential holiness’.25 Throughout his career, he was prepared to work with like-minded mem­ bers of the Anglican clergy in furthering the gospel, though by 1769, he had abandoned his long-held hope of forging a firm alliance with evangeli­ cal Anglicans.26 His friend the local preacher (and distinguished physician) James Hamilton offered a generous vision of this ecumenism in his Confer­ ence sermon of 1789, addressing his audience as men Raised up for this express purpose, to collect into one spiritual church all the children of God. . . . That being born of God, and filled with divine love; renewed and sanctified in body, soul, and spirit; Arminians and Calvinists, Quakers and Churchmen, Presby­ terians, Baptists, and Independents; all of every sect may partake of one spirit, become one in heart, be bound up in one bundle of life, by the cords of love, however they may differ and dissent in things that are external.27 Of course, the distinctions between the various religious groups which emerged from the Reformation can be exaggerated: We need to emphasize the similarities and connections, both in ideas and personnel, between religious groups, so that seemingly opposed movements can be shown to have shared not only a common inherit­ ance, but could also indulge in shared alliances, which makes it diffi­ cult to talk of definite and distinct groupings. . . . Moreover, from the vital perspective of the parish, these distinctions look more and more blurred.28 One example was the reluctance of many Methodists to compete with ser­ vices in their local parish church—as late as 1879, some Irish Methodists refused to do so.29 Like Wesley of course, Wride was a member of the Church of England. The prospect of separation horrified him, as he made clear to Wesley: I received a quantity of Sermons last Saturday, but I have not exposed them, nor do I choose to do it until I have your approbation. The ser­ mon was preached at Baltimore, Dec. 27–1784, by Dr. Coke. If my hasty perusal will enable me to judge, it amounts to a formal separation from the Church of England, and if others see it in the same light that I do, it will in the end tear up Methodism by the roots. Whatever may be said at America, I cannot think it right to declare ourselves in Eng­ land independent of the Church of England, while we enjoy the same privileges as we did from the first.30

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And in a critical letter to George Gibbon, Wride acknowledged Methodism’s common liturgical heritage with the Established Church. He explained, I have often thought it was not the most excellent way to dismiss a con­ gregation in the second person, for I am apt to think the preacher needs grace as much as the hearers, and therefore I think to use the first per­ son plural is most proper and humble. I grant that you are not without precedent. Those they call bishops and priests are enjoined to use that pomposity, but I do not know that deacons are, and I am sure that it is not required of us, and I think that it would appear more humble if we laid such pomp aside.31 Methodists—notably Wesley himself—also occasionally made common cause with some branches of Dissent.32 Local collaboration even with sym­ pathetic ministers of other denominations was however not always straight­ forward. In 1756, Wesley caused surprise when in Carrickfergus in Ireland, by attending morning worship in the (Church of Ireland) parish church but then refusing to go to a Presbyterian meeting; though in the late 1770s, when accommodation was proving a significant constraint in parts of Northern Ireland, Wesley often used Presbyterian meeting-houses.33 Although Methodism tended to flourish where the Established Church or other denominations were weak,34 in numerous local contexts, ministers and congregations from one religious persuasion self-consciously confronted their competitors. Thus, in 1770, Joseph Cownley reported on an evangelis­ tic foray by Particular Baptists to recruit from amongst his members: I am not sure that I told you we have had a Baptist preacher here for some time, the famous Mr. Allen,35 the publisher of the Spiritual Maga­ zine.36 He has got about eight of our unsettled ones under the water [ie. baptised them through total immersion, a Baptist hallmark] . . . but I think he will get no more.37 Thirty years later, the Somerset parson William Holland criticised local Methodist preachers as disrupters of the established order: These men do a great deal of harm, they pretend to great sanctity, but it is ostentation not reality. They draw people from the Established Church, infuse prejudices in them against their legal pastors, & of late they are all Democratic & favourers of French Principles, & I suspect that some of the Philosophers get among them under the character of celebrated preachers & so poison their minds against the Established government.38 For Methodists, as for Anglicans, Calvinism was an obvious fault line. While, as we have seen, Wesley thought it feasible to cooperate in some

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circumstances with General Baptists, who were theologically Arminian, he could not envisage joint working with the predestinarian Particular Baptists. This is the background to Wride’s sometimes troubled relations with the Church of England and with Dissenters. Wride experienced problems with Anglican clergy during at least three postings—Whitehaven (1776–7), Yarm (1778–9), and Grimsby (1782–3). In Whitehaven, the key issue was the hostility towards Manx Method­ ism of the Anglican hierarchy and specifically the then bishop of Sodor and Man, Richard Richmond. This predated Wride and involved all the Meth­ odist preachers of the time. In July 1776, shortly before Wride’s appoint­ ment, the bishop had issued this pastoral letter to his clergy: We do therefore for the prevention of schism and the re-establishment of the uniformity in religious worship which so long has subsisted among us, hereby desire and require each and every of you to be vigilant and use your utmost endeavours to dissuade your respective flocks from following or being led and misguided by such incompetent teachers.39 One consequence was that the bishop tried to restrict Methodists’ access to Holy Communion, on which Wride reported to Wesley in a letter of 13 January 1777, quoting his colleague Robert Empringham, On Tuesday last I received a letter from Brother Empringham, dated December ye 10th, in which he writes, the Reverend Mr. Corlett ‘seems to be very friendly with me & ye people,40 but he dare not give me the sacrament, but I stay in ye church till he has done giving it to others. The bishop I suppose binds him to deny us ye privilege . . .’ I think Brother Empringham has in this done the best that he could have done; and to thinking people, it may speak more than the Bishop is aware of; but as it is a point in which I have never been exercised, I thought it needful to have your advice.41 Wesley readily endorsed this approach, replying, ‘Robert Empringham has done exactly right as to the sacrament. I advise you to tread in his steps’.42 We have no evidence to suggest that Wride did anything to exacerbate the problem. Indeed, when on 3 February, Wride wrote again to Wesley, his let­ ter confirmed that Corlett remained an ally: Last Saturday I spent a good part of the afternoon with Mr. Corlett. He appears to be as friendly a man as I have met with. . . . He is not ashamed to own or defend us, and yet he is amazingly fearful of the bishop. I suppose he is not well acquainted with ecclesiastical law; but however if you come over, he says ‘Mr. Wesley shall not preach in the factory’ (the place we preach in) ‘but he shall have my pulpit’.43

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The context of Wride’s problems in Yarm was quite different. As already discussed, Wride became caught up in a bitter personal dispute with a local clergyman, Rev. James Metcalfe.44 Though the Conference did not of course support Wride’s behaviour, there possibly was some basis for his accusa­ tions. If so, Wride may have thought that he was following Conference pol­ icy, in his idiosyncratic way. Wesley’s rule that Methodists should not hold their own services so as to clash with those in the local parish church had exceptions, one of which was ‘When the minister is a notoriously wicked man’.45 Wride placed Metcalfe in this category. What is beyond doubt, how­ ever, is that a sharp theological divide was also involved. It is evident from John Cass’s 1779 letter to Wride defending Metcalfe that, because of this, little love was lost on either side: Have you a precedent in the whole Book of God to render evil for evil, and railing for railing? No, Sir, they are not the weapons of a Christian warrior, and though you vilify the people whom you call Calvinists, with satanic malice, I believe it will be with some difficulty that you will find an example of the kind, not perhaps but we may have hippocrites [sic] amongst us, as well as there is amongst you, you will remember our Lord amongst his 12 disciples had a devil . . . I cannot help taking notice that when you have vented all your spleen, you endeavour to cover it with a vail [sic] of friendship. No, Sir, it will not do. Such behaviour may do for an Arminian but we Calvinists despise it.46 During his time in Grimsby in 1783, Wride’s assistant, Thomas Carlill, received complaints that he had spoken disparagingly of the local clergy in a sermon. One specific phrase had caused particular offence: ‘Hell was paved with the skulls of the priests!’. Wride admitted using this but explained in his 12 April response to Carlill, ‘They are not my words, I am not quite so mad’. In fact, this was a phrase used by Wesley himself.47 Overall, however, this limited evidence suggests at the very least that Wride did not always enjoy good relations with local clergy. Any suspicion that they had Calvinist sympathies troubled him; he was equally intolerant of any lapses in clerical conduct, as he explained in his anonymous 1787 letter to the archbishop of Canterbury: I have sometimes doubted of the piety of some of the clergy; indeed, I could not help it, unless I would be wilfully blind to their conduct, or else say, that the Bible was not worthy of a title so respectable as that of a ‘cunningly devised fable’; their conduct and its rules being opposite, as the left to the right.48 In June 1784, while visiting the Gainsborough circuit during Wride’s time there, Wesley preached in a Dissenting chapel in Gainsborough town, which

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at the time had no Methodist chapel.49 He described the occasion in positive terms in his Journal: In the afternoon I went to Gainsborough, and willingly accepted the offer of Mr. Dean’s chapel.50 The audience was large, and seemed much affected: possibly some good may be done even at Gainsborough!51 Wride, however, thought this action a mistake and felt that the Dissenters were using Wesley to further their own cause. On 30 May 1785, he warned Wesley that ‘their aim in having you there, and in offering to let me be there, was to get hearers’.52 Wride felt vulnerable to competition from these Dis­ senters, and preferred to keep them at arm’s length. A similar situation arose in Norwich shortly afterwards. A key figure here was the local surgeon John Hunt, a highly religious man and local benefac­ tor.53 He was well known to Wesley, who visited him in Ber Street on several occasions and in 1781 and 1783 preached in the chapel in Hunt’s garden. In addition to his friendship with Hunt, Wesley admired the Ber Street con­ gregation, writing to his assistant, Jonathan Coussins (Wride’s predecessor), on 25 February 1785 that ‘In one thing Dr Hunt and his people shame us; I mean in fasting which we have well-nigh forgotten! Let us begin again!’54 Hunt did not at this time have fixed denominational loyalties; though he eventually joined Wesley’s Methodists, when Wride arrived, he was aligned with the General Baptists, including a prominent preacher—then based in Fleet, Lincolnshire—called Joseph Proud. There was much common theological and liturgical ground between such Baptists and Wesley’s Methodists. Proud in particular was a vociferous and public opponent of Calvinism. In his poem ‘Calvinism Exploded’, pub­ lished after Hunt had attracted him to Norwich, he professed a core belief in universal redemption—one which he shared with Wesley’s people. He explained in his prefatory remarks, Since the Author of the following little Poem has been at Norwich, he has met with much opposition from different parties of professing Chris­ tians; on account of his maintaining and preaching Universal Redemp­ tion: and telling his hearers that Christ Jesus died for all mankind.55 Unfortunately, Proud was an equally vocal proponent of adult baptism by water, a clear dividing line with the Methodists.56 The background to Wride’s local struggle with the Baptists is compli­ cated and was recounted at length by Wride in his 7 September 1785 letter to Wesley, sent shortly after his arrival in the circuit.57 In 1785, Hunt had appointed Richard Wright as pastor to the Ber Street congregation, and Proud visited Norwich to assist in his installation. In the course of this, Proud met a recently widowed Methodist woman named Turner, and they were soon married. This created a nexus of local personal links between

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the Baptists and the Methodists, one complementary to the friendship and mutual admiration of Wesley and Hunt. Wright seems to have been an active evangelist and had spent the interval between Coussins’s departure and Wride’s arrival in recruiting and baptising new members—or in the colourful words of Wride’s report to Wesley, Ducking of the folks by wholesale; it appears they have dipped 70 of late; for all this ordaining & dipping is since the time that Brother Cous[s]ins went from hence to the Conference.58 Wride faced an immediate problem as the new Norwich assistant, because only one of the two preachers appointed by the Conference to support him had arrived, John McKersey.59 This made it especially difficult to sup­ ply preachers for the villages surrounding Norwich. Made aware of this, perhaps through the Proud/Turner connection, Hunt suggested collabora­ tion between the Methodists and the General Baptists, but Wride preferred instead to wait for his own additional preacher, as he explained to Wesley: Last Monday Doctor Hunt came to offer his help in some of the coun­ try places . . . I thanked him for his offer, but told him I hoped that we should do without, that I had wrote today for help, which I hoped would soon arrive. Wride was sceptical of Hunt’s claims that a local religious revival was under way, doubtful about his motives and methods, and suspicious of his overtures: The Wild Man (Mr. H[unt]) vapours much about this ‘Great Work’, the like of which he says ‘has not been known since the days of the Apos­ tles’. I suppose they had not learnt his art of proselytising, for those who will come to him, he will reward by practising on them his healing art gratis, they ‘paying for the medicines’. And for farther encouragement, he will procure husbands and wives for the single proselytes. And, he also insinuates but also says that Mr. Wesley and himself are all one. For these pretty arts I choose to hold him at a greater distance than if he was always a bitter railer, this not likely to be attended with such bad consequences as his present proceedings. The day after Hunt’s visit, Wride was invited to tea with Proud, his new wife, and some of her family but found the encounter confusing. That even­ ing, some of Wride’s members apparently proposed that Proud be invited to preach in the Wesleyan chapel, but Wride refused: In the evening came some to me to tell me that Mr. Proud was a good man, of a very good moral deportment, a friend unto the Methodists;

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that his father was also a preacher, and had introduced the Methodist preachers into several places &c. &c.; that several relations of Mrs. Proud were in our Society and they expected that I would let Mr. Proud preach; that there was no difference between him and us only about ‘Baptism’ (Dipping). I told them I could not do it; they were not easily denied, but I would not yield. A month later, Wride again updated Wesley. The expected new preacher had still not arrived, but Wride still rebuffed Hunt’s offers of help, in spite of the latter’s efforts to woo the congregation of the Methodist chapel (which was in Cherry Lane, Norwich). Wride told Wesley, I cannot think it advisable to accept of the help of Dr. Hunt. At best he is a very unsteady man,60 but still is constant in this—the spinning of webs to catch the weak flies of Cherry-Lane.61 Wride was also concerned that Wesley might see the Hunts during his immi­ nent visit62 and wrote, ‘Sir, I would wish you to have as little to do with him as may be’. A further month on, Wride reported to Wesley his grave concern about the continuing absence of the third preacher, which had led—he claimed— to the General Baptists making inroads in the surrounding rural areas: We hear no more of a preacher, than when we did when you was with us on the 17th of October. The people at Loddon are going among the Dippers; at South Lopham the Dippers will in all likelihood have the preaching-house; so many dis­ appointments have been, that all we can say goes for nothing. The affair about Lake Houlton [a possible additional preacher] being sent back, has been received as a farce, and by many is looked upon no better than an invention, to blind them.63 Pray Sir, be so kind as send us somebody; if one will or cannot come I hope you will think of and send someone that will really come; gifts small or large, so he has grace send him, for the dissatisfaction is so great & so general, that I have not time to write the shadow of them.64 This letter crossed with one from Wesley explaining that an additional preacher had now been appointed, James Byron.65 Discussion of co-operation between the Methodists and General Baptists was suspended, though the ill feeling generated within the Wesleyan community proved highly damag­ ing to Wride’s position as their pastor. By the end of December, Wesley had decided that Wride had to be moved. It is evident that Wesley and Wride read the situation in Norwich quite differently. For Wesley, there was the prospect of a fruitful alliance with a generous lay sympathiser, John Hunt, and a Ber Street congregation of

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undoubted piety and discipline. The personal links between the Ber Street and Cherry Lane congregations reinforced this mutual desire for fellow­ ship, to which there were no insuperable theological barriers. Wride took a straightforward and contrary view—the General Baptists, especially under their new and combative pastor Joseph Proud, were competitors who should be shunned and then defeated in the battle for adherents. It was a shock to Wride when Wesley’s commitment to collaboration became clear, and it was Wride who proved dispensable.

Wesley, Wride, and politics As Wesley’s Connexion grew, its salience in the public sphere rose also. Methodism was for example a popular topic in the London artisan debating societies, which flourished from the 1750s.66 There was a growing aware­ ness within and beyond the Connexion that its membership was acquiring some political consequence. For John Wesley, however, parliamentary poli­ tics were secondary.67 His entire approach to the world was religious in both orientation and activity, and he counselled that ministers of religion should limit even their comments on political matters.68 That said, he articulated firm views on key political questions: Above all, Wesley thought of politics as an extension of his religious faith: God establishes governments; the political discontent of the 1760s was based on such moral failings as covetousness, ambition, pride and resentment; the popular clamour for liberty was inspired by Satan; and God put a curse on the nation because of the moral blight of slavery.69 This was of course a period when at least superficial loyalty to the monarchy was all but universal, but although individual monarchs often enjoyed a measure of public affection, they were not beyond criticism, often featuring in satirical cartoons.70 Wesley himself was deeply conservative, but his was not merely a ‘narrow Toryism’; it was a developed political philosophy: Those in authority have received their power from God. Therefore they must have the willing support of the people. The people themselves must not dream of any share in governing but be content that they are well governed. And lastly, the English Constitution is admirable because under it the fullest liberty of the individual is conserved.71 In Royle’s pithy summary, Wesley’s politics ‘were those of many a coun­ try squire and clergyman’.72 For such people, loyalty was reciprocal: ‘The bond between subjects and sovereign was not merely one of passive subjec­ tion because active subservience to a monarch created powerful access to rights’.73 Allied with this was a strong dimension of social conservatism, as Hempton has commented: ‘Serious Methodists could be recognized by their

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dress, hairstyles and physical detachment from the world of revelry, sports and dancing’.74 This was reflected in Wesley’s 1780 Advice . . . With Regard to Dress,75 and the 1785 Conference condemned Methodist parents who sent their children to dancing-schools.76 Of course, Wesley’s world view also encompassed a passionate belief in social justice and an urgent and energetic desire to improve the daily lives of the poor, the unemployed, and other marginalised groups in society.77 After Wesley’s death in 1791, rising social and political tensions, and signs of political radicalism amongst some Methodists, led to growing pressure on the Connexional hierarchy to make explicit its loyalty to the established order. Though this was complicated by the Methodist secession led by Alex­ ander Kilham, by the mid-1790s, the leadership clearly saw Wesley’s Con­ nexion as ‘a force for the stabilization of society’.78 Wesley’s quietism still appealed to the older generation of preachers, as John Pawson observed in 1799: The less we concern ourselves with public affairs, either of the Church or the nation, unless where necessity obliges us, the more peaceable & quiet we may be in our own minds!79 But it was no longer tenable. Meanwhile, what of Thomas Wride’s poli­ tics? We have no evidence that Wride took any interest in parliamentary politics. Though he was living in the York area in 1806–7, he apparently did not join his fellow leaders of the York circuit in campaigning for Wil­ liam Wilberforce.80 In an 1806 circular, they urged support for his re­ election, describing him as ‘The real Friend of Religion, and whose Politi­ cal Sentiments, and unwearied Exertions to procure an Abolition of the Slave Trade, have endeared him to us’; a similar circular was issued in 1807, during the poll, in which Wilberforce was then in second place.81 He went on to top the poll in a tight three-horse race, due partly at least to a supportive alliance of Methodists, Quakers and Dissenters.82 Whether due to old age, ill health, social isolation, or lack of sympathy for the cause, Wride signed neither. We do, however, know one thing about Wride—he too professed the utmost loyalty to the king, and his papers include a copy of John Wesley’s loyalist poem ‘For His Majesty King George’, which appeals to God: To Thee in danger’s hour We for our sovereign cry, Protect him by Thy gracious power And set him up on high.83 Like the Wesleys however, Wride’s loyalty and conservatism were not unthinking. In his 1795 letter to the king, while he praised the king’s moral leadership and hoped for Britain’s success in the war against the French, he

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expressed the fear that the nation’s prospects were being fatally undermined by its sinfulness: Your Majesty’s Proclamation Against Vice & Immorality well becomes a church and a court of justice. I can truly say that it has been with pleasure that I have heard it often in both places. But to what purpose is it so often read? When it is so little regarded. Is not iniquity and vice running over our land, through all ranks? Giving us just cause to fear, that a flood of the vengeance of God will shortly deluge over our land. Your Majesty’s Proclamation will not save us . . . But, a Fast is proclaimed. . . . The rich monsters fast, by cramming themselves with luxurious dainties, and finish their devotion by vigils at cards &c. The poor imitate their betters by lounging away the for­ mer part of the day and finish it at the ale-house by drinking, reading a newspaper, cursing of the French or talking against if not cursing the King’s ministers. What good end is there likely to be obtained by such a Fast? We have no great room to boast of our superior fleets; the vessels and their appurtenances are not sufficient for us, if God is not on our side. But if we repent of our sins, turn unto the Lord and secure Him for our defence, He can break the ships of our foes, by what means he pleaseth, for He can blow on the French, as he did on the ‘Invincible Armada’.84 The Connexion’s leadership shared his perspective—John Pawson told Charles Atmore that ‘The Lord is angry with this sinful nation and I believe that he is about to punish it.’85

Wride’s social attitudes Wride’s concern over the state of the nation was not simply a political stance; we have evidence from several recorded incidents that Wride took seriously his responsibility as a citizen to uphold moral standards at the individual level. The first dates from December 1752, when the 19-year-old was still an apprentice cordwainer in Salisbury.86 Wesley had from early days taken a strong line against swearing in gen­ eral conversation and especially against curses which took the name of God in vain. His 1744 pamphlet warned readers that invocations such as ‘Go to hell’ or ‘Damn my soul’ might be taken literally.87 Wride’s detailed account of the 1752 incident, in his autobiography,88 offers vivid insights into the informality of local justice and into a Method­ ist society facing violent opposition: The Society did not usually meet as soon as the preaching ended; but dispersed & came together about half an hour after in order to get rid of the disturbers. While the Society was meeting, the disturbers forced

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open the outer gate, broke off the lock, bent the iron bar of the gate & came into the chapel yard. Here they made a considerable disturbance. I was in the yard, and underwent considerable insult from John Chaf­ fey. When Society broke up, several retired into the dwelling-house of the preacher, and it was considered what to do to gain peace. It was proposed to go to Mr. Harris (a Justice of the Peace) . . . I said that I could lay 12 oaths against Jack Chaffey. ‘Can you?’ said Mr. Marsh. ‘Yes, safely laid’. ‘I would do them’, said Mr. Marsh. . . . Application was made to the magistrate the next day. This was an era when ‘royal justice was public justice because trials were held in open courts, with some measure of local community participation, whether active or passive’.89 Lawyers were rarely involved in either the prosecution or the defence—members of the community brought their com­ plaints before the court, and defendants had to defend themselves. Wride continued, The magistrate took up the summons for Chaffey & calling on me took my information and asked Chaffey what he had to say for himself. He said that he did not know that he swore so much. The justice said that he must pay twelve shillings and the cost. Chaffey begged the justice to be as easy as he could, as it was his first time, and he was in liquor. The justice told him there was no mitigation, he must pay the money or go to prison for ten days. My brother (who till now had kept silence) said: ‘Sir, his [ie. Wride’s] oath is not be taken, he is mad.’90 ‘Is he?’, said the justice. ‘He has not behaved like a madman here. He has sworn to 12 oaths, and there is [nobody?] to contradict him.’ These exchanges illustrate the central importance of oaths to eighteenthcentury society. They both sanctified and gave legal force to contracts; they were seen as guarantors of truth-telling in court; and their misuse, especially when blasphemous, brought both severe censure and (as in this case) legal penalty.91 When presiding over another similar case heard on the same day, as reported by Wride, the magistrate explained, ‘[Do not] think I am a champion for the Methodists. But it is my duty to keep the publick peace, and I will do it’. Wride’s second recorded encounter with the authorities came in 1762, as we have seen, when he was living in London and with two colleagues from the London Methodist society was responsible for committing four women to the Bridewell as street-walkers.92 And in 1766, when again living in Salisbury, he once more reported someone for uttering a profane oath. His sworn testimony against the labourer William Nayle was given before a magistrate on 21 July: The information of Thomas Wride . . . who on his oath saith that on Tues­ day last he was present with one William Nayle, labourer, and did hear

170 Wesley, Wride, and the marketplace of ideas him swear one profane oath viz. ‘By God’ and curse one profane curse viz. ‘Damn your gipsy’s face’ in the parish of the said city [‘New Sarum’].93 Wride also displayed an obsessive hatred of the theatre. His 1795 letters to ‘their Majesties’ enclosed a copy of a 1787 anonymous letter, which he had addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury, John Moore.94 In this let­ ter, alongside a call for a general crackdown on vice and immorality, Wride lamented the archbishop’s role in helping to secure approval for the con­ struction of a new theatre in Margate.95 Since 1737, there had been a new and more restrictive regime of licenc­ ing theatres and theatrical productions,96 and while existing theatres could be licenced under the legislation, new theatres required specific legislation before they could open. Such proposals might well be opposed by local Anglican clergy and by Dissenters, as in 1760s Bristol and 1770s Birming­ ham, acting in the tradition of clerical opposition to theatres exemplified earlier in the century by Jeremy Collier and Arthur Bedford.97 In Bristol, there was an existing theatre outside the city boundary, but in 1764, plans for a new theatre within the city emerged, and on 30 Novem­ ber 1764, the actor David Garrick laid the foundation stone.98 Shortly after­ wards, local Quakers launched a campaign to prevent its being licensed under the 1737 legislation, decrying it as a potential centre of vice. John Wesley immediately offered his enthusiastic support, writing on 20 Decem­ ber to the mayor and corporation, Most of the present stage entertainments sap the foundation of all reli­ gion, as they naturally tend to efface all traces of piety and seriousness out of the minds of men; . . . they are peculiarly hurtful to a trading city, giving a wrong turn to youth especially, gay, trifling, and directly oppo­ site to the spirit of industry and close application to business; and . . . drinking and debauchery of every kind are constant attendants on these entertainments, with indolence, effeminacy, and idleness, which affect trade in an high degree.99 This was a stance shared widely amongst religious groups.100 Ten years later a proposed new theatre in Manchester also proved conten­ tious, and Wride expressed astonishment that in the House of Lords debate in 1775, John Hinchliffe, bishop of Peterborough, had voted for it.101 How­ ever, the debate had been notable because of the way in which the Earl of Carlisle had supported the bill, arguing, That Methodism was daily gaining ground, particularly in the manufac­ turing towns; and that play-houses, well regulated, would be the means of dispelling those gloomy thoughts, and that melancholy state of mind so favourable to the propagation of the dangerous doctrines embraced by those sectaries.102

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In the original 1787 letter, written shortly after leaving Norwich, Wride recorded his lifelong aversion to both pubs and theatres, reflected in his term for theatres—‘the Devil’s cathedrals’. What exactly fuelled this is unclear. There was a theatre at Salisbury, though we have no idea if Wride had ever visited it. There clearly was some demand for a new theatre in Margate. A 1763 town guide had certainly not over-sold the existing operation, tell­ ing prospective visitors that We have a Play-House, where a Company of Comedians from Can­ terbury perform three times in the week. But if you expect to see great elegance in the house, scenes, and decorations, or any extraordinary degree of theatrical merit in the Actors, you may be disappointed.103 Wride also offered this parody of a prayer for the dedication of a new chapel, for use at the opening of the new Margate theatre, which took place a month later: O Thou, for Whose worship, we Thy servants have designed, begun, con­ tinued, and thus far brought this building. Look with complacency on the work of our hands. Vouchsafe to give us a proof of Thine acceptance, by visiting of us, at this time of our devout dedication of this building, to Thy immediate and only service. Encompass this Thine own house, with walls impregnable; that none may dare tread this consecrated place, but with a heart steadily resolved and fully fitted for Thy service. Let Thy servants who from time to time, minister in this Thy house, be faithful to Thee their Master, and successful in Thy work; never speaking of God the Father, of His Son Jesus Christ, or of God the Holy Spirit, but for sport, irreverence and in contempt. And may they never speak of religion, but to make it ridiculous in every eye. May they never speak of vice, or by scenery exhibit it to view, but to spread, countenance and make it reign predominant over all the Earth. That all Thy worshippers, the founders, consecrators, ministers, upholders and frequenters of this Thy temple, having rendered Thee much service, and fitted our selves, by our labours, to be admitted to Thy immediate vision and presence, may with Thee, reap the fruit of our labours, for ever and ever, Amen.104 This was—to say the least—a surprising literary form for one of Wesley’s preachers to use and does something to explain the reputation which by then Wride had acquired in the Connexion.

Conclusion Such fragmentary evidence that we have puts Wride within the Wesleyan mainstream theologically, with two apparent exceptions: his hatred of Calvinism was unusually deep, and his interest in practical social action

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unusually shallow. These both restricted the scope for him to collaborate with ministers from other religious groups. Wride and Wesley were miles apart on this. Wesley’s inclination was to work together with anyone with a broadly similar agenda. Wride, in contrast, was obsessed with Calvinist predestinari­ anism and intolerant of any perceived lapses in ministers’ personal behaviour; he stood ever ready to find fault with the views and conduct of others. Methodist relations with mainstream Anglicans were not always harmo­ nious, of course—the clergyman and theologian John Mainwaring criticised Methodist preachers for their unconstructive ‘temper’, which he character­ ised as ‘An ill-placed, uncharitable severity and censoriousness . . . chiefly directed against the regular Clergy’.105 Even amongst Methodists, Wride’s stance was not unique; his suspicions were for example shared by Samuel King, a class leader and local preacher in Great Yarmouth in the 1780s— Wride was himself briefly based there in 1786, after his removal from Nor­ wich. King’s main criterion for judging religious groups was the godliness of their ministers. He had little time for the Church of England, describing it as a ‘poor, fallen Church’ and a ‘sad spectacle’.106 The Independents struck him as little different. Draw the parallel between the bulk of Independents and Churchmen, and how small is the difference, as to inward religion!—Are there many of the latter, living in open vice?—So there are of the former.—Are there many of the one, lovers of money, lovers of honour, and lovers of pleas­ ure, more than lovers of God?—So there are of the other.107 He was also wary of Whitefield’s brand of Methodism, citing their ‘Violent attachment to the peculiarities of Calvinism’.108 He was however slightly more positive about the Baptists, and indeed there was a history of local collaboration between the Methodists and the General Baptists. In 1765, Wesley had preached in their chapel, and when in 1780, the Norwich-based itinerant James Wood restored Methodist preaching in the town after a period of suspension, he also used the General Baptist chapel.109 In the later eighteenth century, agricultural improvement boosted the incomes of many clergy, leading to the emergence of a ‘social chasm’ between them and the Methodist rank and file.110 Thomas Coke told the bishop of London in 1799, A very considerable part of our society have imbibed a deep prejudice against receiving the Lord’s Supper from the hands of immoral cler­ gymen. The word immoral they consider in a very extensive sense, as including all those who frequent card-tables, balls, horse-racing, thea­ tres and other places of fashionable amusement.111 As so often, however, Wride’s views were both fixed and extreme. The issue came to a head in Norwich in 1785–6, where his aggressive sectarianism

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proved incompatible with Wesley’s inclusive gospel agenda. After his evic­ tion from Norwich, his next posting was in a different region, under the command of a former soldier.112 We must not read too much into Wride’s references to public affairs—we do not know how representative his surviving papers are of his views, and as with Wesley, these were not the focus of his concern, whether in his life and or his writings. But we can see at least the lineaments of his position on some contemporary questions. He professed loyalty to the king, and that loyalty was only the epicentre of his support for institutions such as the Established Church and the civil magistracy. Such a stance was wholly typi­ cal both of Methodism and wider society. Wride was also socially conservative, though here his views do not map so readily across to those of his contemporaries. His hard line on prosti­ tutes, as a young man, was at variance with the gradually softening and redemptive approach to sex workers typical of the period, though we have no record of Wride’s attitudes on this issue in later life. His distaste for the theatre was shared by many god-fearing folk—his colleague Alexander Kil­ ham condemned the theatre as ‘exceedingly contrary to vital religion’113— but the precise roots of Wride’s extreme hostility are lost to us. And as we have seen, there is no trace of the practical social activism which was a hallmark of Wesley’s mission, perhaps because he so often saw himself as a victim.

Notes 1 Alister E. McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 83. 2 Wride to McKersey (15 March 1786), Duke C. 3 McGrath, Reformation Thought, 91; see also Jerry L. Walls, “John Wesley on Predestination and Election,” in Oxford Handbook, ed. Abraham and Kirby, 618–32, at 625–6. 4 Rack, Enthusiast, 450–61. 5 Duke D. Metcalfe was curate of Bilsdale, Yorkshire, and Wride was based at Yarm, some 20 miles away, at the time—Rack, 477. 6 John Wesley, Predestination Calmly Considered (London: Printed by W.B. and Sold at the Foundery; by T. Trye and R. Akenhead, 1752). 7 McGrath, Reformation Thought, 74–5. 8 Sermon 5 on “Justification by Faith,” Outler, 1:196. 9 Duke B. 10 Outler, 2:164. 11 John Wesley, The Nature, Design and General Rules of the United Societies . . . (Newcastle: Printed by John Gooding, 1743), 7. 12 Undated fragment, Duke D. This appears to be a commentary on II Peter, iii:14 (in the King James Version)—‘Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless’. 13 Wride to William Dodwell (undated, concerning an incident on 23 Septem­ ber 1783), Duke B. 14 1806 (probably), Visitation rules, York, notes by Wride, PLP115/9/16, MARC.

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15 Keith D. Stanglin, “Arminian, Remonstrant, and Early Methodist Theologies,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology, 1600–1800, ed. Ulrich L. Lehner, Richard A. Muller, and A.G. Moeber (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 397; Jason E. Vickers, “Wesley’s theological emphases,” in Cambridge Compan­ ion, ed. Maddox and Vickers, 190–206, at 204–5. 16 See chapter two. 17 Entry for 11 December 1769, William Holder Journal, MA1977/238, MARC. 18 Rack, 366. 19 Bennis, Christian Correspondence, 183. 20 Rack, Enthusiast, 407. 21 Duke A. 22 Duke D. 23 Sermon notes (undated), Duke B. Wride was of course quoting the King James Version of the Bible. 24 Entwisle’s report of a conversation with Robert Spence on 5 November 1798, in Entwisle, Entwisle, 199. 25 Sermon 104, “On Attending the Church Service,” Outler, 3:478. The sermon is dated 7 October 1787. 26 Ryan N. Danker, Wesley and the Anglicans (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016), 248–9. 27 Hamilton, Sermon, 14. 28 Jeremy Gregory, “The Making of a Protestant Nation: ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in England’s Long Reformation,” in England’s Long Reformation 1500–1800, ed. Nicholas Tyacke (London: UCL Press), 320, 321. 29 Colin Kirkpatrick, “ ‘Great Anxiety Was Felt with Reference to the Condition of Springfield’ . . .,” Bulletin of the Methodist Historical Society of Ireland 23, no. 1 (2018): 64. 30 Wride to Wesley (3 October 1785), Duke C; see also Vickers, Coke, 65–6. 31 Wride to Gibbon (October–November 1802), PLP115/9/39, MARC. 32 Grayson M. Ditchfield, “John Wesley, Heterodoxy, and Dissent,” Wesley and Methodist Studies 10, no. 2 (2018): 109–31. 33 Dudley A. Levistone Cooney, The Methodists in Ireland (Dublin: Columba Press), 43. An example was Wesley’s preaching at the Presbyterian meeting­ house in Cootehill, County Cavan, on 23 May 1778—Ward and Heitzenrater, 6:88. 34 In Northern Ireland, it did best where Presbyterianism was weak. 35 Presumably John Allen, who died between 1783 and 1788, a Particular Baptist minister and writer, who left for America in 1770 following a series of financial and legal problems—ODNB. 36 Founded in 1760, this merged with The Gospel Magazine in 1784. See George Watson, The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, Vol. 2 (1660– 1800) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 1303. 37 Joseph Cownley to Christopher Hopper (19 November 1770), Early Methodist Ministers’ Letters, MA1977/489, MARC. 38 Entry for 11 May 1800, William Holland papers, A/BTL 2/5, Somerset Heritage Centre. 39 Arthur W. Moore, A History of the Isle of Man, two vols. (London: T.F. Unwin, 1900), 2:675–6. 40 Henry Corlett has been described as ‘among the few clergy in the Isle of Man who showed any active friendliness towards the Wesleyan Methodists’—Arthur W. Moore, Manx Worthies (Douglas: S.K. Broadbent, 1901), 28. 41 PLP115/9/31, MARC. See also Telford, 6:250—the editor’s note cites this letter. 42 Wesley to Wride (17 January 1777), Telford, 6:251.

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43 MA1977/610/139, MARC. 44 See chapter three. 45 “Of Separation from the Church,” appendix dated 1 August 1786, Rack, 617. See also Heitzenrater, 296–7. 46 Cass to Wride (23 July 1779), PLP22/65/1, MARC. 47 Duke B. On Wesley’s use, see Wesley to ‘John Smith’ (25 March 1747), in Baker, 2:229–37, at 236–7; and Sermon 125, “On a Single Eye,” in Outler, 4:120–30, at 129. Wesley attributed the phrase to St. Chrysostom, but this is uncertain. 48 Wride to John Moore, archbishop of Canterbury (26 May 1787), PLP115/9/37, MARC. 49 Wesley preached in the first Methodist chapel in 1788—Ward and Heitzenrater, 7:100. The chapel opened in 1785—Myles, Chronological History, 433. 50 This was presumably the Independent chapel, whose congregation formed in 1775—see Charles Moor, A History of Gainsburgh (Gainsborough: C. Cal­ dicott, Gainsburgh News, 1904), 288. 51 Entry for 28 June 1784, Ward and Heitzenrater, 6:320. 52 Duke B. 53 This account of Hunt is based on that in Norma Virgoe, “Dr. John Hunt: living the parable,” www.mymethodisthistory.org.uk/page_id__292.aspx. 54 Telford, 7:259. 55 Joseph Proud, Calvinism Exploded . . ., second edition (Norwich: Printed for Chase and Co., 1786). 56 On 25 October 1787, a year later, Proud hosted a debate on ‘water baptism’ with a Quaker opponent, in his Ber Street chapel—see Joseph Proud, An Impartial Account of a Public Disputation on Water Baptism (Norwich: Printed by Crouse and Co., 1787). On Wesley and baptism, see Wesley’s 23 June 1771 letter to Wride cautioning against Methodists attending ‘Anabaptist’ meetings, Telford, 5:260; and David J. Hart, “Baptism and Conversion Narratives in EighteenthCentury Methodism: A Norfolk Case Study,” Wesley and Methodist Studies 8, no. 1 (2016): 16–34. 57 Duke D. 58 Wright lasted only a matter of months in the post, becoming increasingly het­ erodox, and in 1786, Hunt invited Proud to replace him and signed the chapel over to him—Ernest A. Payne, “Joseph Proud: General Baptist, Swedenborgian and Hymnwriter,” Baptist Quarterly 23, no. 6 (1970): 280. Richard Reece, one of Wride’s successors at Norwich, heard Proud preach there in 1789, noting that ‘his manner was very disgusting’—entry for 18 March 1789, Richard Reece Journal, MA1977/273, MARC. 59 The other appointee was Thomas Jones, who had just been admitted to the itin­ erancy on trial—Rack, 568. Wride’s reply to Wesley’s letter implied that Jones had been teaching at the Connexion’s Kingswood School near Bristol and for some reason had been unable or unwilling to give this up. 60 This was undeniably true, in terms of Hunt’s denominational flexibility. 61 Wride to Wesley (3 October 1785), Duke C. 62 Wesley visited the circuit on 17–25 October 1785—see Ward and Heitzenrater, 6:378–9. 63 Houlton had set off for Norwich to act as third preacher on a temporary basis but had turned back en route when told erroneously that he was no longer needed—see Wesley to Wride (8 October 1785), Telford, 7:296. 64 Wride to Wesley (5 November 1785), Duke C. 65 Wesley to Wride (8 November 1785), Telford, 7:299. 66 Mary Thale, “Deists, Papists and Methodists at London Debating Societies, 1749–99,” History 86 (2001): 328–47.

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67 Stephen J. Plant, “Methodism and Politics: Mapping the Political on the Meth­ odist Genome,” in Ashgate Research Companion, ed. Gibson, Forsaith and Wellings, 345–63. 68 John Wesley, “How Far Is It the Duty of a Christian Minister, to Preach Poli­ tics?,” AM 5 (1782): 151–2. 69 David Hempton, Methodism and Politics in British Society, 1750–1850 (Stan­ ford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984), 43. 70 Robert Bucholz, “ ‘Every Inch Not a King’: The Bodies of the (First Two) Hanover­ ians,” in The Hanoverian Succession: Dynastic Politics and Monarchical Culture, ed. Andreas Gestrich and Michael Schaich (Ashgate: Farnham, 2015), 147–69. 71 Maldwyn Edwards, John Wesley and the Eighteenth Century (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1933), 68. 72 Edward Royle, “Methodism and Politics: The Great Yorkshire Election of 1807,” PWHS 61 (2018): 264–74, at 265. 73 Hannah W. Muller, Subjects and Sovereign (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 6. 74 Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 14. 75 John Wesley, Advice to the People Call’d Methodists, with Regard to Dress (London: Printed by G. Paramore, 1780). 76 Rack, 589, Q.24. 77 There are many accounts of Wesley’s social activism: see for example, Norris, Financing, 200–12. On the growing salience of social issues in political dis­ course, see Robert Hole, Pulpits, Politics and Public Order in England 1760– 1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 78 Paul Stigant, “Wesleyan Methodism and Working Class Radicalism in the North 1792–1821,” Northern History 6, no. 1 (1971): 102. See also E.R. Taylor, Meth­ odism and Politics 1791–1851 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935). 79 Pawson to George Merryweather (10 October 1799), Early Preachers’ Letters, transcribed by Everett, Vol. 1, MA1977/485, MARC, f.32. 80 On the 1807 Yorkshire election, see Ernest A. Smith, “The Yorkshire Elections of 1806 and 1807: a study in electoral management,” Northern History 2, no.1 (1967): 62–90; and Royle, “Methodism and Politics,” PWHS 61 (2018): 264–74. 81 Circulars of 20 October 1806 and 23 May 1807, signed by leading York Methodists—Mary Lyth papers, MA1993/5, MARC. 82 Smith, “Yorkshire Elections”. 83 John Wesley, A Word in Season (Bristol: Printed by Felix Farley, 1745). Wride’s transcription is at PLP115/9/25, MARC. 84 Wride ‘To the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty’ and ‘To the King’s Most Excel­ lent Majesty’ (20 February 1795), PLP 115/9/37, MARC. 85 Pawson to Atmore (28 May 1795) in The Letters of John Pawson, ed. John C. Bowmer and John A. Vickers, three vols. (Peterborough: World Methodist His­ torical Society, 1995), 46. 86 John Chaffey case papers, A1/260, Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. 87 John Wesley, Swear Not at All (London: Printed by W. Strahan, 1744). 88 Duke F. 89 David Lemmings, Crime, Courtrooms and the Public Sphere in Britain, 1700– 1850 (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), 9. 90 On courts’ concern over the capacity of some witnesses such as children to understand the implications of lying under oath, see Lemmings, Crime, 34. 91 André Krischer, “The Religious Discourse on Criminal Law in England, 1600– 1800: From a Theology of Trial to a Theology of Punishment,” in Religion and Politics in Europe and the United States, ed. Volker Depkat and Jűrgen Martschu­ kat (Washington, DC, and Baltimore, MD: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 85–99, 288–91, especially 88–9. 92 See chapter four.

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93 William Nayle case papers, G23/1/133, Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre.

94 PLP 115/9/37, MARC.

95 The Theatre Royal, Margate, authorised by the Margate Theatre Act of 1786

(26 Geo. III c. 29), opened on 27 June 1787. I have not traced Wride’s letter in the Lambeth Palace archives, which hold nine volumes of Archbishop Moore’s papers. It is of course possible that Wride never sent the 1787 letter or indeed the 1795 letters. 96 The 1737 Licencing Act, 10 George II c. 28. See P.J. Crean, “The Stage Licens­ ing Act of 1737,” Modern Philology 35, no. 3 (1938): 239–55. 97 As for example in Jeremy Collier, A Letter to a Lady Concerning the New Play House (London: Printed and Sold by J. Downing, 1706). 98 This account is based on that in Peter T. Underdown, “Religious Opposition to Licensing the Bristol and Birmingham Theatres,” University of Birmingham Historical Journal 6 (1957–8): 149–60. 99 Campbell, 404–5. Wesley had however watched a theatrical performance of Terence’s Adelphi by Westminster schoolboys in 1768, describing it as ‘an entertainment not unworthy of a Christian’—entry for 14 December 1768, Ward and Heitzenrater, 5:165–66, at 166. 100 Rack, Enthusiast, 446. On Methodist opposition to the theatre, see Thomas B. Shepherd, Methodism and the Literature of the Eighteenth Century (London: Epworth Press, 1940), 189–204. 101 Though the bishop of London had opposed it—see William Cobbett (ed.), The Parliamentary History of England. Vol. XVIII—A.D. 1774–1777 (London: Printed for T.C. Hansard, 1813), col. 631. 102 Ibid., col. 634. Carlisle may have been quite hostile to Methodism. In a 6 Octo­ ber 1791 letter to his father, the preacher Alexander Kilham, then based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, claimed that the Earl had seized control of a local Meth­ odist chapel—Blackwell, Kilham, 145–7. 103 A Description of the Isle of Thanet . . . (London: Printed for J. Newbery and W. Bristow, 1763), 17. 104 Does this prayer echo that delivered when the foundation stone of the new Salisbury infirmary was laid in the late 1760s? Wride may have been there. Dr. Dodwell’s prayer began: ‘O Gracious God, whose Mercy is over all thy Works, and whose Providence superintendeth all ours, look down, we beseech Thee, with Favour and Blessing on this Undertaking . . .’—Thomas Greene, A Sermon Preached in the Cathedral Church of Sarum . . . (Salisbury: Printed by B. Collins, 1767), 25. 105 John Mainwaring, An Essay on the Character of Methodism (Cambridge: Printed by J. Archdeacon, 1781), 16. He also attacked their ‘frequent custom, and absurd manner, of Quoting the Scriptures, which either converts into Non­ sense the passages cited; or perverts the sense of them, just as the present fancy, or purpose may require’ (16–17). 106 Samuel King, An Impartial Inquiry Into the Present State of Religion in Eng­ land . . . (Yarmouth: Printed by Downes and March, 1789), 19, 22. King’s role as a local preacher was recorded in the Norwich Circuit Book, FC/16/1, Nor­ folk Record Office. See also Watmough, History, 72–3, 86–90. 107 King, Impartial Inquiry, 27. 108 Ibid., 37. 109 Watmough, History, 50–1. 110 W. Reginald Ward, Religion and Society in England, 1790–1850 (London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1972), 10. 111 Letter of 29 March 1799, in Samuel Drew, The Life of the Rev. Thomas Coke, Ll.D (New York, NY: J. Soule and T. Mason, 1818), 289; cited by Ward, Reli­ gion and Society, 10–11. 112 Wride moved to Kent, where the assistant was George Shadford. 113 Blackwell, Kilham, 182.

9

Wesley’s Methodism and the supernatural

Introduction Reports of possible supernatural events constitute a significant element in Wride’s surviving papers, as in Wesley’s, and he had at least one spell of active ghost-hunting. For most eighteenth-century people, the world was not simply the ordered Creation accessible to the senses. Beyond that lay a vast and wonderful invisible realm, the setting for an epic and endless strug­ gle between good and evil, which impinged on them in various ways. Such beliefs have been commonplace in all times, places, and religions.1 Though the period is often characterised as the Age of Enlightenment, of Reason, The Age of Reason actually saw a steady increase in the publication of prophetic and miraculous literature . . . [there was] a persistent and widespread interest in supernatural beliefs throughout the eighteenth century, including among the English elite, who increasingly translated them into providential terms in the latter part of the century.2 Indeed, as Casey comments, What may strike us most forcefully is that two bodies of knowledge— scripture and science—exist side by side, and that the thinkers of this period are making heroic, honest, if rather literal-minded efforts to rec­ oncile them.3 Though there were ambiguities and overlaps in the various categories of phenomena reported amongst Wride’s contemporaries, three broad types can be discerned—dreams and visions, miracles, and other supernatural occurrences.

Dreams and visions Least contentious was the universal belief that God spoke to His people through dreams and visions. This had a long history in both Christianity

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and other faiths—thus Thomas Aquinas had written in his Summa Theo­ logica of ‘God, Who reveals certain things to men in their dreams by the ministry of the angels’.4 One striking characteristic of eighteenth-century Methodism was the frequency with which Methodists experienced—and recorded—visions and (more extended) dreams, which occurred of course while they were unconscious. As Webster has observed, Scattered throughout Methodist letters from the eighteenth century is the idea that dreams are a means of receiving knowledge, sometime even communicating with those who have been transferred to the invis­ ible world.5 Dreams and visions were everyday experiences, especially for people of faith—they expected such occurrences, usually found them positive, and readily sought to extract and share meaning from them as part of their spiritual journey and daily life.6 Rack suggests that Methodists’ visions and dreams often conformed to various types. They included visions of Christ crucified, which were common and typically linked to a critical moment in an individual’s conversion; visions and dreams of judgement; and premoni­ tions, for example foretelling the death of a relative or friend.7 Such visions and dreams were also found elsewhere within the evangelical movement. In 1745, the Conference Minutes recorded Wesley’s judgement that dreams could be a vehicle for the transmission of God’s saving grace to the individual sinner,8 but he was nonetheless cautious, as this 1768 letter showed: Undoubtedly God does sometimes show His children things to come in dreams or visions of the night. And whenever they bring us nearer to Him, it is well, whenever they are means of increasing our faith and holiness. Only we must take care not to depend upon them too much, and to bring all to the standard—the law and the testimony.9 The crucial point for Wesley and his followers was not the precise status of the dream but its practical impact on the dreamer: ‘Proofs of supernatural origin were far less important than the emotional momentum generated by the dream’.10 Thus the preacher John Fenwick experienced a strange but comforting dream shortly after his wife’s death in 1771: I thought I was in my parlour reading ye book [of poetry] & heard the door open & saw Mr. Whitfield come in! I got up with surprize & said, My dear sir, we heard you was dead in America, but I am glad to see you here. He gave me a smile, but no answer, & went & sit down in my chair! I thought I heard my wife’s voice in ye kitchen. . . . He said ’Where is Mr. Wesley?’ I replied ‘He is in London, for I have received a letter from him’, & I thought I took out ye letter & let him read it! . . .

180 Wesley’s Methodism and the supernatural And I saw him mount up over my head, & heard a heavenly host sing­ ing over him, & heard also my wife’s voice among them!11

Miracles Miracles—which effected change in the physical world—were more contro­ versial. Few doubted that they had occurred frequently in Biblical times, but for many Protestants, the age of miracles was past, and a continued belief in contemporary miracles was associated with Roman Catholic ‘supersti­ tion’. However, views changed after the Restoration. Within the Established Church, there was growing concern about scepticism and deism, and a series of apparent miracles was widely reported. Charles II resumed the practice of touching for the King’s Evil12; in 1665–6, the Irish healer Valentine Grea­ trex healed hundreds by ‘stroking’; and in the early eighteenth century, the French Prophets claimed to perform miracles, including raising the dead.13 All this triggered renewed debate about whether miracles might still take place or indeed ever had. While the natural philosophers and experimen­ tal scientists Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle had been ‘among foremost advocates of belief in the existence of miracles’,14 the post-Newtonian uni­ verse had less room for miraculous interventions—for increasing numbers of people: God was reduced to creator (in the sense of beginner) of the universe, and sustainer in the sense of detached observer. . . . The ‘mechanical’ universe effectively excludes God from interfering, even as it praises God for the workmanship involved in creating.15 Wesley himself, however, affirmed that I do not know that God hath in any way precluded himself from thus exerting his sovereign power, from working miracles in any kind or degree, in any age to the end of the world.16 He listed no fewer than 60 miraculous events between 1739 and 1742 alone, though typically these were Providential events rather than miracleworking by a human agent; all confirmed that Wesley’s mission enjoyed God’s favour.17 This belief permeated Wesley’s published Journal and also other Book Room publications, such as his 1776 penny pamphlet An Account of the Extraordinary Deliverance of Thomas Cross, One of the Bristol-Gazette Newsmen: Who Was Overset in a Small Boat, Crossing the New-Passage, on the River Severn, on Sunday, Nov. 6, 1774, in Company with Seven other Persons, Who Were All Drowned.18 The title tells the story. One preacher, the Irish itinerant John Smith, was thought by some to possess miracle-working powers. According to David Smith’s memoir of his father, he was once accosted by a sea captain, who swore and blasphemed

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and tried to force him to join him for a drink. As they were surrounded by a large crowd, Smith With a solemn voice said loudly: ‘I warn you all who are here, not to sail with C[aptai]n W_d_’s who is to set off next tide; for God will take vengeance of him for blaspheming his holy name, and thus abusing his ordinances, his sacred day, and me, his unworthy servant!’ The vessel sailed as planned but was never heard of again: This was a public and incontrovertible matter of fact; for there was a long consultation with the magistrates, whether they could imprison him as a sorcerer or magician. And the captain’s widow, convinced by such an awful visitation, joined the society, and entertained the preach­ ers ever after while she lived.19 But although Wride described the response of some young women to his preaching on the Isle of Man in 1777 as ‘miraculous’,20 the events fall more naturally into our third category of phenomena.

Other supernatural phenomena A third way in which the invisible realm impinged on the physical world was through phenomena such as ghosts, apparitions, and divine or demoniac possession—often, though not always, with harmful results or intent.21 Unlike dreams and visions, these manifested themselves to people who were conscious. Belief in spirits was losing ground by the eighteenth century, especially amongst the more educated, reflecting the widespread Protestant view that ‘after the completion of the canon of Scripture, God no longer employed supernatural intermediaries to communicate with man­ kind, since everything he wished them to know was contained therein,’22 and also the Protestant rejection of the doctrine of purgatory—for St. Augustine amongst others, apparitions were typically souls returning tem­ porarily from purgatory.23 However, popular acceptance of the reality of such phenomena remained widespread, such as the alleged appearance of the Cock Lane ghost in London 1762, which attracted huge public inter­ est and in which a Methodist preacher was implicated.24 The family ghost, ‘Old Jeffrey’, had appeared when Wesley was at Charterhouse school,25 and thereafter, he was ‘a firm believer in ghosts and apparitions’,26 writing in 1768, The English in general, and indeed, most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives’ fables. I am sorry for it . . . the giving up of witchcraft is in effect giving up the Bible.27

182 Wesley’s Methodism and the supernatural His views were not unique; for example, in 1780, the Welsh Independent minister Edmund Jones published a compendium of reports of apparitions of evil spirits in Wales, presenting them as evidence of God’s power and engagement in human affairs.28 But Wesley was heavily criticised at the time.29 In 1788, a London debating society held a series of three debates on the question: ‘Is the Rev. Mr. Wesley censurable for publicly maintaining the Existence of Witches, the Doctrine of Apparitions, and Demoniac Posses­ sions?’30 That same year, six of his preachers participated in the exorcism, in a Bristol church, of the ‘Yatton Demoniac’, George Lukins; the case was controversial, and Lukins was widely thought to be an impostor.31 Wes­ ley’s treatment of ungodly supernatural occurrences was however largely confined to accounts in his Journal or in the Arminian Magazine, where an early biographer noted that ‘a snug corner is reserved for witches and apparitions’.32 It was absent from his theological writings and the practical publications produced for the membership.33

Sceptics and the supernatural In the 1720s, Daniel Defoe ridiculed the idea that the souls of the departed might revisit the earth—‘all Apparition of that kind is fictitious and imagi­ nary’.34 Samuel Johnson shared the widespread scepticism about many reported supernatural happenings, proposing the simple test that an authen­ tic premonition should offer information that the individual could not oth­ erwise have known. Dining with James Boswell in 1763, He talked of belief in Ghosts; and he said that he made a distinction between what a Man might find out by the strength of his Imagina­ tion, & what could not possibly be found out so.35 But the most developed argument against too readily accepting the veracity of accounts of supernatural occurrences came from the Scottish philosopher David Hume, who in his essay “Of Miracles” set out a simple and sceptical principle, applicable to all claimed miracles or prophesies: (It is a general maxim worthy of our attention), ‘That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish.’36 Helpfully, he went on to describe the nature of the testimony that would be needed in order to convince him and his fellow sceptics that something extraordinary had in fact occurred: For first, there is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education,

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and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any false­ hood; and at the same time, attesting facts, performed in such a public manner, and in so celebrated part of the world, as to render the detec­ tion unavoidable: All which circumstances are requisite to give us full assurance in the testimony of men.37 Wesley had read what he called ‘David Hume’s insolent book against mira­ cles’.38 He also knew Johnson well, and ‘For Wesley, despite his unclubbable habits, Johnson retained a high personal esteem’.39 Wride’s reports to Wes­ ley on supernatural events suggest that in practice Wesley had some respect for Hume’s and Johnson’s scepticism. When hearing such reports, he went to considerable lengths to authenticate them, before making them public.40 Wesley published two accounts of contemporary miracles in the Armin­ ian Magazine in 1787. Two further case studies were published in 1791— after Wesley’s death but possibly prepared under his editorship. One was an account of ‘The Cure of Mary Maillard’ and included affidavits signed by the girl’s parents and her physicians, attesting to the events described.41 The other, ‘An Account of the Miraculous Growth of a Woman’s Hair’, was signed by six witnesses.42 For Wesley, however, factual accuracy was not the whole story; as with dreams, the more important issue was the impact of the reported events on participants’ lives.43 It is against this complex background that Wride’s detailed reports on dreams and other supernatural occurrences need to be seen.

Thomas Wride, dreams, miracles, and the supernatural Wride’s papers include material reporting on numerous supernatural inci­ dents, though only once involving himself as a direct participant. One of Wride’s surviving notebooks was inscribed by Tyerman as ‘Mr. Wride’s account of the dreams of a female in 1761’.44 The record of her first dream begins in March: On the 30th. she was taken ill of a fever, & confined to her bed some time. On the third of April she dreamt that she was travelling to some place, & a man came up to her all in white & asked her where she was going. She replied she did not very well know, but wanted to go to heaven, & she should be glad if he would shew her the way. He answered, he would shew her heaven & hell. As they travelled, she found his conversation very profitable, & said, we have come so far, that I should find myself quite weary, if the happiness of my soul did not support my body. At last they came to a pair of folding gates which opened & they went in. He told her, that was heaven. It

184 Wesley’s Methodism and the supernatural was like a beautiful garden with a large walk up the middle & trees on each side. At the upper end, sat a person, writing in a book, & the guide said that in that book was written the actions of those that did well. She saw the Angels & heard them sing praises to God. . . . Christ came up to her, (the person that was writing) & said ‘I shall soon see you again.’ Her guide told her she must see hell. She did not like to leave that place; he said she must go, that she might know the misery she had escaped. When she came there, the tortures she saw were inexpressible. He then brought her into the road where he found her, & she awoke. A few days after, she dreamt the same again, only Miss Bosanquet & Miss Marsh were with her; (as in the first she prayed they might when she came again.)45 Wride then gives an even more detailed account of this dream, in the woman’s own words. The three travellers were the unnamed dreamer, Miss Bosan­ quet, and Miss Marsh: As soon as we entered heaven, the first thing that presented itself to our view was Jesus sitting on a white throne; his countenance was rather pale, with a great deal of sweetness, he smiled all the time & had a very majestic appearance. His dress was like a white surplice & a purple scarf. His hair white as snow, & a crown of gold on his head. We went towards him, & he had a table before him; at the same time we had a sight of Jesus on the Cross, at which we kneeled down. . . . Christ then gave Miss Bosanquet the bread saying, ‘You was not worthy to gather the crumbs from under my table, but I will give thee the bread of life, the manna that is in heaven.’ He then gave it to Miss Marsh & me saying, ‘Take, eat & be thankful.’ He then drank himself first, & then gave it to us. . . . We then each of us drank and found an inexpressible blessing. Wride’s account has similarities with a dream recounted by Sarah Ryan, when aged around 30 and a member of the London society but undergo­ ing spiritual troubles and living in a Jewish household.46 Her dream was published by Wesley in 1779, but the events date from the early 1750s, and Sarah’s report was dated 19 March 1760: I had no thought of God, till one night I dreamed I was in Mr. Wesley’s society-room, and saw an angel, who quickly disappeared, and I awoke. Falling asleep again, I thought I was in the same place, and saw a beauti­ ful garden, and the angel walking up to me, till he laid his hand upon my arm, and said three times, ‘Come out from these Jews, or you will be damned.’ I turned and said, ‘If I live, I will amend my life.’ It disap­ peared, and I awoke.47

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Wride was in London in 1760, and Ryan knew Mary Bosanquet well, sug­ gesting that Wride’s account may be of another dream by Sarah Ryan. His text has a number of interesting features. First, the dream occurred while the woman was feverish, reflecting the ambiguity characteristic of many eighteenth century dream narratives, as to whether dreams derived from illness or supernatural intervention. Second, it contained features found in other Methodists’ dreams, such as the depiction of heaven as a garden, of Jesus dressed in white,48 and of both living and dead individu­ als; the use of quotations from the Bible and from Wesley hymns; and the description of some joyous climax. And third, it resolved issues of immedi­ ate and grave importance to the dreamer—in this case, offering assurance of personal salvation and a vision of a glorious after-life to one plagued by spiritual doubt. In 1777, Wride reported various unusual occurrences on the Isle of Man. He alerted Wesley in his letter of 3 February 1777, but his detailed reports date from May. In February, he wrote, I would willingly give you a full account but I have not time to meth­ odise the scraps I have got; nor have I any account of the island, but what I get as I go on; but of this some things are very strange, & may with sobriety be called miraculous; but for the present it may be forborne.49 The most notable event took place in December 1776 and involved an irre­ ligious sailor called William Kaughin, who had a powerful dream which shocked him into prolonged unconsciousness. His report to Wesley on this was dated 10 May 1777, and was based on information which he had him­ self received on 1 May,50 though as Wride explained to Wesley, he had also spoken to one of the witnesses: Kaughin . . . gave another dreadful groan, and in an horrid lamentable tone cried out ‘Sweet Jesus, save my soul!’ Thus he continued crying out, for about the space of a quarter of an hour. They then put him to bed, where he began to give an account of what had past, as: he saw two devils in the shape of bears (one on each side of him) going to take him to hell. Near him he saw a smoke coming up out of the ground, & smelled an ‘ugly smell’. He saw William Clark (with a Bible in his hand) and with him Isabel Halsey, Margaret Halsey, Catherine Cannell & Catherine Cowell (so she was called but her name by marriage is White) all of Peel society. They were all five together, & near to a ‘very fine gate’, but separated from him (Kaughin) by a small river. He thought his soul should be saved, if he could touch the Bible which William Clark had in his hand. A white man appeared at a distance & as he drew near, he showed himself displeased at the devils; and lifting his hand in a threatening

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Wesley’s Methodism and the supernatural manner, said ‘I desire you to let that man alone, he is not yours yet’, upon which the devils left him.

Wride also recorded that, back in the real world, the mate (William Clark) and the ship’s boy (William Sayle) had been arguing about predestination. Sayle had been troubled by Proverbs 16:4, which he interpreted as imply­ ing that he was condemned to hell: ‘The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil’.51 Clark countered with the standard Methodist message of universally available salvation, as Wride explained, Some time before this William Sayle was reading Proverbs ye 16 & ter­ rified at his own thoughts of ye 4th verse says to William Clark ‘Lord bless me, Bill! Look on this; this beats the 9th of Revelation.’ William Clark endeavoured to set him right by laying before him the promises of mercy of God in Christ Jesus. William Sayle endeavoured to maintain his gloomy thoughts of the Horrible Decree.52 The debate continued while Kaughin dreamed and was resolved in Clark’s favour: This contest was now brought too; or rather, acted over in the view & hearing of Kaughin. The white man decided it, saying ‘Clark is in the right, and Sayle is entirely wrong.’ Upon which Sayle ran away. There was at this time a distance between Clark & Kaughin. Kaughin could not read; he k[new] letters and that was all. He knew not what they had disputed about, but yet he could see into Clark’s book (while in the vision) & could retain an idea of the chapter, so as to know it by sight; & told them, the chapter begun with a great T. He was no longer a persecutor, no longer an hinderer of his wife, but glad to join society. Nor did he cease to seek the Lord until he found peace, which was about the beginning of April. His walk since, as far as I have learnt, is as becometh the gospel. This narrative has some obvious similarities with that of the woman—for example the dreamer encounters a gate and a ‘white man’ (in this case Jesus himself), other Methodists have cameo roles, and the Bible is quoted. We have another and apparently contemporary account of this inci­ dent, from the evangelical clergyman David Simpson—it features in his Discourse on Dreams and Night-Visions,53 and the accounts broadly coin­ cide. Simpson valued the narrative because he felt that it was well-attested, by several reputable contemporary witnesses. He commented on this and other cases cited, It were easy to multiply instances, but I need mention no more. These are clear and full as necessary. They are all matters of fact, authenticated

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as well as the nature of things will admit: and we usually say, Facts are stubborn things.54 Wride was on the same quest—seeking and reporting cases of miraculous occurrences which were factually correct and offered sound evidence of God at work in the world. In a number of respects, the incident seemed almost tailor-made to meet Hume’s and Johnson’s tests of authenticity—notably, it occurred in a port in which a number of manned vessels were present; the two key witnesses were people of good reputation, indeed members of the local Methodist society; and the main protagonist, an irreligious illiter­ ate, learned something through his dream which he could not possibly have known otherwise.55 But simultaneously—and this undoubtedly explained its popularity amongst Methodists—it also met Wesley’s implicit tests of authenticity: it was theologically orthodox and instructive, since one key message was the erroneous nature of Calvinist doctrine, and the impact upon the individual concerned was transformational. There was sometimes a ‘darker side’ to Methodists’ dreams.56 This is in some respects another such example, resembling this account by John Valton of a dream dating from a period of spiritual torment, and when he had not even heard a Methodist sermon: I thought that I was in a very large house, which was then building at the place where I lived. I thought I went upstairs into the garret, where I saw the devil in bed. I went up to his bed’s feet, got hold of his clothes and stript him naked. This enraged him so, that I thought he got up and pur­ sued me. In my flight I met my Redeemer, who told me, ‘if he touches thee, he will have thee.’ I replied, Lord how is it possible that I should escape touching him? I thought he made signs to me to get behind him, and lay hold of the hem of his garment, by which I escaped the grand Adversary.57 In May 1777, Wride recorded a further series of strange happenings—young local women were experiencing visions while in a state of trance. He had mentioned this to Wesley in his 3 February letter, describing this surprising response to his preaching: I opened the eye of one of them, but it looked as if she was in a deep sleep; when she appeared coming to her reason, her countenance was that of one in solemn rapture, She then opened her eyes and said (in Manx) ‘Sweet God!’ She took me by the hand & then parted as per­ fectly composed as if nothing had happened. On Saturday two others were taken in the same manner.58 Wride’s May report gave more detail of further similar events: A daughter of William Leece of Daughby fell down almost lifeless. When she came to herself, she told her father, that she had seen strange

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Wesley’s Methodism and the supernatural things such as she would never declare. Four more girls frequently had these impulses, but the accounts were so confused I could never get regular information, sometimes for want of the principles [‘prin­ cipals’?], at other times for want of interpreters, (for these 5 girls all spoke Manx,) and they are very shy of giving an account in answer to questions. The general account, the best I could gather, was they did see a broad road, in which were crowds of travellers in various companies, [and] a narrow road, in which were few persons. The narrow road led up to a gate, exceeding beautiful. In general, they knew those who were in the narrow road; among them were several of the preachers, I think all that had (in their days) been in the Island. I had a place among them at first, but being too liberal of my cautions (to them) they could not find me for the future. Those who were in the narrow road were dressed all in white, but some exceedingly so; & at every new vision (for they had many) they were further advanced in the road, & some were not far from the gate. Such as were in the broad road were very black & in a vulnerable condi­ tion. A white man was with them, while in the visions; & he explained to them from time to time (as they needed) the things they saw. Some were in this broad way, & were kept therein by ‘wearing of ribbons’, and all that wore ribbons were incapable of the narrow way, except they did burn them. Indeed, many were so affrighted, that they (when they heard of the danger) burnt all the ribbons they had; but by & by they [?] farther, for silk of any shape was as bad.59

These visions featured familiar tropes, notably a ‘white man’ to guide the travellers and a beautiful gate. They were also theologically orthodox, in describing the heavily populated broad road (to hell) alongside the quieter narrow road (to heaven),60 and underscored the importance of the Method­ ist practice of dressing soberly, clearly a matter of some importance (and probably regret) to the young women.61 Wride was however doubtful of the authenticity of at least some of these claims, fearing that peer pressure was leading some young women to report visions. One case, from Barrule,62 troubled him especially—the young woman Had for some time had these fits & did sing while in them, but did tell when in them what was passing; and after she came out of them she would tell many things which I cannot but own seemed no more worth regarding than fairy tales. She said she saw a great number of preach­ ers going in the narrow road, and Mr. Wesley was the foremost [of] the company. On being asked what sort of a man Mr. Wesley was, she said he was ‘an old man’; but being pressed for particulars, she said ‘He was a great man.’

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Wride was unimpressed that she could not describe Wesley’s appearance; unlike Wride, she had presumably never met him, so an accurate descrip­ tion would have added credibility to her claim of divine inspiration. His continuing doubts led him to a series of increasingly dangerous experiments to assess whether she was genuinely experiencing trances: I took upon me to try her by slapping my hand near her; she started every time. I several times blowed in her face, & this manifestly affected her every time. I tickled her on the face with a hair, & she could not help discovering the sensation & frequently laughing; & yet after all she obsti­ nately stood to it, that she did not feel nor hear at any part of the time. The same night she made another effort but now she did not seem to notice things as much as before. Therefore I took a live coal from the hearth & brought it hastily towards her face, but she very nimbly drew back her head & laughing said (in Manx): ‘The preacher is going to burn me’. The implicit conclusion was that the girl was making it up. Wride’s papers also include a brief record of an unusual apparition in 1783 to a family walking beside a canal, presumably in the Grimsby area, where Wride was stationed. The report may have been intended for Wesley, but there is no evidence that it was sent to him. The apparition was of a man called Robert Tonge and seemed in retrospect to have prefigured his death a few weeks later: Robert Tonge, aged 63, died old Midsummer’s Day 1783. About 3 weeks before his death, between the hours of two & 3 in the afternoon, his son-in-law Joseph Shacklock & his wife Elizt daughter of R[obert] T[onge] and Ann Hutham were walking up the bank of the navigation. Joseph and Elizabeth saw Robert Tonge in a close which he [illegible] with his hands on his loins & seemed steadily looking at them, at a small distance, perhaps 40 or 50 yards. They saw him for some minutes not knowing but it was really the very man. Joseph called to him & asked him ‘Father, don’t you speak?’ They began to walk one way & he another; at last a bush seemed to intersect them, so that when they lost sight of, & did not recover it again, they supposed that he had pur­ posely hid himself behind the bush. After they came home his son-in-law asked him why he would not speak. He said he did not see him, that he was not there. Yea it appeared by the testimony of his servant maid that he was at this time fast asleep in his chair. I cannot learn that A[nn]H[utham] saw him.63 This was a quite different category of incident—the witnesses were awake, not dreaming or entranced, and the central protagonist was alive. The cred­ ibility of the account was however undermined by the fact that only two of the possible three witnesses could attest to it.

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Wride also described supernatural occurrences amongst the Methodists of Leverton, Lincolnshire, in 1784 (and possibly 1785), following the deaths, in quick succession, of the married couple Mary and Thomas Smith.64 Their daughter Ann had also been seriously ill, but had recovered. John Beanland, one of the itinerants stationed on the Epworth circuit,65 officiated at the couple’s funeral, and Wesley was briefed on the subsequent events when he visited the circuit in June.66 His interest was perhaps linked to the forthcoming publication of the similar happenings in 1716 in his childhood home, the Epworth rectory, which featured in the Arminian Magazine in October.67 Wride’s papers show that the events were of great interest to the senior leadership of the Connexion. In reporting on them to Henry Moore, Wride was defensive about the lateness and inadequacy of his information, telling Moore in November: I have kept no minutes of the occurrences of those matters you enquire about. My reason was, on the 29 of August (if I mistake not the day) I was speaking at Epworth about what I had heard spoken, &c. &c. and I was then told that Mr. Wesley was informed of the whole affair; therefore I thought it needless to take the accounts in writing to trouble Mr. Wesley with what he already knew. I was not at the place (Leverton) until September ye 6th and then what I could add would make but a poor supplement to what (I made not the least doubt) was already in Mr. Wesley’s memorandums, from better authority than mine, even from this who had heavily felt that it was something more than either fancy or legerdemain, though some say it is one; & some say it is the other.68 Wride suggested that both Beanland and his colleague Peter Mill had experi­ enced visitations but were reluctant to talk about them. The couple’s daugh­ ters Ann and Lydia were also unwilling to help Wride—as he put it, ‘Ann Smith & Lydia her sister (daughters of the restless deceased, whose spirits are supposed to give all the trouble) refuse to give me information’. They claimed that Thomas Carlill, who was based on the neighbouring Gainsbor­ ough circuit, had told them that Wesley had commissioned Wride to write a piece on the events for the Magazine, to which they thought their deceased parents would object. However an unnamed informant, possibly Ann Smith, gave Wride an account of what Beanland experienced at Leverton, when he was apparently staying with the remaining members of the Smith family: They told him that it [i.e. the apparitions] was mostly about 12 o’clock. He did not go to bed until about one. Ann [Smith] lighted a candle to leave burning with Mr. Beanland because they had always been free of any appearance while a candle was burning.

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She set the candle on the [hood?] end. She had a check in her mind for so doing, & heard her mother’s voice saying ‘Is he a preacher of the gospel & afraid to see one who is in glory?’ (or words of that import). She then asked Mr. B[eanland] if she should put the candle out. He said yes, for he did not fear anything. Glad of this leave she extinguished the candle & went to bed. Mr. Beanland (as he said in the morning) was quite composed and undaunted, and thought they were only the groundless thoughts of weak women. Soon after ’tis he was in very great distress, as appeared by the pite­ ous distressed manner in which he called as was heard by Thomas & John [presumably Ann’s brothers] who laid in the room above him. They called unto him, and although he heard them he could not answer. In the morning about 6 Thomas S[mith] went to him. He appeared in a strong sweat and Nanny said that he was amazingly altered by this short exercise & it seems that it was a full week before he recovered his vivacity. This reported incident was obviously of great interest since it involved a preacher, whom it traumatised, but the nature of what happened was obscure. However, further accounts of several similar appearances at Leverton in 1784 (or possibly in some cases 1785) also survive amongst Wride’s papers, though these are also incomplete: 1 About a month after her [i.e. Mary Smith’s] death her daughter Ann as she was sitting by the fire she heard the voice of her mother speaking to her. She rose and went into the parlour, for fear her brothers should hear. Her mother followed her into the p[arlour]. She has told her that she came on an errand of love. She has said to her ‘O! They will turn my preachers out’. She said that she was happy but that it was not her desire to come on these errands for it diminished her h[appiness?] while she was here. Her daughter was in fear on account of her father. ‘Thou needest not fear about thy Father, for we are happy’. 2 About February after p[reaching] by G. [Rustling] at Houghton p[reaching-house], E. Spencer being asked to retire, they retired into the p[reachin]g-house. Ann Smith seemed inexpressibly happy & spoke of seeing a great light &c. directing the other to look up to see it. But she could not. She was holding Ann by the hand. [Ann] felt an hand exquisitely soft spread upon her r[ight] arm. She then looked toward her arm & saw an hand such as is not describable but that it was trans­ parent. She could see as she thought every vein &c. &c. as if she could see the blood flow &c. 3 About [illegible] weeks before Sarah [Brainbro?] died she (Smith) appeared unto and brought with her a crown & white robe which she said was for her, and said there was one for each of the children if they would accept it. She also said that she had seen Tho. Smith but that he

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Wesley’s Methodism and the supernatural appeared like a man in common apparel, that he was happy but not like his wife, for though he was got in, he had but just escaped. Smith said to the other woman ‘How happy am I; for where I am, the Lamb is the Light. There is no need of the Sun’. She at another time appeared (about two days before her death) and held out a crown saying this is for thee. She had something on her head like a crown. Her countenance & crown was so awfully luminous that she could not steadfastly behold. About noon the day before her death she saw Smith come out of an adjoining room; her husband followed but with an inferior appearance being seemingly in common apparel. They both passed by and as she went out of the room she said [blank] She was taken in travail that evening was delivered of two children about [blank] o’clock and died in about an hour after. The time of coming is about 12 o’clock. She told her the reason her coming at that time was because it was about that time that she left the world.69

These accounts again shared various features. All involved appearances by Mary Smith and (once) of her husband; some at least were made to people who were awake—they were not dreams, therefore; the visions were some­ times accompanied by a bright light; Mary usually wore a crown and robe; her body was transformed, though still recognisably human; she showed awareness of events on earth following her death and retained an interest in them; and she brought messages from heaven, often foretelling the immi­ nent death (and entry to heaven) of the watcher. In two cases, the visions offered a striking comparison between Mary Smith and her deceased hus­ band Thomas. While Mary had clearly gone to glory, Thomas had an infe­ rior status in the after-life, signalled by his wearing ‘common apparel’ rather than his wife’s ‘crown and white robe’. This, apparently, was because ‘he was happy but not like his wife, for though he was got in’ to heaven, ‘he had but just escaped’. Wesley had referred to such differential treatment of the departed in his 1732 sermon ‘On the Resurrection of the Dead’: They shall all shine as stars; but those who, by a constant diligence in well-doing, have attained to a higher measure of purity than others, shall shine more bright than others.70 On 25 November 1784, Wride also gave Moore this account of his own experience: On September ye 6th (or rather ye 7th, for it was past midnight) whether awake or asleep is hard to say: some part having the appearance of a dream other parts not at all like it, it seemed to me that I was in a place, such as in few words cannot be described. Through the wooden lattice

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which was before me, I saw a light approaching me: by the sensation I had, I concluded it to be something preternatural: therefore I repeat­ edly challenged it, as to what it was? but I got no answer. It seemed to take possession of my animal powers so that I was almost helpless, and utterly incapable to move hand or foot. The sensation I felt, was as if I was on every part, uniformly pressed with condensed air, I could & did speak often and distinctly, yet every word cost me very great labour. After many accostings without any answer returned, and my distress still increasing, I ceased to challenge, but called out for help, but none coming, I grew from loud calling to screaming. It is probable that one of the young women heard me . . . I saw their candle-light before they got unto the door, I heard them open the door, and answered their first question, but was as absolutely unable to describe what I had felt as I am now.71

Conclusion Wride recorded only one supernatural experience of his own, but he left several detailed accounts of the dreams, visions, and other supernatural experiences of others. He shared Wesley’s fascination with such phenomena and his view that—if properly attested—they offered powerful confirmation of God’s purpose and power. Many of his accounts concerned encounters between the living and the spirits of the dead, in which Wesley had a par­ ticular interest. Indeed he told Lady Maxwell that he had frequently under­ gone such experiences himself: I have myself many times found on a sudden so lively an apprehension of a deceased friend that I have sometimes turned about to look; at the same time I have felt an uncommon affection for them. . . . In dreams I have had exceeding lively conversations with them; and I doubt not but they were then very near.72 The interpretation of dreams is of course a vast subject, beyond the limita­ tions of this study; the contemporary trend was a shift from external inter­ pretations to the view that they originated from within.73 Wride’s accounts seem to confirm Bulkeley’s summary assessment that Dreams accurately represent whatever is most emotionally urgent and engaging in a person’s waking life, with particular sensitivity toward the negative end of the affective spectrum.74 Or as Bulstrode put it in 1724, ‘As for Dreams, they are generally the Result of the Thoughts or Actions of the Day preceding’.75 And Davies observed that

194

Wesley’s Methodism and the supernatural Early Methodism drew from and appealed to the widespread popular belief in magic, providence, spirits, dream interpretation, and faith heal­ ing. Methodism made theology relevant once again to the lives of the poor for whom the preternatural was fundamental to understanding and dealing with the harsh chaotic world in which they lived.76

Wride’s accounts offer striking confirmation of this. First, they typically pro­ vided evidence of the reality, in this life and beyond, of the ‘communion of saints’—while apparitions tended to be of one or two recently deceased Methodists, dreams and visions were populated by groups and sometimes even crowds of the living and the dead, including recognisable figures known to the viewer. Second, a central figure in dreams and visions was the risen Christ, typically dressed in white, offering verbal comfort and reas­ surance to the individual concerned.77 Third, most of the events, whatever their character, supported a belief in the after-life and one in which both heaven and hell were possible destinations. The inhabitants of heaven were portrayed as joyful but also aware of and interested in the lives of those they had left behind. Fourth, underpinning many of the accounts was a strong conviction of the effectiveness and perhaps the superiority of Methodism in offering a sure route to personal salvation—indeed, the concept of this life as a journey or preparation, leading to the next, suffused many of them. Fifth, the various premonitory dreams and visions offered a practical solu­ tion to the problem of the coexistence of an omniscient God with humans as moral agents—thus God foretold the death of Robert Tonge, but he contin­ ued to live out his remaining days as an autonomous individual.78 Specific dreams and supernatural encounters also did real ‘work’ for those involved; for example, the Leverton apparitions brought comfort to the bereaved Ann Smith. These events also illuminated theological ques­ tions troubling those involved. Kaughin’s experience convinced him that the Calvinist belief in predestination (at least in the form in which he under­ stood it) was reprehensible. And the Leverton incidents offered a resolu­ tion of the longstanding puzzle of the resurrection of the body. Wesley’s mother, Susanna, had struggled to understand how corpses which had ‘suf­ fered so many transmutations’ after death could be reconstituted at the Last Judgement, but ultimately grounded her belief in God’s omnipotence;79 while in 1802, Wride attacked his fellow preacher George Gibbon, who had appeared ‘to assert that the doctrine of the resurrection was a position full of absurdity & nonsense’.80 At Leverton, the deceased Mary Smith had corporeal form but could be readily distinguished from the living, since she glowed in the dark and had translucent skin. This was perhaps a more sat­ isfactory approach than that experienced by John Fenwick, when dreaming of the late George Whitefield in 1771. As Whitefield shook hands with the dreamer and floated heavenwards, his hand broke off: ‘He rose up with a pale look (but a smile) & left his hand in mine, for it broke off at ye joint a little above ye hand!’81

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The appearances of the Smiths also exemplified the Methodist doctrine of Christian perfection—Mary, resplendent in white robes and a crown, had presumably attained that blessed state, while her husband wore his normal clothes to signify that he had qualified for entry to heaven—but only just. Wesley and his senior colleagues had an appetite for case studies of dreams and supernatural events, but Wride shared Wesley’s caution. Both were therefore within the Enlightenment mainstream: Many canonical and lesser-known Enlightenment minds used the rational procedures of science and philosophy not simply to dismiss the existence of the miraculous, the occult, and the magical but also to avidly explore their workings on the basis of a firmer epistemological foundation.82 Wride’s own personal experience was limited, and he was sceptical of the claims of others, for example spending several months in verifying accounts of supernatural occurrences on the Isle of Man. But he realised that credible evidence would be of great interest to Wesley, and so he reported to Wesley in detail. These reports suggest that, whether consciously or not, three tests were being applied—the circumstances needed to be attested where possible by multiple witnesses; the message of the events had to be theologically sound; and there had to be a practical impact on the participants, whether for example in foretelling an imminent death or bereavement, or more posi­ tively in precipitating fundamental change in the comportment of the liv­ ing.83 Of the cases documented by Wride, it was the tale of William Kaughin which passed all these tests most convincingly, and it is no surprise therefore that it circulated widely in the Connexion and beyond.

Notes 1 Indeed ‘religion’ has been defined as ‘The belief in supernatural agents and the phenomena associated with those beliefs, such as rituals, social structures, and emotional and perceptual experiences’—Jonathan Jong and Jamin Halberstadt, Death Anxiety and Religious Belief (London and New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 3. 2 Lionel Laborie, Enlightening Enthusiasm (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), 247. 3 John Casey, After Lives (Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009), 322. 4 Kelly Bulkeley, Dreaming in the World’s Religions (New York, NY, and London: New York University Press, 2008), 184. 5 Robert Webster, “Seeing Salvation: The Place of Dreams and Visions in John Wesley’s Arminian Magazine,” in Signs, Wonders, Miracles, ed. Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005), 376–88, at 379. 6 Phyllis Mack described them as ‘a universal source of fascination’, in “The Unbounded Self: Dreaming and Identity,” in Dreams, Dreamers and Visions, ed. Anne Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania

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7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27

28 29 30

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Press, 2013), 209. See also Ann Taves, Fits, Trances & Visions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). Henry D. Rack, “Early Methodist Visions of the Trinity,” PWHS 46 (1987): 38–44.

Rack, 152, Q.16.

Wesley to Mrs. Woodhouse (3 February 1768), Telford, 5:80.

Mack, “Unbounded Self,” 217. John Fenwick to Samuel Bradburn (7 March 1786), PLP40/25/3, MARC. George Whitefield had died on 30 September 1770. A similar encounter with the recently deceased preacher Thomas Rutherford was published in MM 31 (1808): 581–2. On which see Stephen Brogan, The Royal Touch in Early Modern England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2015). Jane Shaw, Miracles in Enlightenment England (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2006), 1–2. Alexandra Walsham, “Miracles in Post-Reformation England,” in Signs, Won­ ders, Miracles, ed. Cooper and Gregory, 273–306, at 305. Mark Corner, Signs of God (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 119, 120. “The Principles of a Methodist Farther Explain’d . . .,” 219. Shaw, Miracles, 178. On 30 April 1739, for example, he described the miracu­ lous healing of a woman in Bristol, observed by her long-term physician: ‘When both her soul and body were healed in a moment, he acknowledged the finger of God’—Ward and Heitzenrater, 2:53. Ed. John Wesley—London: Printed by R. Hawes. John Smith, manuscript memoir by his son (1800), MA1977/296/1, MARC. Wride to Wesley (3 February 1777), MA1977/610/139, MARC. On which see for example Sasha Handley, Visions of an Unseen World (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2007) and Shane McCorristine, Spectres of the Self (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). John Harvey, “Introduction,” in Edmund Jones, The Appearance of Evil (Car­ diff: University of Wales Press, 2003), 6. Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory (London: Scolar Press, 1984), 79–82. On which see for example Misty G. Anderson, Imagining Methodism in 18th­ Century Britain (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), espe­ cially 158–61. Wesley published details in 1784—“An Account of the Disturbances in my Father’s House,” AM 7 (1784): 548–50, 606–8, 654–6. See also Luke Tyerman, The Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, M.A. (London: Simpkin, Mar­ shall, 1866), 348–64. Tyerman, John Wesley, 1:22; also Owen Davies, “Wesley’s Invisible World: Witchcraft and the Temperature of Preternatural Belief,” in Perfecting Perfec­ tion, ed. Robert Webster (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2015), 147–72. Entry for 25–7 May 1768, Ward and Heitzenrater, 5:135. Wesley’s belief in ghosts may have been associated with his view that upon death souls spent time in an intermediate state before going to heaven or hell—see Sermon 115, “Dives and Lazarus,” on ‘paradise’ as ‘the antechamber of heaven’, Outler, 4:4–18, at 7. Jones, Appearance of Evil. Rack, Enthusiast, 431–5. Debates of 7, 14, and 21 July, Capel Court Debating Society. Entries no. 1359, 1360, and 1361 in Donna T. Andrew, ed., London Debating Societies, 1776– 1799 (London: London Record Society, 1994), 229.

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31 See for example Samuel Norman, Authentic Anecdotes of George Lukins (Bris­ tol: Printed by G. Routh, 1788). One of the Methodist preachers was John Valton, and his involvement was summarised in Sutcliffe, Valton, 128–30. 32 John Hampson, Memoirs of the Late Rev. John Wesley, A.M., three vols. (Sun­ derland: Printed for the Author, 1791), 3:154. 33 Davies, “Invisible World,” 154. 34 Daniel Defoe [1727], An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (New York, NY: AMS Press, 2007), 125. 35 Entry for 25 June 1763, Boswell, London Journal, 250. 36 David Hume, [1748] “Of Miracles,” in An Enquiry Concerning Human Under­ standing, ed. Tom L. Beauchamp (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 87. 37 Ibid., 88. 38 Entry for 5 March 1769, Ward and Heitzenrater, 5:172. 39 Grayson M. Ditchfield, “Dr. Johnson and the Dissenters,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library 68, no. 2 (1986): 382. 40 As we have seen, Wesley also expected that accounts of dreams and visions should be supported by adequate testimony. 41 J. Wellwood, J. Mallard, and C. Dognon, “A Relation of the Cure of Mary Maillard, Lame almost since she was born,” AM 14 (1791): 532–8. 42 Adam Clarke, “An Account of the Miraculous Growth of a Woman’s Hair,” AM 14 (1791): 584–6. 43 Mack, Heart Religion, 226. 44 Duke E. 45 ‘Miss Bosanquet’ was Mary Bosanquet-Fletcher (1739–1815), who was an active member of the London Methodist community at this time. She later married the leading preacher Rev. John Fletcher—DMBI. ‘Miss Marsh’ was a wealthy mem­ ber and class leader of the London society. The preacher John Valton recorded attending one of her meetings in 1764—Sutcliffe, Valton, 25–6. 46 Ryan was an important figure in Wesley’s life. Eleven letters from him to her survive (Maddox, “Surviving Letters” database). 47 Sarah Ryan, “Account of Mrs. Sarah Ryan,” AM 2 (1779): 296–310, at 299. 48 Such as the conversion dream of Henry Webb, reported in John Tregortha, News from the Invisible World . . . (Burslem: Printed by the Author, 1808), 236–42. 49 MA1977/610/139, MARC. 50 PLP115/9/42, MARC. 51 Proverbs 16:4, King James Version. 52 This was the Wesley brothers’ polemical term for the doctrine of predestination, as used for example (six times) in Charles Wesley’s hymnal, Hymns on God’s Everlasting Love (London: Printed by W. Strahan, 1742). 53 Macclesfield: Printed for Edward Bayley, 1791; 81–5. Simpson claimed that this account was given to him two years after the events described. A similar account was published and also attributed to Simpson, in Tregortha, News, 412–15. 54 Simpson, Discourse, 85. 55 The first letter of Proverbs 16. This is not wholly persuasive; since this is only one of many Bible chapters—including nine in Proverbs itself—which start with the letter ‘T’. 56 Webster, “Seeing Salvation,” in Signs, Wonders, Miracles, ed. Cooper and Greg­ ory, 382–3. 57 John Valton, “An Account of Mr. J. V—: in a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Wesley,” AM 6 (1783): 404–7, 459–64, 514–21, 574–9, 635–8; and 7 (1784): 13–19, 70–5, 127–32, 182–6, 241–3; at 6:459–60. 58 MA1977/610/139, MARC. 59 Wride to Wesley (24 May 1777), MA1977/610/140a, MARC.

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60 See Matthew 7: 12–13—‘Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’ (King James Version). 61 ‘Buy no velvets, no silks, no fine linen, no superfluities, no mere ornaments, though ever so much in fashion’—Wesley, Advice [on] Dress, 5. 62 Barrule is a high point in the south of the Isle of Man, halfway between Peel and Castletown. 63 C. 1783, Note about Robert Tonge, Grimsby, PLP 115/9/23, MARC. 64 Undated and incomplete manuscript notes, Duke B. 65 Rack, 534. 66 Wesley arrived in Epworth on 25 June 1784, staying in the area until early July— Ward and Heitzenrater, 6:400–1. He made no direct reference to any super­ natural occurrences, though in recording the death of a 14-year-old girl, Abigail Pilsworth, he referred to her being ‘born into the world of spirits’ (401). 67 Wesley, “Account of the Disturbances,” AM 7 (1784): 548–50, 606–8, 654–6. 68 Wride to Moore (9 November 1784), Duke B. 69 Undated manuscript, Duke B. 70 Thomas Jackson, The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., eight vols. (London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1829–32), 7:484. 71 Duke B. 72 Wesley to Lady Maxwell (3 March 1769), Telford, 5:130–1, at 131; he made similar observations in his 17 February 1780 letter to Hannah Ball—ibid., 6:380–1. The 20th-century American evangelist Norman Vincent Peale also reported ‘a number of clairvoyant experiences’ of his dead parents—Carol V.R. George, God’s Salesman (New York, NY, and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 29. 73 Phyllis Mack, “Dreaming and Emotion in Early Evangelical Religion,” in Heart Religion, ed. John Coffey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 157–80. 74 Bulkeley, Dreaming, 17. 75 Whitelocke Bulstrode, Essays Upon the Following Subjects, viz. . . . 13. Of Dreams . . . (London: Printed for A. Bettesworth and J. Clarke, 1724), 271. 76 Davies, “Invisible World,” 153. 77 Such a person featured also in the one of the Sunderland apparitions reported by Edmund Jones. The case concerned a Methodist teenager called Elizabeth Hobson, who on one occasion had a vision of her dead uncle accompanied by ‘a person in white, taller than him, who was exceeding beautiful’—Jones, Appear­ ance of Evil, 114. 78 And Jones recounted the story of two Welsh Methodist women, who one day, while on a journey, heard the voice of a fellow member singing, five weeks before he died—ibid., 85–6. 79 Susanna Wesley to Sukey Wesley (13 January 1710), Clarke, Memoirs, 309. 80 Wride to Gibbon (October–November 1802), PLP115/9/39, MARC. 81 Fenwick to Samuel Bradburn (7 March 1786), PLP40/25/3, MARC. 82 William J. Bulman, “Introduction,” in God in the Enlightenment, ed. William J. Bulman and Robert G. Ingram (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016), 9. 83 In his 1902 classic study of religion, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Wil­ liam James applied three similar tests: ‘experiential immediacy, philosophical reasonableness and transformative effect’—G. William Barnard, “The Varieties of Religious Experience: Reflections on Its Enduring Value,” in The Varieties of Religious Experience, ed. Michel Ferrari (Exeter and Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic, 2002), 72.

10 Conclusions

The lessons of Wride’s career What sense can we make of Thomas Wride’s career? It is clearly impossible to reconstruct a fully convincing picture. We have only fragmentary infor­ mation about his hopes and fears, the circumstances of the circuits in which he served, and the many other factors involved in the stationing of preachers and their subsequent performance. But a few points stand out. First, Wride’s career illustrates the informed and sympathetic interest which Wesley took in his preachers. Through his extensive travels across the British Isles, the annual Conference, and frequent correspondence, Wes­ ley had a detailed understanding both of his preachers and of Methodist circuits and societies. Although Wride’s foibles and failures were neither unremarked, nor unpunished, Wesley often showed immense patience with his wayward colleague and took care in stationing him. Thus, after Wride’s reinstatement in 1782, he was sent to Grimsby, to serve under Thomas Carlill,1 a highly experienced preacher, having entered the itinerancy in the 1760s, and well-placed to assess the depth of Wride’s repentance. Second, Wride did not serve in any of the great urban circuits, such as Bristol, Leeds, Bradford, or Manchester, the sole exception being his year in Newcastle towards the end of his career. And although Wesley repeat­ edly entrusted him with positions of responsibility, these were never at the national level. Wride’s hopes in 1786 of moving to London to serve as Wes­ ley’s travelling companion, for example, were unfulfilled. He told Wesley on 7 February, You was thinking when here, of taking us to London (at least a short space to exchange with Brother Rhodes). If it is now agreeable to you it will save the trouble of buying an horse, and I apprehend that you are short of your number at London.2 But Wesley did not take up the offer. Wride’s time was spent mainly in geo­ graphically extensive and physically demanding rural or semi-rural postings,

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including in Ireland and northern England. His experience thus exemplifies Lenton’s judgement that There was a tendency for junior preachers to go to less established new circuits, further away from the older circuits of the industrial north and midlands, London or Bristol, while these circuits were reserved for more senior preachers.3 One puzzle is that Wride spent almost a third of his time in areas where English was not the sole language—he served in several Irish circuits and twice in the Whitehaven circuit when that included the Isle of Man. Was he simply being called upon to serve in the Connexion’s periphery, or was there something about his approach to preaching which led Wesley to believe that such environments suited his talents and approach? Perhaps his reputation for plain speaking and earthy turns of phrase was thought suitable for such environments. If so, the strategy misfired in the 1770s on the Isle of Man, as a contemporary local preacher, Charles Radcliffe, later recalled: In 1776, the Isle of Man formed part of the Whitehaven circuit, Mr. Thos. Wride, of eccentric notoriety laboured in that circuit, & had of course to devote a portion of his time to the Island. There was a revival in the Island at the time, & the good work was intermixed with a por­ tion of enthusiastic rant. Mr. Wride set himself to work to quench the wildfire. One day (I think, Sunday) having to preach in the open air at Knock[Aloebey?] near Peeltown, he began to satyrize [sic] the con­ duct of those ranting individuals who appeared so prominently in the revival . . . [which] raised the holy indignation of a young man, of the name of [Leese?] (if I mistake not,) who went to the other end of the field, gave out a hymn in the Manks language & began to sing. His friends rallied round him, & in a little time he had all the congrega­ tion. Mr. Wride was left without one individual to hear him, so he was obliged to desist in the midst of his sermon.4 However, in his 3 February 1777 report to Wesley, Wride claimed that his preaching was nonetheless having an impact: We labour under disadvantage for want of the Manx tongue, as many has no English. Yet the word is not lost. I have preached five times at Peel & I think every time some have been affected so as is hard to relate. They are capable of piety, at least, with very little help.5 Third, Wride’s career exemplifies the immense value to Methodism of deploying preaching teams for (typically) one-year assignments, rather than settling individual ministers in a locality for extended periods. Wride had both strengths and weaknesses, but the latter could be offset through

Conclusions

201

a careful choice of team colleagues. As the Isle of Man incident suggests, Wride was uncomfortable when faced with local revivals, which challenged his obsession with maintaining tight discipline. In the early 1770s, a revival swept Northern Ireland, in which the leading figure was the preacher John Smith.6 Like many of Methodism’s critics, Wride saw the liveliness of reviv­ alist meetings and the resulting influx of members as a threat to order.7 He told a colleague shortly after arriving in Newry that ‘I have undoubted infor­ mation that Armagh circuit (as to discipline) is swiftly going to confusion’.8 And when revival began in Kent in 1786–7, leading to a one-third increase in membership,9 Wride seems to have had little involvement,10 while, as we have seen, his wife was accused of positively hindering the cause.11 Wride’s strengths were as a manager rather than an evangelist, an execu­ tive rather than a leader. The Connexion needed such people. Revivals were periods of heightened emotional energy, but their gains needed to be con­ solidated, and the finite resources of Wesley’s expanding Connexion had to be husbanded. Such concerns preoccupied Wride throughout his career and rightly so, because he served predominantly in circuits whose straitened finances reflected the poverty of much of the local membership. Finally, for much of his career, Wride’s status within Wesley’s Connexion was not the straightforward one of an itinerant preacher on the payroll and subject to Conference discipline but something more ambivalent. In the late 1760s, before his first formal appointment, he spent some months— perhaps a year—as a preacher in Devon, on probation. From 1780, he spent two years as a suspended itinerant, with no preaching duties but in receipt of a stipend, and from 1790, he was active in the York circuit, sometimes but not always as a supernumerary, undertaking a range of administrative and preaching duties. Indeed, overall, Wride spent almost as long in such ill-defined roles as he did as an itinerant preacher. Many other preachers had similar career trajectories—Wesley’s Methodism was far more fluid and agile in response to changing circumstances than the orderly entries in the published Minutes suggest.

The challenges facing Wesley’s Methodism Wride’s life and work exemplify some of the key challenges facing Wes­ ley’s mission as the eighteenth century drew to its close and how they were resolved—not least, he embodies the serendipitously acquired capacity of Wesley’s itinerant system to deploy preachers of uneven temperament and modest gifts in multiple locations over lengthy careers. William Fugill was a notorious example—he entered the itinerant ministry in 1748, was expelled in 1764, and was reinstated in 1767, before his final expulsion in 1768. John Pawson described him as ‘A monstrous drunkard while he travelled and debauched two innocent young women near Heptonstall’.12 This extraordinary and institutionalised capability was a key source of the Connexion’s resilience and growth.

202

Conclusions

Even a leader of Wesley’s prodigious energy and commitment was unable to manage such an organisation with its nationwide reach. One outcome was a developing body of self-generated rules and regulations which Wride and others increasingly saw as a body of law, within which they asserted rights as well as accepted responsibilities. Rack has commented that ‘One of the tragedies of nineteenth-century Wesleyanism was that it fossilized his pragmatism into a new ecclesiastical orthodoxy as dogmatic as the old ones’.13 We already see clear traces of this legalism in Wride’s papers. When Wesley accused him of wrongly suggesting that his wife would be financially self-supporting, Wride replied in terms suggesting that he felt that he was on criminal trial, referring to two earlier letters: In the first, I told you the circumstances, with all the simplicity that might be expected from an honest evidence, on his oath, in a Court of Justice . . . I think, Sir, I have a good right to tell you that you ought to do me justice, by enabling me to vindicate myself when occasion offers.14 And as we have seen, Wride saw the process which led to his 1780 suspen­ sion from the itinerancy as a judicial process.15 Alongside this apparent increase in regulation in support of uniformity of both doctrine and practice, however, another aspect of the organisation’s growing pains was the increasing tension, in many areas, between the cen­ tre’s strategy and directives, the locally stationed preachers, and the lay lead­ ership of the societies. Wride’s evidence shows that this played out in many different ways. Often such strains surfaced within circuit preaching teams. On several occasions, for example, Wride sought to restrain colleagues he felt were pursuing an evangelistic agenda which circuit financial and other resources could simply not sustain; on others, he upbraided them for toler­ ating unorthodox practice in worship, for example in the use of unauthor­ ised hymns. There was also a wider trend towards greater assertiveness by local Methodists—stewards, chapel trustees, and the rank and file of the membership—perhaps in part a provincial reaction against the power of London-based preachers and laypeople. In Norwich in 1785, Wride upbraided a leading member of the local society for seeking to determine the pattern of hymn-singing, as he told Wesley on 7 September, It seemed to me to be a contradiction to call ourselves Mr. Wesley’s people, and at the same time to go contrary to his repeated desire. It is true in word he seemed willing you should rule, but I told him, ‘You will allow Mr. Wesley to govern, only you will be Viceroy over him’.16 He had earlier complained to Wesley about the dominance of the York soci­ ety’s stewards17; while in 1787, the trustees of the new chapel at Dewsbury

Conclusions

203

refused to put the premises on the Model Deed and demanded the right to veto the appointment by Conference of any preacher. Such cases, as Rack pointed out, ‘revealed the permanent tension within Methodism between “Congrega­ tional” or “Independent” and “Connexional” ideals of the church.’18 Wride consistently portrayed himself as a complete Wesley loyalist, facing down both rebellious laypeople and colleagues who strayed from the official line. This loyalty was not unthinking—Wride was convinced, and sought to persuade others, that Connexional discipline was essential, as he explained to his recalcitrant Norwich congregation in 1785. This was a time when both preachers and members were geographically mobile: The right of choosing the tunes was claimed by right of long possession. I could not admit the claim, objecting, that by this liberty of choosing what tunes they pleased, we were rendered barbarians to each other. For if preachers or hearers removed a little way from home, they could not join in singing; they must either not sing at all, or else singing as they have been accustomed to do, they must make such discords as would be very disagreeable to any musical ear. I told them that it was much to be desired that our singing should be uniform; and for this end Mr. Wesley had caused the approved tunes of the Methodists to be published, desir­ ing that all our congregations would sing them.19 We must be careful not to attribute to Wride an over-sophisticated approach to Methodist organisational issues—part of the reason why he wrestled with the Norwich membership was that, as he frankly admitted to Wesley, he thought they were ‘stupid’.20 But despite his (self-reported) heroic efforts, shared Connexional standards and practices in many areas, such as hymnsinging, or the involvement of children in society life, were under threat as the century drew to its close. The well-documented disputes over the administra­ tion of Holy Communion were only part of the problem.21 Wride’s retirement from full-time itinerancy in 1790 probably came at the right time.

Wride’s place in early Methodism Thomas Wride had obvious faults—he was, for example, deeply uncomfort­ able in taking orders from younger men and equally ill at ease in the loss of control brought by local religious revivals. His energy was not unflagging, though whether his episodic lassitude arose from illness, overwork or lazi­ ness, even he was unsure. His manner could be rough and his words crude. His humour was an acquired taste and sometimes inappropriate, as perhaps in this report to Wesley about the visit of a leading Baptist minister: Mr. Proud of Long Preston in Lincolnshire came to Norwich to assist in ‘Laying of Hands’ on Mr. Hunt’s man; but he killed two birds with one stone, for he also laid hands on the Widow Turner; and turned her

204

Conclusions into a wife; to his as well as her great consolation; for the poor man was himself a widower, and had been such for a whole month.22

He lacked self-awareness, finding flaws in others which were only too evi­ dent in himself. And his obsessive hatred of anything which smacked of Calvinism was extreme. It shaped his approach to a range of issues, includ­ ing hymn-singing and the potential for collaboration with other like-minded religious groups and frequently led him to mistrust and alienate individuals including fellow preachers. It ultimately proved corrosive, undermining the effectiveness of his significant personal efforts to spread the gospel. But Wride was not unique. In an open letter to his fellow preachers of 1796, William Bramwell lamented that We may be proud, passionate, envious, malicious, covetous, self-willed, brawlers, and triflers, given to jesting, yes, tiplers [sic]; we may oppose the real work of God, may turn hundreds out of the way, and yet remain travelling preachers.23 It has been convenient for both contemporaries and succeeding historians to dismiss him as eccentric, not least because of his forthright comments on the individuals and practices which he found at fault. But that is unfair; in fact, Wride was often in the right. Even his trademark and much-criticised preaching style only reflected his commitment to Wesley’s cause—after all, in 1875, Punch magazine claimed that the celebrated nineteenth-century evangelists Moody and Sankey ‘proclaim Gospel truths. . . . In colloquial slang. . . . And interpolate jokes ‘twixt their prayers and their praises’,24 while Billy Sunday, the most successful revivalist of early twentiethcentury America, preached sermons ‘which included street slang, pantomime, humor, and kinetic vigor’.25 And amongst his papers we find wit and learn­ ing, intellectual curiosity, a passionate desire to do what was right (albeit combined with self-confidence that he was always right), deep love for his wife and concern for her family, plain speaking and vigorous language, and devotion to spreading the gospel—as he saw it. Wride was obviously not a giant of early Methodism. He never attained a leading position in Wesley’s Connexion. He left virtually no published work. Theologically he was in the Wesleyan mainstream, though his obsession with the fight against Calvinism and his lack of interest in practical social action are striking. His ministry was marred by pain and controversy, for which he was at least in part responsible. He stands in comparison with the clergyman John Skinner of Camerton, near Bath, whose early nineteenthcentury journal chronicled his struggles against irreligion. As Virginia Woolf described him in her essay ‘Two Parsons’: Behind him lay order and discipline and all the virtues of the heroic past, but directly he left his study he was faced with drunkenness and

Conclusions

205

immorality; with indiscipline and irreligion; . . . with a mob clamouring for freedom, with the overthrow of all that was decent and established and right. Tormented and querulous, at the same time conscientious and able, he stands at the parting of the ways, unwilling to yield an inch, unable to concede a point, harsh, peremptory, apprehensive, and without hope.26 As Grensted has commented, ‘Evangelism . . . really depends far less on preaching than on the witness of the believer in his daily life’.27 Wesley got this—Wride did not. But we should be charitable when we consider Wride’s life and work. He exhausted himself, physically and emotionally, in the ser­ vice of his God and of God’s prophet John Wesley. He forewent many of the joys and comforts of family life. He had little reward in this life, living frugally and dying poor. But every year of his full-time career, on average, 17 of the souls in his care found a sense of purpose and fulfilment in joining one of John Wesley’s Methodist societies. So we should heed the advice of George Herbert (1633–1701): Jest not at Preachers language or expression:

How know’st thou but thy sins made him miscarry?

Then turn thy faults and his into confession:

God sent him, whatsoe’re he be: O tarry,

And love him for his Master: His condition,

Though it be ill, makes him no ill Physician.28

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10

11

Rack, 522.

Duke C.

Lenton, 168.

Isle of Man Conference Minutes, MA1977/447, MARC.

MA1977/610/139, MARC. Wesley himself was strongly opposed to the Meth­ odist use of Manx—see his 29 November 1789 letter to George Holder, Telford, 8:189. In 1772, Smith was released from duty as an itinerant preacher linked to a spe­ cific circuit and appointed a missionary with a general remit. See Lenton, 197–8; Joseph M. Lynn, A Short History of Wesleyan Methodism on the Armagh Circuit (Belfast: Allen, Son and Allen, 1885), 13; and Gallagher, Pioneer Preachers, 9–11. See for example Walsh, “Methodism and the mob”. Wride to an unknown colleague, probably Peter Jaco (2 November 1772), Duke D. Membership rose from 400 in the summer of 1786 to 530 in 1788—Rack, 608, 657. This is at least implied by Bramwell’s biographer, who described the revival as led by the assistant, George Shadford, with Bramwell’s support: ‘Under their joint ministry’, he wrote, ‘an extensive revival broke out, and many souls were converted to God’—Thomas Harris, The Christian Minister in Earnest (London: Sold by John Mason, 1846), 18. See chapter four.

206

Conclusions

12 Pawson to Charles Atmore (1 February 1802), Pawson Letters, ed. Bowmer and Vickers, 57–9, at 58. 13 Rack, Enthusiast, 250. 14 Wride to Wesley (23 October 1779), PLP115/9/42, MARC. 15 See chapter three. 16 Duke D. 17 Wride to Wesley (30 May 1785), Duke B. 18 Rack, Enthusiast, 498. 19 Wride to Wesley (7 September 1785), Duke D. 20 Wride to Wesley (9 December 1785), Duke C. 21 John Walsh, “Methodism at the End of the Eighteenth Century,” in History of the Methodist Church, ed. Rupert E. Davies, A. Raymond George, and E. Gordon Rupp, four vols. (London: Epworth Press, 1965–88), 1:277–315, at 286–8. 22 Wride to Wesley (7 September 1785), Duke D. 23 Blackwell, Kilham, 315, footnote. 24 “Missionaries in Motley,” Punch, 20 March 1875, 123; cited by Janice E. Hol­ mes, Religious Revivals in Britain and Ireland 1859–1905 (Dublin and Portland, OR: Irish Academic Press, 2000), 62. 25 Jennifer Wiard, “The Gospel of Efficiency: Billy Sunday’s Revival Bureaucracy

and Evangelicalism in the Progressive Era,” Church History 85 (2016): 589.

26 Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader, Second Series (London: Hogarth Press,

1932), 101. 27 Laurence W. Grensted, The Psychology of Religion (London and New York, NY, and Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press, 1952), 148. 28 George Herbert, “The Church-Porch,” in The Temple: Sacred Poems and Pri­ vate Ejaculations, tenth edition (London: Printed for W. Godbid, 1674), l5.

Appendix Extant Wesley-Wride correspondence

Period

Extant correspondence

Notes on sources

1760s 1770s

• one letter from Wesley • 29 letters between February 1771 and November 1779 • 12 from Wride • 17 from Wesley • 31 letters between March 1780 and May 1789 • 18 from Wride • 13 from Wesley

• In MARC • Wride’s notebooks cover the periods 1771–4 (Duke A) and 1778 (Duke D) only • Other letters are at MARC

1780s

1790

Totals

• 2 letters from Wride • 1 from Wesley • 32 letters from Wride to Wesley • 32 letters from Wesley to Wride

• Wride’s notebooks cover the periods 1784–5 (Duke B), 1785 (Duke D), 1785–6 (Duke C) only • Other letters are at MARC • Both Wride’s letters in his notebook Duke D • Wesley letter at MARC

Bibliography

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York Methodist Society Wesleyan Methodist Church minutes and accounts, Confer­ ence (WM) Archives, MAW Ms.427–433

The National Archives Abstract of [final] will of Thomas Wride, 1 July 1807, IR/26/428 Abstract of will of John Pawson, 11 April 1806, IR/26/427/126 Abstract of will of Lancelot Harrison, 26 February 1807, IR/26/428/166 Last will and testament of Joseph Benson, 10 February 1821, PROB11/1640 Last will and testament of Lake Houlton, 31 January 1816 (plus codicil), PROB11/1579 Last will and testament of Thomas Mitchell, 30 March 1770, PROB11/1134

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Newspapers and periodicals The Gentleman’s Magazine The Salisbury and Winchester Journal The Spiritual Magazine: or, The Christian’s Grand Treasure The Wesleyan and Christian Record

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Index

alcohol abuse 13, 42, 43, 45, 121, 201, 204–5 Algar, Joseph 137 Allen, John 62 apprenticeship 13–14, 15, 16 Armagh, Methodist circuit 4, 47, 78–9, 106–7, 131, 201 Arminian Magazine 1, 10, 46, 57–8, 59, 182, 183, 190 assistants, in Wesley’s Connexion 22–3, 106–7, 124; Wride as assistant 23, 24, 113–18 Athlone, Methodist circuit 24, 91, 113, 115–16 Atlay, John 35, 85–6, 103–4 Atmore, Charles 106, 128n62, 130n110 Ball, Mary 56, 57 Baptists, and Methodism 159, 160–1, 163–6, 172 Bardsley, Samuel 26, 81 Beanland, John 190–1 Benson, Joseph 35, 135, 142 Bideford, Methodist circuit 24, 136 Blagborne, William 3, 25–6, 77, 94, 119–20, 124 Book Room, Wesleyan 77, 138; Wride’s role viii, 85–6, 95, 103–4, 138 Booty, ‘Sister’ 58 Booty, William 58, 147 Bosanquet, Mary 71, 185 Bradburn, Samuel 35, 40, 135 Bradford, Joseph 40, 104 Braithwaite, John 25, 64, 82–3 Bridewell 56, 57, 169 Button, George 111, 112 Byron, James 67, 81, 104, 116–17, 124, 126, 146–7

Calvinism, Calvinists 120, 140–1, 147–8, 155–6, 160–1, 163, 171, 204 cannibalism, medicinal 93–4 Carlill, Thomas 35, 86, 109–10, 139–41, 156, 162, 190, 199 Cass, John 45–6 chapel design and decoration, Methodist approach 142–3, 144 children, Methodist approach 61, 62, 84–5, 147, 167, 203 Church, Sarah 56 Church of England 172; Methodist role within 105; Wesley and 76, 159; Wride’s relations with 13, 14, 15, 141, 159, 161–2 Clarke, Adam 35, 77, 96, 149; advice to young preachers 88–9 Clulow, Elizabeth 58 Coke, Thomas 35, 86, 104–5, 125, 137, 159, 172 Collier, Mary 60 Conference, Methodist 4, 103, 202–3; 1744 Conference 61, 76; 1745 Conference 179; 1768 Conference 23, 76, 90, 138; 1777 Conference 61; 1779 Conference 66; 1780 Conference 42, 62; 1782 Conference 48, 86; 1783 Conference 86, 110; 1784 Conference 33, 123; 1785 Conference 121, 167; 1789 Conference 87, 159; Wride’s attendance 103 confirmation, Anglican 15 Corbet, Thomas 110–11 Corlett, Henry 161 Cownley, Joseph 135, 160 Dales, The, Methodist circuit 47, 63, 66, 109, 122, 132, 135 Deed of Declaration 86

Index Defoe, Daniel 15, 182 De Rerum Natura [Lucretius], 13 Devon, Methodist circuit 23, 47 diet, preachers’ 131–2, 149–50 Dissent, and Methodism 159, 160–1, 163, 167, 170 Dornford, Josiah 56, 57 Dublin 106 Duck, Stephen 60 Empringham, Robert 161 Enlightenment, Age of 94, 178, 195 Epworth, Methodist circuit 111, 136; ghost ‘Old Jeffrey’ at rectory 181, 190 extempore preaching 77–8 Fenwick, John 113, 121, 125, 179–80, 194 Fish, William 64 Fisherton Anger, Wiltshire 16, 17 Flight, ‘Sister’ 59, 60, 104 Floyd, John 41, 66–7, 113, 114–16, 124, 126; as medical practitioner 91, 94, 95 Fugill, William 201 Furz, John 23, 27, 40, 47 Gainsborough, Methodist circuit 59–60, 110–11, 142, 162–3 Gerhard, John, Meditations 14 Gibbon, George 27, 82, 120–1, 124, 160, 194 ‘God of Abraham Praise, The’ [Olivers] 138 Gooch, Mary 58 Grimsby, Methodist circuit 131; chapel records 86; dissension over hymnsinging 139–41, 150; finances 85–7; other disputes 141; preaching team 109–10, 162, 199; supernatural occurrences 189 Haime, John 20 Hall, Ruth 59, 108 Hall, Westley 16, 17, 22 Hamilton, James 87, 159 ‘Hark How the Gospel Trumpet Sounds!’ [Cole] 140, 145, 147 Harrison, Lancelot 135 Haworth, Methodist circuit 50, 117–18 health, and Wesley’s preachers 4, 5, 42, 62, 90, 107–8, 131–3 Helton, John 38, 108, 122 Herbert, George 205

225

Hern, Jonathan 81, 113, 114, 158 Hey family, Norwich 38, 144, 145, 146 Hodgson, Samuel 51, 103, 105–6, 111–13, 133, 149, 155 ‘holiness’ see ‘perfection’, doctrine of Holland, William 16, 45, 82, 154n116, 160 Hopper, Christopher 5, 16, 35 horses, preachers’ use of 47, 104–5, 132, 133, 135–6, 155, 199 Houlton, Lake 56, 57, 121, 165 Hume, David 182–3 Hunt, John 163–6 Hunter, William 80, 107–9, 138 hymnals, unauthorised 107, 108, 138–9, 145, 150, 202 hymn-singing, Methodist approach 76, 112, 121, 137–41, 145–7, 149, 150, 202, 204 imputed righteousness, doctrine of 155 Irish Methodism 2, 106–7, 159, 200 Isaac, Daniel 3 Jaco, Peter 106–7, 133, 143 Johnson, Robert 121–2 Johnson, Samuel 82, 182, 183 justice, system of 148, 168–70, 202 justification by faith 156 Kaughin, William 185–6, 195 Kent, Methodist circuit 201; Jenny Wride and 67–8, 137, 201 Kilham, Alexander 167, 173 King, Samuel 148, 172 ‘Legal Hundred’ 1, 86 Leverton, Lincolnshire 105, 190–5 Limerick, Methodist circuit 115, 116, 148–9 London: housing conditions 18; Methodist society 18–19, 20–1, 22, 33, 39, 56, 84, 169, 184 London debating societies 166, 182 Longley, Thomas 111 magic 46, 93, 194 Man, Isle of 2, 4, 23, 134, 200; Church of England 161; preaching arrangements 59, 83; supernatural events 181–6, 195 Manners, Nicholas 6, 33, 62, 117–18, 123–4

226

Index

Manx language 187, 188, 189, 200 marriage, Methodist attitudes towards 60–9, 108, 202 Mather, Alexander 5, 40, 97, 122, 124 McKersey, John 67, 117–18, 135–6, 146–7, 155 medicine, Methodist approach 90, 92, 93 Metcalfe, James 43–7, 156, 162 Methodist women 58–60, 70–1 Mitchell, Thomas 20 ‘Model Deed’ 86, 203 monarchy, loyalty towards 166, 167–8, 173 money, and Wesley’s preachers 47, 86–7, 133–5 Moore, Henry 35, 105–6, 190, 192 Moore, John, archbishop of Canterbury 14, 170 Moorhouse, Michael 63, 121, 131–2 Nappier, Elizabeth 56 Newry, Methodist circuit 47, 77, 78, 133, 136 Norwich, Methodist circuit: Baptists and 92, 163–6, 172, 203–4; chapel 38, 142–4; dissension in 38, 49, 68, 142–8, 172–3; hymn-singing in 112, 118, 145–8, 203; management of 103, 104, 111, 137, 144–5; preaching team 67, 81, 116–18, 122; travelling around 133, 135–6; Wesley and 34, 35, 48–9, 50–1, 116–18, 142–8; women members 58, 59, 60, 61; Wride’s arrival in 39, 42, 84, 85; Wride’s reputation in 1, 50–1, 112, 158 oaths, importance of 169–70 Olivers, Thomas 138 Pawson, John 131, 135, 167, 168, 201; advice to young preachers 87–9 ‘perfection’, doctrine of 19, 20–1, 37, 59, 80, 157–8, 195 Pilmore, Joseph 146 politics, Methodist attitude 166–7, 168 preachers’ autobiographies 10 preachers’ homes 69, 90 predestination 141, 155, 156, 186, 194 Primitive Physick [Wesley] 90, 92, 93 prostitution 56–8, 63, 173 Proud, Joseph 144, 163–6, 203–4 quackery 1, 2, 89, 91, 92, 95 Rankin, Thomas 64, 122, 124 Reece, Richard 9n34, 61

revivals, spiritual 38, 164, 200; Wride’s discomfort with 201 Richmond, Richard, bishop of Sodor and Man 161 ‘ridicule, doctrine of’ 3–4 Robertshaw, Jeremiah 66, 91, 109 Rogers, James 37, 107–8, 136 Rowell, Jacob 135 rules and regulations, in Methodism 67, 108, 116, 138–9, 143, 145–6, 162, 202 Ryan, Sarah 71, 184–5 Salisbury, Wiltshire 10–11, 16, 70 ‘sanctification’, ‘full’ or ‘entire’ see ‘perfection’, doctrine of Sellar, Mrs 2, 59, 60, 71, 142 sexual temptation 61–2, 67, 71, 92 sick visiting, Methodist approach 84, 87, 90 Simpson, David 186–7 Skinner, John 204–5 Smith, Ann 190, 191, 194 Smith, Eleanor 56, 57 Smith, John 180–1, 201 Smith, Mary and Thomas 190–2, 194 social justice, and Methodism 167 Spence, Robert 140–1, 158 stewards, society and circuit 103, 139, 147, 202 Story, George 11, 90 street-walkers see prostitution supernatural events 105, 178, 193–5; dreams and visions 178–80; Enlightenment attitudes 182–3; ghosts, apparitions and demons 181–2; Grimsby events 189; Isle of Man events 185–9; Leverton events 190–3; miracles 180–1; Wesley’s views 50, 179, 180, 181–2, 183, 190, 192, 193, 195; Wride and ‘the dreams of a female in 1761’ 60, 183; see also Epworth, Methodist circuit theatres, attitudes towards 170–3 Tonge, Robert 189, 194 trade, Conference ban on 23, 76, 90 travel and communications, and Wesley’s preachers 47, 63, 135–7 trustees, chapel 103, 144, 202 Turner, Mrs. (widow of Robert) 142–3, 163, 203–4 Valton, John 35, 85, 187 ‘Vital Spark of Heavenly Flame’ [Pope] 145

Index Walsh, Thomas 77, 132 Wesley, Charles 35, 143 Wesley, John 7; communications style 3, 4; correspondence with Wride 34–9; management of preachers 4, 10, 84, 85, 86, 105, 107, 111, 115, 116, 124, 138, 148–9, 199, 200–1; nature of contact with Wride 33–4; and other denominations 43–4, 60–6, 165–6, 172; preaching style 77, 81, 82; and succession 1; view of Wride 39–42, 50–1, 83, 84, 89, 139, 147; and Wride’s career 23–4, 199–200; and Wride in London 20, 22, 23 Whitefield, George 140, 172, 179, 194 Whitehaven, Methodist circuit: dissension in 61–2, 149, 161; Wride’s service in 1, 2, 4, 23, 43, 82–3, 91, 200; Wride’s view of 50, 134 Wilberforce, William 167 Wilkinson, Jane 59, 66, 132 Wilkinson, Robert 59, 66, 109 Wiltshaw, John 2 Wood, Samuel 2 Woodcock, Jenny (or Jane) see Wride, Jenny Wride, Jenny ix, 60, 63–4, 66, 69, 108–9; death 69; family 69–70, 134; ill-health 68, 92, 136, 150; as preacher’s wife 66–9, 71, 111–12, 137, 201, 202 Wride, Thomas 6; apprenticeship 13–15, 16, 18; autobiography 10–22, 33, 39, 47–8, 168–70; career 22–4, 24, 150, 199–201; and children and parenthood 65, 66; communications style 2–4, 37, 41, 46, 51, 203; and confidentiality ix–xi, 36, 137; courtship 63–6; death 26, 134; and discipline 42,

227

43, 83–4, 87, 95, 107–8, 139–40, 142, 144, 145, 201; early life 10–13; early spiritual development 14–15; education 11–13, 14, 15; effectiveness 4–5, 83, 84, 204; expulsion and exile 42–8; family 10–11, 69–70, 205; and financial management 42, 47, 86–7, 95, 133–4, 136, 150; health 21, 22, 24, 25, 37, 39, 63, 103, 133, 136, 150; introduction to Methodism 15–18; and laziness 21, 47, 117, 203; marriage 66, 69, 111–12, 204; medical practice 90–4, 95, 115, 133, 205; pastoral work 76, 84–5, 95, 118, 144–5; pension 24, 25, 26; and politics 167–8; preaching style 51, 76–83, 89, 94, 110–11, 115, 200, 204; reputation as eccentric viii, 1–2, 200, 204; retirement 25–6, 70, 113, 119, 133, 134, 136, 157, 167, 201, 203; sense of humour viii, 89, 203–4; social attitudes 156–7, 168–72, 173; spirituality 19–21; theology 80, 81, 119, 155–8, 162, 163, 194–5; view of Wesley 48–51; wider Connexional role 85–6, 104–5; wills 68, 134 Yarm, Methodist circuit 162 Yarmouth, Methodist circuit 104, 105–6, 111–12, 148, 172 Yewdall, Zechariah 136–7 York, Methodist circuit 38; dissension in 26, 122; hymn-singing in 108, 138–9, 148, 150; management of 3, 202; preaching team 37, 82, 107–8, 119–21, 122, 148; women members 59; Wride’s arrival in 85, 158; Wride’s reputation in 80; Wride’s retirement in 25–6, 157, 167, 201