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Return to Methodists name list from "Methodism in the Channel Islands" by R.D. Moore (1952)
Pages 85-90
IT WAS inevitable that after the death of Wesley there should be a generation of controversy. There were so -many unsettled questions. The appointment of a 'Legal Hundred’ to take the authority of Wesley himself was far from being an answer. Was Methodism still to be a Society within the Established Church of England? Were its ideas and spirit to be those of the Priest or of the Prophet? Was its government to be authoritarian or democratic?
There was a strong conservative Anglican tradition in its foundation—but George Fox had not borne his witness for nothing: there was a Quaker strain too. There were Nonconformist elements in Wesley's own ancestry, and there were many more in his Society. But besides all this, there were vast numbers of his followers to whom organised religion and its various institutions had meant nothing whatever before their conversion. Now life had come to them—God, for Christ's sake, had redeemed them —and they knew it. They were in the company of those who loved Him. Why should they care for claims, authorities, and loyalties of which they had never heard before?
We had better take note of them: these unattached, uncared-for, who had so long been 'no people', but were now 'the people of God’—and aware of it! They would become the 'floating vote’ (though as yet they had none, either in Church or State) and they would determine much!
For the spirit of reform was in the very air. A new passionate hope of liberty, progress and a fuller, better life for men and women (or at least for their children) had swept across the Atlantic—in both directions. It had both succeeded and failed in France. Many in England had been awaiting it since the overthrow of the Commonwealth.
This inevitably meant—in religion as well as in politics —that the conservative spirit was awakened too. It asserted itself with deep suspicion of the motives and manifestations of the spirit of Reform. And this, with the example of France in full view, was not without justification. It was not all prompted by selfish 'vested interest': much of it was a genuine loyalty to 'established institutions’ and fear of the chaos which might follow their dethronement.
(a) So when Alexander Kilham, at the age of thirty-two, began to plead by voice and pen for the 'gospel privileges' of the Methodist people in (i) receiving the Sacraments from their own Ministers, (ii) being represented in the Annual Conference, he found a considerable following, but also met with immediate 'official' opposition. He was tried and expelled at the London Conference of 1796—only four years after his ordination. Two years later (December 1798) he died at the age of thirty-six, but, with the aid of William Thom and others, he had founded the Methodist New Connexion, and had become the pioneer of a policy and practice which all Methodism afterwards adopted.
{b) There are several crucial dates in the founding of Primitive Methodism. The popularly accepted date is 1810—when the 'Camp Meeting Methodists', under Hugh Bourne, became a distinct community. But William Clowes had been deprived of his Methodist membership in the same year and many of the members of his class had followed him. They met in Tunstall and prepared to build a chapel of their own. In July 1811 they joined the Camp Meeting Methodists and 'Primitive Methodism’ was born.
But the reasons for all this lie further back. 'Camp Meetings' as a means of evangelism had begun in America in 1799. In 1805 Lorenzo Dow, a freelance preacher, came to England and spoke strongly in favour of them. By April 1807 he had reached Congleton, where both Bourne and Clowes heard him, and on 3ist May the first English Camp Meeting was held on Mow Cop, near the borders of Staffordshire and Cheshire. A second followed on 19th July, and a third was planned for 23rd August.
Before the third was held the Liverpool Conference had forbidden Camp Meetings as 'highly improper and likely to be of considerable mischief'. This has sometimes been represented as a petty act of authoritarian intolerance. The judgement is imperfect.
Certainly the Conference (with few exceptions) neither liked nor trusted Lorenzo Dow, who from its point of view was responsible to nobody, and under no kind of control. Moreover, Camp Meetings in America had not been an unmixed blessing. They had been accompanied by excesses and even sexual licence. And attacks by the English Press on Methodist irregularities had made the Conference sensitive.
So the holding of the third meeting was an act of indiscipline which the Conference could hardly ignore. The formation of a second separated community of Methodists was the result.
{c) William O'Bryan had been a Methodist in Devonshire for years when he found (1814·) 'twenty parishes in N. Devon’ neglected and depraved and spiritually dead. He gave up his employment, made provision for his wife and family, and went off to evangelise them. While doing this, he was necessarily absent from home (at St Blazey, where he then lived), so his Class ticket was withheld and he was excluded from the Society 'for three weeks of non-attendance at Class’. This was the "legal" reason for this stern act of discipline. The real reason was, of course, that he had removed himself and his evangelism beyond the bounds of his Circuit and the control of his Superintendent, and was therefore no longer available for service within the recognised Circuit limits.
His work went on—by the rule of never preaching where the gospel was already proclaimed. James Thorne invited him to Shebbear, and there, at Lake Farm, the Bible Christian Society was formed in 1815. Twenty-two members were enrolled and two years later the first chapel was built. The third break-away from the parent organisation had begun.
Within a few years of their founding in Devon, they were ranging over the West of England, the Isle of Wight, Kent, and Northumberland. Much of the pioneer work was done by women, several of whom came to the Channel Islands.
It is important to remember that these three early offshoots from the parent tree were not originally 'separatist’ movements. They were all three founded upon expulsions. The 'pruning knife’ had been used severely, but the severed twigs were full of sap and struck root quickly, even where the ground was hard. There were occasionally local feelings of rancour between them and "t’owd body", but there was often sympathy, goodwill, and mutual help. Nothing essential divided them; no questions of Doctrine or Ecclesiastical Order had arisen. In God's good time, and when His Life, flowing through them, had borne its appointed fruit, re-grafting upon the parent stem was possible.
The fifth Bible Christian Conference was held in 1823. Its Minutes (a slender document) contain the following entry: 'Guernsey Mission: Samuel Smale and Mary O'Bryan (at J. Mitchell's, Mill Street, St Peter Port). Jersey Mission: Mary Ann Werrey.'
Let us trace the history of these three pioneers for the - next year or two. When the Conference of 1824 was held, Samuel Smale had died. Mary O'Bryan (who was only in her eighteenth year when she came to Guernsey and whose mother had been the first of the women preachers of the Bible Christians) was transferred to the Isle of Wight and Mary Ann Werrey to Northumberland. (Joseph Mitchell was in charge of Guernsey, and Eliza Jew, whose address was c/o Wm. Davies, Saddler, Charing Cross, had been sent to Jersey.)
The Conference of 1825 brought further changes: Susannah Baulch was moved to Guernsey and J. Francis Methirall to Jersey. Mary O'Bryan was now married to Samuel Thorne, but the name of Mary Ann Werrey had disappeared. This brave soul had been pursuing her missionary work in Northumberland, and tradition says she departed on her lonely journey and was heard of no more. But tradition is at fault. She was on her way to Scotland—impelled by a dream.
Even F. W. Bourne {History of the Bible Christians) does not help us much. The facts, as known, can be stated briefly. Mary Ann Werrey sailed for Guernsey on 9th March 1823 in a violent storm. Soon after her arrival, she preached to crowds at the 'New Ground' (Cambridge Park) and was given hospitality by a Wesleyan local preacher. Later she went on to Jersey (20th August), but stayed there only a few months. She was highly mystical in type—intense, psychic, and greatly influenced by dreams.
It was indeed because of a vivid dream, repeated three times, that she became convinced that she must leave the Channel Islands for the North Country. She said she saw herself as in a vision preaching the gospel in a crowded hall in a northern town. She described her dream to a friend—the captain of a ship. He thought he recognised the place she described, and as he was shortly sailing for Northumberland she persuaded him to take her aboard that she might obey her call. He agreed: she left Jersey and reached Northumberland. For a time she remained there, journeying and preaching. On 8th January 1824 she wrote from Northumberland describing the opportunities of the work, and at the end of May William Mason arrived there, but, adds the enigmatic record, 'too late to effect her rescue'. Bourne continues: 'Two or three further glimpses of no particular importance we get of her before God took her, no one living being able to tell how or when or where) for not a trace is left behind.’
What, then, are we to make of the following paragraph which appeared in The Times on 4th May 1925?
Reprint from 4·th May 1825—100 years ago.
'A young lady is to preach a sermon in the Caledonian Theatre on Sabbath evening next. This is altogether a rare circumstance in Scotland and there is no cause to apprehend that she will hold forth to empty boxes. She is a Miss Werrey, 22 years of age and a native of Guernsey. 'Edinburgh Observer.'A 'Quest for Mary Werrey’ might well be as successful as for 'Corvo’—and worth more to posterity. She was a puzzle to her Bible Christian colleagues, who considered her strangely unpractical and probably found her difficult to work with. If only a writer of George Eliot's calibre could have known her, English literature might have been enriched with another Dinah Morris.
Meanwhile, the work in the Islands continued. By 1826 Richard Uglow returns fifty-two members in Guernsey, and John Parkyn records the same number for Jersey. By 1840 Guernsey had ninety-seven members and had established a Sunday school, while in Jersey the number had shrunk to forty-one. At the fiftieth Conference, in 1868, Jersey returns 197 members and is now a Circuit, while Guernsey (a Home Mission station) has declined to forty. Building developments were remarkable. In 1825 a Chapel was built in Great Union Road, which then had its frontage to Devonshire Place. About 1850 more property was acquired and enlargement followed. Later (1864.) a schoolroom was added and there were further alterations and additions. Meanwhile 'strange fluctuations in membership’ were recorded, but on balance showing an increase.
The greatest venture was in 1869, when the Royal Crescent was opened. It was built on the site of the old Don Road Theatre, which had been burned out. It seated 1,200 and was described as 'the finest Chapel in the Bible Christian Connexion'.
In 1907 the Union took place between the Methodist Free Church, the Bible Christians, and the Methodist New Connexion. The first-named had no members in the Channel Islands. There were then 582 Bible Christians in Jersey. Guernsey had 268 Bible Christians and 143 Methodist New Connexion, but these were not united until 1929'
It was in the 'Cholera Year' that the Primitive Methodists first reached the Islands, and a coloured man (George Cosens, a West Indian) was the first missionary. For a few years after 1811 the consolidation of the work in the Potteries had continued. The difficult choice between further slow development in its birthplace and the risks of wider missionary efforts had to be made.
The result was a far-flung and passionate evangelism: for the most part it was done with great hardship and sacrifice; by poor folk among poor folk. It spread to the North of England, and as each area evangelised became a missionary general headquarters for further pioneer effort, results followed that would otherwise seem incredible.
Sailors from Guernsey attended some of the Revival Meetings in South Shields. They petitioned for a preacher to be sent to their own Island. Their plea was a 'call', and George Cosens landed in Guernsey in May. After preaching there he crossed to Jersey on the 16th, and on the 20th preached twice at the Royal Parade. As he thought the prospects were more favourable in Guernsey he soon returned.
The Sunderland and South Shields Circuit was bearing the cost of this enterprise, and before long Joseph Haughton was sent to Jersey to make another attempt. He succeeded, and a year later there were 110 members in the 'Norman Isles Mission'.
The epidemic of cholera was regarded by many as a 'visitation’ and disposed them to think more seriously of religion. The result was a big increase in the numbers willing to hear the Methodist preachers and a considerable awakening followed. (During this epidemic there were in Jersey 790 cases and 344 deaths.) The members enrolled during this period were not all faithful and many names had afterwards to be removed—the invariable sequel to this type of revival. A similar experience accompanied the later epidemic in 1849. A report sent to the District Meeting in 1851 states: 'One cause of our decrease is the many who joined while the cholera was raging in the Town but left again when the cause of their fear was removed.'