Women and the shaping of British Methodism: Persistent preachers, 1807–1907 9781847793232

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GENDER

IN

HIS T O R Y

Series editors: Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie, Pam Sharpe and Penny Summerfield

 The expansion of research into the history of women and gender since the 1970s has changed the face of history. Using the insights of feminist theory and of historians of women, gender historians have explored the configuration in the past of gender identities and relations between the sexes. They have also investigated the history of sexuality and family relations, and ­analysed ideas and ideals of masculinity and femininity. Yet gender history has not abandoned the original, inspirational project of women’s history: to recover and reveal the lived experience of women in the past and the present.    The series Gender in History provides a forum for these developments. Its historical coverage extends from the medieval to the modern period, and its geographical scope encompasses not only Europe and North America but all corners of the globe. The series aims to investigate the social and ­cultural constructions of gender in historical sources, as well as the gendering of historical discourse itself. It embraces both detailed case studies of specific regions or periods, and broader treatments of major themes. Gender in ­History titles are designed to meet the needs of both scholars and students working in this dynamic area of historical research.

Women and the shaping of British Methodism

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also available in the series



Myth and materiality in a woman’s world: Shetland 1800–2000 Lynn Abrams Gender and housing in Soviet Russia: private life in a public sphere Lynne Attwood History, patriarchy and the challenge of feminism (with University of Pennsylvania Press) Judith Bennett Gender and medical knowledge in early modern history Susan Broomhall ‘The truest form of patriotism’: pacifist feminism in Britain, 1870–1902 Heloise Brown Artisans of the body in early modern Italy: identities, families and masculinities Sandra Cavallo Women of the right spirit: paid organisers of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) 1904–18 Krista Cowman Masculinities in politics and war: gendering modern history Stefan Dudink, Karen Hagemann and John Tosh (eds) Victorians and the Virgin Mary: religion and gender in England 1830–1885 Carold Engelhardt Herringer Living in sin: cohabiting as husband and wife in nineteenth-century England Ginger S. Frost Murder and morality in Victorian Britain: the story of Madeleine Smith Eleanor Gordon and Gwyneth Nair The military leadership of Matilda of Canossa, 1046–1115 David J. Hay The shadow of marriage: singleness in England, 1914–60 Katherine Holden Women police: gender, welfare and surveillance in the twentieth century Louise Jackson Noblewomen, aristocracy and power in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman realm Susan Johns The business of everyday life: gender, practice and social politics in England, c.1600–1900 Beverly Lemire The independent man: citizenship and gender politics in Georgian England Matthew McCormack The feminine public sphere: Middle-class women and civic life in Scotland, c.1870-1914 Megan Smitley

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women and the shaping of british methodism persistent preachers, 1807–1907

 Jennifer Lloyd 

Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave

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Copyright © Jennifer Lloyd 2009 The right of Jennifer Lloyd to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act . Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester  , UK and Room ,  Fifth Avenue, New York,  , USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave  Fifth Avenue, New York,  , USA Distributed exclusively in Canada by UBC Press University of British Columbia,  West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada   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 applied for     885 9  hardback First published 9 8 7  16                          The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Minion with Scala Sans display by Koinonia, Manchester Printed in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

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To Connie Gates without whom this would never have happened

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Contents page viii ix x

list of figures  list of abbreviations

Introduction

1

1 Women in eighteenth-century Methodism

13

2 Women preachers’ place in a divided Methodism

42

3

85

The heyday of female itinerancy

4 Philanthropists, volunteers, fund-raisers, and local preachers

132

5

167

Women as revivalists

6 Women in missions at home and abroad

206

7

242



Deaconesses, Sisters of the People and the revival of female itinerancy Afterword

278

bibliography index

280 301

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List of figures 1

Active women preachers 1817–50

2

Women preachers as a percentage of all preachers 1820–44

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page 117 118

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Acknowledgements This book would not have been possible without the generous help and expertise of archivists and librarians. I offer my special thanks to Gareth Lloyd at the Methodist Archives in the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester, Jocelyne Rubinetti at the United Methodist Archives and History Center at Drew University, and particularly Peter Forsaith of the Wesley Historical Library at Oxford Brooks University, for his unfailing help, friendliness, and enthusiasm for my project. Many thanks also to the staff at the Royal Cornwall Institution in Truro, the Wesleyan New Room in Bristol, the West Country Archive in Exeter, the United Church archive in Toronto, the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and Shebbear School. I would also like to thank the Rev. Keith Parsons and the late Joan Mills for sharing their work with me, and George Potter of the Uniting Church of South Australia for arranging to have Serena Thorne’s diary microfilmed for me. In Canada, Sher Letooze has devoted enormous time and energy to reconstructing Bible Christian history, for which I am very grateful. I rely heavily on the diligent and invaluable work of documenting the lives of female preachers by Joan Mills for the Bible Christians and Dorothy Graham for the Primitive Methodists, as well as Oliver Beckerlegge’s essential United Methodist Ministers and Their Circuits. Without the astounding expertise and service of Bob Gilliam, our College’s interlibrary loan librarian, who provided me with the most obscure articles, I would never have been able to complete this project. My academic home, The College at Brockport in the State University of New York, has provided me with two scholarly incentive grants to help fund my research. I am forever grateful to my department for rekindling my interest in history when I enrolled in its MA program, and for encouraging me to apply to a Ph.D. program in my late forties. I sincerely thank the University of Rochester for admitting me, and Brockport again for employing me afterwards. I am very grateful for expert suggestions from my departmental colleagues, especially Bruce Leslie, Morag Martin and Alison Parker, and for critiques from the RUSH group of scholars from area colleges. I have also benefited from comments on conference papers and suggestions from anonymous readers for the Manchester University Press. My son Tom Lloyd and daughter Jane Ellis have encouraged me through the several years of research and writing, provided a home from home during my research at the British Library and SOAS, and travelled with me to Devon and Cornwall in pilgrimages to Bible Christian sites. My greatest debt of gratitude is to my partner Connie Gates, without whose support and encouragement I would not have gone to graduate school or seen the plaque on the barn wall that was the stimulus for my research. She has read and commented on every word of this book, and it is dedicated to her.

  ix  

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Abbreviations APMM Aldersgate Primitive Methodist Magazine BCAM Arminian Magazine (Bible Christian) BCM Bible Christian Magazine Bible Christian Minutes  Minutes of the Conferences of the Bible Christian Connexion. Mill Pleasant: S. Thorne, 1820–1907 CIM China Inland Mission HPMMS Herald of the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society LMS London Missionary Society Metropolitan Tabernacle Meeting  A Full Report of the Speeches at the Great Meeting Held in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London in Support of Primitive Methodist Home and Foreign Missions. London: Thomas Church, 1862 PMM Primitive Methodist Magazine PMQR Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review and Christian Ambassador PMWM Primitive Methodist Wesleyan Magazine (Ireland) Primitive Methodist Minutes  Minutes of the Primitive Methodist Connexion, London: Primitive Methodist Connexion, 1836, 1916 PWHS Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society UMFC United Methodist Free Churches UMFC Mission Reports  Reports of the Home and Foreign Missions of the United Methodist Free Churches. London: Andrew Crombie, 1899–1907 UMM United Methodist Magazine WMM Wesleyan Methodist Magazine

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Introduction In 1862 Mary O’Bryan Thorne wrote in her diary: ‘At our East Street anniversary I spoke at 11, and Serena [her daughter] at 2:30 and 6; one was converted in the evening.’1 She regarded this as a routine engagement, something she had been doing for more than forty years and that her daughter had every right to continue. Thorne was the daughter of the founder of the Bible Christian Connexion and a Bible Christian local preacher. Women preached regularly in the Bible Christian (1815–1907) and the Primitive Methodist Connexions (1807–1934), both offshoots of Wesleyan Methodism, for the entire period of the sects’ independent existence. It is likely that all their members in the nineteenth century heard a woman preach locally at least once, and probably the majority of them did so routinely. These women were part of a practice sanctioned by Wesley himself, although largely repudiated by his successors in Wesleyan Methodism. This book tells the history of the persistence of female preaching in nineteenth-century British Methodism. I am not a Methodist, so I am not writing as a denominational insider. My interest in this topic was first sparked in 1989 when I returned for the first time to the remote Cornish farm where I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s. On the wall of the oldest barn was a plaque telling me that William O’Bryan, founder of the Bible Christians, was born there in 1787 and died in Brooklyn, New York in 1867. The plaque was not there when I lived on the farm, and I had never heard of William O’Bryan. Initially I was struck by the coincidence that two of us who had lived in this out-of-the-way place should have ended up in New York State. I looked up the Bible Christians, found that one of their defining characteristics was their unusual number of women preachers, and a new research agenda was born.2 It led me on an adventure that took me back to Cornwall several times, to Exeter (where I went to high school), Bristol, Oxford, Manchester, and Shebbear, the Bible Christian homeland, where Mary O’Bryan Thorne’s gravestone records her birth on the farm and her fifty-six years of ministry. Eventually my research expanded beyond the Bible Christians to include the Primitive Methodists and other Methodist women preachers. My sources include Connexional magazines and publications, published and unpublished diaries and manuscripts, minutes and official documents, denominational histories, and contemporary biographies. I am unusually fortunate in having access to diaries or personal accounts by four generations of the

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women and the shaping of british methodism O’Bryan family, William’s wife Catherine Cowlin, Mary O’Bryan Thorne, Serena Thorne Lake, and Mary’s grandson’s wife Lois Malpas Thorne. Their brief biographies, together with those of three other representative women, provide the introductions to each chapter. When women’s history emerged as a field in the 1970s, much of historians’ effort went toward recovering the details of women’s lives. This book contributes to that tradition, but also responds to Jacqueline de Vries’s call for a focus on women’s religious experiences ‘constructed within specific social, emotional, institutional, and theological circumstances.’3 It is the first scholarly examination of the entire history of nineteenth-century British Methodist women’s preaching. Inevitably it draws on others’ work, and I am very grateful for, and build on, the work of Olive Anderson, Paul Chilcote, Dorothy Graham, John Lenton, Gail Malmgren, Joan Mills, David Shorney, Deborah Valenze, Martha Vicinus, Pamela Walker, and Linda Wilson. Part of the history is not recoverable. Too few preaching plans have survived to give any reliable estimate of the extent of female evangelism in Methodism, especially as women were frequently not named even if they were planned to preach. The surviving minute book of the Watton Primitive Methodist circuit in Norfolk illustrates the complexity involved in trying to get any numerical estimate.4 Between 1836 and 1856 thirty-three women were recorded as added to the preaching plan, but twenty-three left, some of them the same people, some not. Accounts of female preaching almost universally concentrated on how they looked and spoke, not what they said, and only a handful of women preachers’ published tracts have survived into the twentieth century. Even well-known evangelists like Serena Thorne, who attracted huge crowds in Australia after her emigration, left only a few traces in the historical record. This is not a history of progress, but, like much of women’s history, of doors opening and closing according to men’s needs and concerns. At the end of the century the main differences between a Primitive Methodist female evangelist in 1820 and one in 1900 were that the latter had more education, and was more likely to come from the lower rungs of the middle class. They were still subordinate to male authority, had very little influence on denominational government, and, like women everywhere, earned less than men for similar work. As Judith M. Bennett described it, ‘the framework remained; there was no transformation.’5 While this is a work of women’s history, since the publication of Joan Scott’s 1986 article ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,’ no women’s historian can ignore the impact of gender theory.6 Scott herself called for analysis of both women’s experiences and gender

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introduction construction, a position reiterated in Bennett’s History Matters, where she advocates ‘the complementary study of both gender constructions and women’s experiences.’7 The history of nineteenth-century female evangelism is a history of women challenging patriarchal hierarchies with only partial and often temporary success. Female preaching was a profoundly gendered experience, confronting deep-seated male opposition reinforced by biblical texts. Throughout the nineteenth century, both men and women routinely thought of and described women’s contributions to Methodist religious life in stereotypically female terms, as extensions of their domestic responsibilities. They defined women who stepped beyond the boundaries of accepted female roles as exceptional, making it easier to neutralize their impact and justify their exclusion from positions of power and ­responsibility. Only at the very end of the century did a woman manage to gain access to the ministry on the same terms as men (although for less pay) and be appointed to a circuit on her own, but she soon lost her privileges for the sake of the new United Methodism in 1907. In Women Towards Priesthood, Jacqueline Field-Bibb described the nineteenth century as ‘the entry and then gradual disappearance of women from the ministry of emergent connexions/churches as institutionalization progressed.’8 Rosemary Radford Ruether and Eleanor McLaughlin noted, ‘It is characteristic of the leadership roles in Christianity claimed by women that they derive their authority from personal charisma rather than from office.’9 Elaine Kaye, Janet Lees, and Kirsty Thorpe identified a recurring pattern in the history of women’s ministry in nineteenthcentury Methodism: The ministry of women itinerants was never exercised in complete equality with their male colleagues. Although their vocations and gifts were valued, their contribution was always limited by rules within the wider community, which prevented them from exercising too much power.10

My research confirms these patterns, but with nuances. I suggest that by far the majority of Methodist women preachers were not seeking power or even equality, but following their call to speak. Certainly female evangelists who claimed any kind of leadership, like the Leeds Female Revivalist Ann Carr or the independent evangelist Geraldine Hooper, did so based on their personal charisma, and by the end of the century, a very few women like Catherine Booth, co-founder with her husband of the Salvation Army, and Katherine Price Hughes, founder of the Sisters of the People, derived their authority to a considerable extent from institutional support and their official positions, although in both cases they were

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women and the shaping of british methodism married to powerful men. But most women preachers were ‘workaday preachers,’ as Geoffrey Milburn and Margaret Batty titled their collection about local preaching. Like Mary O’Bryan Thorne, female evangelists mostly saw their work as routine, although they must have been aware that it was always subject to challenge. They were either local preachers or independent evangelists, valued for their ability to attract crowds, to contribute to filling the preaching plan, or raising money and gaining converts in special services. They made no overt claim to participate in Connexional leadership, and probably the great majority had no ambition to do so. As Field-Bibb pointed out, in the first thirty years of the century, when Methodist sects like the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians were primarily evangelistic, women had some access to ministry, but as soon as these Connexions recruited a critical mass of members, ministering to the converted became at least as important, and often more pressing, than gaining new converts. Female evangelism became less important to them, and therefore less valued, and as worship became more formal, female preaching (‘ranting’) seemed less respectable. Throughout the nineteenth century, even at the height of female evangelism in the 1820s and 1830s, women were excluded from the official ministry, first ­informally, and then by denying them access to the education and training necessary for reception into ‘full Connexion,’ the term used for recognition of professional ministerial status. Yet here too there are nuances. Some sects excluded women altogether, others embraced them, at least in their early years. I suggest answers to the reasons why the New Connexion, the first Methodist secessionist sect, despite its connection with radical politics and egalitarian ethos, failed to make use of women evangelists, when a few years later the Primitive Methodists embraced them. Among the smaller sects, I examine the differences between Arminian and Tent Methodism that led the former to welcome female evangelists and the latter to maintain an all-male cohort of preachers. These differences add complexity to the larger patterns in nineteenth-century women’s ministry and illustrate the importance of the particular contexts of decisionmaking within Methodism. No nineteenth-century woman preacher achieved complete equality with male colleagues. Even in the early days of the Bible Christian and Primitive Methodist Connexions women were paid less than men, did not vote at the annual Conference (the central governing body), and, with one ephemeral exception, were never promoted to any position beyond itinerant evangelist. To some extent this was part of a broader struggle by women to gain access to professions as they became ­increasingly

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introduction formalized and specialized in the nineteenth century. The religious profession was especially difficult. Unlike the medical profession, where women midwives had had considerable status until at least the eighteenth century, the professional Christian ministry had never been open to women, and women faced particular obstacles in specific biblical texts that appeared to exclude them. God himself seemed to be against them. Yet women persisted. Methodism, with its emphasis on personal responsibility for salvation, initially provided opportunities for women who felt what Wesley accepted as an ‘exceptional call’ to preach, and when those opportunities closed or narrowed, they adapted. Many continued to preach locally, and some developed what amounted to careers in evangelism, culminating in a blossoming of independent female evangelists in mid-century. While women’s evangelism persisted in various forms throughout the century, in the last two decades other professional opportunities emerged. Missionary societies began to recruit and train women as a means of access to non-Christian women, particularly in China and India, and at home Methodist missions in poverty-stricken areas of inner cities relied on deaconesses or Sisters of the People, women who dedicated at least a portion of their lives to evangelism and social work. Unlike the female evangelists of the first half of the century, these women were professionals, by far the majority of them educated and middle class, with access to professional training. But this was not equality, and they did not seek formal access to the ministry. As with the itinerant ministry, they rarely had any access to Connexional power structures. Female missionaries earned less than men, and deaconesses and sisters were usually unpaid, or at best existed on a meagre allowance beyond their keep. Nonetheless, their presence and their competence was impressive, and their achievements, together with their education and class status, ultimately contributed to women’s slow progress toward ordination in the twentieth century. In his important book Methodism: Empire of the Spirit David Hempton points out that, ‘Methodism was comprehensively shaped by women in ways that we still do not fully understand.’ I hope that my work contributes to this understanding, since I deal with what Hempton calls the myriad ‘purveyors of hospitality, deaconesses, visitors, evangelists, prayers, exhorters, testifiers, class members and leaders, and preachers’ who ‘helped define the character of the Methodist movement.’11 My first chapter provides essential background for those unfamiliar with the histories of British Nonconformity and Wesleyan Methodism in the eighteenth century. I briefly describe female preaching in the seventeenth-century Civil War period, the Clarendon Code and the creation

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women and the shaping of british methodism of Nonconformity in the Restoration, and the conditions favoring the emergence of Methodism. After outlining Methodism’s early years and describing its organization, I suggest its attractions for women and the unique opportunities it offered for female religious leadership. Finally, I deal with Wesley’s eventual recognition of some women’s exceptional call to preach, and how one of the female preachers, Mary Bosanquet, ­justified female evangelism. Chapter 2 argues that the political climate of the Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath was the prime reason for the timidity and conservatism of Methodist leadership after Wesley’s death. Both the secular authorities and the general public feared the possibilities for disorder resulting from religious enthusiasm, especially as manifested in the Great Yorkshire Revival and among the followers of Joanna Southcott. Female evangelism came under particular scrutiny, resulting in the Methodist Conference imposing severe restrictions on women preaching, despite the arguments for its continuation published by Zechariah Taft. The Wesleyan leaders’ conservatism caused other tensions, and in the first half of the nineteenth century Methodism fractured into a number of sects, some ephemeral, others lasting into the early twentieth century and beyond. I analyze how and why this fragmentation occurred, and describe and suggest reasons for the sects’ varying attitudes toward female evangelism. In particular, I suggest reasons why the New Connexion, whose strength was in an region where female preaching was common, did not officially allow women to speak in public, while the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians allowed them to do so throughout the sects’ independent existence. I also show gender’s significant role in the brief histories of two ephemeral sects, the Tent Methodists and the Arminian Methodists. The final section describes the conditions favoring female preaching in the Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian Connexions and evaluates their leaders’ arguments for the acceptance of female preaching. Chapter 3 covers the heyday of female evangelism in the Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian Connexions. Here I both build on and challenge Deborah Valenze’s pioneering and important Prophetic Sons and Daughters: Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England.12 Valenze argued that what she defined as ‘cottage religion’ arose out of the social and economic changes of the first half of the nineteenth century, and that religious worship in domestic spaces emboldened some women to embark on careers as itinerant (travelling) preachers. My examination of the lives and working conditions of female itinerants in the 1820s and 1830s supports Valenze’s claim that the decline of women’s itinerancy by mid-century is partially explained by the effects of industrialization,

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introduction urbanization, and migration. But I also attribute it to internal change in the two sects, resulting in the development of a more formal ministry that excluded women. Here, and in the rest of the book, I also challenge Valenze’s contention that female evangelism died out in the second half of the century. Female itinerancy lapsed, but women evangelists adapted to changing conditions. For the first part of Chapter 4, I step aside from female evangelism to address women’s essential contributions to their Methodist societies as Hempton’s ‘purveyors of hospitality, visitors, class members and leaders.’ Methodist communities, whether Wesleyan or sectarian, could not have survived, let alone prospered, without the voluntary work of their female members. While critiques that question Leonore Davidoff ’s and Catherine Hall’s arguments for the close relationship between evangelical religion and separate spheres ideology have merit, I note the increasing rhetoric of domesticity in evangelical circles by mid-century.13 I use the descriptor ‘angel out of the house’ suggested by Elizabeth Helsinger, Robin Lauterbach Sheets, and William Veeder, to define evangelical women’s activities.14 I begin with some exceptional female evangelicals, not all Methodists, who stepped outside their domestic environments to engage in philanthropy, founding missions to working men, rescuing prostitutes, organizing mothers’ meetings, campaigning for temperance, and recruiting and training Biblewomen. Most Methodist women did not engage in these activities, especially in rural areas, but did sick-visiting, distributed pamphlets, led classes, played the harmonium or sang in choirs. Linda Wilson’s analysis of obituaries of Primitive Methodist women provided very useful statistics and information for this section.15 I describe and evaluate the growing opportunity for women as Sunday school teachers, and show how women were important fund-raisers, as missionary fund collectors, bazaar organizers, and tea organizers.16 The last part of the chapter returns to female evangelism. Female preaching did not die in the 1840s; Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians relied on female local preachers to fill their plans, and female evangelists who preached outside their circuits at special services could be relied on to attract larger than usual congregations and swell the size of the collections. By mid-century there were women who had developed careers as fund-raisers and revivalists within Methodist circuits. Independent female evangelism thrived during the 1860s, a period of sustained evangelical activity promoting religious revival. Chapter 5 traces the transatlantic roots of revivalism, the prominence of women within it, and the emergence of a group of female evangelists, ­identified by Olive Anderson in an early and important article, who developed

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women and the shaping of british methodism ­ rofessional careers outside the formal ministry.17 In particular I describe p the careers of the small number who achieved national prominence. Most were not Methodists but often spoke in Methodist chapels, and three of them, Catherine Booth, Isabella Armstrong, and Geraldine Hooper, published justifications for female preaching. While independent female evangelism waned by the end of the decade, the Salvation Army, co-founded by Catherine Booth, provided unprecedented opportunities for female religious leadership. For Booth’s career I have relied heavily on Pamela Walker’s excellent and comprehensive work on the Salvation Army in Victorian Britain.18 I agree with Anderson’s contention that these women’s ministries made religious work for women more acceptable in the last two decades of the century, although I do not see that work as ‘less challenging.’19 While Jocelyn Murray provided a very useful overview of nineteenth-century women’s contribution to evangelism and the ministry, and I concur with her conclusion that women’s official position changed little over the period, I disagree with her finding that there was little evidence that female evangelism continued in the last quarter-century.20 Its continuance is partially the subject of Chapter 6. In Chapter 6 I diverge from the chronological organization of the previous chapters to survey Methodist missions throughout the century and the opportunities they provided for professional female evangelism. I adopt a broad definition of missionary work, including home missions, missions to emigrant communities, mainly in British colonies, and foreign missions. All provided opportunities for women to preach, although these varied by time and place. Home missions to areas outside any Methodist organizational structure declined in importance in mid-century, but became a major focus in the last two decades when Methodists started to pay greater attention to working among the poor in cities. All home missions continued to provide opportunities for female evangelists, some of whom were hired as paid workers by their Connexions. Missions to emigrant communities were particularly important for the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians, who lost substantial numbers of home members to emigration. These communities expected male leadership, but female evangelists worked among them until the smaller sects in Canada and Australia merged into United Methodist Churches. In the last quarter-century overseas missionary societies began to recruit women, largely to work with indigenous women and children in Africa and Asia. In recent years a substantial amount of scholarship on women in overseas missions has provided important theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence, on which I draw, although it is a vast topic and for the most part I deal only with Methodist missions, with particular emphasis on

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introduction the Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists. I do not provide a detailed narrative of Methodist missionary activity, but describe the reasons for recruitment of women as foreign missionaries, the terms of their service, and the opportunities for female evangelism provided by foreign missions, in some cases allowing them to speak in public to mixed audiences. Yet their work was still described as extensions of women’s domestic duties and related to their stereotypical feminine nature. In Chapter Seven I describe a parallel home development to the opening of foreign missions to women in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. The evolution of the deaconess movement and the emergence of Sisters of the People, the latter as a response to middle-class concern for inner-city poverty, crime, and disease, provided opportunities for women evangelists. All larger Methodist Connexions supported deaconess or Sisters’ houses, allowing educated middle-class women to devote themselves to charitable and evangelistic work in formal and respectable organizations. The male leadership usually described this work as female-centered, even if it involved working with men, and many of the women themselves embraced an ideal based on gender difference. Nonetheless their presence and their professionalism worked to undermine gender norms. Some women became deaconess-evangelists, effective and sought-after preachers who, while arousing some disquiet, were seen as sufficiently unthreatening to enable them to continue their evangelical work into the twentieth century. In a few cases deaconess organizations and sisterhoods provided Protestant women with oppor­ tunities for leadership unprecedented outside the Salvation Army. The Bible Christians lacked the resources to sustain deaconesses or Sisters, but in the 1890s they alone supported a return to female itinerancy. The initiative’s success was limited, but resulted in the only nineteenth-century women accepted into the ministry on the same terms as men. Methodist union in 1907 negated that victory, and the names of these pioneers lapsed into obscurity. Thus by the end of the century women had achieved some limited professional standing within Methodism by seizing opportunities as they arose rather than embarking on an explicit challenge to their exclusion from the formal ministry. Yet their achievements were significant. Arguably, as David Hempton and Myrtle Hill suggested, ‘evangelical religion was more important than feminism in enlarging women’s sphere of action during the nineteenth century,’ since it involved large numbers of women in a wide variety of activities.21 Certainly the women in this book, who rarely had any connection with nineteenth-century feminism, persistently showed their capacities for effective public speaking, attracting

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women and the shaping of british methodism crowds and making converts, for professional social and foreign mission work, for organizing societies and raising money to support missions and other chapel activities, and for teaching Christianity and temperance in Sunday schools. They were inspired to act because of their religious faith or at least their sense of religious duty, and their visibility in their communities helped to provide other women with a greater understanding of their capabilities and the possibilities open to them. The last piece of property William O’Bryan owned in England, to which he clung as long as possible, was a small Methodist chapel he had built beside the cemetery where his mother was buried. Innes chapel was perhaps his most sacred space, one of two he constructed on his own land, and the only one to survive unchanged.22 It was also the chapel in which he slipped in unnoticed to hear his wife, the first Bible Christian woman preacher. In a memoir of his mother he wrote of Innes: As to this burying ground, there appears to me something providential attending it … My Mother’s Grandfather was a Quaker … [who] had a burying-ground in part of his estate. After his death his son removed to another part of the country, … – the Estate was sold, but the Buryingground was reserved; yet not much attention was paid to it, being at such a distance from the owners … A person who had bought part of the Estate which lay next to the Burying-ground claimed it and thought it belonged to him; but in June 1819, the heir at law, and the person who had purchased a part of the Estate which lay adjoining to the Burying-ground, jointly made over the Burying-ground to me; adjoining to which we built a Chapel … The Chapel was finished, and the Burying-ground cleaned up, and the fence repaired &c. a little before my mother’s death.23

In 1835 the Bible Christian Conference resolved to pay O’Bryan £85 in exchange for the copyright of the hymnbook, and all claims on the chapels except for Innes. The following year he crossed the Atlantic to attend the annual Conference and sign the settlement. He received less than would pay his debts, and reluctantly had to sell Innes for £25.24 After O’Bryan’s death in Brooklyn, New York, his daughters returned his Bible to his grandson in England, who placed it in Innes chapel, where it remains today. My son, daughter, and I found the chapel with difficulty in the middle of a cow pasture at the end of a dirt road that seemed to go nowhere, one I had passed countless times forty years before but never explored. Smaller, squatter than most Methodist chapels, the building retired modestly into a corner of the untidy graveyard. It was locked, but through the window we could see the Bible in its glass case. As we tried

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introduction the door I glanced at the noticeboard beside it. The preacher planned for the following Sunday was a woman. Notes 1 Diary of Mary O’Bryan, entry for 14 January 1862, Library of the Royal Cornwall Institution, Truro. 2 See Jennifer M. Lloyd, ‘Collective memory, commemoration, memory, and history: or William O’Bryan, the Bible Christians, and me,’ Biography 25:1 (2002), 46–57. 3 Jacqueline de Vries, ‘Rediscovering Christianity after the postmodern turn,’ Feminist Studies 31:1 (2005), 139. 4 Minute book of the Watton Primitive Methodist Circuit, Norfolk County Record Office FC 60/1. 5 Judith M. Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), p. 25. 6 Joan W. Scott, ‘Gender: a useful category of historical analysis,’ American Historical Review 91:5 (1986), 1053–75. 7 Bennett, History Matters, p. 25. 8 Jacqueline Field-Bibb, Women Towards Priesthood: Ministerial Politics and Feminist Praxis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 201. 9 Rosemary Radford Ruether and Eleanor McLaughlin (eds), Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), p. 19. 10 Elaine Kaye, Janet Lees, and Kirsty Thorpe, Daughters of Dissent (London: United Reformed Church, 2004), p. 194. 11 David Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 138, 149. 12 Deborah Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters: Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). 13 Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). 14 Elizabeth K. Helsinger, Robin Lauterbach Sheets, and William Veeder (eds), The Woman Question (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989), pp. xiv–xv. 15 Linda Wilson, Constrained by Zeal: Female Spirituality amongst Nonconformists 1825–1875 (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 200). 16 My analysis builds on Francis Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy in NineteenthCentury England, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). 17 Olive Anderson, ‘Women preachers in mid-Victorian Britain: some reflexions on feminism, popular religion, and social change,’ Historical Journal 12:3 (1969). 18 Pamela Walker, Pulling the Devil’s Kingdom Down: The Salvation Army in Victorian Britain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). 19 Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ 481. 20 Jocelyn Murray, ‘Gender attitudes and the contribution of women to evangelism and ministry in the nineteenth century,’ in John Wolffe (ed.), Evangelical Faith and Public Zeal: Evangelicals and Society in Britain 1780–1980 (London: SPCK, 1995), pp. 109, 111. 21 David Hempton and Myrtle Hill, ‘Born to serve: women and evangelical religion,’ in

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women and the shaping of british methodism Alan Hayes and Diane Urquhart (eds), The Irish Women’s History Reader (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 119. 22 S. L. Thorne, William O’Bryan, Founder of the Bible Christians: The Man and His Work (Plymouth: J. C. Holland, 1888), p. 29; Gunwen chapel 1978 Exhibition notes, Thomas Shaw Collection, Library of the Royal Cornwall Institution, Truro. 23 William O’Bryan, ‘Memoirs of my mother,’ BCAM 2:2 (1823), 62. 24 Bible Christian Minutes 1835; Diary of William O’Bryan, entry for 6 September 1836; Metholdist Archives, John Rylands Library, University of Manchester.

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1 Women in eighteenth-century Methodism

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0n her forty-second birthday Catherine Cowlin O’Bryan sat down to reflect on her Methodist conversion experience nearly a quarter-century before. She had lived in the Devon village of Stoke Damerel for about a year. It was probably in one of the new small villas that were filling in the area between Stoke Damerel and the rapidly growing town of Dock (soon to be renamed Devonport), where she often preached in the newly opened Bible Christian chapel on Prince’s Street. She probably did not feel settled; the family had moved five times in the eight years since her husband William O’Bryan had left the Methodists to found the Bible Christian Connexion. We can imagine her, emboldened by her birthday, taking a few quiet moments to herself, shut away from the noise and bustle of her five girls. Perhaps Mary, the eldest, aged sixteen, and fourteen-year-old Thomasine were watching the younger three. Her husband was probably away, travelling the circuit. She sat in front of a gray exercise book with a dark red binding on the left edge. Two holes punched in the center of the front and back covers could be tied together for some measure of privacy. She intended to begin her autobiography, ‘The Experience of Catherine Cowlin,’ writing with a modesty typical of such women’s testimonies, ‘In the fear of the Lord, I have taken up my pen, for the sake of my dear children hoping that they might be profited thereby, to write something of my worthless life.’ 1 Perhaps her husband and daughters had encouraged her; William was at that time (1823) publishing an account of his early years in the Bible Christian Magazine. She may also have been motivated by her impending departure by sea to preach on the island of Guernsey. Such journeys were always risky. With little preamble she launched into describing her teen years in the 1790s. Her mother was strict and she defied her by enjoying dancing and playing cards until, aged fourteen, ‘I over heated my blood [by

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women and the shaping of british methodism dancing] and suffered much through pain and weakness of body untill I entered on my nineteenth year. But even in these years I still (after all my vows and resolutions) loved sin, and revered Satan and was truely led captive by the divil at his will.’ However, her parents attended Methodist meetings and she continued to go with them. Persistence had effect; at eighteen she experienced religious enlightenment while listening to a preacher in her brother-in-law’s house. She then reported something that had clearly given her pause: she received unwelcome attention from a local Methodist preacher: ‘But to my great astonishment he began to be light and trifling, and to talk on a subject that I could not even dare to think on at that time … till then, I had looked on the Methodist preachers, to be next to Angels, and therefore dared not to think an evil thought of the least of them.’ Undeterred, she became zealous, alarming her parents who ‘did not like so much of religion’ and threatened to ‘cut her off.’ This had the opposite effect; perhaps to avoid the importunate preacher, she joined a more distant Methodist society a ten-mile walk away, and began to attend four meetings each Sunday.2 Here the account ends; she had no time to describe the feelings of unworthiness she later expressed in poetry, or her struggle toward perfection, both common experiences for Methodist women. Perhaps she never had time to write again, perhaps it was too daunting to describe her marriage, her six pregnancies, the death of her four-year-old son, her husband’s departure from Methodism, her own preaching career, and her frequent moves. But in the eight pages she managed that day she described an experience typical of many teenage girls who turned to Methodism: early enjoyment of simple pleasures but with a nagging sense of sin, a conversion experience before she was twenty, and increasing zeal thereafter. It was a story told many times in obituaries of Methodist women. The story she did not tell was less typical. Catherine and her descendants were among an exceptional group of nineteenth-century women who felt called to preach and were not deterred. Catherine herself was an essential partner to her husband in founding the Bible Christian Connexion, including preaching alone on a mission to the Isle of Wight; she continued to speak at meetings after she and her husband emigrated to the United States. Her eldest daughter Mary began to preach at age sixteen, spent two years as a travelling evangelist before her marriage, and then had a fifty-year career as a local preacher. By mid-century, although the Bible Christians still allowed women to preach, they allowed them neither power nor responsibility, and Mary’s daughter Serena took a different path, becoming an independent evangelist and eventually the best-known woman preacher in Australia. Mary’s grandson married a

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women in eighteenth-century methodism fellow missionary in China, evangelizing the ‘heathen’ being an attractive religious career for women at the end of the century. These women’s lives exemplified both their determination to be heard in religious settings and their willingness to adapt to circumstances and overcome obstacles. They were not alone; a substantial number of women in Methodist sects spoke in public, and a few managed to make careers in religion despite opposition from all-male hierarchies and prejudice in their congregations. They had to be adaptable, to take advantage of new opportunities as others closed to them. Initially they flourished in conditions similar to those on the American frontier, in borderlands where Methodist preaching had not yet reached, where religious hierarchies were fluid, where women daring to speak in public drew curious crowds. Later in the nineteenth century other women took advantage of new opportunities in urban settings, in settler colonies, or among the ‘heathen.’ In each case they had to battle with a paradox, identified by Joan Scott, that to claim the right to speak as individuals untrammelled by the assumptions of inferiority associated with the term ‘woman,’ they had to identify themselves as women, to admit the connotations of the term while simultaneously battling them.3 As Lucy Lind Hogan has pointed out, ‘nowhere were these constraints more profoundly felt than by women in the church. There, the controversy surrounding the public speaking of women was not the prelude to, but more often the central point of, contention.’4 To claim the right to speak women had to transgress the almost universal ban on their speaking, a ban backed by biblical authority. Some women, and also some men, argued for their right to do so on theological grounds, but most, like Catherine O’Bryan, simply felt an overwhelming urge to speak and did so. The justification, if any, came later. These are the stories of ordinary women who felt what one of them, Mary Bosanquet, defined as an ‘extraordinary call.’ John Wesley himself accepted that certain exceptional women were chosen by God to speak in public. This chapter explains how Methodism created a welcoming and empowering religious environment for women, and how Wesley came to sanction the actions of some who were emboldened to take on public roles. Methodism was both the product and the reflection of its time, combining an Enlightenment faith in progress with the religious enthusiasm of evangelical revival.5 It owed very little to Old Dissent, the sects that had emerged from the religious and political ferment of the English Civil War and Interregnum between 1641 and 1662. However, a brief discussion of the history of Dissent is essential since both John Wesley and his successors had to grapple with and try to

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women and the shaping of british methodism avoid the penalties imposed on Dissenters until the nineteenth century. Most Dissenting sects (Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers) originated in the Puritan (Calvinist) movement within the established Church of England and did not clearly separate from it until after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Blamed for the extremism of the late 1640s and under suspicion for potential subversive activities against the restored monarchy, Dissenters suffered persecution during Charles II’s reign. Between 1661 and 1670 the Restoration Parliament passed a series of acts penalizing Dissenters known as the Clarendon Code after the king’s chief minister, Lord Clarendon. Of the various Acts of Parliament included in the Code, the Conventicle Act, banning all meetings for worship larger than five people except those conforming to the Church of England, was to be the most restricting to Methodism. The effect of the Clarendon Code was to create the condition of Nonconformity, a personal commitment to worship outside the established church, a line drawn with far greater clarity than before, although those with less tender consciences could evade the Code’s provisions through ‘occasional conformity,’ attending Holy Communion in the parish church once a year and worshipping elsewhere the rest of the time. It now required courage, fortitude, and determination to embrace Dissent, resulting in smaller but in many cases more committed congregations. Michael Watts has calculated that between 1715 and 1718 there were 1,934 Dissenting congregations in England and Wales, with Dissenters comprising 6.21 percent of the total population of England and 5.74 percent of the Welsh. This was an increase over the 1,610 licenses to preach issued in 1672, but since the numbers for the earlier date did not include Quakers and some Baptists and Congregationalists, the statistics suggest at least stagnation.6 The political climate for Dissent changed when James II became England’s first openly Roman Catholic king since the Reformation. Now Catholicism rather than Nonconformity became the chief enemy. After William III ousted James in the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, the Convention Parliament that confirmed William and Mary as joint rulers passed the Toleration Act, allowing licensed meetings of Dissenters who took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. However, Dissenters still had to apply to a bishop, archdeacon, or magistrate to hold meetings, permission they were unlikely to get for the large outdoor gatherings that were a prominent feature of eighteenth-century evangelicalism. Toleration of Dissent proved a mixed blessing. Persecution tends to increase zeal and commitment; its relaxation often produces complacency and lesser enthusiasm. By 1730 Dissenting sects were in most cases reduced in number and had

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women in eighteenth-century methodism fewer ministerial recruits. Congregations were often isolated and their separateness discouraged active evangelism, especially as many years of persecution had encouraged worshippers to turn in on themselves rather than reach out to others. There was a shift from evangelism, actively seeking to convert unbelievers, to education of those already committed to the congregation.7 Bryan Wilson described this as a shift from sect to denomination. He defined a sect as an exclusive but voluntary association of members with ‘a high level of lay participation,’ and practising expulsion of offending members, while a denomination has formal admission requirements, accepts conventional morality, rarely expelling members, and worships in formal services conducted by professional trained ministers.8 Toleration also affected loyalties to the established church, introducing the idea that attendance at Church of England services was not required but voluntary. Thus in the eighteenth century both the Church of England and Old Dissent were on the defensive and poorly placed to lead a religious revival, leaving space for a new movement, Methodism.9 Methodism, like Puritanism, began as a movement within the Church of England. John and Charles Wesley, sons of an Anglican rector, were ordained, Oxford-educated Church of England priests, as were several of their early associates. Methodism remained within the established church until after John Wesley’s death, largely because neither John, nor especially Charles, wished to make the break. A contributory factor was avoidance of the continuing, if reduced, penalties against Dissent, particularly the Conventicle Act. Wesley insisted that Methodists pay tithes and church rates and continue to receive communion from their parish priests. He largely succeeded in preventing Methodists from meeting at the same times as Church of England services, ensuring that meetings could be held without applications to licensing authorities. Methodism was also doctrinally distinct from most Dissent in that Wesley emphatically rejected the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, the doctrine that God has already chosen who is to be saved, believing that all may experience God’s grace and work toward Christian perfection. Wesley’s God was not the stern, judgmental God of Calvinism but a benign father whose son had died as atonement for human sin, and who rewarded human effort to live a godly life. This led him and his associates to emphasize the role of good works more than Calvinists who believed in justification by faith alone.10 Methodism was part of a transatlantic religious revival ranging from Eastern Europe to Britain’s American colonies. The revival’s defining characteristics were conversion, usually defined as a personal experience that sins have been forgiven, followed by fervent religious zeal, and

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women and the shaping of british methodism increased attendance at churches or meetings of more informal religious societies.11 David Bebbington put the revivals together under the umbrella of ‘evangelicalism,’ with four main elements: conversion; the belief that truth lay in the Bible; dedication of one’s life to the service of God; and the conviction that Christ’s death provided atonement for sin.12 Their most important eighteenth-century manifestations were the Great Awakening associated with Jonathan Edwards in Britain’s American colonies, Pietism in Germany, and the Evangelical Revival in Britain, beginning in Wales. John Wesley encountered all three personally in his encounters with Pietism in Georgia and the Pietist community at Herrnhut in Saxony, and through his Oxford associate George Whitefield, who was active in the Welsh revival and preached in the American colonies on seven evangelical tours. Whitefield had been one of the small group of like-minded friends at Oxford, including John and Charles Wesley, who devoted themselves to religious study and charitable work, acquiring the nickname ‘Methodist,’ referring to their regular lives and routines. In February 1739 Whitefield took the radical step of preaching outdoors to a large audience at Kingswood, near Bristol, and in the following year he toured seven American colonies, preaching regularly to crowds numbered in thousands, reaching an estimated half of the total population.13 While Wesley later broke with Whitefield over the latter’s continuing adherence to the doctrine of predestination, outdoor preaching and passionate evangelism became essential ingredients of eighteenth-century Methodism. After graduation from Oxford and ordination into the Church of England, Wesley resisted taking charge of a parish, refusing his father’s request to succeed him in his own living. Instead, with a somewhat reluctant Charles, he signed on as a volunteer missionary to the newly chartered settlement of Georgia where his experiences, while personally disappointing, were crucial to the evolution of Methodism. During the crossing he was impressed with the stoicism during a storm of a group of Moravian missionaries from Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf ’s community at Herrnhut. The Pietist Zinzendorf had given refuge to persecuted remnants of the old Protestant communities of Bohemia and Moravia, but insisted on their remaining within the Lutheran church and charged them with a particular mission to revive zeal in existing congregations and evangelize new ones throughout the world. Wesley worked closely with Moravians in Georgia and in 1838, when he returned to London, Methodists and Moravians met together in the Fetter Lane Society and he visited Herrnhut. While he ultimately rejected Moravian theology, Wesley’s association with Moravians had a strong influence over the evolution of Methodism; he took from them the concept of a church

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women in eighteenth-century methodism within a church (hence his commitment to remaining within the established church), their commitment to evangelism, their emphasis on a disciplined Christian life, their use of hymns in worship, the practice of the love-feast, and aspects of their organization he observed during his visit to Herrnhut.14 The following year George Whitefield himself left for Georgia, and John Wesley took over his work in Bristol on Whitefield’s invitation. Since February Whitefield’s ministry had included outdoor preaching to large crowds, so, with some reluctance, on 2 April Wesley himself ‘proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city.’15 It was the beginning of a restlessly peripatetic life; thenceforward on his own estimate he never travelled less than 4,500 miles a year. Whitefield and Wesley embraced outdoor evangelism in the late 1830s at a propitious moment in English history. Politically, the Hanoverian succession was secure, and the nation had experienced nearly a quarter-century of peace. Although radical in his approach to personal religion, Wesley was himself conservative and cautious in his politics. A Tory, he believed that God established governments and their subjects owed obedience and non-resistance; he distrusted popular participation. He battled against public authorities’ suspicions of Methodism, particularly of their preachers’ ability to draw large and attentive crowds, many of them artisans who were often associated with public disorder. Methodists were frequently bracketed with Roman Catholics or religious ‘enthusiasts’ and fanatics, and were linked with the Catholic Jacobites in popular rumor. In 1744, at the height of fear of a Jacobite invasion, faced with questions about his loyalty from Justices of the Peace in both London and Surrey, Wesley drafted the first of several expressions of loyalty to the king, including anti-Catholic rhetoric at odds with his general endorsement of religious toleration. He upheld the side of law and order in the radical 1760s, supported the king against the American rebels in the 1770s, and condemned the 1780 anti-Catholic Gordon Riots. His one departure from Toryism was moral; he was steadfast in his denunciation of slavery, which he regarded as contrary to the human rights to freedom, happiness, and the pursuit of holiness. Yet Methodists themselves were politically heterogeneous and often considerably more liberal in their views than their leader. A general decline in religious deference connected to the advance of deism and toleration, and the social mobility emerging from a growing market economy, provided fertile ground for evangelicalism, especially as what Susan Juster described as ‘a vigorous public sphere of coffeehouses, newspapers, corresponding societies, voluntary associations, and penny pamphlets’ had developed by the 1790s.16 However, these factors

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women and the shaping of british methodism were neither necessary nor sufficient to explain the growth or spread of Methodism in the second half of the century. In Britain Methodism, with its ability to seize the moment, was most successful in regions where social and economic change and population growth exposed the relative weakness of Church of England parish organization in rural areas of dispersed population, and in rapidly growing new commercial centers.17 Methodist lay preachers spoke to people like themselves in cottages and the open air, bringing a message of salvation available to all individuals. It was a religion of borderlands, growing most rapidly in areas furthest from parish churches and seats of authority, where conditions were similar to those on the American frontier, self-sufficient, individualist, open to the emotional enthusiasm of evangelical religion, but also to a discipline that made sense of their lives and provided a feeling of community. And, while the leaders of the transatlantic evangelical revivals were solidly male, the movement provided unprecedented opportunities for women.18 From the 1640s women had usually been the majority in Dissenting congregations.19 The enthusiasm, loose organization, and unstructured worship of breakaway religious sects attracted women, who found ways to make their voices heard, if often only briefly. Women had been prominent in several of the sects during the ferment of the English Civil War and Commonwealth. Phyllis Mack lists thirty-eight well-known women visionaries in the 1640s and early 1650s, and 120 women known to have been active as prophets, missionaries, and writers between 1650 and 1665, with a further 124 briefly mentioned in that period.20 However, the Eve stereotype of women as disobedient and unreliable temptresses and the visible presence of women in food riots meant women speaking in public were associated with disorder, and female prophets could be accused of witchcraft and sexual lust. The reaction against religious fanaticism and its identification with subversion and rebellion reflected in the provisions of the Clarendon Code meant a retreat from female public testimony. Of the 120 women active between 1650 and 1665, more than half ended their lives as Quakers, the one sect where women’s public ministry was recognized, some female itinerants chose to speak to non-Quakers, usually in the open air, and women could serve as elders as well as men. By the end of the eighteenth century Quaker female authority was largely exercised in separate women’s meetings, a development women themselves encouraged. Women’s meetings usually took responsibility for making recommendations for charity and overseeing marriage proposals. However, women were excluded from the sect’s executive body, the Men’s London Yearly Meeting, although the separate Women’s London Yearly Meeting could send recommendations to it.21 Other Dissenting sects required

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women in eighteenth-century methodism women to remain silent, although in some Baptist congregations they were able to vote.22 Like the nascent sects of the 1640s, Methodism early attracted female followers. An early critic of Methodism mocked Wesley’s followers as largely composed of ‘silly Women,’ and contemporaries claimed that in the early days Methodists were predominantly female.23 Immediately after Wesley returned from Georgia his followers in religious societies in London and Oxford numbered fifty-six men and eight women, but the male preponderance was brief. At the end of the year he and his London associates began meeting together with Moravians in the Fetter Lane Society. The following year Wesley split with the Moravians over the latter’s doctrine of ‘stillness,’ or passively waiting for grace, left the Fetter Lane Society, and began meeting at the Foundery. Nearly fifty women but only about twenty-five men who had been meeting at Fetter Lane moved to the Foundery with him, establishing the crucial importance of female support; when drawing up his ‘Rules of the Band Societies’ at that time he included ‘rules for the women.’ In 1742 women were forty-seven of the Foundery Society’s sixty-six leaders, and in 1744 fifty-two women were listed as members of the Select Society whose ‘faith had been tested and proved,’ compared with twenty-five men.24 By that time Wesley had shifted his main sphere of activity to Bristol. Two days after he began his outdoor ministry he recorded in his journal that three women ‘agreed to meet together weekly, … ‘to confess their faults to one another, that they may be healed,’ the first organized meeting in the area.25 As Methodism grew and its organization became more formal the female preponderance among members remained. John Munsey Turner has estimated that in the early nineteenth century approximately 60 percent of all Methodist members were women, a greater proportion than in the adult population as a whole; in the 1821 census women composed 52.3 percent of adults. Clive Field calculated a female mean of 57.7 percent among Methodists between 1740 and 1830. However, these calculations are somewhat misleading because Methodists counted as members only those who had been issued class or band tickets, signalling a serious attempt to live a godly life. The numbers actually attending Methodist worship were considerably greater; the generally used estimate is to multiply the membership two and a half times. We cannot know whether there was a female majority among worshippers, but it is likely, since Field found that among Baptists and Congregational congregations, where membership requirements were far less strict, between 1751 and 1825 58.6 percent of members were women. The marital status of Methodist women is not clear. Wesley personally opposed mixed-sex seating in chapels, organized

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women and the shaping of british methodism the converted into single-sex bands, and followed St. Paul in believing that celibacy was the ideal state, but many of his followers appeared to have resisted his advice. Field tentatively found that the number of single Methodists was ‘significantly smaller than in the adult population as a whole,’ and that between 1745 and 1832 women comprised 61.9 percent of single members, 51.2 percent of those married, and 75.9 percent of the widowed, in each case a higher proportion than in the general population. However, in her study of Methodist women in east Cheshire, Gail Malmgreen found that female members were far less likely to be married than their male counterparts. Within the Methodist community, Field’s statistics support this to a certain extent. He shows 5.5 percent more single Methodist women than men between 1759 and 1823, 13.7 percent fewer married women, and 8.2 percent more widowed.26 Malmgreen suggested the hypothesis that embracing Methodism was a ‘settling down process for men but an act of independence for women.’27 Certainly in the majority of cases there was probably a gendered difference between men’s and women’s reasons for committing themselves to Methodism. David Hempton has identified a dialectical tension within eighteenth-century Methodism between enthusiasm and enlightenment that ‘shows up as a disciplined commitment to self-improvement combined with a fervent belief in divine intervention in daily life.’ This combination of confessional discipline, individual empowerment and divine promise, realized within Methodism through a common but flexible organization on the one hand, and the spiritual release associated with love-feasts and hymn singing on the other, meant different things for men and women. In some communities, for example Cornish miners and fishermen, Methodism tapped into local traditions and superstitions that fitted well with Methodist belief in divine intervention in daily life.28 However, for many men, embracing Methodism must often have involved accepting an alternative masculine ideal, based on a household and religious community rather than the tavern and the cockfight.29 To some, especially those whose conversion was at their wives’ insistence, it may have seemed more sacrifice than opportunity, but for others the rewards were considerable. Those who sought upward social mobility may have found in Methodism the masculine ideal envisaged in tracts like James Fordyce’s Addresses to Young Men (1777): self-control, balance, and virtue.30 Methodism provided a sense of community at a time of social mobility and change, the promise of heaven for all leading a godly life, and opportunities for male lay leadership that were closed to those without education in most other religious sects by the eighteenth century. Men could become lay preachers, chapel trustees or stewards, Sunday

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women in eighteenth-century methodism school superintendents or teachers, and class leaders, all activities likely to enhance their status in their local communities. Elie Halévy’s thesis that evangelicalism fostered ‘voluntary obedience,’ and E. P. Thompson’s well-known castigation of Methodism as fostering a supine acceptance of industrial work discipline and deference to the existing social order are both flawed.31 Methodism did impose discipline on men, but it was not unquestioning obedience, as witnessed by the many nineteenth-century breaks from Wesleyan Methodism, the majority caused by lay resentment of centralized control. Thompson’s thesis is also gendered. If Methodism disciplined men – no doubt often to the delight and relief of their wives – it allowed women greater license to take control over their own religious destiny without the need for priestly intercession or guidance, valuing the individual soul and encouraging direct communication with God. Salvation and sanctification were individual responsibilities, what Paul Chilcote calls ‘accountable discipleship.’32 Contemporaries recognized that women’s adherence to Methodism disrupted the gender order. The author of the article referring to Wesley’s followers as ‘silly women’ claimed they were leaving their children all day to attend Methodist meetings, ‘without any Regard to the grand Inconveniences to which they are exposed by such neglect, contrary to the Laws of Nature.’33 While internal dissension within Methodism was largely over doctrinal matters or questions of organization, many anti-Methodist pamphlets, contemporary prints, and outside attacks on individual Methodists and Methodist gatherings prominently featured accusations that Methodists were disrupting family life and local custom, and encouraging sexual license because of their long private indoor meetings with both sexes present.34 The two most serious attacks on Methodists in mid-century exemplified such gender anxiety. When a collier’s wife went missing for a week in Wednesbury in 1744 and was found at ‘one of the Class-houses,’ it caused a vicious and destructive anti-Methodist riot. In Norwich a riot triggered by the activities of the Methodist James Wheatley included the claim that journeymen’s wives had ‘gone out to the dear hearers, and their children neglected and no dinner for them, and that … many mouths had come upon the parish.’35 A Chester vicar told a young girl that the Methodists brought ‘confusion and disorder among families.’ Henry Abelove has suggested that in a minority of cases Methodism may have empowered women, particularly those who had reached Christian perfection, to refuse intercourse with their husbands.36 Wesley began his ministry at a time of change in ideas about women’s bodies and roles, a gradual switch from emphasizing the sinfulness of Eve to highlighting ‘natural’ differences between men and women, notably

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women and the shaping of british methodism women’s reproductive functions and their importance as mothers of citizens.37 It was also a time of increasing female literacy; between 1780 and 1840 the female literacy rate in England, based on signatures in marriage registers, rose from 39 percent to 52 percent, while the male rate stayed the same at 68 percent.38 Increasing numbers of enclosures, changes in agricultural practice, transportation improvements, and growing industrial production resulted in a more mobile population, with many of those leaving home young women in their teens bound for domestic service or industrial employment; many young Methodists were in household service.39 Donald G. Matthews identified several ways in which women might have sought out a particular religious experience: they might come alone, or as daughters of pious parents, or they might lead their families. Many might have been seeking support and selfesteem.40 Attendance at Methodist worship provided community, ways of making friends, sometimes a replacement for family among individuals and families in transition. Phyllis Mack has emphasized the importance of female friendship in eighteenth-century Methodist communities.41 In the hard economic times at the end of the eighteenth century the fellowship and mutual assistance among Methodists provided some relief to its adherents.42 Methodism attracted different groups of women in different ways. It is likely that girls in their teens like Catherine Cowlin were susceptible to the lure of freedom and independence that attendance at Methodist meetings offered, particularly if they were members of all-female bands, initially the basic Methodist organizational units. The teens were the time when eighteenth-century girls were most free from both fathers’ and husbands’ control. Usually not contemplating marriage until their early twenties, many, perhaps the majority of women between their early teens and twenties, lived away home as domestic servants or apprentices.43 The relative independence of these young women allowed them to attend Methodist meetings without family interference, although they may have met with resistance from their employers. They heard a message that allowed them an autonomy in their personal relationship with God that many must have known or suspected was not likely to be their future in earthly relationships. Malmgreen found that in Cheshire both men and women were most likely to experience conversion between the ages of twelve and twenty-one, and young women who went on to speak in public as exhorters and preachers appear to have been particularly likely to experience conversion in their teens.44 Michael Watts found that of 246 eighteenth-century Methodist women 48 percent experienced conversion between fourteen and twenty.45 In the early nineteenth century the

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women in eighteenth-century methodism Methodist minister Zechariah Taft published Holy Women, describing the careers of forty-five women who spoke in public, and Paul Chilcote and John Lenton have identified a further thirty-two. Thirty-three of the thirty-nine women (85 percent) whose age at conversion is known were under twenty.46 Some young women ignored attempts to dissuade them from attending meetings, and frequently won over or converted their domestic opponents. Frances Mortimer, later the wife of the prominent Methodist minister John Pawson, noted her mother’s initial strong prejudice against Methodism before she too converted. Describing a similar reaction to what many perceived to be the restraining effects of Methodist conversion, Isabella Wilson, active in the Yorkshire revival of the 1790s, reported that ‘It was soon noised abroad that I was turned Methodist. Many of my friends were sorry for me.’47 Some women may have used religion as an excuse not to marry; Hester Ann Roe of Macclesfield successfully resisted her prominent family’s pressure to take a husband by using religious arguments.48 However, Methodism had several attractions for married women. The many meetings and opportunities to worship provided wives with an escape from onerous and dreary household routines and an alternative to oppressive domestic situations. Methodist preaching provided comfort to mothers. Married women knew they could expect many pregnancies during their childbearing years. Each pregnancy brought with it the real risk of death for mother, child, or both. Calvinists preached that children were inherently sinful and the death of a child was the result of the mother’s sin; Wesley preached the essential innocence of children and the possibility of redemption for all who embraced the grace of God. Grace Murray (later Bennet), the woman closest to Wesley in his ministry, was drawn to hear him preach during a depression after a miscarriage and the death of her other child. She believed that some failure or omission on her part was responsible, until a vision of ‘God the Father looking upon me through his Son, as if I had never committed any sin’ lifted the depression and led to her joining the Methodists.49 The Methodist insistence that individuals could attain sanctification before death must have been comforting to women who frequently faced the possibility of dying. Wesley believed that most people did not experience perfect love until the moment of death, and published numerous deathbed descriptions in the Arminian Magazine. In A Short Account of the Death of Mary Langs[t]on, which he thought of highly enough to publish as a pamphlet, he reports the nineteen-year-old dying of smallpox as saying: ‘Weak in body, but happy in soul; I long to be gone to heaven. Some may think that I have a heavy affliction. No. I have none that I can spare. Oh! it’s a

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women and the shaping of british methodism happy affliction! Others may say of me, she was once blooming; how is she altered now? But I was never so beautiful in all my life; I am as the king’s daughter, all-glorious within, and my raiment is of wrought gold.’50 While we have to remember that such accounts were edited and filtered through male experience, they nevertheless suggest that Methodist adherence helped women to face the possibility of death at least with less fear and sometimes with equanimity. Both single and married women were active in education. Hannah Ball of High Wycombe opened a Sunday school, one of the first recorded, in 1769. Sunday schools later provided women with the opportunity to become literate, and then become Sunday school teachers themselves. From 1781 the Wesleyan Conference made grants for the education of preachers’ children, including girls, some of whom went to Miss Owen’s school at Publow, which Wesley considered a model. Single women, whether unmarried or widowed, could find a whole way of life within Methodism. Malmgreen found that in Cheshire the ‘most prominent female converts tended to be those who were in some sense independent: affluent spinsters and widows, or married women whose husbands were unusually sympathetic or complaisant.’ Methodists also valued activities that were the norm of many women’s lives, notable sick-visiting and housekeeping. The minutes of the annual meeting for 1744 list visitors of the sick and housekeepers among the Connexion’s officers, and Wesley urged his followers to visit the sick three times a week.51 Housekeeping was a good deal more than maintaining a single-family household. Grace Murray, a member of the Foundery Society, was first appointed a band leader, which she undertook with reluctance but ‘durst not refuse, lest I should offend God,’ and a sick visitor, ‘which was my pleasant work.’ After the death of her husband at sea she moved back to Newcastle, where Wesley appointed her housekeeper to the ‘Orphan-house,’ which included a school, an infirmary, and a preaching-house.52 She met with 100 people in two separate classes, a band every day, visited the sick, and travelled to outlying societies, eventually accompanying Wesley to Ireland, where they entered into what proved to be an abortive engagement to marry. Wesley appointed Sarah Ryan housekeeper in Bristol, giving her responsibility for activities centered on the New Room, the main Wesleyan place of worship in the city. Later she joined with Mary Bosanquet, a wealthy young woman who had left home for a life of Methodist devotion, and the female evangelist Sarah Crosby to found a model Christian community in Essex, which became a school, orphanage, hospital, and refuge for poor widows. In 1768 the community moved to Yorkshire, where they added evangelism to their activities.53

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women in eighteenth-century methodism A memoir of Isabella Wilson captured the daily lives of many single Methodist women: ‘She strove to cast her mite into the sacred treasury, by meeting classes, holding meetings for prayer, visiting the sick, by epistolary correspondence, and spiritual conversation when in company with others.’54 In many cases women provided space where Methodists could be heard, opening their houses to Methodist preachers. For example, in Halifax, Chinley, Teesdale, Maldon, Darlington, and Normanton women either invited preachers into their homes or found rooms where they could speak. Sometimes women took the initiative before Methodist preachers arrived. Mrs. Martha Thompson, a wealthy widow, invited preaching at her Rufforth estate and was instrumental in introducing Methodism in York, where she had personal influence, and when Elizabeth Blow moved from Grimsby to Hull she took Methodism with her. Some women of substance like Elizabeth Clulow of Macclesfield, Henrietta Gayer of Lisburn, Ireland, and Amy George of Sevenoaks subsidized or entirely funded the building of chapels, and some women were chapel trustees. 55 Phyllis Mack has shown how the Methodist emphasis on sanctification was relational, ‘the mutual, reciprocal love between God and the individual,’ which was ‘in tune with women’s interests in the deepest sense … because women had a profound affinity – whether cultural or inbred – with Methodist doctrines.’ As Mack recognized, since sanctification was an individual responsibility, attaining it allowed significant personal agency, and encouraged women to pray and sometimes publicly exhort for the conversion of others. 56 When they were addressing congregations of committed Methodists, John and Charles Wesley must have been aware that they were in most cases speaking to a female majority who had the potential to influence others in their daily lives. They took care to encourage them individually, both in person and by letter. Elizabeth Ritchie (Mortimer), the woman who cared for Wesley in his old age, recalled how he spoke to her, aged twenty, when visiting her home: On Monday we were favoured with the presence of the venerable saint, Mr. W[esley], at our house. He engaged in prayer with me, and encouraged me much to go forward, by enlarging on the grace and love of the redeemer, and on his present readiness to save, warning me, at the same time, to beware of pride … I feel my esteem for him much increased, and my regret at parting was alleviated by a hope that, should we meet no more on earth, we shall at last meet in heaven. His charge to me, on taking leave, was, ‘see that you become altogether a Christian.’57

Wesley wrote to Jane Hilton, a young Methodist, ‘I apprehend you should particularly encourage the believers to give up all to God, and to expect the power whereby they should be enabled so to do every day and every

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women and the shaping of british methodism moment.’58 In general, Mack suggested, Wesley’s letters to women differed from those to men, ‘his persona shifting from authority figure to confidant to supplicant.’ When writing to women he was able to treat them more as friends than he could the men with whom he needed to maintain his authority. He also respected the intensity of his female correspondents’ religious experience, an intensity he struggled to reach for himself.59 The presence of large numbers of women and the knowledge that many of them were crucial supporters of their enterprise must also have affected the way the Wesleys chose to address their audiences. While George Whitefield attracted women by his charisma, John Wesley may have appealed more to women’s intellect. Sarah Colston, a Bristol woman who wrote an account of her religious experience for Charles Wesley, wrote of Whitefield, ‘I … thought never was a speaker like this man,’ but described Wesley in more measured terms: God shewed me that he had a great work to do for my soul by his wisdom … Then I felt I was in my sins and in a state of damnation. And the more I heard [him] the more clearer it was to me. Yet I do not remember that I felt any sorrow of soul, to be afraid of God’s wrath or damnation, for I did belive [sic] that god [sic] would give me faith to feel my sins were forgiven me through the Blood of Christ.60

However, a hostile contemporary in the 1740s thought that ‘both John Wesley and Charles are dangerous snares to many young women. Several are in love with them,’ suggesting that, at least when they were young men, they had some charisma themselves.61 Both Wesleys used dynamic, biological images of birth and growth that probably appealed to women. Women sometimes used such images themselves. Ann Gilbert, a Cornish lay preacher, wrote, ‘I am as a little child on its mother’s breast, always depending on the bounty of heaven,’ and Isabella Wilson (1765–1807) regretted that ‘the celestial plant is fixed in too barren a soil, and does not flourish as I could wish it, but, O Blessed Lord, let the dew of thy heavenly grace fall upon it, then will it not fail to flourish as willows by the water courses.’62 If Methodism appealed to different groups of women for different reasons, women of all social classes and differing marital status found opportunities for leadership within the Connexion. As Wesley developed Methodist organization he opened up formal roles for women unprecedented in any other denomination. In the late 1730s Methodist societies were becoming too large to allow individual self-examination and testimony and too numerous for Wesley to maintain personal contact with their members. Influenced by his observation of Moravian ­organization,

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women in eighteenth-century methodism he began to divide societies into bands, small groups of five to ten people ‘who are supposed to have remission of sins,’ who met for prayer and confession led by one of the members, aiming for spiritual growth.63 They were divided by sex, marital status, and age with the intention of encouraging open discussion and disclosure in an atmosphere that could become intense. Each band had a leader who imposed penitential discipline on members. Membership was voluntary and limited. After 1741 admission was only by ticket after a potential recruit had been on trial for two or three months and then subjected to an extensive examination. Alongside the bands were smaller and fewer select-bands of those who were close to or had achieved Christian perfection, the state of total concentration on God’s will, and were living a godly life. Select-bands, also segregated by sex, were intensely private, with members pledging not to reveal anything said in meetings.64 Because band membership was not compulsory for all members of a society, as the Methodist movement grew Wesley had to find a way to exercise universal discipline without the personal attention he had been able to give each member during Methodism’s infancy. This became the function of the class, a body unique to Methodism. Classes originated in Bristol in 1742, when the society was divided into neighborhood groups of twelve, initially as a means to raise money without burdening the poorest members. Wesley recognized their potential for pastoral supervision, and appointed class leaders whose role was to keep personal contact and maintain discipline, so that ‘a more full inquiry was made into the behaviour of every person … advice or reproof was given as needed, quarrels made up, misunderstandings removed.’65 Classes were larger than bands; everyone in a society was assigned to one, including those who had not yet experienced conversion, and membership was determined by location rather than sex, age, or marital status. More like families than the segregated bands, classes were popular with members; bands gradually atrophied in many localities. Like bands, classes issued quarterly tickets to deserving members, allowing them to attend activities open only to those living godly lives. Both band and class leaders met weekly with the society’s minister and steward (responsible for finances) in the Leader’s Meeting, which had only advisory powers until after Wesley’s death, but in 1797 acquired the right to veto the admission of society members and to approve or reject the appointment of leaders and stewards, the latter almost always male.66 Band and class leaders came from all levels of society, including many who were poor or uneducated or both. They had to have personal experience of salvation and the ability to communicate their experience to others. In particular, they had both to empathize with members’ problems and

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women and the shaping of british methodism nurture spiritual growth among their members, tasks in which women’s accepted social roles often equipped them to excel.67 These grassroots leadership positions provided unparalleled opportunities for women. Since there were more female than male bands, women were the majority of band leaders. Most class leaders were male, since Wesley preferred to choose a ‘natural’ leader from among the members, and gender stereotyping meant men were more often seen as leaders than women. However, as Methodist numbers grew, classes became more rigidly segregated by sex, and in such cases women almost invariably led all-female classes and even occasionally headed classes of men. They participated in Leaders’ Meetings, a cause of friction in the nineteenth century when they could vote on expulsions and appointments. Wesley was careful to emphasize that women speaking to male classes could not claim superiority over men. He wrote to Dorothy Downes, a preacher’s wife: ‘If the leader himself desires it and the class be not unwilling, in that case there can be no objection to your meeting a class even of men. This is not properly assuming or exercising any authority over them. You do not act as a superior, but an equal; and it is an act of friendship and brotherly love.’68 Women themselves testified to the effectiveness of female leaders, often praising them for their simplicity, directness, and emotional sincerity. Frances Mortimer described in her journal how Sarah Crosby, a well-known woman travelling preacher, led a ‘meeting of a few Christian friends’ in 1774: ‘She explained the characters of divine charity, or love, with a simplicity I had never heard before. Her heart and words acted in concert. Every sentence was impressive, and carried conviction to the heart. The temptations under which I laboured were dissipated, and my soul panted for that love on which she so delightfully expiated.’69 Crosby herself described her feelings at a band meeting of married women: My Lord so poured on me the spirit of prayer, as I know not how to describe. I thought I could have died for sinners, my God put such a desire in my heart for their salvation. Most of them were much affected. Hundreds of tears were shed, and the cries of many ascended up before our Lord. Several were more deeply awakened than they had ever been before, and some filled with hope of his near approach.70

Mortimer also witnessed an exemplary class meeting in York led by Bathsheba Hall, a diligent Methodist based in Bristol: I was struck with the simplicity and grace with which she conducted herself through the whole exercise. The image of God formed in her soul seemed to shine forth in her prayer and conversation with the people … She excels in pressing the people to look for higher degrees of grace.

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women in eighteenth-century methodism Every person who was awakened she pressed to look for justification. And every one who is justified she exhorted to look for a clear evidence of sanctifying grace. She really is a very extraordinary person.71

Methodist women became accustomed to testifying to their faith in bands and classes and at love-feasts, the latter larger occasional celebrations based on early Christian and Moravian practice. The first Methodist love-feast, a simple but symbolic meal of bread or cake and water in a shared two-handled cup, followed by prayer, singing, and testimony, was held by Bristol women in 1739, a substitute for the Lord’s Supper that Wesley forbade unordained Methodist ministers to celebrate. It became a pattern for others, and in 1761 Wesley emphasized to a group in Birstall, Yorkshire that women must be free to speak: ‘The very design of the lovefeast is free and familiar conversation, in which every man, yea, every woman, has liberty to speak what ever may be to the glory of God.’72 Frances Mortimer somewhat disparagingly described the variety of testimony at her first love-feast: The sight of so numerous a company of serious people affected me. The decency, propriety, and seriousness, with which the preachers conducted the meeting, was extremely pleasing.   I was two or three times brought to tears … Satan tempted me not to think, as I ought, of the experience of some who spake, because the country people related it in so uncouth a manner.73

Eventually a few exceptional women were able to make their voices heard within the more structured organization that evolved as Methodism grew. The Wesleys and their ordained associates initially tried to maintain contact with societies by travelling, ‘itinerating,’ between them; class meetings and itinerancy were the great Methodist organizational innovations. But as numbers increased, keeping converts from backsliding necessitated organization, and by his death in 1791 Wesley presided over a complex administration, still uneasily placed within the established church. To organize and regularize both field and chapel preaching, in 1746 he grouped the societies into what he called a Connexion, the term intended to make it clear that it was not a sect apart from the established church but an organization within it. Initially the Connexion consisted of seven circuits with two to three itinerant preachers assigned to each. At first they were required to move on to another circuit every month; by the 1760s this had become annually, and by the end of the century a two-year stay was common, after Wesley’s death stretching to a maximum of three. A hierarchy among preachers emerged: each circuit was overseen by an Assistant (later Superintendent), Wesley’s closest associate, responsible

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women and the shaping of british methodism for visitations, issuing new tickets, and holding quarterly meetings of the preachers and stewards, the latter responsible for finances. New preachers, designated ‘helpers,’ began as probationers before being ‘received into full Connexion,’ and were subject to annual review at the Connexional Conference, which became Wesley’s advisory body, and, after his death, the governing body of Wesleyan Methodism. Not all preachers were itinerants; many could not afford to give up their daily work or had family obligations that the local congregations could not sustain. These were local preachers, who preached according to a plan, usually published every three months. Local preachers were lay people, usually class leaders who had begun to preach when an ordained minister was not available. Wesley at first accepted the practice at the urging of his mother, whose experience with a talented young layman at Fetter Lane led her to believe he was doing God’s will.74 Lay participation was formalized when four laymen attended the 1744 Conference. After that lay ministers became essential to Methodist organization. While almost all lay preachers were male, in time Wesley recognized that some women who had become accustomed to speaking in bands and classes had ‘an exceptional call’ to address wider audiences.75 Methodism’s idiosyncratic organizational structure meant that women’s path to public witness differed somewhat from those of their seventeenth-century predecessors. Seventeenth-century women who prophesied in public did so on their own initiative and in most cases without explicit male authorization. They were most active in the initial throes of religious excitement and their numbers diminished as fervor waned. Within Methodism, while an individual woman’s initial impulse to speak was almost always spontaneous, it was usually in the ­structured atmosphere of a band or class or among a larger audience of fellow believers at a love-feast. Since eighteenth-century Methodism emboldened rather than suppressed women’s voices, as Methodist organization solidified some women were encouraged to testify as exhorters and preachers. As they did so it became apparent that one of their assets was their novelty; people came to see a woman preach, thus becoming potential converts. Yet Wesley only gradually accepted women speaking to larger groups than bands and classes. He distinguished several levels of public speaking: praying in bands or classes or in the hearing of larger audiences; sharing of personal testimony immediately following a preaching service; exhortation, usually following formal preaching by an itinerant, which included personal testimony, denunciation of sin, and a call for repentance; and preaching, an exposition of a biblical text. Public prayer was always acceptable for women. Sarah Crosby was well known

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women in eighteenth-century methodism for her gift in prayer, and Ann Cutler, known as ‘Praying Nanny,’ made praying her public ministry ‘with great exertion of voice and for present blessings.’76 Isabella Wilson moved from private to public prayer: Seeing her relations brought into Christian liberty, and the work prospering around her, from earnest supplications in private, she proceeded to pray more openly for such as were in distress of soul, and not in vain; the Lord often graciously answered for himself. Her mode of praying was not loud, yet fervent, and her faith remarkably strong in a present Saviour for a present salvation.77

The line between praying and personal testimony was thin, and one could easily lead to another. Women testified in preaching services, at lovefeasts, and other Methodist gatherings such as watchnight and covenant services. Wesley described the testimony of one woman in Wales: ‘She could not refrain from declaring before them all what God had done for her soul. And the words which came from the heart went to the heart. I scarce ever heard such a preacher before. All were in tears round about her, high and low; for there was no resisting the Spirit by which she spoke.’78 From testimony, women moved to exhortation, not just describing their own faith, but encouraging others to follow them. Mary Holder, a minister’s wife, usually exhorted after her husband preached his sermon.79 Initially Wesley was clear that women should not preach from biblical texts, but experience and circumstances changed his mind. Although by 1760 he had already travelled with Grace Murray in Ireland, where she spoke publicly, in a fragmentary 1761 letter he still adhered to St. Paul’s exhortation that women be silent in churches. He advised his correspondent: Either enlarge four or five minutes on [ye] Question you had [or give] a short Exhortation (perhaps for five or six minutes) [and then] sing and pray: This is as far as I think any Woman [should do.] For the words of the Apostle are clear. I think & [?as] always, [that his] meaning is this: ‘I suffer not a woman to teach in a [public congregation], nor thereby to usurp Authority over the man.’80

Yet by the time he wrote that letter he had already taken the cautious step of approving Sarah Crosby’s work in Derby, where, in the absence of an itinerant in a fledgling society, she had been addressing crowds of up to 200 people. Crosby herself was convinced that she was doing the Lord’s work, but applied to Wesley for his blessing. He replied carefully: I think you have not gone too far. You could not well do less. I apprehend all you can do more is, when you meet again, to tell them simply, ‘You lay me under a great difficulty. The Methodists do not allow of women

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women and the shaping of british methodism preachers; neither do I take upon me any such character. But I will just nakedly tell you what is in my heart.’ This will in a great measure obviate the grand objection … I do not see that you have broken any law. Go on calmly and steadily. If you have time, you may read to them the Notes on any chapter before you speak a few words, or one of the awakening sermons, as other women have done long ago.81

Eight years later he was still advising Crosby to ‘keep as far from what is called preaching as you can: never speak in a continued discourse without some break, about four or five minutes.’82 By 1768 Crosby was living with Ryan and Bosanquet in Yorkshire, where Ryan died. Crosby and Bosanquet found there was a great need for them to visit outlying meetings, an activity that in the absence of formal Methodist organization came close to itinerancy. Bosanquet described their activity: ‘The people desiring us to come to such and such of their houses the numbers of these meetings increased also, hundreds of carnal persons coming to them, who would not go near a preaching-house; and it is enough to say God was with us and made it known by the effects in many places.’83 This description is part of a long letter Bosanquet wrote to Wesley in 1771 asking advice on whether what they were doing was acceptable. She described one of the preachers’ ‘great dislike’ of their activities, because ‘He thought it quite unscriptural for women to speak in the Church & his conscience constrained him to prevent it.’ She used a rhetorical strategy Lucy Lind Hogan has identified as appealing to ‘the spiritual equality between women and men,’ an appeal that allows for ‘both sameness and difference.’84 When she spoke, she spoke the truth, which was accessible to both men and women: ‘Let no woman be allowed to speak among the people any longer than she speaks and acts according to the Oracles of God; and while she speaks according to the truth she cannot lead the people into error.’85 She had examined her own conscience carefully and concluded that ‘I believe I am called to do all I can for God, and in order thereto, when I am invited to go with Br. T. to a prayer meeting, I may both sing, pray, and converse with them, either particularly, or in general, according to the numbers.’ She then wrote a defence of women preaching that introduced the idea of the ‘extraordinary call.’ It is possible that she was familiar with the Quaker Margaret Fell’s defense of ‘Women’s Speaking,’ written around 1666 when Fell was in jail for refusing to take the oath required by the Quaker Act.86 Bosanquet’s arguments are briefer, perhaps necessarily for a letter, and she makes no reference to Fell’s extensive treatment of the biblical identification of the church as female, nor did she cite a passage Fell briefly mentions and later male apologists like Zechariah Taft made much of, Joel 2: 28: ‘And it shall come to pass

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women in eighteenth-century methodism afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and daughters shall prophesy.’ Most of her argument addressed St. Paul’s apparent ban on women speaking in public, 1 Corinthians 14: 34: ‘Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak.’ Like Fell, she pointed out that Paul’s ban was inconsistent with his previous words in 1 Corinthians 11: 5: ‘But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head,’ implying that women might indeed prophesy. She then agreed with Fell that the apostle was referring to ‘meddling’ in church discipline, the province of men, but not to entreating ‘sinners to come to Jesus.’ When listing strong women in the Bible like Mary, the woman of Samaria, and Deborah, she introduced the idea of the extraordinary call: ‘I do not believe that every woman is called to speak publicly, no more than every man to be a Methodist preacher, yet some have an extraordinary call to it, and woe be to them if they obey it not.’87 Bosanquet’s letter strongly affected Wesley. Accepting her argument, he replied, ‘I think the strength of the cause rests there, on your having an Extraordinary Call,’ and in an accompanying letter to Crosby he authorized her to preach based on scriptural texts, a definite step beyond ­exhortation. By 1774 Crosby was travelling round Yorkshire speaking to crowds of 4–500, and in 1777 Bosanquet spoke in the open air to between 2–3,000. In the same year Crosby rode 960 miles and spoke at 220 public and 600 private meetings. In 1781 Bosanquet married the prominent Methodist preacher John Fletcher and Crosby moved to Leeds, where they became what Chilcote describes as ‘co-pastors, for all practical purposes,’ although she customarily spoke from the steps of the pulpit rather than in the pulpit itself.88 By that time their example had many emulators; women preached in most Methodist circuits. However, support for female preaching was by no means universal within the Connexion. One of Wesley’s close associates, Joseph Benson, in a draft of a private letter in the early 1770s, complained that ‘those daring females … have the effrontery enough, to ascend a pulpit and harange a promiscuous congregation … when they are by God expressly forbid to so much as speak (by way of teaching) in a public assembly.’ He expressed a typical male fear that women were a threat to men’s monopoly of occupations with some prestige: ‘a few years we shall have female preachers in abundance, more I dare say than men.’ Looking back over the eighteenth century, Zechariah Taft noted that the ‘trial of many pious women has caused them to triumph over the sneers of the ungodly; but how strange that they cannot be subject to the divine requirements without also setting at nought the counsels & admonitions of their Christian brethren.’ At the

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women and the shaping of british methodism 1784 Conference some delegates questioned women’s right to preach, but Wesley steadfastly defended the concept of the extraordinary call. One preacher recognized women’s efficacy in gaining converts, remarking, ‘I know not what you would do with the good women, for all the fish they catch they put into our net.’89 Once persuaded that women were indeed doing God’s work, Wesley never withdrew his support, and in 1787 he made it unequivocal. That year the case of Sarah Mallet of Long Stratton in Norfolk, an active preacher in the 1780s, came up before the Conference. She was facing opposition from local itinerants, so Wesley sent Mallet a note giving her authorization to preach by order of the Conference: ‘We give the right hand of fellowship to Sarah Mallet, and have no objection to her being a preacher in our Connexion, so long as she preaches the Methodist doctrines, and attends to our discipline.’90 Here was the full authorization, clearly stated. Four years later, in 1791, Wesley died. By that time he led a Connexion of nearly 300 preachers ministering to more than 71,000 members in Britain alone, with a flourishing offshoot across the Atlantic.91 At his insistence, Methodism remained uneasily within the Church of England, but several steps had made its eventual separation more likely. To protect preachers from fines by hostile magistrates, for at least thirty years some Methodist preaching-houses had been licensed under the Toleration Act, and although Wesley tried to prevent members from applying as Dissenters, sometimes magistrates insisted on the use of the term.92 In the 1760s unordained preachers in Norwich started celebrating the Lord’s Supper in their meeting house and holding services at the same time as the established church. While Wesley disciplined the Norwich congregations, there was increasing pressure for him to allow both practices. Wesley’s most radical step came in 1784, when he usurped a role confined to bishops by ordaining two preachers as deacons to serve in the newly independent United States, adding three more for Scotland the following year. His decision was forced on him by the great need in both places, and he rationalized it by pointing out that the Church of England was not legally established in either area, but Charles thought his action was tantamount to separation.93 In another radical departure, women had taken active public roles to an extent not tolerated in any other sect. They had new oppor­tunities in becoming band and class leaders. Traditional activities like housekeeping and sick-visiting were valued as essential religious activities. Women moved from praying in public, to testifying to their own ­experience, to exhorting sinners to repent, and finally to preaching or exposition of biblical texts, a privilege previously almost always reserved for men.

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women in eighteenth-century methodism Women themselves seized the initiative, with Wesley following as he became persuaded that their claim to have an extraordinary call was justified. An important factor in his decision was Mary Bosanquet’s argument for that call, when she challenged the biblical texts that condemned women to silence. One of the women who claimed the call was Elizabeth Tonkin Collett, who, despite considerable opposition, preached regularly in south central Cornwall.94 In 1800 she moved to St. Erme, about five miles from Catherine Cowlin O’Bryan, preaching there for the last time in 1804. Perhaps Catherine went to hear her. She must have known of her ministry; when it was her own turn to speak she probably remembered the precedent. Notes 1 The exercise book is the last extant volume (No. 15) in William O’Bryan’s diary. Quotation from p. 1. 2 William O’Bryan diary, volume 15, pp. 1–8. 3 Joan Wallach Scott, ‘A woman who has only paradoxes to offer: Olympe de Gouges claims rights for women,’ in Sara E. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (eds), Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 108–9, 116. 4 Lucy Lind Hogan, ‘Negotiating personhood, womanhood, and spiritual equality: Phoebe Palmer’s defense of the preaching of women,’ American Transcendental Quarterly 14:3 (2000), 211. 5 David Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), Ch. 2. 6 Michael Watts, The Dissenters I: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), pp. 221–7, 248, 271. 7 Watts, Dissenters I, pp. 382–93, 438–9. 8 Bryan R. Wilson, Patterns of Sectarianism: Organization and Ideology in Social and Religious Movements (London: Heinemann, 1967), pp. 22–4. 9 A. D. Gilbert, Religion and Society in Industrial England: Church, Chapel, and Social Change (London: Longman, 1976), pp. 7–12; Watts, Dissenters I, pp. 277–8. 10 Mark Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2003), Ch. 5; Hempton, Methodism, p. 7. 11 Paul Wesley Chilcote (ed.), Her Own Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 2001), p. 19; Hempton, Methodism, p. 50. 12 David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), pp. 1–17. 13 Noll, Evangelicalism, pp. 13, 19. 14 Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp. 58–73. 15 John Wesley, The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, ed. Nehemiah Curnock (London: Epworth Press, 1909–16), pp. 172–3.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 16 Susan Juster, Doomsayers: Anglo-American Prophecy in the Age of Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), p. 7. 17 David Hempton, ‘Evangelicalism and reform, c. 1780–1832,’ in John Wolffe (ed.), Evangelical Faith and Public Zeal: Evangelicals and Society in Britain 1780–1820 (London: SPCK, 1995), p. 26. 18 Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, pp. 160–1; David Hempton, Methodism and Politics in British Society 1750–1850 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), pp. 12, 31–4, 45–9; Hempton, Methodism, pp. 5, 19–23, 31, 42; Noll, Evangelicalism, p. 141. 19 Keith Thomas, ‘Women and the Civil War sects’, in T. Ashton (ed.), Crisis in Europe (New York: Basic Books, 1965), pp. 320–1. 20 Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 413–24. 21 Phyllis Mack, ‘In a female voice: preaching and politics in eighteenth-century British Quakerism,’ in Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker (eds), Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 255–6; Patricia Crawford, Women and Religion in England 1500–1720 (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 195; Sandra Stanley Holton, Quaker Women: Personal Life, Memory and Radicalism in the Lives of Woman Friends 1780–1930 (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 9–10. 22 Watts, Dissenters I, pp. 319–21. 23 William Fleetwood, The Perfectionists Examined; or Inherent Perfection in this Life (London: J. Roberts, 1741), p. 2, quoted in Paul Wesley Chilcote, John Wesley and the Women Preachers of Early Methodism (Methuen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1991), p. 48; Clive D. Field, ‘The social composition of English Methodism to 1830: a membership analysis,’ Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 76:1 (1994), 156. 24 Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, pp. 86, 90; Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 48–9. 25 Wesley, Journal II, p. 174, quoted in Chilcote, Women Preachers, p. 46. 26 John Munsey Turner, John Wesley: The Evangelical Revival and the Rise of Methodism in England (London: Epworth Press, 2002), p. 143; Field, ‘Social composition,’ pp. 153–4, 157–61; Gail Malmgreen, ‘Domestic discords: women and the family in east Cheshire Methodism,’ in Jim Obelkevich, Lyndal Roper, and Samuel Raphael (eds), Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Politics, and Patriarchy (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), p. 58. 27 Malmgreen, ‘Domestic discords,’ p. 60. 28 Hempton, Methodism, pp. 26, 54. 29 Susan Kent, Gender and Power in Britain, 1640–1990 (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 107. 30 Jeremy Gregory, ‘Homo religiosus: masculinity and religion in the long eighteenth century,’ in Tim Hitchcock and Michèle Cohen (eds), English Masculinities 1600–1800 (London: Longman, 1999), p. 93. 31 Elie Halévy, The Birth of Methodism in England, tr. Bernard Semmel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971); E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (rev. edn) (London: Pelican Books, 1968), pp. 385–440; David Hempton and John Walsh, ‘E. P. Thompson and Methodism,’ in Mark A. Noll (ed.), God and Mammon: Protestants, Money, and the Market (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 99–120; Hempton, ‘Evangelicalism and reform,’ pp. 21, 31. 32 Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working

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women in eighteenth-century methodism



33 34 35 36

37 38 39

40

41 42 43

44 45 46

47 48

49 50 51 52

53 54 55

Class (Berkeley: California University Press, 1995), pp. 93–7; Kent, Gender and Power, pp. 106–7; Chilcote, Own Story, pp. 22, 193. Field, ‘Social composition,’ p. 156. Hempton, Methodism, pp. 87–91; Kent, Gender and Power, p. 107. Field, ‘Social composition,’ p. 157. Henry Abelove, ‘The sexual politics of early Wesleyan Methodism,’ in Obelkevich, Roper, and Raphael (eds), Disciplines of Faith, pp. 93, 97–8. Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 82–3. Malmgreen, ‘Domestic discords,’ p. 62. Turner, Wesley, p. 143, citing N. Scotland, Methodism and the Revolt of the Field: A Study of the Methodist Contribution to Agricultural Trade Unionism in East Anglia 1872–96 (Gloucester: A. Sutton, 1981). Donald G. Matthews, ‘Women’s history/everyone’s history,’ in Hilah F. Thomas, Rosemany Skinner Keller, and Louise L. Queen (eds), Women in New Worlds: Historical Perspectives on the Wesleyan Tradition (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), p. 42. Phyllis Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment: Gender and Emotion in Early Methodism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 134–5. Malmgreen, ‘Domestic discords,’ p. 63. Mary Jo Maynes and Ann Waltner, ‘Women’s life-cycle transitions in a world-historical perspective,’ Journal of Women’s History 12:4 (2001), 13; Margaret R. Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680–1780 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 81. Malmgreen, ‘Domestic discords,’ p. 59. Michael Watts, The Dissenters II: The Expansion of Evangelical Nonconformity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 57. Zechariah Taft, Biographical Sketches of the Lives and Public Ministry of Various Holy Women, facsimile edition (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1992); Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 253–87; John Lenton, ‘“Labouring for the Lord”: women preachers in Wesleyan Methodism 1802–1932. A revisionist view,’ in Richard Sykes (ed.), Beyond the Boundaries: Preaching in the Wesleyan Tradition (Oxford: Applied Theology Press, 1998). Chilcote, Own Story, pp. 87, 60. Chilcote, Own Story, p. 202; Malmgreen, ‘Domestic discords,’ pp. 58, 61, 63; Frank Baker, ‘The people called Methodists – 3. Polity,’ in Rupert Davies and Gordon Rupp (eds), A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, vol. I (London: Epworth Press, 1965), p. 252. John Kent, Wesley and the Wesleyans: Religion in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 122–3. Chilcote, Own Story, pp. 194–5, 220 (italics in original). Minutes of the Methodist Conferences 1744–1798 (London: John Mason, 1862), p. 23. Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, p. 138; Paul Chilcote, She Offered Them Christ: The Legacy of Women Preachers in Early Methodism (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1993), pp. 38–9. Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 74–5, 125–30. John Pipe, ‘Memoir of Miss Isabella Wilson,’ Methodist Magazine 31:9 (1808), 462. Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 49–51.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 56 Mack, Heart Religion, pp. 132–3. 57 Chilcote, Own Story, p. 108. 58 John Wesley, The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley V, ed. John Telford (London: Epworth Press, 1931), p. 128, quoted in Chilcote, Women Preachers, p. 101. 59 Mack, Heart Religion, pp. 138–40. 60 Chilcote, Own Story, p. 43. 61 Daniel Benham, Memoirs of James Hutton (London, 1856), pp. 46–7, quoted in J.  Augustin Leger, John Wesley’s Last Love (London: J. M. Dent, 1910), p. 164. 62 Chilcote, Own Story, pp. 26, 51, 64. 63 Minutes of Methodist Conferences 1744–1798, p. 22. 64 John Lawson, ‘The people called Methodists 2. Our discipline,’ in Rupert Davies and Gordon Rupp, eds., A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain (London: Epworth Press, 1965); Baker, ‘Polity,’ pp. 191–4, 219–24; Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, pp. 48, 118. 65 John Wesley, The Methodist Societies; History, Nature and Design, in Rupert Davies (ed.), The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley IX (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), p. 262. 66 Baker, ‘Polity,’ p. 226; Malmgreen, ‘Domestic discords,’ p. 59. 67 Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, pp. 85, 104, 118–19, 123–4; Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 68–71. 68 Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 70–1. Quotation from Wesley, Letters VI, p. 233. 69 Chilcote, Own Story, p. 89. 70 Chilcote, Own Story, p. 82. 71 Chilcote, Own Story, p. 92. 72 Watts, Dissenters II, pp. 98, 189. Quotation from Wesley, Journal IV, p. 471. 73 Chilcote, Own Story, p. 88. 74 Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, p. 115. 75 Baker, ‘Polity,’ pp. 230–43; Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, pp. 108, 113, 142, 162, 166, 174, 175. 76 Chilcote, Christ, p. 49. 77 Pipe, ‘Isabella Wilson,’ p. 461. 78 Wesley, Journal III, p. 250, quoted in Chilcote, Christ, p. 51. 79 Chilcote, Women Preachers, p. 103. 80 Chilcote, Women Preachers, p. 297. 81 Wesley, Letters IV, p. 133. 82 Wesley, Letters V, p. 130. 83 Mary Bosanquet to John Wesley, June 1771, in Chilcote, Women Preachers, p. 300. 84 Hogan, ‘Negotiating personhood,’ p. 213. 85 Bosanquet in Chilcote, Women Preachers, p. 302. 86 Margaret Fell, Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed of by the Scriptures, www.qhpress.org/text/fell.html, accessed 18 January 2006. Fell’s was the first published work on the subject. 87 Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 299–304. All biblical quotations are from the Authorised Version. 88 Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 126–31, 142–5, 151–5, 165–9; Chilcote, Christ, p. 104; Earl Kent Brown, ‘Women of the Word,’ in Thomas, Keller, and Queen (eds), Women in New Worlds, p. 70.

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women in eighteenth-century methodism 89 90 91 92 93 94

Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 56, 158–9, 192, 205. Chilcote, Women Preachers, p. 84. Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, p. 306. Watts, Dissenters I, p. 446. Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, pp. 209, 217–18, 285–7, 294. Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 186–9.

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2 Women preachers’ place in a divided Methodism

‘Dear friends,’ she said at last, ‘brothers and sisters, whom I love as those for whom my Lord has died, believe me, I know what this great blessedness is; and because I know it, I want you to have it too. I am poor like you: I have to get my living with my hands; but no lord nor lady can be so happy as me, if they haven’t got the love of God in their souls. Think what it is – not to hate anything but sin; to be full of love to every creature; to be frightened at nothing; to be sure that all things will turn to good; not to mind pain, because it is our father’s will; to know that nothing – no, not if the earth was to be burnt up, or the waters come down and drown us – nothing could part us from God who loves us, and who fills our souls with peace and joy because we are sure that whatever he wills is holy, just, and good.’1

G

eorge Eliot modelled her portrait of Dinah Morris in Adam Bede on her aunt Elizabeth (Betsey) Tomlinson Evans, a Methodist preacher, wife of her father’s youngest brother Samuel. Her aunt’s experience was the inspiration for Eliot’s description of Dinah’s befriending of the desperate Hetty Sorrel, who killed her newborn child, and for their journey together to Hetty’s execution, although the novelist explained that ‘Dinah is not at all like my aunt, who was a very small, black-eyed woman, and (as I was told, for I never heard her preach) very vehement in her style of preaching.’2 Elizabeth Ann Tomlinson was born in Leicestershire in 1776 and grew up in a cottage that was home to Methodist preaching. She experienced conversion at age twenty-one while working as a housemaid in Nottingham. She felt the call to preach after hearing the Methodist revivalist William Bramwell say in a sermon, ‘Why are there not more Women Preachers? Because they are not faithful to their call.’ She ‘felt assured that if I did not preach I never could be happy, for I was sensible it was the will of God; but how it must be brought about I could not tell; for I felt shut up, and could not tell my mind to any one

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism but my band mate, for I was determined never to open the door myself.’3 The encouragement came from the evangelist Mary Barritt during the Nottingham revival of 1799–1800. Evans later moved to Derby, where she began to address class and prayer meetings, then receiving invitations to speak in other places, although not without local opposition. She taught ‘not to hate anything but sin, to be full of love to every creature, to be frightened at nothing, to be sure all things will turn to good, not to mind pain.’4 In 1802 she met Samuel Evans, a Methodist local preacher. She had doubts about whether she should marry, but accepted his proposal two years later, after the 1803 Methodist Conference had placed severe restrictions on women preachers. The Primitive Methodist leader Hugh Bourne, whom Betsey met in 1809, believed that she had ‘lost some ground when entering the married state. She engaged in this on a cloudy day when under persecution.’5 In the next eighteen years the couple had two children, Samuel established and lost a weaving mill, and both spent much time as rural evangelists. Betsey never appeared officially on the Methodist preaching plan, but Samuel was disciplined several times for sending his wife instead of himself. In 1832, weary of increasing pressure on women to remain silent outside class meetings and angered at a Conference suggestion that women on plans be indicated only by an asterisk, the Evans left the Wesleyans ‘not because she was refused liberty to use her talents … but because of the stigma attached to women’s ministry, … she could not continue … while others were forbidden.’ They joined the recently formed sect of Arminian Methodists, who allowed women to preach. But the Arminian Methodists proved ephemeral, and Samuel and Betsey’s advancing age led them to rejoin the Wesleyans in 1837. Betsey continued to preach locally, with the permission of her superintendent, until four years before her death in 1848.6 Betsey Evans’s experience illustrates the opportunities and difficulties facing Methodist women preachers in the period between Wesley’s death in 1791 and the mid-nineteenth century. She began her preaching career when women preachers were still tolerated by Methodist leaders, but soon found her activities criticized, attacked, and eventually curtailed in an increasingly conservative Wesleyan Methodism. Refusing to abandon her belief that she had an ‘extraordinary call,’ her choices were limited to speaking to women only with her superintendent’s permission, clandestine preaching as her husband’s substitute, or joining a breakaway sect. Yet Methodism still contained the conditions that had encouraged women in Wesley’s lifetime. The emphasis on the transforming power of personal religious experience and the evangelical momentum, while dulled in official Wesleyanism in the difficult years of the Napoleonic Wars, emerged

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women and the shaping of british methodism anew in some of the sects that appeared after Wesley’s death, particularly in those concentrating their efforts in borderland areas not yet reached by Methodist preachers. As in early Methodism itself, these borderland sects emphasized evangelism. They often borrowed techniques from preachers on the American frontier, speaking in informal settings in the open air or barns to large crowds or to small groups in people’s houses. In 1815 William O’Bryan, founder of the Bible Christians, formalized his break from Wesleyan Methodism by enrolling ten followers in a separate society. On the first day of his independence he accepted a woman’s invitation to preach in her sister’s house: Many people attended to hear. I preached in the dwelling house. The husband, who was from home when preaching began, was, on his return, much displeased that he could not get into his own house, it being so full, and would permit us to come there no more: but the Lord provided us another house in the same village, and also applied the word to many hearts.7

O’Bryan was recapturing much of the excitement and informality of early Methodism, and women were crucial to his enterprise, providing space, flocking to hear him speak, and, eventually, some of them speaking themselves. In the years after Wesley’s death, when the center of Methodism could not hold – by 1857 only 45 percent of Methodists were Wesleyans – the sects like O’Bryan’s that most closely approached the fervent evangelism of Methodism’s beginnings were also those most open to women preaching.8 In this chapter I describe how Wesleyan Methodists backed away from accepting most women’s ‘extraordinary call,’ and explore the attitudes to and experiences of women preachers as Methodism fragmented. In particular, I try to explain why some sects embraced female preaching, while others did not. Robert Currie described the division of Methodism in the first half of the nineteenth century as ‘a small reformation,’ contrasting the ‘massive ­ecclesiastical organization’ of the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion with more democratically organized or more evangelical sects.9 The division was rooted in resistance to Methodist leaders’ struggles to maintain order and avoid accusations of disloyalty in the fraught politics of the Napoleonic Wars. After Wesley’s death in 1791 the governing body of Methodism was the Conference. When his chosen successor, John Fletcher, died in 1785, Wesley issued a Deed of Declaration that entrusted the annual Conference with Connexional discipline. He defined the Conference as 100 preachers (the ‘Legal Hundred’) whom he chose personally from the

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism more than 200 itinerants; in practice other ministers attended the annual conferences and the Hundred ratified the enlarged group’s decisions.10 The Deed of Declaration, while dealing with the immediate succession problem, left many details unsettled. It was not clear how vacancies in the Legal Hundred were to be filled or how much autonomy should be given to local circuits and meetings.11 Wesley had allowed considerable diversity of practice within societies and circuits; any attempt to impose more uniformity was likely to meet resistance, especially from locally powerful laymen in Leaders’ Meetings, and from lay preachers resentful of their exclusion from the Legal Hundred. The Deed set the scene for a struggle between the Conference’s push for central control and demands for greater democracy, echoing themes of elitism versus inclusion being played out in national politics. Paid itinerants increasingly distanced themselves from the often less educated and unpaid lay preachers, and often resented lay power over chapel governance and finances. Lay members, on the other hand, supported local autonomy against what they saw as the Wesleyan Conference’s increasing tendency toward centralization. Methodists’ primary loyalty was to their local chapel, usually built with money raised from their own resources, and often with their own hands. Many resented the power and authority of the itinerant appointed by the Conference, especially as itinerants were responsible for discipline, sometimes going so far as to expel prominent local members.12 Lay people were the essential backbone of Methodism. Currie estimated that ‘one member in twelve was a local preacher or steward, one in ten a trustee, one in four a Sunday School officer or teacher.’13 Many of them resented the financial demands of the cash-strapped Conference; for example, in 1797, all members had to contribute one shilling to a fund to reduce Connexional debt.14 For Wesleyan Methodism to remain united under these conditions the leadership needed to allow some diversity of practice and respect for local sensibilities; ‘only an elastic Methodism could have remained a united Methodism.’15 The political environment made that very difficult. Wesley’s death came at an inopportune political moment when Britain was facing war with revolutionary France and the disruptive effects of early industrialization. The excesses of the French Revolution alarmed the government and popular support for repression of allegedly subversive influences increased. Radicalism and Dissent were already linked in the public mind after a bruising and unsuccessful attempt by Dissenters between 1787 and 1790 to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts. A number of Dissenting ministers received prison or transportation sentences in the 1790s for criticizing the government, and in 1791

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women and the shaping of british methodism public fury against republicanism associated with religious unorthodoxy erupted in the attack on the Unitarian Joseph Priestley during riots in Birmingham.16 In early 1793 the French declared war on Britain, appealing for support from British radicals and republicans. British prime minister William Pitt, faced with the threat of internal subversion at a time when bad harvests were causing food riots, responded with repression. Tom Paine’s The Rights of Man was outlawed and the radical London Corresponding Society and similar organizations had their papers seized. In 1795 Parliament passed the Seditious Meetings Act, which made meetings of more than fifty people illegal, threatening the legitimacy of outdoor preaching.17 Methodists came under the same suspicion as Dissenters. The year after Wesley’s death the Chair of the Methodist Conference heard that the government had been told, ‘the Methodists … are in their sentiments inimical to the British King and Constitution,’ despite the Conference President’s protestations of loyalty. In 1795 some of those attending the annual Methodist Conference in rapidly growing Manchester feared being mobbed by the hungry crowds. In 1800 a hostile clergyman again linked Methodism with rebellion, writing in The Gentleman’s Magazine: ‘the mania of Methodism has seized the West of England, and … many enthusiasts, and many infidels, all alienated from the church-government, all looking for some great emergencies to liberate them from its restraints, and consequently all rife for rebellion.’18 Distrust of Methodism and Dissent continued in the next two decades, including Lord Sidmouth’s bill in 1811 to restrict itinerant preaching, which never came to a vote, due in part to a massive lobbying campaign by Dissenters and Methodists. When it became clear that, despite the bill’s failure, some magistrates were denying itinerants their right to swear loyalty oaths, the Dissenting and Methodist coalition pressed for a new Toleration Act, passed in 1812, removing the main limitations on Methodist and Dissenting meetings and guaranteeing freedom of worship and religious expression as long as the latter did not disturb the peace.19 Maintaining the peace by ensuring that Methodist gatherings were not unruly remained a pressing concern of the Conference, and contributed to its conservative response to challenges to its authority. Meanwhile, social and economic discontent resulting from the demobilization of the large army on the defeat of Napoleon, Luddite riots, and demands for political reform continued to alarm the government. After the Peterloo Massacre (1819), when yeomanry and cavalry charged into a peaceful meeting supporting parliamentary reform, the Six Acts again gave magistrates the power to prevent large meetings. In this increasingly conservative environment many saw female preaching as potentially disorderly and a threat to centralized control.

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism As Susan Juster put it, ‘visionaries who claimed direct inspiration did so in the face of mounting cultural criticism as undisciplined, disorderly, and unseemly – in a word, vulgar.’20 Yet in the 1790s more than twenty Methodist women were preaching openly, some of them wives of itinerants, and Wesley’s sanctioning of the practice seemed unchallenged.21 Outside Methodism, between 1775 and 1860 the York Quaker meeting alone had twenty female ministers, eleven of them itinerants, most of them from respectable middle-class families.22 However, when the Great Yorkshire Revival, a dramatic and sudden outburst of religious fervor, began in the 1790s, involving several charismatic women preachers, it raised the problems of indiscipline and possible sedition at the height of the wartime emergency.23 The revival began with the appointment of the Methodist evangelist William Bramwell to the Dewsbury circuit three months after Wesley’s death. Bramwell found the Methodist society in disarray, so he started early morning prayer meetings. In 1792 nineteenyear-old Elizabeth Dickinson’s trances during open-air preaching attracted crowds, and Ann Cutler (Praying Nanny) arrived from Lancashire and began praying loudly in public. According to Bramwell himself, her ‘amazing power’ sparked a major revival, especially in the developing industrial areas. In Leeds alone 1,280 new members enrolled. Cutler died in 1794, worn out by her constant work and diet of milk and herb tea, but the revival continued, spreading to Sheffield and Nottingham, where Methodist membership doubled between 1798 and 1800.24 The reactions to the revival highlighted the divisions within Methodism after Wesley’s death. The conservative elite were both shocked and worried by what they perceived as lower-class crowds. One conservative Methodist preacher complained that during revival meetings ‘all discipline was laid aside; sensible people were shocked and disgusted at seeing such irregular and unscriptural proceedings.’ Elizabeth Ritchie, Wesley’s former housekeeper, described a love-feast where someone spoke about the revival: ‘I fear many of its subjects know little about either the evil of sin or the object of justifying faith … Many are … with the foremost of those who want to new model Methodism. The most of those persons are violent republicans.’25 Cutler was soon replaced by an even more controversial figure. In 1794 Mary Barritt, ‘unquestionably the most famous female evangelist of the early nineteenth century,’ arrived in Yorkshire. She had begun preaching in her native Lancashire, and despite strong opposition from her local itinerant, her success in gaining converts had attracted the attention and support of many prominent Methodists, including Bramwell. One of her supporters told her supervising itinerant that, ‘It is at the peril

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women and the shaping of british methodism of your soul that you meddle with Mary Barritt: God is with her – fruit is appearing wherever she goes.’26 Unlike Cutler, who had mostly engaged in public prayer rather than preaching, Barritt preached on biblical texts to large crowds.27 In Yorkshire, according to her journal, ‘In the … Dales, extending from Ripon to Bainbridge, Reeth, and Richmond, the Lord enabled me, and others, to gather the harvest, in handfuls, and everywhere he gave us fruit: for, at that time, those circuits had but little help from the traveling preachers.’28 In 1799 she moved to Nottingham to work with Bramwell, where at least 500 members were converted. Her ministry attracted widespread support and she was careful to organize her converts into classes, but her practice of speaking outdoors to large crowds inevitably produced excitement and unruliness. In 1802 she married the itinerant Zechariah Taft, who was stationed in Dover. She abandoned her outdoor ministry and spoke instead in her husband’s chapel and in several other local Methodist societies, although she reportedly spoke from the pulpit steps rather than the pulpit itself. The Kentish Herald reported that one of her sermons ‘naturally excited great curiosity; many hundreds of persons were present, and others were prevented from getting in for want of room.’29 Despite the greater respectability of the venue, the potential for disorder was still there. Although the Tafts’ local superintendent supported her, as in Yorkshire, her activities excited controversy. The editor of the Methodist Magazine, an opponent of women preaching, accused Taft of deceiving his district meeting and the Conference by having Mary assist him, and, despite her restraint in not fully entering pulpits, advised that ‘Mrs. Taft should decline ascending the pulpits of the chapels unless Mr. Sykes, Mr. Rogers, and you be less sufficient for your work than you used to be.’30 In 1802, the year of his marriage, Zechariah Taft wrote a defense of his practice of ‘occasionally suffering a female to officiate for me,’ which he published when they arrived in Dover the following year.31 The first Methodist man to argue systematically for female preaching, his is a much fuller argument than Mary Bosanquet’s brief letter to Wesley thirty years before. Like all later Methodist apologists for the practice, he relied heavily on the Commentary on the Bible by the Methodist preacher and three-times Conference President Adam Clarke. It is not clear whether he knew of Bosanquet’s letter. He did not use the term ‘extraordinary call,’ although it seems unlikely his wife was unaware of it. He began on the title page by suggesting that women were weaker than men by citing 1 Corinthians 1: 27–9: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence.32

He cited many more examples than Bosanquet of women in the Bible who had prophesied or in other ways taken leadership roles. He spent more time than Bosanquet on biblical exposition, introducing Joel 2: 28 and 29, ‘And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams; and your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants, and upon the handmaids in those days, will I pour out my spirit.’ Arguing that in both the Old and New Testament prophesying meant preaching, he maintained that the apostle Peter’s claim that Joel’s prophecy came true after Christ’s death suggested that women were preaching at the time. He then dealt with the objections. Paul’s injunction that women keep silence in church (I Corinthians 14: 34–5), which Bosanquet interpreted as a ban on women meddling ‘with Church Government,’ he claimed applied not to women in general, but ‘such only as were imperious, insulting, ignorant, untaught, and also talkative women.’ He also argued that it might have applied only to married women. The other problematic Pauline ­prohibition, ‘But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence’ (1 Timothy 2: 12), Bosanquet had argued meant that ‘a woman shall not take authority over her husband, but be in subjection, neither shall she teach at all by usurping authority, she shall not meddle in church discipline, neither order nor regulate anything in which men are concerned in matters of the Church.’ Taft was less deferential; he countered the ban with 1 Corinthians 11: 5, ‘But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head.’ He argued that Paul implicitly accepted that women could prophesy, and ‘it is evident that prophesying is chiefly preaching … The subjection which is due from women to their husbands, and which St. Paul recommends, does not relate to matters appertaining to salvation: in matters of conscience, both of faith and practice, women as well as men, stand accountable to God.’ He cited Locke, claiming that he had demonstrated that the texts ‘were never designed or intended to hinder women from praying and prophesying, with an audible voice, in the congregation or church, provided they were dressed as became women professing godliness.’ Finally, he pointed to the example of the Quakers and noted that normal Methodist practice allowed women to speak at love-feasts and band and class meetings.33 But Taft was preaching to the converted. His arguments mostly

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women and the shaping of british methodism appealed to those who had previously supported women preaching, probably always a minority, and now under suspicion at a time when the practice seemed to be a factor in governmental opposition to Methodism. In a Conference that increasingly identified itinerants as pastors and disciplinarians and opposed women speaking in public as unscriptural and not conducive to discipline, supporters of women preaching were mostly those who clung to the original view of the Wesleyan itinerant as an evangelist. Moreover, as the Yorkshire revival waned, in the west of England the ex-Methodist and self-styled ‘prophetess’ Joanna Southcott published her prophetic book The Strange Effects of Faith (1801). Her attacks on landowners and clergy and her apocalyptic messages alarmed authorities, as did her ability to attract thousands of followers throughout England. The combination of the Yorkshire revival and the fervor of Southcott’s adherents once again alarmed both secular authorities and the Methodist Conference. Thus at the beginning of the new century women’s ministry had become a focus of the continuing tension between pastoral discipline and evangelism, and a cause of anxiety to Methodist leadership. For the first time since Wesley’s death Methodist leaders reconsidered the legitimacy of female preaching. The first Methodist leaders to grapple with the issue were the Irish Conference. Ireland had a tradition of female preaching; Grace Murray had spoken in public while travelling with Wesley himself, and several other women had been successful evangelists. But, as in England, national politics were an influential factor in the Conference turning against them. After the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland in 1800, Irish Methodists increasingly leaned toward Toryism, saw Roman Catholicism as the enemy, and joined with the Protestant Ascendancy in supporting the newly established United Church of England and Ireland as an essential partner in the new Irish political structure.34 In this conservative environment, in 1802 the Irish Conference passed a resolution banning women from preaching or exhorting in any public situation on pain of expulsion: ‘It is the judgment of the Conference, that it is contrary both to Scripture and prudence that women should preach, or should exhort in public: and we direct the Superintendent to refuse a Society Ticket to any women in the Methodist Connexion who preaches, or who exhorts in any public congregation, unless she entirely cease from so doing.’35 The following year, at the height of Southcott’s fame, the English Conference took up the topic. In Question 19 they asked, ‘Should women be permitted to preach among us?’ and replied, ‘We are of the opinion that in general they ought not.’ However, unlike in Ireland, the ban was not total. Women who had the ‘extraordinary call’ that Wesley had recognized could continue to

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism address women – and women only – outside their own circuit but only with the approval of their own circuit’s quarterly meeting and superintendent (including a ‘recommendatory note’), and at the written invitation of the host circuit.36 Gareth Lloyd described the ban as ‘carefully, even delicately phrased,’ and designed to reinforce ‘Methodism’s new place on the denominational top-table.’37 Although the ban was confirmed by the 1835 Conference, some women continued to preach, either within these parameters, or defying them. According to John Lenton, women already preaching at the time of the ban usually continued. Mary Barritt Taft preached outside her circuit until the 1840s, and women preached locally within Wesleyanism throughout the nineteenth century.38 Nevertheless, the ban had a chilling effect, reducing opportunities for women and marginalizing their achievements and potential. In Cheshire Gail Malmgreen found that women turned to stereotypically female tasks like visiting the sick, organizing teas and bazaars, and religious teaching. There were no more female trustees or stewards (always rare), and ‘indirect influence, usually dependent on social prominence and personal access to male leaders, became women’s chief recourse.’39 This was the future for the vast majority of Wesleyan women. But it was not the only Methodist future. At the same time as the Yorkshire revival, the Methodist Conference was faced with the first major challenge to its authority, ­beginning a fifty-year period of divisions within Methodism, with significant consequences for women preachers. Once again, an important source of tension was local versus central control. Immediately after Wesley’s death nine leading itinerants drew up the Halifax Circular, largely endorsed by the 1791 Conference, suggesting that vacancies in the Legal Hundred be filled in order of seniority, and circuits be organized into districts supervised by superintendents appointed by the Conference, thus reducing the autonomy of itinerants.40 There were also tensions among itinerants themselves, some itinerants wishing to maintain the evangelical thrust of early Methodism, while others feared too much ‘enthusiasm,’ the latter leaning toward a pastoral view of the ministry in which the itinerants’ prime duty was to look after their existing flocks rather than seek new converts. A further divisive issue was Methodism’s relationship with the Church of England, with a significant number in Conference resisting any move toward further separation, while others, usually those favoring more local control, wanting to move toward open Dissent. Many in the faction resisting separation opposed any attempt by the Conference to ordain preachers and authorize the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in Methodist chapels, since either would undermine the established church’s authority.

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women and the shaping of british methodism Both issues were becoming pressing, as Church of England bishops were proving reluctant to ordain Methodist candidates, causing problems for members unwilling to accept the host from a parish priest they believed to be unworthy.41 In 1794 the shortage of ordained itinerants forced the Conference into action, eliminating the distinction between ordained and unordained preachers, allowing any itinerant to celebrate the sacrament. This began a gradual drift toward separation, as Methodist numbers grew and Conference control increased. There was no one formal moment of separation when Methodism became an independent denomination; the closest was in 1834, when the Conference started to ordain ministers and the Wesleyan Theological Institution to educate preachers was founded. By that time Methodism had fragmented. Methodism had never been monolithic or totally united. In 1741 the split between John Wesley and George Whitefield over the doctrine of predestination had resulted in the latter’s somewhat erratic leadership of the Calvinistic Methodists under the patronage of Lady Huntington. However, this rift occurred before Wesley had become the formal leader of the organized Methodist Connexion. For the next half-century Wesley withstood all challenges to his leadership, but in the sixty years after his death there were more than eleven formal breaks from Wesleyan Methodism, resulting in the formation of separate sects. Michael R. Watts identified two major groups of Methodist sects: those ‘whose origins lay primarily in protest movements against Wesleyan church government,’ and those who ‘owed their origins to lay evangelistic activity.’42 Robert Currie categorized the first as ‘secessions,’ whose adherents ‘derived most of their strength from conflicts between [lay] officials and ministers,’ and often competed with Wesleyan Methodism for converts. None of the lasting secessionist sects officially allowed women to preach. The second group Currie called ‘offshoots … lay official movements … concerned more with matters of evangelism and revivalism.’43 Offshoots initially focused on evangelizing the poor and dispossessed in areas where Methodists were not active, and after leaving the Wesleyan Connexion their competition with Wesleyans for converts was limited. Almost all offshoots originated as what Deborah Valenze calls ‘cottage religions,’ initially meeting in private spaces, often provided by women, some of whom were emboldened to speak in public, often on impulse.44 Two offshoots, the Primitive Methodists and the Bible Christians, institutionalized female preaching to an extent beyond anything Wesley envisaged. However, attitudes toward evangelism do not sufficiently explain why some sects allowed women to preach in public while others did not. Other crucial factors were the circumstances surrounding their breaks with Wesley-

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism anism, the nature of their following, political conditions, and the personal experience of their leaders. In particular, the New Connexion provides an interesting case study of how political conditions and the social standing of most of its adherents influenced a secessionist sect to confine women to the private space of the class, while women’s experiences among the Arminian Methodists, an ephemeral sect difficult to categorize, and in Tent Methodism, an offshoot that did not make use of female evangelists, illustrate the importance of local factors and personal experience in whether women were encouraged to preach. The first secession from Wesleyan Methodism reflected tensions between local and Conference control, and between lay and ministerial influence. In the 1790s a liberal-leaning itinerant, Alexander Kilham, clashed with the cautious and predominantly Tory Methodist leadership.45 Kilham had spent six years on the Aberdeen circuit where he had ample opportunity to observe how effective lay participation in church governance could be in the decentralized organization of Scottish Presbyterianism. He became a passionate advocate of local autonomy, described by one of his biographers as the ‘great principle … the scriptural right of the laity to be present at all meetings, and to assist in making laws for the government of the Connexion.’46 His first assault on Conference authority was over the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, demanding that this should be a local decision. In 1795 he forced the issue, resulting in the ‘Plan of Pacification,’ a partial victory for local control since it allowed Holy Communion to be celebrated in Methodist chapels when a majority of the trustees and stewards supported it. However, the Plan also reaffirmed the Conference’s overall authority, including the exclusive power to appoint preachers, failing to satisfy those who were agitating for more democracy.47 Kilham was certainly not satisfied and attacked the Plan in a pamphlet, The Progress of Liberty, advocating the devolution of power from the Conference to local circuits.48 While his recommendations had considerable support among Methodist preachers, he alienated many by what even a sympathetic biographer called his ‘harsh and vituperative’ language, his indiscriminate personal attacks on individual preachers, and his questioning of Wesley’s sermons as insufficiently radical. The result was that the entire body of the 1796 Conference ignored his recommendations and voted to expel him from Wesleyan Methodism.49 In an attempt at reconciliation the following year, in the Form of Discipline, which became the ‘Magna Carta of Wesleyan Methodism,’ the Conference agreed on various concessions, including allowing local leaders’ meetings to control the selection of local preachers and vote on accepting and expelling society members,50 This satisfied many in the Conference, including

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women and the shaping of british methodism some of Kilham’s supporters, notably William Bramwell. The same year Kilham made his secession formal by founding the New Connexion, the first breach in Wesleyan Methodism.51 Three other preachers and about 5,000 members, including many local preachers, seceded with him, with most of his support in Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cheshire. The New Connexion’s secession coincided with the Great Yorkshire Revival, and before the 1803 Wesleyan Methodist Conference ban on women speaking in public. Indeed, Kilham’s second wife later spoke in public and became a Quaker missionary to Africa.52 Thus there was no obvious impediment in the new sect to women preaching, and its heartland was in an area where their effectiveness had recently been demonstrated. Furthermore, William Bramwell, champion of Praying Nanny and Mary Barritt, was originally one of Kilham’s supporters.53 Yet while the founding principle of the New Connexion was ‘That the church itself is entitled either collectively in the persons of its members, or representatively by persons chosen out of and by itself, to a voice and influence in all acts of legislation and government,’ women were not regarded as members.54 Connexional leaders also required some education for preachers, which would have excluded many women. Kilham specifically warned against allowing ‘those who may have zeal without knowledge’ to speak in public.55 In 1834 David Barker described the sect’s ideal for women in his Catechism: ‘Females, while invited to be useful in leading classes, visiting the afflicted, teaching the young, and exhibiting lovely examples of domestic piety, are not introduced into stations of authority and publicity.’56 The failure to take advantage of female talent in recruiting new converts may have been a disadvantage. The New Connexion grew slowly; between 1820 and 1830 its numbers increased at a far lower rate than those of evangelistic Primitive Methodism.57 Its homeland was the north of England; in 1797 all districts were in the North or Midlands, and by 1861 it had hardly spread beyond its initial base, with eight out of twelve districts in the same areas. It mostly attracted disaffected Wesleyans and its preachers often joined in pamphlet wars during periods of sectarian division, hoping to attract recruits.58 Why did the New Connexion not officially allow women to speak beyond the private space of the class? A major factor was the timing of the secession in the tense 1790s. Kilham was anxious to avoid attracting large crowds in the open air; he occasionally preached out of doors, but only if the crowds overflowed the building, and from the beginning most preaching was in the New Connexion’s chapels or other indoor gathering places.59 Kilham’s own views put him in danger of arrest on charges of sedition. He was accused of being a ‘Jacobin, a republican, a revolutionist,

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism a follower of Thomas Paine, &c.,’ and an ‘an enemy to the existing government.’ Although most of the charges against him are biased, coming from Wesleyans who wanted to portray the secession as a purge of unwanted extremists, in private he admitted to ‘republican principles.’60 However, he was cautious about recruiting undesirable hotheads. In a 1797 article published in his periodical The Methodist Monitor he told New Connexion members to ‘avoid anxiety about a great increase in numbers … When any sect or party are more anxious to increase their numbers, than they are to have suitable members for Christian society, we cannot suppose they are walking in the most excellent way … Let us be careful whom we admit into society. Persons may embrace our liberal sentiments, and wish to give us the right-hand of fellowship, whose lives are immoral.’ Kilham died in 1799, but the taint of radicalism survived him. His successors worked hard to avoid trouble as the infant Connexion struggled for survival. In 1813, amid economic crisis, machine-breaking in Yorkshire, and the aftermath of the 1812 assassination of the prime minister Spencer Percival, New Connexion Conference delegates distanced themselves from ‘political books which may have been published by our preachers,’ and registered disapproval of ‘ministers writing or disseminating works of a political nature.’61 That year they expelled George Beamont, a Sheffield minister, because of his radical views and possible connections with Luddite machine-breakers.62 Class issues were also important. The core of New Connexion support was among increasingly conservative higher-paid skilled manual workers. According to Julia Werner, by 1820 ‘popular appeal had been irrevocably sacrificed on the altar of respectability.’63 The Connexion’s principles of democratic government allowed laymen considerable influence in the licensing of both local and itinerant preachers, attracting artisans with ambitions to improve their respectability and social standing, with no desire to attract the notoriety and possible disorder they associated with female preaching. They also may have wished to demonstrate the growing bourgeois masculine ideal of chivalry, which included an ideology of domesticity for women that was clearly stated in the 1834 Catechism.64 Yet the New Connexion’s ban on women speaking was not total. In 1840 the Wesleyan John Stamp published a pamphlet advocating female preaching. In it he claimed that, ‘The Methodist New Connexion have raised up a host of women, who have, and are now, crying, “Behold the Lamb.”’ He named two, ‘the well-known’ Mrs. Waterhouse Jackson, who had been preaching ‘for several years,’ and Mrs. Spence from Lincolnshire.65 However, female preaching was controversial. The Methodist New Connexion Magazine for 1847 contained two notices of women speaking at

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women and the shaping of british methodism missionary services: Miss F. Buttery and Mrs. Lynn, the wife of a Yorkshire itinerant. Although the notices were in small print in the Connexional News section, Mrs. Lynn’s appearance provoked a furious response from ‘A Lover of the Methodist New Connexion,’ deploring the ‘unscriptural practice of female preaching.’ Clearly concerned about respectability, he asked, ‘Pray, what other denomination of any respectability, standing and intelligence, encourages female preaching, or makes any mention of it in their magazines?’ He denied that there was any evidence that these women had the gift of ‘inspired prophecy,’ and concluded, ‘that there have often been appearances of good – good, which, like the morning cloud and early dew, has soon passed away, is admitted; and supposing, that real good has sometimes been connected with the practice, that is no certain proof that the practice is right.’ Not everyone in the New Connexion agreed. The following issue of the magazine carried an article on ‘Female Preaching’ in which the author defended the practice, asking, ‘Is sense distributed by the casualty of sex? Are the powers of persuasion monopolized by men?’ He deplored the dampening effect of a ban on speaking on women’s participation: ‘Our women seldom speak in our lovefeasts; and they will speak seldomer now.’ However, he did not encourage many women to speak and reinforced their domestic roles: ‘While I have the strongest conviction that the Scriptures do not forbid female teaching “in the Church,” I am far from thinking that every pious woman ought to do so. The first duty of a woman, next to her own salvation, is the care and management of her household; and this care and management will, in most cases, find ample employment for her time.’66 This remained the New Connexion’s position throughout its independent existence. The New Connexion was the first of several secessions arising from local preachers’ and lay officials’ dissatisfaction with the conservative Wesleyan hierarchy. Disaffection increased during the ascendancy of Jabez Bunting during the first half of the nineteenth century. Four times Conference president, a ‘mighty theologian, … a born orator, a born financier, a born debater, a born pleader,’ Bunting held a variety of offices, including secretary of the Conference, ‘Official Advisor to the President,’ and secretary to the Missionary Society.67 He was the ‘unchallenged leader of the “High Church” party in Methodism,’ distrusting ‘revivalism and evangelistic activities,’ and preferring the deep piety of an educated few to large numbers of converts with possibly dubious affiliation; according to reports, he said, ‘I do not think we can be proved to be evangelists. Our proper office is pastors and preachers.’68 He and the majority of the Wesleyan Conference supported respectability, order, and obedience; Bunting once declared, ‘Methodism knows nothing of

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism democracy; Methodism hates democracy as it hates sin.’69 In 1826 sixty local preachers in the Leeds circuit championed local against central authority, quarrelling with Bunting over his insistence on supporting the trustees of the Brunswick chapel who planned to install an organ. The local preachers complained that the organ would destroy ‘that simplicity of worship which has been so long and so signally owned of God,’ and that the expenditure was unjustified ‘when many members of our society are wanting the common necessities of life.’ Robert Eckett, a prominent advocate of Methodist reform, protested: ‘The RIGHTS of a leaders’ meeting have been trampled upon. Official members have been unjustly expelled! Several THOUSANDS of persons have been delivered over to Satan.’70 The controversy resulted in the resignation of 900 members, fifty-six class leaders, and twenty-eight local preachers, who formed the Leeds Protestant Methodists.71 In 1836 they joined with another secessionist group led by Dr. Samuel Warren, who clashed with Bunting over the establishment of the new Wesleyan theological institute, which he considered ‘anti Methodistical’ and too much under Bunting’s influence.72 The two groups, together with some smaller secessions, formed the Wesleyan Methodist Association.73 Twenty years later, in mid-century, James Everett, an implacable Bunting foe who had a personal grievance when he was forced back into itinerancy after fourteen years running the Methodist bookstore in Manchester, anonymously published five Fly Sheets attacking the Methodist leadership as a closed London clique.74 A minority of itinerants refused to sign a declaration drawn up by the Conference repudiating the pamphlets, and Everett’s and their expulsion led to the largest and most damaging secession.75 Wesleyan membership dropped by about 100,000 in five years, and in 1857 Everett’s group joined the Wesleyan Methodist Association to form the United Methodist Free Churches (UMFC).76 None of these secessionists officially allowed women to speak in public and whether they could do so was never a topic of discussion in quarrels with the Wesleyan Conference or in negotiations for mergers. The circumstances of each secession provided few opportunities for women to emerge from the confines of the class meeting to claim their ‘exceptional call’ as they had during Wesley’s lifetime. Most of the new sects’ membership came from those already attending Methodist chapels and they rarely if ever emulated eighteenth-century Methodist evangelism by reaching out to the unconverted in fields and marketplaces, the area where women had proved themselves most useful. One measure of a sect’s commitment to evangelism was its support of home missions, which appointed preachers for informal evangelical preaching outside

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women and the shaping of british methodism official circuits. This was weak among sects formed through secessions. In the New Connexion, home missions in Dudley and Wolverhampton in 1816 ‘for the extension of [the Connexion’s] borders, and for the promotion of the Redeemer’s kingdom,’ were unsuccessful and soon abandoned, and there was no further attempt to support a home mission until 1859.77 The later secessions occurred after outdoor evangelism had almost disappeared from Methodist practice. The Wesleyan Methodist Association employed home missionaries during its twenty years of independent existence, but when they joined the UMFC their missionary activity was mostly overseas in British settler colonies.78 Oliver Beckerlegge, the UMFC’s historian, claims that the sect was ‘committed to evangelism,’ but this was an evangelism of ‘protracted meetings’ and week-long revival services in chapels and meeting rooms, not in cottages or the open air. An important issue leading to the Fly Sheets controversy had been resentment of the Wesleyan leadership’s hostility to the Irish American evangelist James Caughey’s revivalist missions between 1842 and 1847. Caughey’s efforts had significantly boosted Methodist membership among young people in major industrial towns, but his appeal was largely to those who already lived a sober and moral life. His mission reflected the new type of evangelism, aimed at converts ‘within the familial orbit of Methodism.’79 The history of an ephemeral sect, the Arminian Methodists, gives us a rare glimpse into some of the issues raised by the presence of women evangelists. This was the only occasion when the issue of women preaching was central to a sect’s rift with the Methodist leadership.80 The Arminian Methodists emerged in the Derby area, where there was a long tradition of female evangelism going back to Wesley’s lifetime; Sarah Crosby and Mrs. Dobinson had pioneered Methodism in the town, Betsey Tomlinson Evans began her speaking career at prayer meetings there and was active in the surrounding rural areas, and later Mary Dunnel and Sarah Kirkland had opened up the area for the Primitive Methodists. Female preaching was a major factor in the controversy that erupted in 1832 over the behavior of John Davis, the zealous and orthodox new Wesleyan superintendent of the Derby circuit. Shortly after his arrival Davis, supported by the circuit steward and determined to enforce Connexional discipline, expelled four local preachers without citing specific charges against them. Between one and 600 people followed them out of Wesleyanism to form a separate Connexion, the Arminian Methodists, which grew to about 1,200 members within the next four years with centers in six other towns in the Midlands and an outpost in Manchester.81 The roots of the dissension in Derby were complex. The Arminian Methodist Rules, published in 1833, described the split as the result of

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism friction between the Wesleyan hierarchy and local preachers. They cited the immediate cause of secession as the expulsion of the four preachers by Davis and the Derby Leaders’ Meeting ‘without any specific charge,’ complained of ‘the undue influence of preachers and influential men,’ and declared that they were ‘determined to discountenance every kind of dictatorial and individual influence and sanction’ and follow ‘only that which emanates from the whole.’82 However, the only surviving minutes of an annual Arminian Methodist meeting, also in 1833, specifically referred to the lack of Wesleyan revivalist zeal: ‘They believed the Wesleyan Methodists had departed from their primitive simplicity, and (however pure their doctrine may be) that they had by preachers, and other influential men practiced the putting down, [of] what has been generally termed Revival Work – work which was so prominent in the days of Wesley, and the first race of Methodists, and has been eminently successful of late in America.’83 These grievances in themselves did not separate them clearly from Primitive Methodists, also active in the area, but the Arminians’ grievances were unique among Methodist sects since they included a doctrinal issue. As one account of the controversy put it, ‘the real cause is not the apparent one … The actual reason is the alienation of affection from Wesleyan Methodism which has been taking place in the mind of the leading seceders for some time; and what most precisely lies at the root of that, a serious difference of opinion from the doctrinal views of the Wesleyans.’84 The Arminians, often called the Derby Faith Folk in reference to their beliefs, rejected the Wesleyan practice of praying to God as the originator and grantor of faith, maintaining that faith was a matter of human will.85 They emphasized the importance of human agency in salvation, ‘the capacity to believe at will, and the laying aside of the need to pray directly for believing faith’, that ‘faith was believing with all of the heart, and that there was an inherent power within that would enable this to happen at will if the choice was made to exercise it.’86 There is evidence of fairly widespread preaching of ‘faith concepts,’ in the Derby area at least by 1828. In that year the Primitive Methodist William Clowes described in his diary encountering preachers asserting that ‘faith was not the gift of God; and it was wrong to pray for an increase of it.’87 But the pamphlet war that erupted in Derby told yet another story. An anonymous publication addressed to superintendent Davis claimed: ‘Much of the opprobrium with which you have been visited, has been produced by the attempt to place the female members of your society, in that station for which nature designed them – to which they are confined by the laws of decency – and expressly limited by apostolic demand.’88

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women and the shaping of british methodism The Wesleyan Protestant Magazine in April 1832 described two parties in the Derby circuit, ‘a formal and still party, and a lively and zealous party; the latter were more numerous, and … had encouraged female preaching and the former had opposed it.’89 George Macdonald, a local preacher and himself embroiled in the controversy, claimed that ‘the gravamen of the charge against Mr. Davis is contained in the parts that refer to … female preaching.’90 Despite local sentiment, Davis was determined to enforce the 1803 rule against women preaching without his permission. As Macdonald described it, It was necessary that something decisive should be done in reference to women preaching. He [Davis] found on entering the circuit three ‘gifted sisters’ professing to lay claim to the ministry, and had certain information of several more who were struggling with their convictions of a call to preach; the issue of which, it required but little knowledge of human nature to anticipate. Many people were beginning to think that women preaching was legitimate among the Wesleyans, and it was time to declare publicly that there are some points at issue on this question, between them and the Ranters [Primitive Methodists].

Matters came to a head at the 1831 funeral of Harriet Fisher, a local revivalist preacher, who had died young from typhoid. Davis forbade George Macdonald to preach a funeral sermon, and refused to allow a memorial slab reading ‘Her whole soul was devoted to the revival of the work of God,’ measures suggesting the extent of his hostility. Macdonald’s account, the main source for these events, was biased since he later changed sides in the controversy. He probably intended his account to reinstate himself in Davis’s good graces, and his description includes passages suggesting ambivalence toward women preaching that probably reflect Wesleyan local opinion. He was suspicious of the revivalist element in Fisher’s ministry, contrasting her with the eighteenth-century Mrs. Fletcher: Mrs. Fletcher was a matronly lady when she began to expound the scriptures to a few persons who came to her room; sitting in her own chair, in the way of plain exposition of the subject, she instructed many, who, in that place and at that period, but for such a method might have died before hearing the plan of mercy. One point she scrupulously and conscientiously regarded, never to expound if a preacher were there, whatever the feebleness of his abilities might be; or, however pleasing to those present the sound of her voice would have been. Miss Fisher, on the contrary, entered the pulpit of whatever chapels her friends could obtain for her in her twentieth year; she went from place to place where the gospel was preached faithfully; she preached at times surrounded by local preachers.

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism He was also anxious about female decorum, referring to Fisher’s ‘being conveyed about the country, and often at unseasonable hours, by others than near relatives, and without female attendants.’91 Davis’s struggle to control his unruly circuit continued in 1832 with a public band meeting that met on Saturday evenings in Green Hill chapel as a forum for the ‘lively and zealous.’ These band meetings were much larger than normal Wesleyan practice, and revivalist, ‘often highly emotionally charged, highly noisy, and according to traditionalists highly irregular.’92 By Macdonald’s account, Davis ‘was now to learn, and that chiefly from women and striplings, the best way of presiding over the meetings of a Christian Church.’ At the crucial meeting that directly led to the Arminian secession, ‘one of the “gifted sisters” … soon gave Mr. Davis to understand that her call to the priesthood was such an absorbing subject to her, that she should find it difficult to speak without giving prominency to her labours in the cause of God,’ to which Davis replied ‘calmly but firmly, that “he would not countenance women preaching.”’93 The meeting erupted when he demanded that proceedings be closed ‘while a female was engaged in prayer.’ According to the magazine account, he told the woman, ‘I must put you down too – I won’t have you speaking in that manner – sit down, woman! I’ll have no women preaching … I’ll make sure there’s no more women preaching in my chapels.’94 No pamphleteers came out in support of women preaching, and the somewhat untrustworthy Macdonald claimed that even at the band meeting ‘very few less than fifty voices’ shouted out ‘Glory to God for women preaching,’ and ‘there was tumultuous noise, with clapping of hands, made at the very naming that women preaching would not be allowed.’95 Yet the virulence of the opposition suggests the importance of the issue, which was also significant in the small Arminian Methodist communities in Nottingham, Coventry, and Redditch.96 A one-page broadside ‘To the Members of the Arminian Society, Derby,’ signed by ‘One of the sixteen against five who composed the Leaders’ Meeting and were opposers of Petticoat Government,’ ranting against ‘the entrusting of your affairs to the DIRECTION OF WOMEN, liable to every change that characterizes their volatile natures.’97 Another anonymous pamphleteer shrilly decried the ‘false inspirations of the sybils of heathenism, which appeared to excite them to a state of phrenzy, and was manifested in frantic gestures and violent declamation.’98 Clearly the issue of women preaching, while never openly acknowledged in the few remaining official documents, was central to the secession, and reverberated throughout the Connexion’s short existence. Yet, despite the claims of the women preachers, their power in the new Connexion was limited. While the

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women and the shaping of british methodism 1833 Minutes of the Annual Meeting allowed them to be class leaders and local preachers, they were banned from itinerancy and could vote only in Leaders’ and Local Preachers’ meetings. Resolution 5 of their Rules stated: ‘That the regulation of affairs in the Arminian Society be entrusted only with men, excluding Females from any vote in its government and concerns.’99 The Arminian Methodists lasted only five years as a separate Connexion. They were geographically almost entirely confined to Derby and a few other Midland towns, with a few ‘clusters of frail societies’ elsewhere. They deliberately avoided evangelism, stating in the 1833 Minutes, ‘While we aim at spreading vital Christianity wherever it is possible we recommend [our friends] to cultivate the ground, which we now occupy.’100 The members were an eclectic mix of professionals and rural rustics, radicals, and millenarians, held together by ­revivalist fervor that inevitably waned. Their chief leader, Henry Breedon, proved unable to hold such an unstable constituency together, especially since his position as Chair of the Annual Meeting necessitated regular absences from Derby. In 1836 they flirted with merging with the newly formed Wesleyan Methodist Association, but in fact, as their historian William Parkes put it, they ‘simply folded their tents some time in 1838,’ with members agreeing on ‘no single spiritual home.’101 Organizationally they were closest to the New Connexion, which picked up some of their members in Derby. Some joined the Wesleyan Methodist Association, others the Primitives.102 Their brief history illustrates both the continuing determination of women to make their voices heard thirty years after the conference ban, and the ongoing hostility to their doing so. Arminian Methodism included characteristics of both secessions and offshoots: resistance to the superintendent’s authority, but also adherence to revivalist ideals. The main motivation for offshoots’ separation from Wesleyan Methodism in the first half of the nineteenth century was their commitment to evangelism, and two of the three main offshoots allowed women to preach. But here too an ephemeral sect, Tent Methodism, was an anomaly. Evangelism was the main reason for the Tent ­Methodists’ separate existence, yet, unlike most offshoots, their leaders usually opposed female preaching. The reasons for this were local and idio­syncratic, and depended substantially on the social position and experience of George Pocock, the sect’s founder. Pocock was a local Wesleyan preacher and a generous donor of funds for new chapels in Bristol, the city where Wesley had begun his itinerancy and thus of central importance to Wesleyan Methodism. Pocock was a man of some substance and community standing, a businessman, school owner, and inventor. Concerned about

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism the lack of evangelical activity in local villages, on his own initiative and without consulting with his local superintendent, he constructed a portable tent holding approximately 500 people to be used for preaching in the surrounding counties. Preachers spoke in the tent in addition to their local plans and attracted large crowds – in 1817 they attracted a total estimated audience of 90,000.103 By 1819 there were two tents and Pocock engaged John Pyer, a former local preacher, as a full-time missionary, issuing a circular letter inviting ‘Christians of all denominations to come up to the help of the Lord.’104 Pocock was already at odds with the local Wesleyan leadership over his insistence on maintaining control over the chapels he had endowed, and his high-handed appointment of Pyer on his own authority without permission of the district superintendent exacerbated the friction. Pyer himself had a somewhat dubious past and the Bristol Wesleyans had already rejected him as a local preacher. In 1820 Pocock, Pyer, and other supporters of tent evangelism were expelled from Wesleyan Methodism by vote in the Leaders’ meeting.105 They immediately set up their own Connexion, which spread steadily in the counties surrounding Bristol in the first half of the 1820s, and included evangelical activity in poor urban areas in Bristol, London, Manchester, and Liverpool. However, the Tent Methodists did not manage to establish a lasting Connexion. Membership decline set in around 1825, and by 1832 the sect had ceased to exist. The author of Pyer’s memoir attributed its failure to authority being ‘too largely invested in one individual [Pocock], who, with all his excellences (and they were many), was yet considered impulsive, and at times somewhat capricious. Moreover, too little regard was paid to the education of their preachers; hence their day of action, though splendid as a meteor’s flash, was almost of as short a duration.’106 Certainly Pocock, the driving force within the Connexion, transferred much of his energy to his business interests in the latter half of the 1820s. He eventually reconciled with the Wesleyans and resumed his position as a local preacher. Several Tent Methodist preachers, including Pyer, left to join Congregationalist or Baptist congregations, and two other successful preachers died, making it even more difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill the demand for preachers in both tents and newly established chapels. The sect also had little geographical coherence, with the London and Manchester branches particularly isolated.107 Tent Methodists aimed to reach those who had not already heard the Methodist message, and the tent preachers attracted the same people as would have attended open-air meetings, with the added attraction of protection from the West Country’s damp weather. Pocock and his preachers targeted both rural and urban areas. Yet, despite a chronic

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women and the shaping of british methodism preacher shortage, they had no women preachers. Probably the most important reason for the lack of formal encouragement for female preaching was the social standing of the Tent Methodist leadership, particularly Pocock himself. Werner defined the Tent Methodists as ‘for the people,’ as opposed to the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians who were ‘of the people.’108 Lander described Tent Methodist leaders as ‘educated professional men, some of whom had considerable wealth and social influence.’109 Pocock was a substantial supporter of the Bristol Methodist society; as one of the itinerants told him, ‘If you had been a POOR MAN you would have been turned out of society long ago.’110 Such men were likely to embrace the growing cult of domesticity for women, although Pocock’s two eldest daughters kept ‘an Establishment for the education of young ladies.’111 An obituary in the Tent Methodists’ Magazine for March 1823 suggested that the desired behavior for Connexional women included looking after relatives and friends, teaching in Sunday school, and collecting for the Missionary Society.112 Pocock praised his wife as ‘one of the most humane among women, who has the prayers and blessings of hundreds of the poor who have never been turned from the door empty.’ In his 1820 pamphlet Facts Without a Veil, written to protest the expulsion of Tent Methodist leaders from Wesleyan Methodism, he insisted that ladies ‘must be taught that it is much more becoming for them to stay at home and mind their own Sewing Business, than, with their Needles and Pins of persecution, to follow the ministers of the Gospel into the very field.’113 While Pocock’s views on appropriate female behavior were probably deep-seated and sincerely held, his reference to persecution explains his virulent hostility to women having any power in religious affairs. Both Pocock and another leading Tent Methodist preacher, Samuel Smith, had had experiences that led to deep resentment of what they construed as women’s unwarranted involvement in religious governance. In 1819 Smith had been censured by the local Wesleyan Leaders’ meeting for what they believed was disloyalty when he failed to discourage a local woman from becoming a class leader for the rival New Connexion. The vote against Smith was thirteen votes to eleven, with six female class leaders voting among the thirteen. Smith was bitterly indignant and eventually left the Wesleyan Connexion. In his later pamphlet Pocock conflated the motion of censure and Smith’s resignation, furiously asserting that ‘he did not know that the power of expelling Preachers was vested in the hands of women Leaders; but whether he knew it or not, one thing is plain enough, and confirmed in two distinct places … that such a power does exist.’114 The other instance Pocock referred to was his own expulsion from the

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism Wesleyans by a ‘Leaders’ meeting composed of so many females, some of whom were young enough to be his daughters, [who] had it in their power to judge the ministers of Jesus Christ, to disgrace them by their resolutions, to expel them, and all this without hearing them in their own defence.’ He complained of ‘the impropriety of Females being called upon to hold up their hand in such cases’, pointing out that it was ‘unbecoming, indecorous, and ill suited to their characters.’115 He also belittled women’s intellectual and educational attainments, protesting that ‘a female Leader, little more than twenty years of age, declared she could point out ten falsehoods in Mr. Pocock’s Pamphlet,’ and citing an opposing pamphlet by ‘such literary critics’ (i.e. women) for ‘the incorrectness of the orthography, and the grammatical inaccuracies.’116 His bitterness derived both from his rejection as a prominent benefactor and effective local preacher and from the affront to his sense of appropriate female behavior. Tent Methodist hostility to women preachers was not total. In 1821 the Bible Christian Catherine Reed preached in two London Tent Methodist chapels and one of their tents, as well as addressing more than 1,000 people in the open air.117 Although the fairly structured itinerancy of the tents, with meetings and preachers planned in advance, might have discouraged the spontaneity that emboldened women to speak, an account of a London service suggests otherwise: ‘[A] person happening to say a word against our proceedings, some half dozen women so zealously espoused the cause, that their tongues were let loose in an instant, and blows would no doubt have succeeded if the opposing party had not shown himself vanquished.’118 Reed’s success might imply that the Tent Methodists’ failure to harness such vociferous – if ‘unwomanly’ – support contributed to their demise. The experience of the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians suggests that recruiting women could have helped the chronic preacher shortage, especially those willing to travel with the tents. In 1818 20 percent of all Primitive Methodist preachers were women, mostly local preachers, and in 1820 50 percent of Bible ­Christian ­itinerants were women (see Chapter 3).119 In both cases women were instrumental in opening up new areas and attracting converts; they might have made the crucial difference for Tent Methodism.120 The Primitive Methodists and the Bible Christians were the two Methodist offshoots most friendly to female preaching. Both emerged in the decade 1810–20. Their strength was largely among the rural poor whose lives were being disrupted by enclosure, by rising prices while real wages were falling, and by unemployment after the demobilization following victory in the Napoleonic Wars.121 Both sects were at least suspected of

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women and the shaping of british methodism recruiting seditious or criminal adherents, Luddites among the Primitive Methodists, smugglers among Bible Christians. Primitive Methodists were strongest in the Midlands and North, with a significant presence in the growing industrial cities, while the Bible Christians, whose heartland was in the west of England, remained overwhelmingly rural. Both attracted members in mining communities. The Primitive Methodists became by far the largest of the Methodist sects, with 106,074 members in the 1851 religious census, roughly one third of Wesleyan strength. In contrast, the Bible Christians were the smallest, with 13,234 members in 1851.122 Primitive Methodism’s name came from a desire to return to the evangelical tradition of early Methodism.123 Its founder, Hugh Bourne, was influenced by his contacts with other offshoots, with Quakers, and with touring American evangelists. Bourne was a carpenter, millwright, and Methodist local preacher who had moved from his native Staffordshire to Harriseahead in Cheshire around 1801 to work as a colliery engineer.124 There he began preaching in a women’s cottage, sparking a revival. He developed a style of worship that emphasized extended prayer and singing as much as preaching, and built a Methodist chapel at his own expense. He also held open-air meetings, attracting some hostile attention from his Wesleyan superiors.125 In 1802 Bourne read in the Methodist Magazine about camp meetings on the Georgia frontier. Camp meetings were huge evangelistic gatherings lasting several days, with people coming from considerable distances and camping in tents during the meeting. They were the quintessential method of conversion on the frontier, with Methodists prominent in their organization. Francis Asbury, the first American Methodist bishop, called them the ‘battle axe and weapon of war’ that would ‘break down the walls of wickedness.’126 They took place in remote settings, either outdoors or in tents, with individual sessions sometimes lasting all night. Apart from preaching and prayer, there was music and food. Conversions were public, often accompanied by bodily contortions and strange noises, making the meetings rowdy public spectacles. Their democratic atmosphere encouraged all to speak, including women.127 Bourne became determined to hold a camp meeting in England, especially after he met someone who had direct experience of frontier preaching and camp meetings, the charismatic American preacher Lorenzo Dow. Dow had intended to be a Methodist minister, but his independence and eccentricity – he had long flowing hair, wore flamboyant clothes, and was frequently dirty – were unacceptable to the American Methodist Conference. His millenarian doctrines and republican views also alienated established and respectable congregations. His first transatlantic journey was to Ireland and London

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism between 1799 and 1801, when he alarmed officials and government leaders with his rabble-rousing techniques, particularly his habit of beginning sermons by quoting Tom Paine at a time when French republicanism was spiralling out of control.128 In 1805 Dow returned to England, preaching without a license since the authorities would not issue him one, and therefore committed to informal meetings, often outdoors. He worked mainly in the North, where memories of the Yorkshire revival of the 1790s were still strong. His stated aims were to revive outdoor preaching and introduce camp meetings. Meanwhile in 1804–5 Bourne and his followers were enjoying a vigorous revival that alarmed the local Wesleyan itinerants, wary of any hint of unruly or seditious behavior. When they stopped the revivalists from meeting, Bourne revived his interest in camp meetings. In 1807 he heard Dow preach four times in two days and was inspired to buy two tracts and a songbook, giving him both the rationale and the methodology for organizing a camp meeting himself. Looking for support, he began to reach out to other congregations that had separated from the Wesleyans and were beginning to band together as Independent Methodists. Independent Methodism’s strength was in Lancashire, particularly Manchester and the surrounding areas. Looking back in 1905, the writers of its official history claimed, ‘our first Churches did not come into existence upon a protest, nor were the men who composed them wholly Methodist.’129 The earliest of the groups that formed the core of Independent Methodism was the Quaker Methodists of Warrington, Lancashire. They met chiefly in cottages and since they were outside a formal Methodist circuit they rarely entertained itinerants, relying almost entirely on unpaid local preachers. In the 1790s their independence caused clashes with the Wesleyan Conference, and an official ban on cottage meetings resulted in the group separating from the Wesleyan organization in 1796 and forming their own society, led by a chair-maker, Peter Phillips. The inclusion of a number of former Quakers and their adoption of Quaker speech and dress led to their taking the name Quaker Methodists. Their numbers increased after revivals in 1804 and 1806 associated with the preaching of Dow and the Quaker Dorothy Ripley, an itinerant evangelist born in Whitby who had worked among slaves in the American South. By 1805 there were enough independent congregations to form an association of independent congregations, including the Quaker Methodists, the Band Room Methodists in Manchester and the Christian Revivalists in Macclesfield.130 Bourne developed close friendships with their leaders, and in 1808 attended the Independent Methodists’ first annual meeting.131

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women and the shaping of british methodism Hugh Bourne was also in contact with another independent offshoot, the Magic Methodists, in Delamere Forest, Cheshire. Magic Methodism was a cottage religion, the sect originating in monthly meetings held at the home of James Crawfoot, a Methodist local preacher. The Magic Methodists were evangelical, with Crawfoot attracting what William Clowes, later a leader of the Primitive Methodists, described as ‘vast numbers of people.’ The ‘magic’ was the visionary or trance state that Crawfoot, a fiery and apocalyptic preacher, encouraged in his followers. Women were prominent as visionaries, and in 1807, on his first visit to the sect, Bourne heard Nancy Foden, a bricklayer’s wife, speak at length ‘without stopping, or opening her eyes.’ The authenticity of the visions was validated by a widespread belief that women were more susceptible to supernatural inspiration than men, reinforced by the career of Joanna Southcott, whom Crawfoot and Bourne visited, with some skepticism, in London in 1810.132 While the sect itself remained confined to the forest and dependent on Crawfoot’s charismatic leadership, its influence was considerable. Both Bourne and Clowes learned from Crawfoot’s visionary spirituality; he ‘brought together within Methodism two of the wider strands of the Romantic movement, an openness to the mystery and influence of Nature and a deepened awareness of the power of inward experience.’133 Crawfoot himself was the Primitive Methodist’s first paid preacher before being expelled for reasons that remain unclear.134 Bourne’s associations with Dow, the Independent Methodists, and the Magic Methodists, led him to consider the question of women’s roles in Methodism. He knew that women were full voting members in Independent Methodist congregations.135 The successes of Anne Cutler, Mary Barritt and Dorothy Ripley alerted him to the value of women evangelists. His experiences with the visionary Magic Methodist women had revealed to him the spirituality of the natural world. Meanwhile the presence of women preaching in Independent congregations – for example, Peter Phillips married Hannah Peacock, who was a familiar speaker at cottage meetings – raised the question of whether the 1803 Wesleyan Methodist restrictions on women preaching were scripturally valid.136 The 1808 Independent Methodist Conference discussed the matter, and Bourne agreed to write a pamphlet arguing for female ministry.137 He may have been familiar with Zechariah Taft’s 1803 pamphlet, although his ‘Remarks’ are briefer. He knew of Wesley’s endorsement of Mary Bosanquet, referring to Wesley’s letter to her, but he did not use the term ‘extraordinary call,’ and may not have read Bosanquet’s own letter.138 It is also possible that he did not wish to limit female preaching to the work of a few exceptional women. Like Taft, he cited Joel 2: 28 (‘… your sons

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism and daughters shall prophesy’), arguing, following the work of theologian Adam Clark, that, ‘A prophet was simply one who was employed in the service of God, … whether as one that sung the praises of God, or one that preached, exhorted, or instructed the people.’139 He gave most of the same examples of biblical women speaking in public that Taft had, and quoted 1 Corinthians 1: 27, ‘But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.’ He argued that ‘woman is the weaker vessel. But this is so far from making against, that it is strongly in favor of it … And as God chose the ministry of women under darker dispensations, it would be strange if they are incapable of ministering, on account of being weaker vessels, now the gospel shines with a brighter light.’140 Like Bosanquet and Taft, he countered St. Paul’s admonitions about women speaking by pointing out their inconsistency with the apostle’s previous words and claiming that Paul was referring to specific problems of church discipline that he did not intend to apply to all situations. Lastly, he cited Wesley’s own acceptance of Mrs. Fletcher’s preaching.141 By 1807 Bourne had had several encounters with women preachers, and seen their effectiveness. He had also witnessed the deep spirituality of Magic Methodist women. However, when he organized the first English camp meeting, none of the speakers were female. The meeting was at Mow Cop on the borders of Cheshire and Staffordshire on 31 May 1807, very shortly after Dow had returned to the United States. It attracted, by Bourne’s estimate, 2–4,000 people. The speakers included Wesleyans, Independent Methodists, Quaker Methodists, and others, with William Clowes, a Tunstall potter who had also heard Dow preach, one of the most prominent.142 Bourne immediately announced two more camp meetings to be held on Mow Cop in July and at Norton-in-the-Moors in August, the latter to counter the traditional drunken festivities of ‘Wakes Week.’ He had no intention of disrupting normal Methodist worship, but Napoleon was at the height of his power and Methodist leaders still feared accusations of disloyalty. Although Julia Werner described Bourne as ‘fundamentally apolitical,’ there were hints he was ‘disaffected towards his majesty’s government,’ and that the camp meetings were political in intent.143 Conservative Wesleyans also disliked revivals, which they regarded as disruptive. Revivals subjected local members to the scrutiny of secular authorities and disrupted the calm of normal worship. They also caused influxes of only temporary converts, and the heated emotionalism did not fit well with quiet and regular self-examination in weekly classes.144 Therefore the local Wesleyan itinerants took fright at Bourne’s

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women and the shaping of british methodism plan to hold two more meetings, prohibited Methodists holding class tickets from attending them, and appealed to the Conference for help in halting the phenomenon. At the annual Conference meeting in July, camp meetings were banned: ‘It is our judgement that even supposing such meetings to be allowable in America, they are highly improper in England and likely to be productive of considerable mischief; and we disclaim all connection with them.’145 Local preachers from America or elsewhere were also prohibited from preaching unless licensed and recommended by their superintendents, effectively banning Dow from Methodist chapels – as intended. The ban put Bourne on a collision course with Wesleyanism, and a woman became the center of the controversy. He insisted on holding the August meeting as planned and invited Mary Dunnel, a preacher from the Macclesfield Independent Methodists well known for her ‘volubility of speech and flowery eloquence,’ to speak, knowing she would attract a large audience. Although the local superintendent had forbidden members of Methodist societies to attend, he feared Dunnel’s powerful attraction, so to counteract it he asked her to preach in a local chapel at the same time. The offer was flattering enough to seduce her, and she failed to appear at the camp meeting.146 Initially the crowd was small, but the unexpected arrival of Paul Johnson, a Dublin physician and Dow follower, well known as a rousing speaker, rescued the occasion and restored Bourne’s confidence that the meetings were sanctioned by God.147 The following May, Bourne organized three more meetings, resulting in his expulsion from Methodist membership, ostensibly for not attending his class meeting. He continued his evangelical work in northeast Staffordshire, where there was no Wesleyan preaching.148 His loosely organized helpers became known as Camp Meeting Methodists, with James Crawfoot as the sect’s only paid preacher; all other evangelists were unpaid. At this point Bourne had no intention of forming a separate Connexion, but of gaining converts in areas not well served by official Methodism. A number of the societies they established were eventually taken over by Wesleyan circuits, but by 1810 the local Wesleyan superintendents were growing increasingly hostile, and after one insisted on total control of a new class, Bourne became convinced that separation was ultimately inevitable.149 Meanwhile William Clowes, the principal speaker at Mow Cop, was following his own path, one that was also influenced by Mary Dunnel’s career. After a dissolute youth, Clowes experienced salvation in an 1805 Methodist revival, and shortly afterward became friendly with Hugh Bourne. He initially attended camp meetings but felt that, as a class leader, he had to obey the Conference ban. However the call to preach proved

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism too strong and in 1808 he returned to outdoor preaching, resulting in his expulsion from the Wesleyans in 1810. Most of his class members followed him and he established a preaching and praying place in the Tunstall kitchen of Joseph Smith. Smith had quarrelled with his circuit over their treatment of Dunnel, whose ministry had proved too controversial for the Wesleyans – she had been barred from preaching in any Wesleyan place of worship. Smith therefore equipped his kitchen as a preaching place, Dunnel continued with her evangelism, and Clowes was able to take advantage of Smith’s hospitality.150 In late 1810 members of Smith’s group offered Clowes 10s. per week to open new societies. The following year another Wesleyan class leader, James Steele, was expelled for attending services in Smith’s kitchen, and the group, swelled by Steele’s followers, moved to a larger room. By this time Bourne’s separation from the Methodists had reached the point of issuing class tickets and drawing up a preaching plan. As a result of conversations between Clowes and Bourne, Hugh and James Bourne purchased land in Tunstall for a building that would double as chapel and schoolroom, and in July 1811, in Smith’s kitchen, the two groups joined together to form the Primitive Methodist Connexion.151 While Bourne soon quarrelled with Dunnel, other women had been emboldened to preach and by the first Connexional Conference in 1820 there were six female travelling preachers.152 Primitive Methodism was the epitome of an evangelical sect. Its signature event, the camp meeting, coming directly from the American frontier, was intended to attract large numbers of converts. Both Bourne and Clowes initially aimed at evangelizing areas where Methodism had not reached, and evangelism remained at the heart of the Connexional mission. Preaching was informal ‘conversation-preaching,’ and leaders encouraged extensive praying and singing. These were conditions in which women could feel free to speak in public, but the attitude of sectarian leaders was also crucial. Bourne and Clowes had encountered female preaching among the Quaker Methodists and Magic Methodists, and both were impressed by Mary Dunnel, whose treatment by the Wesleyans was a contributing factor in the Primitive Methodist secession. Thus their encounters with effective female evangelists predisposed them to allow them to continue their work. Primitive Methodism’s other major defining feature was cottage religion, the use of household spaces as places of prayer and worship. Women frequently provided these spaces; for example, Violet Tildsley, a widow of Blackleach, near Manchester, opened her house for preaching until a chapel was built, and Amy Hallam of Grindleford Bridge ‘affectionately entertained the Primitive Methodist preachers.’153

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women and the shaping of british methodism The other major and lasting Methodist sect to make substantial use of women preachers was the Bible Christian Connexion. Like Primitive Methodism, the reasons for employing female evangelists were partly their effectiveness, partly the result of local circumstances, and partly related to the personal experience of the founder. The circumstances in which the Bible Christian Connexion broke away from Wesleyanism were also in many ways similar to Primitive Methodism. The initial break was rooted in individual personal experience, it began as a cottage religion in a specific region, and its primary focus in the early years was evangelical. William O’Bryan, the Bible Christians’ founder, was raised in the atmosphere of cottage worship; his parents regularly invited itinerant Methodist preachers to stay in their Cornish farmhouse and hosted prayer meetings for the family and other local people. O’Bryan’s father was well-off financially and a substantial property owner.154 William was well educated and while young managed the tin-mining concessions and farmland he inherited from his father, who died when he was eighteen. He took over his father’s position in the community as one of the ‘Twelve Men’ of the parish, including acting as a churchwarden and overseer of the poor, and married Catherine Cowlin, a practising Methodist. In 1801 he had what he considered his true conversion experience, and developed a local reputation as a highly effective evangelical preacher. He felt called to the Methodist ministry but resisted until 1808, when the death of his young son, whom he had thought would become a minister in his stead, and his own recovery from the same illness, convinced him he could ignore his conscience no longer. He announced his intention to go on an evangelical journey to the north coast of Cornwall, where there had been little Methodist preaching, but was dissuaded by his local itinerant, who encouraged him to apply to work in his home circuit. However, his candidature was rejected by the District Meeting. The main reason was that they were unable to support a married man with three daughters, a fairly common objection, but they probably also recognized his penchant for independence and were wary of his overbearing personality – few at the meeting spoke in his support. Reservations about O’Bryan’s willingness to take direction were soon justified; he continued his evangelical journeys in defiance of his local preaching plan and aroused much opposition with a proposal to the Quarterly Meeting that the ministry should be supported by voluntary subscriptions rather than required contributions.155 In 1810 he was formally expelled from his circuit in the chapel for which he had given the land and paid for the construction, but he took some of his classes with him, and continued his evangelism.156 An attempt at reconciliation in 1814 failed at the height of a great

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism revival in Cornwall when a number of local preachers took their classes into separation.157 The following year O’Bryan decided to concentrate his efforts just over the Devon border in the area of the recently established Wesleyan mission of Stratton, where as yet there had been no Methodist preaching.158 Wesleyan Methodism was strong in west Cornwall, Plymouth, and Bristol, but had made little headway in most of Devon.159 O’Bryan was well received in the area around Stratton, including speaking at a huge outdoor meeting at Warbstow Burrow that was similar to a one-day camp meeting. However, the district superintendent would not endorse his work and in October 1815 he finally broke with Wesleyan Methodism and formed his own circuit. Five days later he met the young James Thorne, son of a local farmer, whose mother had had a conversion experience in her parish church the previous May, and who had heard of O’Bryan’s ministry. Thorne invited O’Bryan to his home, Lake Farm in Shebbear. The enrollment of the entire Thorne family, James Senior and Mary Thorne and their five sons and daughters, was a turning point in the survival and growth of the infant Connexion; their financial support was vital, and the sons James and Samuel spent the rest of their lives in Connexional service, James becoming O’Bryan’s first itinerant. Mary paid the dues of the Shebbear society at the first Quarterly Meeting and was a regular and generous contributor to denominational funds. By 1816, after a year of independent existence, the Bible Christians had 600 members, organized into a single circuit based in Shebbear. The area around Shebbear became the Bible Christian heartland, although the sect’s greatest numbers and support came from Cornish mining areas.160 O’Bryan’s impulse was clearly evangelical. He was fortunate that the hostile political environment experienced by the New Connexion and, to a certain extent, by the Primitive Methodists, had eased with the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, although radical agitation continued to be met with government repression. Bible Christian preachers certainly attracted the attention of local magistrates, and several suffered brief imprisonments, but this had little if any effect on the sect’s growth. It was initially a cottage religion, with class meetings in homes and much of the preaching in the open air – the first chapel, at Lake in Shebbear, was not built until 1817.161 These were conditions in which women’s preaching flourished. O’Bryan had Quaker connections through his mother, and was probably aware that women spoke at public Quaker meetings, sometimes in Methodist rooms, attracting large audiences from all classes, including Cornish tin miners.162 However, his initial acceptance of women preach­ ­ing was circumstantial, but the pressure on him was considerable because

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women and the shaping of british methodism the first woman preacher in his infant organization was his wife. After years of maintaining her husband’s farm and mining interests and raising her family while he pursued his evangelism, Catherine became an active helper in her husband’s independent ministry, taking charge of female converts. In 1814, while accompanying a male preacher, she was embarrassed because her companion felt unable to speak before a large congregation. She ‘felt the spirit moving her thereto, yielded to the call, being constrained to speak; … and she, and the people, soon were in tears together … It being such a strange thing, for a woman to preach, the people became very anxious about it, so that she was well received where she went, and the Lord blessed His word by her.’ Although her husband was at first unsure about encouraging her, he remembered hearing of women preachers among both Quakers and Methodists, and his doubts were finally removed when he slipped in unnoticed to hear her speak and was convinced of her call. She began to take her husband’s place to speak at local meetings when he was away and ‘multitudes flocked to her, and many were greatly profited.’ She quickly became an essential member of the preaching team; her husband reported, ‘Hitherto places for preaching that had increased, were in the neighbourhood of my circuit, so that with the help of a few local preachers, and my wife, I was able to supply them.’163 O’Bryan was also reluctant to discourage Mary Thorne, who had spoken publicly for the first time in her parish church during her conversion experience before she encountered O’Bryan. She became a reliable local preacher, undertaking an evangelical journey into Cornwall in 1818, when she was in her sixties.164 Another important early supporter was Johanna Brooks, whose husband and the parish officer had forcibly removed her from her Morwenstow parish church for daring to speak of her conversion; the next day her husband ‘gave her several strokes with a rod,’ and later had her medically examined for insanity. However, her heartfelt witness that day converted a number of her hearers, including some who became Bible Christian preachers. In demand to speak at cottage meetings and for spiritual guidance, she had already established the nucleus of a circuit before she met O’Bryan in 1816 and invited him to preach in a barn made available by a local farmer. Morwenstow became the center of one of the most flourishing Bible Christian circuits, with Brooks a frequent local preacher, having meanwhile converted her husband, parents, and local clergyman, initially her chief opponents.165 Like Hugh Bourne, William O’Bryan found it necessary to defend his acceptance of women speaking in public. O’Bryan knew Adam Clarke personally, may have read Taft, and was almost certainly familiar with Bourne’s arguments.166 A June 1821 comment in the Primitive Methodist

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism Magazine recognized the emergence of the Bible Christians and noted the establishment of a ‘friendly correspondence.’ In the next issue Bourne noted the coincidence that both Connexions had embraced female preaching independently, and asked O’Bryan how he came to accept female preaching. O’Bryan replied with a long letter, also published in the magazine. He described how, when he began exhorting in public in 1801, he decided not to marry, but the need to care for young converts ‘gave a handle to some to suppose that I was choosing a wife.’ He therefore resolved to have a ‘like-minded’ wife who would ‘assist me in the meetings, and to take the care, the spiritual charge of the females; and in some certain cases in a way that I could not; and that this would stop these surmisings.’ Shortly afterward he met Catherine Cowlin and determined that they had ‘a similarity of natural temper,’ so, ‘lively and zealous for the Lord; in each the other found a friend.’ He then described Catherine’s urge to speak when her companion could not, and his encounters with Elizabeth Dart, who ‘felt drawn out to speak for God in public,’ and Johanna Brooks. He concluded with a postscript: ‘I may just remark, how necessity was laid on my wife, who was our first Woman Preacher; may I not say, a double necessity; – first, to go off to hold meetings, to assist her husband in the arduous work; and secondly, to exhort in time of need, to help out a tried friend, in breaking the bread of Eternal Life to a few hungry souls.’167 O’Bryan developed his full rationale for female preaching at the first Bible Christian Conference in 1819. He published the defense as an extended article in the Arminian Magazine, the Bible Christians’ official publication, and then much later as a pamphlet he sold without much success in both Britain and the United States.168 His arguments were in most cases similar to his predecessors’; he began with the Joel text about women prophesying, he cited the same biblical examples of women speaking in public, and made similar arguments about St. Paul’s problematic Corinthian texts – that they contradicted Paul’s previous advice, and referred to a particular historical situation in Corinth: ‘it was perfectly indecorous for women to be contending with men in public assemblies, on points of doctrine, cases of conscience, &c.’169 However, O’Bryan’s analysis has some interesting differences from both Taft’s and Bourne’s. He was less concerned with defining prophecy in the Joel verse than in interpreting it as a sign of the millennium approaching: ‘The nearer the millennium draws on, most likely, the more will women preachers increase. I have long since thought, Joel had a view of the very day in which we live, and the work now going on; and the more women preachers increase, the more, I hope, will the life, power, and simplicity

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women and the shaping of british methodism of the gospel spread.’170 Like Bourne, he cited Acts 2: 17, which reiterates the Joel verse: ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.’ O’Bryan clearly thought the verse important since he spent some time analyzing the meaning and significance of the word ‘pour,’ but interestingly, he did not cite the next verse, although it was a continuation (as in Joel), ‘And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.’ The omission must have been deliberate since the brief official report of the discussion at the 1819 Bible Christian Conference over whether to accept women preachers included both verses.171 Another verse Taft highlighted on his title page and Bourne referred to but O’Bryan avoided was 1 Corinthians 1: 27, ‘But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.’ Deborah Valenze pointed out that both the Acts and Corinthians verses have class and gender connotations, the former referring to male and female slaves, and the latter to women as weaker vessels.172 It is possible that O’Bryan wanted to avoid alienating women crucial to his cause like his wife or Mary Thorne, a major financial benefactor, by equating them with servants. He clearly did not want to suggest all women were incapable of intelligent thought: Some have said, ‘women have not so strong intellectual powers as men have.’ Perhaps, in general they have not. But some women have minds as well informed as the generality of men: witness queen Elizabeth … Has every man who is called to preach, natural abilities sufficient to govern a kingdom? If he has not, that objection falls to ground; for we find some women have abilities for rule and government.173

Throughout his life O’Bryan remained convinced that women could equal or surpass men as preachers, and that their ministry was both vital and justified: ‘I could not have thought it wrong for women to preach; that is, holy women, who are endued with the spirit of God, while I saw God stamping their labours with his authority – while I saw sinners convinced and converted to God, through their preaching.’174 Thus by 1820 two Methodist sects had formally embraced women preaching, and their leaders had justified their positions, taking a different view from the conservative Wesleyan Conference that had severely curtailed the practice. Both the Primitive Methodists and the Bible Christians were offshoots from the Wesleyan Connexion, throwbacks to the days of early Methodism, emphasizing evangelism, reaching

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism out to those who had not yet heard the Methodist message. Wesley himself had agreed that exceptional women were effective in this work, and the fervent atmosphere of the Primitive Methodist camp meeting or the intimacy of Bible Christian cottage gatherings created circumstances in which women felt called to preach and emboldened to act on that call. The issue of women preaching was not, however, a major cause of friction between either Hugh Bourne or William O’Bryan and their local Wesleyan leadership – in O’Bryan’s case it played no part at all. In each case the predominant cause of their separation was their insistence on continuing their evangelistic activities; they did not disagree with the nature of Methodist organization and largely reproduced it in their own Connexions. In contrast, sects forming as a result of secessions from Wesleyan Methodism reflected power struggles between central authority and localism, the latter drawing its support largely from local preachers and laymen. The results were sects like the New Connexion or the United Methodist Free Churches that diverged from Wesleyan organization by allowing considerably greater lay participation in governance and more local diversity and control, but that did not practice field preaching and often mistrusted revivalism. Their growth came largely from recruiting dissatisfied Methodists or other dissenters; thus male local chapel and leaders’ committees, concerned with respectability and maintaining existing congregations, had little use for women evangelists. However, the histories of two short-lived sects, the Tent Methodists and the Arminian Methodists, illustrate the importance of local conditions and personalities in defining the place of women within Methodism and illuminate some of the controversies over women’s roles that continued to simmer in local communities. The case of the Arminian Methodists also shows that the Wesleyan ban was not complete, and some women continued to preach where local district superintendents tolerated it. In fact, by 1830, worshippers in Methodist congregations, including the various sects, were more likely to have heard a woman preach than ever before. Betsey Evans may have felt the weight of the restrictions on her evangelism, but she was not silenced. Notes

1 2 3 4 5

George Eliot, Adam Bede (London: Everyman’s Library, 1960), pp. 32–3. Eliot, Adam Bede, p. iv. Taft, Holy Women, pp. 150–1. ‘Female preaching round Wirksworth,’ APMM 80:6 (1899), 435. H. B. Kendall, The Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church (London: Edwin Dalton, 1906), 1: p. 144.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 6 William Mottram, The True Story of George Eliot in Relation to ‘Adam Bede’: Giving the Real Life History of the Most Prominent Characters (London: F. Griffiths, 1905), pp. 249–50; William Parkes, ‘Elizabeth Ann Evans – “Dinah Morris”; her “Derby Faith” portrait,’ in Wesley Pieces: Conference and Other Papers (Derby: Moorley’s, 1996), pp. 9–13; Kendall, Origin and History, p. 142. 7 William O’Bryan, ‘The rise and progress of the Connexion of people called the Arminian Bible Christians,’ BCAM 2:8 (1823), 256–7. 8 Robert Currie, Methodism Divided: A Study in the Sociology of Ecumenicalism (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), p. 82. 9 Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 82. 10 Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, pp. 187–8, 283–4; Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 27. 11 Hempton, Methodism and Politics, pp. 61–2. 12 For examples, see Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 47. 13 Currie, Methodism Divided, pp. 30, 46. 14 Watts, Dissenters II, p. 236. 15 Arthur Mounfield (ed.), A Short History of Independent Methodism (Wigan: Independent Methodist Book Room, 1905), p. 1. 16 Watts, Dissenters I, pp. 486–7, II, pp. 385–7. 17 Julia Stewart Werner, The Primitive Methodist Connexion: Its Background and Early History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 34–5, 38. 18 The Gentleman’s Magazine 70:1 (1800), p. 241, quoted in Hempton, Methodism and Politics, p. 78. 19 Hempton, Methodism and Politics, pp. 62, 78, 99–103; Hempton, ‘Evangelicalism and reform,’ pp. 26–7. 20 Juster, Doomsayers, p. 95. 21 See Chilcote, Women Preachers, Appendix A. 22 Sheila Wright, ‘Quakerism and its implications for Quaker women: the women itinerant ministers of York Meeting, 1780–1840,’ in W. J. Shiels and Diana Wood (eds), Women in the Church (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), p. 403. 23 John Baxter, ‘The Great Yorkshire Revival 1792–6: a study of mass revival among the Methodists,’ in A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain (London: SCM Press, 1974), p. 46. 24 Watts, Dissenters II, pp. 66–7, 148; Baxter, ‘Yorkshire Revival,’ pp. 48–57. 25 T. Jackson (ed.), The Lives of the Early Methodist Preachers (London: Wesley Conference Office, 1865–6), 5: p. 86, quoted in Watts, Dissenters II, p. 138; Elizabeth Ritchie to Mary Fletcher, 19 July 1797, quoted in Mack, Heart Religion, p. 292. 26 Chilcote, Christ, pp. 113–14; Brown, ‘Women of the Word,’ p. 72. 27 Baxter, ‘Yorkshire Revival,’ p. 49. 28 Mary Taft, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Mary Taft; Formerly Miss Barritt (London: J. Stevens, 1827), p. 64. 29 Chilcote, Christ, pp. 114–16, 118. 30 Joseph Benson to Z. Taft, 25 October 1802, quoted in Chilcote, Women Preachers, p. 234. 31 Zechariah Taft, Thoughts on Female Preaching (Dover: G. Ledger, 1803), first page. For a summary of the main arguments for and against women preaching see Barbara Brown Zikmund, ‘The struggle for the right to preach,’ in Rosemany Ruether and

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism

32 33

34 35 36 37

38 39 40

41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49

50 51

52 53 54 55 56

Rosemary Keller (eds), Women and Religion in America: The Nineteenth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 193–241. Taft, Thoughts, title page. Taft, Thoughts, pp. 1–8, 11–13, 15; 19, 20–1, 22–3; Bosanquet in Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 301, 303. Hempton, Methodism and Politics, pp. 116–24. Chilcote, Women Preachers, p. 232. Minutes of the Methodist Conferences 1799–1807 (London: John Mason, 1863), p. 187. Gareth Lloyd, ‘Repression and resistance: Wesleyan female public ministry in the generation after 1791,’ in Norma Virgoe (ed.), Angels and Impudent Women: Women in Methodism (Loughborough: Wesley Historical Society, 2007), p. 115. Lenton, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ pp. 59–60. Malmgreen, ‘Domestic discords,’ p. 67. Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 81; Kenneth Lysons, A Little Primitive: Primitive Methodism from Macro and Micro Perspectives (Buxton: Church in the Marketplace Publications, 2001), p. 7. W. J. Townsend, Alexander Kilham (London: J. C. Watts, 1890), p. 27; W. J. Townsend, Herbert B. Workman, and George Eayrs, New History of Methodism I (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1909), pp. 207–8, 233, 283, 285–6. Watts, Dissenters II, p. 33. Currie, Methodism Divided, pp. 54–5. Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 10. Watts, Dissenters II, pp. 359, 469. Life of the Rev. Alexander Kilham (London: R. Groombridge and Manchester: The Methodist New Connexion Book Room, 1838), pp. 127–8. Heitzenrater, People Called Methodists, pp. 311–17. Watts Dissenters II, pp. 236–7; Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 22–3; John Stephens, Christian Patriotism: A Sermon Preached at Rotherham, February 28, 1810, the Day Appointed for a National Fast (Rotherham: John Plumbe, 1810), p. iv, quoted in Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 23. Townsend, Kilham, p. 77; Life of Kilham, p. 237; Watts, Dissenters II, p. 362; John C. Bowmer, Pastor and People: A Study of Church and Ministry in Weslyan Methodism from the Death of John Wesley to the Death of Jabez Bunting (London: Epworth Press, 1975), pp. 48–50. Oliver A. Beckerlegge, The United Methodist Free Churches: A Study in Freedom (London: Epworth Press, 1957), p. 16; Bowmer, Pastor and People, p. 51. In 1836, in another clash with Conference, Dr. Samuel Warren discovered that neither the Plan of Pacification nor the Leeds Concessions had been entered in the minutes (possibly accidentally) and therefore did not have the force of law (Beckerlegge, United Methodist Free Churches, p. 24). Chilcote, Women Preachers, pp. 271–2. Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 34–9; Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, pp. 54–7. Townsend, Kilham, p. 114. Life of Kilham, p. 336. David Barker, A Catechism of the Methodist New Connexion (London: H. Groombridge, 1834), p. 37.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65 66 67 68

69 70

71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

81

82 83

Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 95. Watts, Dissenters II, pp. 318, 771, 776. Townsend, Kilham, p. 81. Townsend, Kilham, p. 105; Life of Kilham, p. 294; Watts, Dissenters II, p. 361. Minutes of Conversations between Preachers and Representatives from the Societies in the Methodist New Connexion (Hanley: T. Allbut, 1813), p. 15; Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 3–4. Life of Kilham, pp. 335, 360n; Watts, Dissenters II, p. 391. Watts, Dissenters II, p. 318; Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 25. Michèle Cohen, ‘“Manners make the man”: politeness, chivalry, and the construction of masculinity, 1750–1830,’ Journal of British Studies 44:2 (2005), 328–9. John Stamp, The Female Advocate (London: J. Pasco, 1841), p. 16. Methodist New Connexion Magazine 14:7 (1847), 333; 14:12 (1847), 575; 15:2 (1848), 92–3; 15:3 (1848), 139–42. Beckerlegge, United Methodist Free Churches, p. 34, quoting Benjamin Gregory, Side Lights on the Conflicts of Methodism (London: Cassell, 1899). Richard Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism: Popular Evangelicalism in Britain and America, 1790–1865 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978), p. 128; Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 32; Bowmer, Pastor and People, p. 83, quoting Gregory, Side Lights, p. 83. Beckerlegge, United Methodist Free Churches, p. 18. John Barr, A Statement of Facts Being a Brief History of the Measures Adopted by the Leeds Wesleyan Methodist Society, in Their Opposition to the Introduction of an Organ into Brunswick Chapel (Leeds: John Barr, 1827), p. 1, quoted in Bowmer, Pastor and People, p. 106; Watts, Dissenters II, pp. 414–15; Robert Eckett, Letter Addressed to the Rev. John Gaulter, on the Late Occurrences at Leeds (London: T. C. Jones, 1828), p. 6, quoted in Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 52. Beckerlegge, United Methodist Free Churches, pp. 17–19. Gregory, Side Lights, p. 171. Beckerlegge, United Methodist Free Churches, p. 25. Beckerlegge, United Methodist Free Churches, p. 34; Gregory, Side Lights, pp. 535, 547. Watts, Dissenters II, pp. 614–25. Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 92. Currie, Methodism Divided, pp. 157–8. Beckerlegge, United Methodist Free Churches, pp. 60, 28–9. Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, pp. 124–5. Both Watts and William Parkes, historian of the Arminian Methodists, categorize them as an offshoot. In my opinion they were closer to a secession; the issues leading to the split between lay preachers and the local superintendent were rooted in a desire for local autonomy and the sect explicitly renounced evangelism. See Watts, Dissenters II, p. 33; Rev. Dr. William Parkes, ‘The Arminian Methodists,’ Heritage, Journal of the Midlands Branch of the Wesley Historical Society 3:6 (1991), 4. William Parkes, The Arminian Methodists. The Derby Faith: A Wesleyan Aberration in Pursuit of Revivalism and Holiness (Cannock: Charles H. Goodwin, 1995), passim; Beckerlegge, United Methodist Free Churches, pp. 26–7. Rules of the Arminian Methodist Societies, First Established in Derby, in the Year 1832 (Derby: Ward & Probett, 1832), pp. 3–4. Minutes of the Several Conversations, between Preachers and Representatives of the

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84

85

86 87 88

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110

Arminian Methodist Connexion, at the Yearly Meeting, Begun in Derby, on Tuesday, June 25, 1833 (Derby: T. Ward, 1833), p. 4. George Macdonald, Facts Against Fiction; or A Statement of the Real Causes which Produced the Division among the Wesleyan Methodists in Derby (2nd edn) (Derby, W. & W. Pike, 1832), p. 31 (italics in original); Beckerlegge, United Methodist Free Churches, pp. 26–7. Some Methodist historians have branded the Arminian Methodists Sandemanians, followers of the eighteenth-century Robert Sandeman, whose message to potential converts was ‘Only believe, and God will set thee at liberty in a moment’ (Beckerlegge, United Methodist Free Churches, pp. 26–7). However, there is little evidence of direct linkage to the Sandemanians, who were not revivalists, while such fervor was a hallmark of Arminian worship. Parkes prefers to see the Arminian Methodists as forerunners of the holiness movement of the second half of the nineteenth century (Parkes, Arminian Methodists, pp. 7, 14, 45). Parkes, Arminian Methodists, pp. 4, 7. The Journals of William Clowes (London: Hallam and Holliday, 1844), p. 288, quoted in Parkes, ‘Arminian Methodists,’ p. 3. A Letter to the Rev. John Davis, Wesleyan Minister, on the Subject of the Late Secession from the Society under his Superintendence by a Minister of Derby (Derby: W. & W. Pike, n.d. [1832]), p. 10. Wesleyan Protestant Magazine, May 1832, pp. 157–8. Macdonald, Facts, p. 6 (italics in original). Macdonald, Facts, p. 7 (italics in original). Parkes, Arminian Methodists, p. 14. Macdonald, Facts, p. 20. Wesleyan Protestant Magazine, pp. 158–9; Macdonald, Facts, p. 4. Macdonald, Facts, p. 20. Parkes, Arminian Methodists, pp. 32–5. To the Members of the Arminian Society, Derby (Derby: T. Ward, n.d.). Letter to Davis, p. 10. Minutes of Arminian Methodist Connexion, pp. 5–6; Rules of the Arminian Methodist Societies, p. 4. Minutes of Arminian Methodist Connexion, p. 10. Mottram, True Story of George Eliot, pp. 249–50, quoted in Parkes, ‘Elizabeth Ann Evans,’ p. 12; Parkes, Arminian Methodists, pp. 21, 26–7. Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 72. John K. Lander, Itinerant Temples: Tent Methodism, 1814–1832 (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2003), p. 61. Currie, Methodism Divided, pp. 56–7. Lander, Itinerant Temples, Ch. 3. K. P. Russell (ed.), Memoirs of the Rev. John Pyer (London: John Snow, 1865), p. 79 (italics in original). Lander, Itinerant Temples, pp. 187–204, 207. Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 21. Lander, Itinerant Temples, p. 71. George Pocock, Facts Without a Veil (Bristol: Philip Rose, 1820), p. 33 (italics in original).

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women and the shaping of british methodism 111 Russell, Pyer, p. 93. 112 The Tent Methodists’ Magazine, and Register of Events Connected with the Spread of the Gospel at Home, vol. 1 (Bristol: Wansborough and Saunders, 1823), p. 69. 113 George Pocock, A Statement of Facts Concerned with the Ejectment of Certain Ministers from the Society of the Wesleyan Methodists in the City of Bristol in February and March, 1820 (Bristol: Philip Rose, 1820), p. 13; Facts Without a Veil, p. 31. 114 Lander, Itinerant Temples, pp. 48–9; Pocock, Facts Without a Veil, p. 33 (italics in original). 115 Pocock, Statement of Facts, p. 12; Facts Without a Veil, p. 33. 116 Pocock, Facts Without a Veil, p. 5. 117 Lander, Itinerant Temples, p. 131. 118 Tent Methodists’ Magazine, November 1823, 245. 119 Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 141–2. 120 Lander, Itinerant Temples, p. 196. 121 Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 179. 122 Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 87; Ward, Dissenters II, p. 674. 123 The name itself came from the Magic Methodist James Crawfoot’s speech to the ­Northwich quarterly meeting when defending his preaching for the Quaker ­Methodists, where he quoted Wesley and said, ‘I still remain A Primitive Methodist.’ G. Herod, Biographical Sketches of Those Preachers Whose Labours Contributed to the Organization and Early Extension of Primitive Methodism (London: T. King, 1855), pp.  241–2. 124 Geoffrey Milburn, Primitive Methodism (Peterborough: Epworth Press, 2002), p. 4; John Anderson, ‘Primitive Methodism and mammon,’ in James Crawfoot and the Magic Methodists (Englesea Brook: Englesea Brook Chapel and Museum, 2003), p.  16. 125 Milburn, Primitive Methodism, pp. 2–5; Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 56–8. 126 Quoted in Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 46. 127 Catherine Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America 1740–1845 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), p. 142. 128 Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 36–40. 129 Mounfield, Independent Methodism, p. 3. 130 Mounfield, Independent Methodism, pp. 2–9, 16–20, 44; Watts, Dissenters II, p. 32. 131 John Dolan, ‘A common matrix: Hugh Bourne and the Independent Methodists,’ in James Crawfoot and the Magic Methodists (Englesea Brook: Englesea Brook Chapel and Museum, 2003), pp. 41–4. 132 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, pp. 77–8, 94; James K. Hopkins, A Woman to Deliver Her People: Joanna Southcott and English Millenarianism in an Era of Revolution (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982), p. 20; Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 70. 133 Milburn, Primitive Methodism, p. 10. 134 Henry Rack, ‘James Crawfoot and the Magic Methodists,’ in James Crawfoot and the Magic Methodists (Englesea Brook: Englesea Brook Chapel and Museum, 2003), pp. 5–6, 8–9; Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 69–71. 135 Mounfield, Independent Methodism, p. 55. 136 Mounfield, Independent Methodism, pp. 5, 12; Rack, ‘James Crawfoot,’ p. 45. 137 Mounfield, Independent Methodism, p. 22.

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women preachers’ place in a divided methodism 138 Hugh Bourne, ‘Remarks on the ministry of women,’ in John Walford, Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Late Venerable Hugh Bourne, ed. Rev. W. Antliff (London: T. King, 1855), 1: p. 177. 139 Bourne, ‘Remarks,’ pp. 172–3. 140 Bourne, ‘Remarks,’ p. 177. 141 Bourne, ‘Remarks,’ pp. 176–7. 142 Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 46–7, 56–62; Milburn, Primitive Methodism, pp. 5–7; Lysons, Little Primitive, pp. 10–12. 143 Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 62. 144 William R. Ward, Faith and Faction (London: Epworth Press, 1993), p. 270. 145 General Minutes of the Primitive Methodist Connexion (London: R. Davies, 1860), quoted in Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 11. 146 Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 67–8. 147 Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 63; ‘On the origins of the Primitive Methodist Connexion,’ PMM 16:11 (1836), 419–21. 148 Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 64; Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 12. 149 Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 68–75. 150 J. Walford, Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Venerable Hugh Bourne I (London: T. King, 1855­–56), p. 275; Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 95. 151 Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 74–5; Milburn, Primitive Methodism, p. 12; Lysons, Little Primitive, pp. 14–15. 152 E. Dorothy Graham, ‘Chosen by God: the female itinerants of early Primitive Method­­ ­ism’ (D.Phil. Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1986), p. 10. 153 PMM 8:3 (1828), 82; 8:8 (1828), 269. 154 ‘The founder of the Bible Christians,’ BCM 59:2 (1880), 71. O’Bryan’s parents and grandparents used the last name Brian or Bryant; the majority of his children chose the latter. O’Bryan himself was convinced, on little evidence, that he had Irish ancestry, and preferred the Irish spelling. His tombstone in Greenwood cemetery, Brooklyn, NY, erected by his children, uses Bryant. 155 Watts, Dissenters II, p. 237. 156 There is at least one other example of a proprietor of a chapel being expelled, also in Cornwall, when Thomas Roseveare was expelled from ‘his own freehold chapel at Boscastle’ (Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 50). 157 Ward, Faith and Faction, pp. 271–2; Peter Isaac, A History of Evangelical Christianity in Cornwall (Gerrards Cross: WEC Press, n.d. [1999?]), pp. 113–14. 158 Thomas Shaw, The Bible Christians 1815–1907 (London: Epworth Press, 1965), pp. 2–8; F. W. Bourne, The Bible Christians: Their Origin and History (London: Bible Christian Bookroom, 1905), pp. 13–18. 159 Hopkins, Southcott, pp. 46–7. 160 Shaw, Bible Christians, pp. 19–21; John Thorne, James Thorne of Shebbear: A Memoir (London: Bible Christian Bookroom, 1873), pp. 8–11. 161 Bourne, Bible Christians, pp. 36–9; Shaw, Bible Christians, pp. 21–2. 162 Wright, ‘Quaker women,’ p. 405. 163 William O’Bryan, ‘The rise and progress of the Bible Christian Connexion,’ BCAM 2:4 (1823), 113–14; 3:9 (1824), 296. 164 F. W. Bourne, The Centenary Life of James Thorne (London: Bible Christian Bookroom, 1895), pp. 178–­9.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 165 Bourne, Bible Christians, pp. 32–5; David Shorney, ‘“Women may preach, but men must govern”: gender roles in the development of the Bible Christian Connexion,’ in Gender and Christian Religion: Studies in Church History 8 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998), p. 313; Revival, 9 September 1868, 586–7. 166 Richard Pyke, The Early Bible Christians (London: Epworth Press, 1941), p. 18. 167 PMM 2:5 (1821), 112; 2:6 (1821), 138; 2:7 (1821), 162–7. 168 William O’Bryan, ‘A discourse in vindication of the Gospel being published by females,’ BCAM 3:12 (1823), 405–25. For O’Bryan’s pamphlet, see, for example, O’Bryan diary, entry for 5 May 1832. 169 O’Bryan, ‘Vindication,’ pp. 416–18. All biblical quotations are from the Authorized Version of the Bible. 170 O’Bryan, ‘Vindication,’ p. 418. 171 O’Bryan, ‘Vindication,’ p. 415; Bible Christian Minutes, 1818, p. 5. 172 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 97. 173 O’Bryan, ‘Vindication,’ p. 419. 174 O’Bryan, ‘Vindication,’ p. 417.

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3 The heyday of female itinerancy

M

ary O’Bryan Thorne’s tombstone is next to her husband Samuel’s, flush with the wall of what was once the Bible Christian chapel at Lake Farm, Shebbear, Devon, her home for twenty years of her life. It memorializes her as ‘wife of Samuel Thorne, printer, daughter of William O’Bryan, founder of the Bible Christians, among whom she was a minister sixty years.’ Mary O’Bryan was born on Gunwen Farm, Cornwall, in 1807, eldest daughter of Catherine and William O’Bryan. Catherine, herself an educated and independent woman, was determined that her daughters also receive a good education. As her grandson put it in her funeral sermon, ‘When a fault-finder lately said “one of the worst things I knew of Mr. O’Bryan was that he educated his daughters beyond his sphere,” he should rather have said Mrs. O’Bryan; for it was she who laid the good, common-sense foundation of her daughters’ education.’1 Indeed, rising above her parents’ station, Mary had a gentlewoman’s education, attending a boarding school in Penzance and several day schools as the family moved with her father’s itinerancy. Her studies included the genteel subjects of drawing and French.2 Mary grew up a religious child. At the age of two she remembered a dream of heaven, and in 1816, when she was nine, her father recorded the conversion experience necessary for all evangelical Christians.3 The following year, aged ten, when he asked her to sing a hymn and pray, she surprised him by speaking first: ‘When she began to speak, I felt a fear lest she should be confounded before the people, and their minds be hurt. After a while my mind was somewhat relieved, when I ventured to look up, and saw among the people, the solemn awe, the flowing tears, &c. and was constrained to believe, that out of the mouth of babes God could perfect praise.’4 The same year, 1817, with her parents’ encouragement, she accompanied the Bible Christian woman preacher Em Cottle on a tour of Cornwall. She was not yet convinced of her calling, and although in

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women and the shaping of british methodism 1822 others prayed that she ‘might feel it her duty to exercise in public more,’ she refused a formal preaching plan.5 However, two months later, just after her sixteenth birthday, she left for London with her father and began a two-year career as an itinerant preacher, drawing large crowds in London, Kent, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Wight. Two years of Mary O’Bryan’s surviving diary record her experiences preaching in Jersey and the Isle of Wight, an invaluable detailed record of the life of a young woman itinerant. It was a gruelling existence, constant travel on foot, usually alone, through all weathers, often uncertain where she was to sleep, forever at work to keep the converted from backsliding, and speaking in the open air to indifferent or hostile crowds. She was constantly plagued with self-doubt. A typical entry in her diary reads, ‘Oh how little I enjoy, how little I strive! How can it be possible that God employ me in the work of the Ministry? I am almost lost when I see how little I have myself & yet that I attempt to teach others.’6 Part of her reluctance was stage fright: ‘to the present moment I do not presume to speak in public without feeling a trembling through my nerves & in my every member.’7 She also suffered from headaches and general exhaustion. A further and unique handicap was her parentage – her father was the founder of the Bible Christians, and her mother had preceded her as an itinerant on the Isle of Wight. As James Thorne, her father’s chief assistant, put it to her, ‘The manners and deportment of preaching females are generally pretty strictly scrutinized, but Mary O’Bryan’s will undergo a double research! You are William O’Bryan’s daughter.’8 She felt this as a heavy burden: ‘I have neither gifts, piety, or address to make me useful or acceptible [sic] to the people – And above all the rest I am daughter to William O’Bryan. They expect the more – how they must be disappointed – Why was I not born of some other parents? Why to disgrace such as mine? My mother was loved by the people in the Island – my Father respected – why am I permitted to stay here to bring a reproach on them?’9 Her parentage may have made other Bible Christians wary of friendship with her, contributing to her loneliness. Her confidence ebbed. In August of 1825, after more than two years on the road, she poured out her feelings to her diary: ‘I think that instead of my unselfishness increasing it decreases – and I seem less and less satisfied of being in my place and have been thinking if some local sphere might not be more suited to my capacity and feelings for in many respects I find I am not well qualified for travelling.’10 When she wrote this she had just heard from the annual Conference that there were enough candidates for the ministry, making it possible she could be replaced. And there was an alternative: marriage. In his biography of his mother, Mary’s son mentions a number of

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the heyday of female itinerancy suitors, but the most persistent was Samuel Thorne, nine years her senior and younger brother of James Thorne, her father’s right-hand man in the growing Connexion.11 Samuel had first begun noticing her when she was ten but Mary had discouraged his advances, and the few references in her diary, mostly worded enigmatically and obliquely, suggest she was struggling with conflicting emotions. In 1823, aged sixteen, she wrote from London to tell him ‘to think no more about her as a partner for life,’ and for a while he appears to have shown an interest in her younger sister Thomasine.12 Mary’s indifference must partly have been because of her youth and also her wavering belief that she was called to preach, but she also had to contend with parental opposition. Her father’s reasons are unclear, but we can make an educated guess. In 1865 she told her son Ebenezer that she thought her father had favored celibacy, ‘and if he had not been a married man himself I think he would have tried to carry it out among his preachers.’13 This may perhaps have contributed to Samuel’s decision in 1825, after nearly seven years of local preaching, not to become a Bible Christian minister but instead take over the management of the Connexion’s printing press and book room.14 By that time O’Bryan had another reason for opposing the marriage – growing tension over various aspects of O’Bryan’s leadership between himself and a group of preachers led by James Thorne. Mary felt constrained by these cross-currents: ‘I regret that in general I cannot talk so freely to my parents as I would do. I seem like one afraid to speak my own sentiments, to my Father in particular.’15 By this time Mary was rethinking her rejection of Samuel’s advances since marriage was a way to leave itinerant preaching. Her father was also reconsidering his position. After tensions between O’Bryan and James Thorne erupted at the 1825 annual meeting of the Connexion, O’Bryan thought that familial ties with the Thorne family might be prudent ‘to avoid a discord as Mr. and Mrs. Thorne were in Society, and were likely to be much displeased.’16 However, Catherine O’Bryan remained implacably opposed to the match. Her husband transcribed into his diary a letter she wrote to Mary in the Isle of Wight just before Mary planned to return home to marry Samuel with her father’s blessing. Catherine deplored her daughter’s decision to give up preaching, which she was convinced was her vocation, telling her that Samuel was willing to let her continue for seven to ten years. ‘When we get out of our providential path,’ she wrote, ‘it will be in vain to seek happiness; and altogether out of the realm of mortal man to impart it … Well may the world say, that females will only be travelling preachers until it will suit them to be married.’17 ­Catherine’s opposition proved no deterrent to her daughter. Samuel and Mary married

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women and the shaping of british methodism on 28 November 1825.18 Mary was indeed able to give up itinerancy, but she continued to be in demand as a local preacher in Devon and Cornwall for the rest of her life, often travelling into other circuits to preach on special occasions. She died in Plymouth, in 1883, aged seventy-seven and blind. Samuel had died of a heart attack four years before. Her lack of confidence remained until the end. One of her daughters wrote, ‘She had very low views of her own attainments as a Christian as well as her acts of usefulness – fearing she had done nothing to advance the cause of Christ; but she found great consolation in the thought that in the atonement she and all her works might not be lost.’19 Mary O’Bryan’s experience was typical of the young women who felt the call to preach in the Bible Christian and Primitive Methodist Connexions in the 1820s and 1830s, when the excitement of outdoor preaching and public conversion was at its height in both sects and women were hired as paid itinerants. Like most of them, she began her preaching career in her teens, travelled long distances, and attracted large audiences, but retired from itinerancy to local preaching when she married. The 1820s and 1830s were the heyday of women preaching in both sects, at a timely conjuncture when the disruption of family ties and social cohesion because of industrialization was at its height in rural areas, the strongholds of the Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists. Jim Obelkevich described this period in south Lincolnshire as ‘a critical moment, as the traditional culture was passing but before the subsequent working-class culture had developed to replace it,’ a time when ‘disruptive social change created a “demand” that sectarian religion could supply … It provided personal values that (indirectly) equipped its members for the new society: it also created a community that answered the need for social solidarity.’20 Deborah Valenze pointed to transitions in the village agrarian economy, urban growth, and social changes as transforming ‘relations forming the base of cottage religion.’21 Times of political turmoil and social upheaval had historically proved fertile for female evangelism. But by 1850 the moment had passed, and while neither the Primitive Methodists nor the Bible Christians formally abandoned female itinerancy, it declined and eventually died in the changing conditions of the second half of the nineteenth century. It is important to note that some women continued to preach within Wesleyan Methodism despite the 1803 Conference resolution preventing women from speaking in public except to all-female audiences and with their superintendent’s permission, although in many cases it was at special services, often on weeknights. In 1824 the Bible Christian Ann

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the heyday of female itinerancy Mason was visited in London by ‘two females of the Methodists, who travel and hold meetings, and preach from time to time.’22 John Lenton identified thirty-one women who began to preach within Wesleyanism over the seventy years after the 1803 ban, often with strong local support. However, the majority of the Wesleyan Conference remained opposed. In 1808 the Conference passed several resolutions against women preaching, and Jabez Bunting once described women’s claim to an extraordinary call as ‘every fanatic’s plea.’23 Where superintendents were hostile, female evangelists were silenced, causing some to join sects where their talents were welcome.24 Zechariah Taft still hoped to keep some of them within Wesleyanism. He came to their defense twice more in the 1820s, although his support was more muted than the whole-hearted defense of women preaching in his 1802 publication. In 1820 he published The Scripture Doctrine of Women’s Preaching: Stated and Examined, and in 1825 the Biographical Sketches of the Lives and Public Ministry of Various Holy Women.25 In Scripture Doctrine he urged women who met with opposition not to leave Wesleyanism, but retreat into private spaces: ‘rather speak in some private house, to those who are willing to hear you, and at a time when there is no meeting in the neighbourhood.’26 In the preface to Holy Women he was careful to disqualify women from pastoral responsibilities so they would not compete with men: I believe the ordinary call of God to the ministry is to men, and the extraordinary call to females. But in this extraordinary call I do not consider any female strictly and fully called to the pastoral office; or to be the regular pastor of the Church of Christ, but I do believe that the Lord calls some females to be fellow-labourers with the pastors, or helpers, or as we should call the Local Preachers, and I think we should help, or encourage those women, who thus help us in the Gospel.27

Taft’s caution was not universal. In 1841 the Wesleyan minister John Stamp published a pamphlet, The Female Advocate, laying out once again, in some detail, the by now well-rehearsed arguments for allowing women to preach, quoting liberally from Adam Clarke, Taft, and O’Bryan. As part of his argument he gave many examples, both in Wesley’s lifetime and later, estimating that there were at least 2,000 active female preachers.28 Among contemporary Wesleyans, he mentioned his own wife, who ‘laboured at large for nine years’ and ‘oft preached to listening thousands,’ and Mrs. Zilpha Elaw, an American ‘lady of colour,’ who spent twelve weeks in his Kent circuit.29 He regretted that, ‘The Wesleyans have nearly shut the door against female preaching,’ and reminded his readers, ‘Remember, many of these ladies, whom some of you call bold and immodest, who are possessed of such amazing talents for public speaking, as some hundreds

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women and the shaping of british methodism of them are, (so competent judges allow) might shine on the stage, and have hundreds per annum.’ He told women who felt the call to preach: ‘If you belong to any section who will not let you do what God has called you to, then leave them, and unite with some section where a female ministry is sanctioned, or, as the Lord liveth, you will go to his bar covered with the blood spots of guilt, and souls will meet you there whom you might have saved and charge you with there [sic] damnation.’30 Stamp cited with admiration several examples of women preachers among the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians, whose women were vital fellow laborers with men in moving into areas untouched by Methodist preaching, making converts, and building Connexional strength. The number of Primitive Methodist members grew rapidly in the early days of the Connexion – a 357 percent increase between 1820 and 1830– while the much smaller Bible Christian Connexion increased by 49 percent between 1823 and 1834.31 Women’s work was in each case essential to both sects’ success, and the two sects’ similarities – their commitment to evangelism and their strength in rural areas – meant that women’s experiences in them were also similar. Primitive Methodists, popularly known as ‘Ranters,’ had a forceful and often noisy public presence. A contemporary theological dictionary noted that a defining characteristic was that they allowed ‘females to preach in promiscuous assemblies.’32 The acceptance of women preaching was gradual. Initially Hugh Bourne employed no paid preachers of either sex except James Crawfoot, whose poverty made the support necessary; almost all the others were working men and only part-time evangelists.33 Bourne himself, more financially secure, was able to be more systematic in his evangelism. In 1810 he was so impressed by Mary Dunnel’s eloquence at a camp meeting that he invited her to go with him on a new mission to the area around Derby, where he left her to continue the work.34 Unfortunately, the following year she seems to have advised some societies to remain independent, thus putting her loyalty into question. Bourne also found out that she had three living husbands. He expelled her, although she continued her evangelism independently.35 That same year, 1811, Bourne and William Clowes joined forces to form the Primitive Methodist Connexion. William Clowes was probably less favorably disposed toward female evangelists, and despite Dunnel’s example, other female followers of Bourne were reluctant to speak in public. At this point Bourne’s continuing relationship with the Magic Methodists became a factor in Primitive Methodism’s formal embracing of female preaching, when Nancy Foden of the Magic Methodists convinced him that the women’s reluctance was

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the heyday of female itinerancy in fact a sign of their call.36 Bourne was able to use this logic to persuade Sarah Kirkland, a young woman who had doubted whether she should embrace public evangelism, to let him place her on the plan as a local preacher in 1814, when she was nineteen. By the end of the year ‘the novelty of female preaching brought many to hear,’ and she was invited to Derby, where she formed a society that became the nucleus of the Connexion’s second circuit. In 1816 she became the first female paid itinerant, with the Derby circuit insisting on paying her a salary of two guineas a quarter to make sure she was not moved elsewhere. Her marriage to another itinerant, John Harrison, caused her removal to Hull, where she was again instrumental in founding a society before retiring to local preaching.37 Women also contributed to Primitive Methodist expansion by going out on Sundays in pairs to distribute tracts and pray with the recipients. In some cases this proved a training-ground for preaching; there are records of at least twelve female travelling evangelists before 1820. In 1818 one in five Primitive Methodist preachers was a woman, the majority at the local level. In 1820, at the Connexion’s first Conference, there were six women listed as travelling preachers, one in seven of all itinerants. This Conference also laid down procedures for accepting candidates for the itinerancy, both male and female. They had to be interviewed by a circuit committee, who would pass on the recommendation to the quarter-day board. The district meeting and the annual Conference then reviewed the case, with the Conference conferring the preacher’s license. The chief qualifications (gendered male) were a ‘description of his talents; how long he has been a local or hired local preacher; with an account of his usefulness, Christian experience, and conduct in the Society, and a statement of the doctrines he holds.’38 Like Hugh Bourne, the Bible Christian William O’Bryan accepted female preaching gradually. O’Bryan’s wife Catherine soon became an indispensable part of her husband’s team. In a letter to her daughter Mary in 1818 she described her ‘time filled up with filling in on circuits.’39 Five years later she worked very successfully as an itinerant in the Isle of Wight, causing her husband to write to Mary, then travelling in Cornwall, ‘It was forcibly applied to my mind how highly I was favored. I, my wife, & daughter, 3 of the family at the same time laboring for the Lord. What an honor!’40 At Catherine’s funeral in 1860 her grandson credited her with probably doing ‘more than can now be fairly estimated in breaking down the prejudice against female preachers.’41 However, O’Bryan did not deliberately recruit women to preach, accepting them as they proved their worth. In 1816 Elizabeth Dart, a former Wesleyan, had considerable success in attracting converts around Shebbear. The father of James

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women and the shaping of british methodism Moxley, later a Bible Christian preacher, went out of curiosity to hear her and converted with three of his children, including James.42 In the summer of 1817 eight Bible Christian women attracted large crowds when they preached at an open-air meeting at Warbstow Burrow, yet according to F. W. Bourne, the Connexion’s official historian, ‘Mr. O’Bryan scrupled at first to put their names on the plan, and the idea of their becoming travelling preachers had not occurred to anyone.’ At that point most women were local preachers, filling in on circuits or speaking at evangelical meetings, but by 1818 several women, including Elizabeth Dart and Em Cottle, Mary O’Bryan’s mentor, were travelling as ‘helpers.’43 The women’s success in bringing in converts, ‘owned by God for his messengers, in turning many from the error of their ways,’ changed O’Bryan’s mind and probably helped convince the other male preachers in the infant denomination to formalize women’s role.44 The first Connexional Conference in 1819 unanimously approved the use of women preachers. In that year fourteen out of twenty-nine preachers appointed to twelve circuits were women, a ratio far higher than in Primitive Methodism, and men and women served together in almost all circuits.45 By 1823 O’Bryan estimated that more than 100 Bible Christian women spoke in public, including local preachers.46 Mary O’Bryan Thorne thought support of women’s call to preach was crucially important in defining the Bible Christians’ independence of Wesleyan Methodism. In a letter to her son Ebenezer in 1865 she claimed that O’Bryan ‘opened a door for Female help, which [the Wesleyans] indignantly rejected … When they shut their door, unless God had opened another, my Mother and Motherinlaw [sic], myself and daughter, with many Christian sisters might have digged a pit for our talents instead of saving them for the glory of God and the salvation of a host of souls.’47 Clearly the novelty of women speaking attracted large audiences. The initial attraction of a woman preacher was primarily her sex, not her individual personality. On an 1826 poster for the opening of a Bible Christian chapel in Shoreditch, London the word ‘FEMALE’ stood out in large letters: ‘It is also expected that A FEMALE will address the congregation in the afternoon and evening.’ The male speaker was identified by name, but not the woman.48 Looking back over Primitive Methodist history on the Connexion’s centenary, Henry Woodcock described the excitement in the early days: The announcement that one of these women would preach at a camp meeting, led the people to say, ‘If the Lord should open windows in heaven, then might such a thing be.’ And crowds flocked to see the sight, much as people rush to see the fall of a parachute to-day. When

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the heyday of female itinerancy one of these women appeared in the procession in semi-quaker garb – dove-colored silk bonnet, scuttle-shaped – many stood astonished, and when she began to speak, they leaned eagerly forward to catch her every word.49

Sarah Kirkland attracted an estimated 12,000 at a camp meeting in Nottingham Forest, with 1,500 crowded into an empty factory equipped to hold 1,000 for a love-feast that evening.50 On arrival as an evangelist in the Channel Islands in 1823 the Bible Christian Mary Ann Werrey wrote: I hear that the general echo is, a Bryanite missionary is come, and it is a female. I feel a hope that I shall not have to go from door to door, to tell my errand for it is spreading about very fast: many are enquiring, ‘Who is it?’ And ‘What is her creed?’ Some approve, and others disapprove. The people are much like the nations of old, that feared when the Israelites drew nigh. The whole town appears to be in a confusion about the woman missionary.51

Two years later the Edinburgh Evening Courant described Werrey’s preaching as a ‘novel and ridiculous exhibition,’ but she drew such a large audience that part of the gallery in the Caledonian Theatre collapsed and the police had to disperse the crowd.52 Women’s success in bringing out large numbers meant that they were essential pioneers in new areas. Referring to the Samaritan woman who evangelized her people, William O’Bryan maintained, ‘Let none despise plain truths though spoken by women. Some think it policy to send women into new places before men. Let them call it so. If it be no worse policy than our Master used, it will do.’53 Among the Bible Christians, women preachers were the first to go to the Scilly and Channel Islands, the Isle of Wight, and Northumberland.54 They were equally successful among West Country farmers – the Weare circuit in Somerset, which had 212 members by 1826, was largely the creation of Elizabeth Courtice.55 Catherine Reed was the first Bible Christian of either sex to preach in London, once addressing 400 people in the Connexion’s room on Tabernacle Walk, and more than 1,000 in the open air. Hearing her speak in Kent, her future husband James Thorne reported, ‘She preached such an admirable discourse as astonished me … A doctor said, as I am informed, that God must send her else she could not possibly have done as she had.’56 Women were also essential to the Bible Christian missions in the ports and naval towns of Plymouth, Portsmouth, Bristol, Woolwich, and Chatham.57 Eliza Jew reported from the Isle of Wight that ‘Some want to know if we have any men in the Connexion, for they say it is altogether a woman’s cause.’58 Among the Primitive Methodists, apart from Sarah Kirkland’s pioneering

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women and the shaping of british methodism work, women were vital in recruiting members on the Tunstall, Huddersfield, and Hull circuits, and on missions in the Yorkshire Dales, Scotland, and Ireland. Elizabeth Smith was sent as a missionary to Radnorshire at age twenty-one, where she had to raise her own salary, and later worked as an evangelist. When she opened a new mission ‘the novelty of a female preacher drew numbers to hear,’ and rumors circulated that ‘we used the black art, and black books, and that Miss Smith was a fortune teller,’ which only served to increase her attraction.59 Not all were so effective. Elizabeth Clifford travelled for the Primitive Methodists for eight years before marrying the wealthy William Hodge of Hull. Her obituarist struggled to be fair, but was compelled to be honest: ‘Mrs. Hodge was not formed, either constitutionally or by intellectual training, for displaying her Christian virtues to the greatest advantage … A few individuals, perhaps, thought that some of her domestic arrangements were rather too expensive,’ although she contributed generously to the missionary fund.60 Women preachers may have attracted crowds, but they also aroused opposition. Henry Woodcock maintained that, ‘None of our early agencies excited so much curiosity, scorn, and criticism as female preaching.’61 Fireworks were thrown into a house where the Primitive Methodist Elizabeth Brownhill was speaking, and Elizabeth Wheeldon was hit in the eye by a stone.62 On the Isle of Wight musicians interrupted Eliza Jew’s preaching with ‘a hideous roar, and danced about wildly, producing great confusion; but the friends bore all the annoyance and insults with patience.’ The disruption was only when she was speaking; her male companion was heard in relative calm.63 Mary O’Bryan had eggs thrown at her while praying in public, and in the Channel Islands she noted there was a petition to the Governor to expel her ‘because I make the people mad,’ perhaps referring to the excitement rather than anger that her preaching aroused. Another Bible Christian, Mary Toms, wrote, ‘A parson threatens to turn me out of the Island, for I am turning the people crazy.’64 In neither case was the threat acted upon, and in at least one instance seeing a female led to a change of heart. Elizabeth Smith recorded that a group of young men were going to throw stones and eggs, but when they saw her, the ringleader said, ‘None of you shall touch that woman.’65 Men were often subject to even greater violence. The Bible Christian William Bailey ‘believed he had had, from time to time, enough stones and brickbats thrown at him to build a chapel.’ Many Primitive Methodist preachers were pelted with eggs, flour, dirt, bricks, or stones. Some attacks were particularly savage. An angry crowd tried to roll casks of cider over the preacher J. Maylard and then throw him in the river, and in another case, ‘one man actually bit from a preacher more flesh than he could

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the heyday of female itinerancy chew.’66 Imprisonment for open-air preaching was a common experience for men of both Connexions.67 Constables and magistrates were hesitant to arrest women, but the Primitive Methodist preacher Joseph Wood claimed that women ‘have been brought before magistrates, and have suffered imprisonment for the gospel’s sake.’68 Certainly they sometimes tempted officials. The Bible Christian Ann Mason recollected that, ‘The parsons and parish officers have searched for me, as though I was come to destroy the land.’69 The Rector of Warkleigh in North Devon reported that ‘one or two’ women preachers visited his parish and refused ‘to shew their License & were rather abusive when it was demanded by my Church warden.’70 Even if the likelihood of arrest was slim, travelling was hard and uncomfortable for both men and women. F. W. Bourne described it: ‘A back for any bed, a stomach for any food, a face for any weather and a strength for work,’ were essential qualifications of the entire preaching staff. There was no place for weaklings, either of body or of mind. ‘Persons daintily brought up, whatsoever their culture or piety, must of necessity have signally and disastrously failed.’71 A typical entry in Mary O’Bryan’s diary reads: ‘A wet day. St. Helens; then rode to Brading in a donkey-gig; walked to Sandown through the rain; then I walked through a storm of rain, with W. Warder, to Brading; came back to St. Helens, and spoke in the barn at 6, a good time. Slept at the mill.’72 This was a seven-mile walk, with an additional mile in the donkey-gig. Primitive Methodist circuits were often very large, particularly in rural areas. Mary Porteous, a Primitive Methodist preacher for twenty years, worked in several huge circuits in northeast England. On the Whitby circuit in the 1820s she travelled 260 miles on foot in eight weeks, ‘frequently through deep snow and over high mountains.’ In the 1830s on the Hexham circuit she often had to travel up to sixteen miles a day and preach three times.73 Mary Anna Moore’s obituarist described her work: View a solitary female travelling town and country through, preaching some five times on work days, and often three times on the Sabbaths, chiefly in the open air, visiting the poor in their dwellings, and sometimes the rich. Her dress is that of a quaker, she is under the middle size, healthy; her countenance beams with meekness and serenity, ruffians who literally tear off the coat laps of the men preachers allow her to pass, her very helplessness and innocency seem to awe their minds.74

Some women preachers had an unsettling effect. Ann Cory ‘caught the note, perhaps, of John the Baptist rather than that of his Master. She could so appeal to the people as even to strike terror into their hearts.’75 Mary O’Bryan recorded that, ‘some said the Sunday before that I ­frightened

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women and the shaping of british methodism them so much they did not want to come again.’76 They often moved their audiences to tears. In 1823 Mary Toms described a visit to East Cowes on the Isle of Wight, an account that also illustrates how women provided a network of food and shelter for itinerants: Though it was wind and rain, rain, I borrowed a chair and went into the street, and sung ‘Come ye sinners poor and wretched,’ &c. It was not long before some scores assembled, coming from every part of town; some laughing, some talking, &c. but I spoke on, and had not proceeded far, when the tears began to flow from my eyes and many beside. After I concluded, I published for preaching again the next night, if they would get me a house, should it rain. One woman came forth with the tears running down, and said, ‘My house is small, but you shall have it if you will.’ Three or four were offered at once. As I was going to my lodgings, a woman came after me and requested me to take dinner with her.77

Methodist preachers, both male and female, almost always spoke extempore, and their exact words were rarely recorded, except for addresses given on major occasions like the annual Conference, when women attended only as observers, if at all, and did not speak. Thus it is difficult to find evidence for Valenze’s claim that they established a ‘unique domestic ideology grounded in working-class experience,’ although descriptions of their plain speech suggest that was some of their appeal.78 Surviving descriptions, all written by men, are gendered, both reinforcing and challenging female stereotypes and sometimes displaying a perhaps unconscious ambivalence about women preaching. Accounts of male evangelism often tried to capture the thrill of the occasion. The Primitive Methodist historian H. B. Kendall wrote of William Clowes: ‘Until they had seen his eye flash and had their souls searched by the thrilling tones of his voice when in prayer or ministering the word, they could not be said to know what Primitive Methodism really was.’79 A contemporary of William O’Bryan described how he ‘appeared to me to be like Peter on the day of Pentecost, full of the Holy Ghost and faith.’80 In contrast, although women preachers attracted large and often excited crowds, descriptions of their delivery tended to stress calm and order, perhaps to counter associations of disorder with female public speaking. Writers praised women’s conciseness and clarity, as if these were unexpected virtues. Sarah Price, a Primitive Methodist, had ‘[a]n excellent voice, good manner, not addicted to long preaching,’ and Sarah Cooke, another Primitive, ‘had the qualities of clearness, conciseness, grasp, and penetration.’81 Mary O’Bryan Thorne’s son described her sermons as ‘earnest, scriptural, and short – hence popular.’82 However, she also advised her son and biogra-

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the heyday of female itinerancy pher Samuel Ley Thorne not to make sermons too short, and to include some of his own experience: ‘Congregations like better to be talked to than to be spoken at.’83 Mary Porteous’s sermons were ‘plain and familiar; – plain by the habitual use of the Saxon element of our language; familiar, from the figures, images, anecdotes, and incidents which she constantly employed for illustration: thus bringing the truths she taught down to the level of every understanding.’84 Kendall described her sermons as possibly ‘doing credit to a bishop.’85 When describing women’s demeanor, accounts tended to emphasize stereotypically womanly qualities. Primitive Methodist Jane Ansdale’s ‘voice, delivery and manner (so becoming to her sex), her praying and singing, all combined to win attention and make the happiest impression,’ and her way of giving out the hymns was ‘so distinct and emphatic, and sweetly solemn.’86 Elizabeth White Hewson Atkinson’s obituarist in the 1869 Primitive Methodist Magazine described her humility and submissiveness, and somewhat defensively emphasized her domesticity, suggesting some uneasiness about her public role: ‘She did not attempt to “teach and usurp authority” over the other sex … Womanly modesty and Christian humility were as apparent in her countenance and manner, in the pulpit and at the head of the class meeting as when going about her household duties, which, it may be added, she never neglected.’87 Women occasionally justified their call to preaching, although not usually in public. No woman in the first half of the nineteenth century wrote a reasoned defense of her right to preach as Margaret Fell and Mary Bosanquet had done in previous centuries. Some did address the issue briefly and usually privately. One published example was Catherine O’Bryan’s ‘The Female Preacher’s Plea’ in the Primitive Methodist Magazine: The sacred fire doth burn within The breasts of either sex the same; The holy soul that’s freed from sin, Desires that all may catch the flame. This only is the moving cause, Induc’d us women to proclaim, ‘The Lamb of God.’ For whose applause We bear contempt – and suffer pain. If we had fear’d the frowns of men, Or thought their observations just, Long since we had believ’d it vain, And hid our talent in the dust.

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women and the shaping of british methodism Knowing our labours have been blessed, (However plain our words have been) We are determin’d not to rest; But strive to save poor souls from sin.88

When Mary Porteous prayed privately for guidance, she heard God tell her that ‘Woman was the first that brought sin in the world – woman ought not to be the last to produce the remedy.’ Ann Mason was certain of her right to speak, writing in her autobiography, ‘Many females are kept in bondage by those who say, “we suffer not a woman to teach”; thus quoting Paul’s words, and not rightly applying them. Man’s opinion on this subject is nothing with me; for it is woe unto me if I preach not the gospel.’89 One of the few extant examples of a woman’s actual words is an address Elizabeth Smith made to a Primitive Methodist missionary meeting in 1829. She began by considering the importance of entering into a missionary spirit, and claimed that the most likely motive would be ‘a consideration of the general depravity, and wretchedness of mankind.’ After graphically describing the worldwide reign of sin on earth, she concluded that, ‘Creation groans beneath the weight of human woe.’ She then evoked the groans of Christ on the cross, and pointed out that, ‘It is his kingdom we are met to spread, the grace which brings salvation, which renews the heart, and restores man to the favour and image of God.’90 Her speech illustrates themes common to both male and female evangelism in the first half of the nineteenth century – human sin and the need for repentance and acceptance of Christ’s forgiveness. Nanny Cutler ‘preached the doctrines of human depravity; Christ’s atonement and divinity; the nature and necessity of repentance and faith in Christ, and holiness of heart and life.’91 Sarah Cooke ‘sought to discourse on immortal themes as to produce conviction and penitence in her auditors, and to lead them to salvation.’ Mary Porteous preached on ‘the solemnity of death and its fearful consequences to the sinner,’ and ‘Berry’ Newton, another Primitive Methodist, ‘preached very much on the Judgment. Her descriptions of the GREAT DAY were sometimes truly terrific.’ In 1811 the wife of William Knowles, later a Primitive Methodist missionary to America, emphasized forgiveness when preaching on the parable of the prodigal son, giving ‘a faint idea of the wonderful regard which Christ has for one immortal soul.’92 Mary Burks (Primitive Methodist) ‘strongly importuned believers to make haste to reach the mark of the prize of the high calling of Jesus.’93 These descriptions suggest that in many cases women were exhorting, defined as appealing to sinners to repent, coupled with descriptions of personal experience, rather than preaching, which involved explication of a biblical text.94 The Primitive Methodist Magazine’s editor’s reaction

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the heyday of female itinerancy to Elizabeth Smith’s missionary sermon, in which she used biblical texts, suggests that women sometimes trod a thin line in this respect. A note warned her to keep away from biblical exposition: ‘Though this speech be excellent in itself, we would advise the speaker, in future to dwell on historical narrative; to give some account of what she may have seen or known of the conversion of sinners to God, and the enlargement of the kingdom of Christ.’95 Other women were even less circumspect. Accounts of women preachers and surviving diaries like Mary O’Bryan’s make it clear that women did preach from texts. An anonymous description, ‘The Female Field Preacher,’ first published in The Pulpit and reprinted in the 1824 Arminian Magazine, provides a glimpse of what was probably the normal procedure for female evangelists: prayer, hymn, and sermon.96 The author described the preacher, Sarah Willis, as ‘a young female, apparently about twenty-two or three years of age, who was standing behind a chair, and praying very earnestly.’ She ‘supplicated Almighty God with considerable energy and propriety of language, for all sorts and conditions of men, from the King upon his throne to the meanest subject in his dominions,’ sang a hymn, and delivered a sermon on the text ‘And all flesh shall see the salvation of God’ (Luke 3: 6). The speaker showed considerable biblical knowledge and fluency. Her observer concluded that: ‘The auditory was not numerous, but it was attentive … The preacher appeared very earnest; she delivered her observations without hesitation, – indeed with great fluency; with distinct enunciation, and, generally, in very correct language.’97 The speaker’s outward poise may have masked inner misgivings. Catherine O’Bryan began a poem ‘My Pulpit Feelings’: I’ve wondered greatly when I’ve seen The great attention there hath been When I with fear and trembling too The pulpit fill’d my work to do. If all there knew my real state No doubt some pity ’twould create.98

Her daughter Mary was never certain of her call and frequently expressed almost debilitating self-doubt. In 1862, after nearly forty years of preaching, she was still writing in her diary of ‘severe mental depression suffering and depression before appearing in public,’ although afterwards she felt ‘relieved and unaccountably refreshed.’99 Mary Porteous had an ‘inward conflict regarding preaching. I saw the importance of the work so clearly, and was so fully conscious of my weak abilities for it, that I was often nearly overwhelmed by it.’ On the other hand, the Bible Christian Ann Mason referred to her ‘delightful work of public preaching.’100 Often the

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women and the shaping of british methodism misgivings were unjustified. Primitive Methodist Ann Brownsword wrote in her journal: ‘While I was speaking it was a barren time to my soul. I did not think there would be any good done. But God’s ways are not as our ways; nor his thoughts as our thoughts. As soon as I had done preaching, there was such an outpouring of the spirit!’101 Male hostility to women preaching could also induce doubt. Elizabeth Smith was attacked by two clergymen who ‘reprobated the idea of a woman being useful in the work; – the enemy backed their arguments; – and I was sensible of the vast importance of the work,’ but still lost confidence in her call for a while. She continued to work, although occasionally troubled by ‘atheistical thoughts.’102 A few women, including Ann Mason, dared to challenge male authority. In 1825 William Mason complained from Northumberland that Mary Ann Werrey ‘refused to take a plan or … be directed by him, even only once a week, though she often spoke in public … when and where she pleased,’ and Ann Cory was reprimanded for criticizing O’Bryan at the 1828 conference.103 The Primitive Methodist local preacher Eliza Fletcher was ‘not amenable to circuit discipline.’104 All three disappeared from Connexional records shortly afterwards. Mason was even bolder, challenging O’Bryan on more than one occasion over both doctrine and Connexional governance, and eventually leaving the Bible Christians altogether. Her background was typical of Bible Christian female evangelists. She was born to a North Devon farming family, the fourth of thirteen children. She began to attend Methodist meetings when she was seventeen, causing a brief rift before her family also converted. Two years later she had a conversion experience while hearing James Thorne preach and immediately began her career as a Bible Christian evangelist. In that year, 1817, she debated with O’Bryan over the doctrine of entire sanctification, claiming that individuals could attain perfection in a single moment, rather than the Wesleyan doctrine favored by O’Bryan that sin is gradually purged away.105 She believed that individuals received instructions directly from heaven, which led her to question O’Bryan’s authority. She doubted her circuit appointments were divinely appointed and when assigned to London acted with increasing independence, arguing with James Thorne over whether the sacraments were ordained in the gospel, and refusing to accept payment for her work, thus questioning Connexional policy: ‘I feel powerfully impressed, that it is my duty to give up taking salary, or wages for preaching, as is now the custom. Freely have I received the gospel, and ought I not freely to give?’ She was then accused of ‘being fallen from grace, become very selfish, high-minded, &c.’ Then, in defiance of the rule that preachers had to have Conference approval

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the heyday of female itinerancy before marriage, she married her fellow preacher Henry Freeman, who agreed with her doctrinal and organizational positions, and both left the Connexion to work as evangelists in Ireland. There they began attending Quaker meetings and became Quakers. By this time Ann felt that her work was ‘not so much in large meetings and congregations; but more in families and with individuals,’ but her health, never good, finally broke her, and she returned to England to die.106 If Ann Mason was confident enough to define her own path, Ann Carr (1783–1841) went further, leading a secession from the Primitive Methodists and forming her own independent sect. Like Mason, Carr came from a large family, the youngest of twelve children. She was born in Market Rasen, a small Lincolnshire town, and was brought up as a Congregationalist by her aunt after her mother died when she was five. Her friend, partner, and biographer, Martha Williams, described her ‘natural disposition’ as ‘gay, volatile, ardent, sanguine, and affectionate.’107 At age eighteen she was seriously ill after the death of a man she expected to marry, but attending a Methodist prayer meeting helped her recovery. She converted, becoming a class leader and Wesleyan local preacher. ‘She very soon became extensively known, and invitations … crowded upon her, and she dared not refuse the call,’ preaching in the Midlands, the north of England, and London, sometimes travelling 300 miles a month, ‘all in new work, and opening fresh places.’108 Around 1816 she had her first sustained contact with Primitive Methodism, visiting Nottingham where Sarah Kirkland was preaching. There she spoke at camp meetings, and went on a three-week mission to mining communities. In 1818, while in Hull, she met another Wesleyan evangelist, Sarah Eland, who invited her to the home of Hannah Woolhouse, a Wesleyan class leader whose call to preach had received no encouragement – she and her husband eventually joined the Primitive Methodists. Eland and Carr decided to evangelize Lincolnshire, sparking a revival in the relatively new Louth and Market Rasen circuits. At the same time the Primitive Methodists were moving into the area and the Wesleyan leaders told Carr she would lose her position as class leader if she allowed Ranters at her meetings. Carr reacted by moving to Hull at the same time as William Clowes arrived to start a Primitive Methodist circuit there. Carr’s allegiance was by now clear, and she laid the foundation stone of the new Hull Primitive Methodist chapel, preaching ‘upon the stone, with her trowel in her hand, where she was listened to by hundreds.’109 In 1821 she, Eland, and Martha Williams, another former Wesleyan who had been active in the Nottingham revival, were sent to the newly formed Primitive Methodist circuit in Leeds, where William Clowes was making

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women and the shaping of british methodism rapid progress in attracting converts in the growing town. Leeds already had a tradition of female preaching, and, while the three women were not on the preaching plan, they were active as invited speakers in the local societies. Although Williams claimed that Carr’s health was already frail, ‘within four months, she held meetings in the open air, in five sea-port towns, by the sea side, at the market places, and in the open fields.’ Speaking extempore, after praying in her closet, her themes were usually those common to Primitive Methodist preaching: ‘Flee from the wrath to come,’ and ‘Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world.’110 However, her preaching style was unique: She was no imitator or copyist. She attempted nothing like a logical arrangement: made no divisions or subdivisions in her discourses. Her style was distinguished by its simplicity, perspicuity, and force; though she often gave utterance to the most thrilling and overpowering evidence. Simple, unsophisticated, unadorned, she laboured to arrest the attention, not by the beauties of language and the charms of oratory, but by the importance and grandeur of her mighty theme.111

Tension arose with the Leeds Primitive Methodist circuit officials when the women would not accept circuit discipline, insisting that they could go wherever they wanted without planning. Hugh Bourne wrote to a preacher in 1823, probably referring to this dispute: These women were suffered to go loose from circuit to circuit, and one of the larger circuits not only connived at them, but actually encouraged them. At first they appeared to be useful, but after a time evil overbalanced the good; and finally they acted in a most treacherous manner and made great savage of religion in one circuit.112

After complaints that planned preachers arrived only to find one of the women already speaking, the quarterly meeting would not allow them the freedom they wanted so the three seceded to found the Female Revivalist Society. Ironically, just over ten years after Bourne was expelled by the Wesleyans for indiscipline, the Primitive Methodists were censoring the women for undisciplined revivalist activity.113 Valenze saw the Female Revivalists as epitomizing a clash between rural cottage and urban chapel religion, especially attracting the young women flocking into Leeds seeking employment.114 Certainly Carr rejected the deference and dependence expected of women, and worked to ease her followers through a period of social and economic change by providing not just spiritual solace, but also education and poor relief. Their main property was a chapel and seven cottages in the Leylands, a poor area of Leeds, ‘in the very heart of a vast and most ignorant and depraved population,’ and by the end of the 1830s

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the heyday of female itinerancy they had two more chapels and five schoolrooms, two of them in villages outside Leeds.115 The Leeds chapel became a center for poor relief as well as religious activity, and they ran a Sunday school and a Sick Society. Carr was also a temperance advocate, and temperance meetings were held in the chapel meeting room. The Female Revivalists’ first preaching plan included both men and women, but their leadership and following was predominantly female. Carr and Williams remained the leaders throughout the sect’s existence (Eland married soon after the secession and left public preaching). The two women differed in personality: Carr was bold and energetic, while Williams was more ladylike and gentle. The Leeds Times described Carr as ‘a woman of extraordinary firmness and decision of character; possessing talents which fall to the lot of very few of the more gentle sex.’116 Both were equally popular among their poor constituents. Prayer meetings were fervent, and the common habit of members jumping up and down during them led to the sect’s nickname of ‘Jumpers.’ They published their own hymnbook, which included hymns composed or adapted by members to fit the lives of their female adherents, most of them poor migrants from the countryside: Tell us, O Women! We would know   Wither so fast ye move? We, call’d to leave the world below,   Are seeking one above. Whence come ye, say – and what the place   That ye are trav’ling from? From tribulation, we thro grace,   Are now returning home.117

The hymns reflected the loneliness and grievances of the dispossessed in a society in flux, and promised reward in the next world rather than this.118 Williams believed that the expansion of the Revivalists outside Leeds was ‘a most injudicious step,’ increasing their debt to £2,105. Carr therefore had to spend time fund-raising instead of preaching, subjecting her to ‘insult, and the greatest indignity.’ The stress was probably a factor in her death in 1841, aged fifty-seven.119 Despite two bazaars organized by ‘ladies belonging to all the Christian communities of Leeds’ to liquidate the Leylands chapel debt, Williams was unable to continue without her charismatic partner and let the property to the Wesleyans.120 The reasons for the failure of the Female Revivalists to establish a permanent presence in Leeds were probably threefold. First, they relied heavily on Carr’s forceful personality, and there was no replacement once she had

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women and the shaping of british methodism gone. Second, given the sect’s overwhelmingly poor following, finances were almost certainly a problem. When Carr died the Leylands property was still mortgaged for £1,000, and there were other outstanding debts, eventually forcing Williams to sell. Third, although the sect flourished at a particular time in industrialization when large numbers of young women were moving into cities as textile workers, as these women established themselves they tended to seek the perceived respectability of the Wesleyan or even Primitive Methodist congregations rather than the company of Female Revivalist women whose poverty they had left behind. One of them, Sarah Hales, became a Primitive Methodist itinerant.121 Analysis of the known backgrounds of Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian women preachers confirms Valenze’s finding that the majority came from backgrounds similar to Ann Carr’s or Ann Mason’s, daughters of urban workers or small farmers whose parents struggled to get by on twenty to fifty pounds a year.122 In general Primitive Methodists came from the poorer rural sections of society, although they also had some strength among miners and railway workers and in the Staffordshire potteries.123 Werner describes early Primitive Methodists as ‘people caught between a passing traditional order and a developing society,’ and Obelkevich found that in South Lindsey they were predominantly farm laborers.124 Of the Primitive Methodist female itinerants listed in Dorothy Graham’s Chosen by God, all but four came from the north Midlands or north of England. Most were ‘poor but industrious,’ and had little education.125 Mary Porteous was a typical example. Her father, an artisan, a cabinetmaker, died when she was very young, leaving her mother with five children. Mary’s schooling lasted only until she was seven, leaving her functionally illiterate. After five years of factory work, she became a servant at age eighteen. Her marriage to a seaman who was ‘destitute of experimental godliness’ proved disastrous when his ship wrecked, forcing the family into extreme poverty. By this time she had had a conversion experience and joined the Methodists, learning to write and becoming a class leader. She first felt a call to preach when she heard a Primitive Methodist missionary speak, and by 1824 she was preaching on the local plan. In 1825, aged forty-two, with all but one of her children grown, she began itinerancy, travelling for fifteen years before ‘her constitution completely failed.’126 Similarly, Bible Christians were mostly artisans, farm workers, shopkeepers, and miners.127 However, the Connexion attracted the support of several larger farmers like the Thornes who aspired to the type of religious leadership exercised by landowning squires in the Church of England and who became patrons and supporters of Bible Christian

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the heyday of female itinerancy chapels.128 Em Cottle, Elizabeth Courtice, and Hannah Pearce all came from yeoman farming families. Mary Hewitt’s father was a prosperous Quaker gentleman-farmer.129 Catherine and Betsy Reed were daughters of a North Devon farmer and his wife who farmed the largest farm in the parish, and were among the earliest Bible Christian converts. Described as ‘young tenderly brought up’ girls in a household that included eight children and several servants and apprentices, Catherine and Betsy began preaching in the same year when Catherine was about twenty, and Betsy a few years younger. Betsy appeared on a plan for only two years before marrying a farmer, although she continued as a local preacher, speaking outdoors to a crowd of about 2,000 in 1821. Catherine became one of the Connexion’s most successful female evangelists, working in Kent and London before marrying James Thorne, William O’Bryan’s second-incommand. She continued in itinerancy after the birth of her first child (she had six children in all), then returned to Shebbear with her husband, where she eventually became matron of the Connexional school.130 Her nephew William B. Reed wrote, ‘I do not think she was second to her husband. For strength of character, for patient and indomitable courage, for true womanly insight and tact, there are few who are her equals. How much the Denomination in the former part of its history was indebted to her will, perhaps, never be known.’131 Later Connexional historians, looking back from a settled denominational perspective at a time when the memory of woman itinerants was fading, tended to exaggerate women preachers’ gentility, attempting to domesticate what was by then a marginal tradition. At the end of the century F. W. Bourne, the Bible Christians’ official historian, wrote, ‘There was quite a host of godly women in those early days who without sacrificing one atom of their native modesty and grace, performed innumerable noble deeds and rendered much heroic service,’ and ‘they left, for the most part, comfortable homes.’132 Earlier, the author of an anonymous article on ‘Our Connexional History’ in the 1865 Bible Christian Magazine claimed: A great portion of the good effected in our early history is due to the Female Preachers. They were of a superior class; not bold unfeminine women, impelled by interested motives, and influenced by irrepressible desire for notoriety and excitement. Many of them were reared in tender and comfortable homes, and were endowed with graces of mind and person that rendered them independent of mercenary motives.133

Henry Woodcock’s 1910 account of the Primitive Methodists claimed that, ‘Several of these women belonged to the middle classes of society, and were of good education and polished manners.’134

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women and the shaping of british methodism In most cases it is difficult to assess the educational level of the female evangelists since extracts from diaries and letters printed in the Connexional magazines or prepared for publication were edited by men. Mary O’Bryan’s superior education at several schools, evident from her diary, contrasts with Mary Porteous’s experience – illiterate into her twenties. Most female preachers probably learned to read so they could study the Bible, but their prestige and acceptance rested not on their religious knowledge but on their success in attracting converts. In the early years of both sects when the organizational structure was fluid and the overwhelming emphasis was on evangelism there were few differences between the duties of women and men. Both women and men preached, formed and led classes, including imposing discipline, collected contributions, and helped establish chapels.135 In 1820 Grace Barrett, who was travelling and preaching without pay, lent William O’Bryan £50 to help build chapels.136 Although the Primitive Methodist Elizabeth Barker’s talents as a local preacher were ‘small,’ she was ‘in comfortable circumstances,’ and lent £130 for a chapel in Halifax, refusing interest and eventually leaving her estate to support it.137 The first recorded minutes for the Chatham Bible Christian circuit (1824) listed ten collectors, half of them women. This appears to contradict the 1818 Connexional Rules and Regulations stipulating that both circuit and society stewards, who were responsible for finances, ‘must be men of piety,’ but the term ‘men’ was probably generic, since five West Country women identified themselves as stewardesses or managers in the 1851 religious census.138 However, as both Connexions developed an institutional structure, the all-male leadership was reluctant to allow women to do anything that might weaken male authority. Women’s status as junior partners is clear – in almost every case women appointed to official circuit plans were auxiliaries to the male itinerant, often assigned to work predominantly with women in domestic settings.139 Prominent exceptions were early in Connexional history. The Bible Christian Elizabeth Gay was the lone appointed preacher in the Dock circuit in 1819, and Mary Billing was in charge of Portsea in 1825, a marginal appointment since Portsea was a mission, a place where there were an insufficient number of converts to support a permanent preaching place.140 Catherine O’Bryan expressed the general belief when she wrote from the Isle of Wight in 1823 that Mary Toms was ‘better fitt [sic] to preach than to regulate the affairs of the circuit.’141 Women presided over love-feasts but almost never administered the sacraments. There is no record of a Primitive Methodist woman baptizing an infant, and among the Bible Christians female itinerants delayed baptism until a male itinerant arrived.142 William O’Bryan was at

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the heyday of female itinerancy least willing to entertain the idea that women could celebrate the Lord’s Supper. When his daughter asked him whether and how often she could celebrate the sacrament while travelling in the Isle of Wight he replied, ‘Women have souls as well as men. As often as you can make it convenient & the people do without hesitation. I doubt not Jesus will be there and that will be better than all the bishops in England.’143 While Mary never recorded any such celebration in her diary, suggesting that she did not take her father’s advice, in 1835 a Primitive Methodist travelling preacher, Jane Woolford, did preside over Holy Communion, but only once.144 The Primitive Methodist Nottingham circuit plan for 1818 illustrates women’s subordinate position. Ten male preachers were assigned numbers and their preaching places were indicated by number only. Others, including Sarah Kirkland, the pioneer preacher in the town, and Mary Hawksley, are indicated in the plan by their initials, and have fewer assignments – Sarah Kirkland had three and Mary Hawksley one, while all but one man, whom Kendall describes as an exceptional case, had at least five. The use of initials rather than numbers almost certainly indicates that the appointments were on an occasional basis, not part of the regular preaching roster.145 An 1823–24 Primitive Methodist plan for October to January in the Loughborough circuit lists forty male preachers, five on trial, seven exhorters, none specifically identified as male, and six women. The women had only 4.7 percent of all appointments, and each man averaged 8.7 times preaching over the period, each woman 3.6.146 Graham found that Primitive Methodist female itinerants were more likely to be assigned to the less prestigious, very rural circuits, especially in the 1840s.147 Although Bible Christian circuits were predominantly rural, there is no evidence of such a trend among Bible Christian women. Thirty-four percent of the assignments of three women with careers of ten years or more who began in the 1830s were in more urban circuits, while only 30 percent of a sample of twenty-four long-serving men active between 1830 and 1840 were similarly assigned.148 As the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians developed formal organizations, women were excluded from governance. The former Bible Christian Henry Freeman justified this position: ‘Ruling in the church and preaching are distinct, so a person may be a preacher and not a ruler.’149 O’Bryan modelled Bible Christian organization on Wesley’s, keeping himself as permanent President of Conference and making all circuit appointments, although the Conference, attended only by itinerants and with no lay representation, debated official policy. The 1831 Rules and Regulations stipulated that women ‘do not … take part among us in Church Government, they are entitled to attend meetings for business

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women and the shaping of british methodism but not to vote.’150 Thus Bible Christian women attended quarterly circuit meetings and the Connexion’s annual meeting when necessary for the conduct of official business, but were excluded from district meetings of itinerant preachers and circuit stewards where most votes on expulsions, money, and circuit preaching assignments were made. A letter from Northumberland in 1824 published in the Bible Christian Arminian Magazine illustrated the value of women preachers while suggesting their limitations: Should you determine on sending a preacher, perhaps a male might be most successful, now that Mary Ann [Werrey] hath prepared the way. The people here (at least some of them) consider it anti-scriptural for a woman to preach; consequently this objection would be taken away by a male coming, – at the same time I think it providential that Mary Ann came first, because she hath excited some enquiry which a male might not have done.

Yet when William Mason arrived in Northumberland shortly afterwards, while he agreed that Mary Ann Werrey should be relieved, he wrote, ‘If the woman was to be taken away and not another sent, I believe many would not attend at all who now do.’151 Primitive Methodist organization was the most democratic of all the Methodist sects, allowing greater lay participation than even the New Connexion. Neither Clowes nor Bourne had an automatic right to attend the annual Conference. Clowes put most of his energies into evangelism, while Bourne acted as a father figure, giving advice and paying attention to finances and administration. It was at his suggestion in 1821 that the circuits were grouped into four districts. Each circuit sent delegates (not necessarily itinerants) to district meetings. District meetings selected three delegates from each circuit, only one an itinerant, to attend the Primitive Methodist annual meeting, and laymen were eligible for all offices, including President of Conference; the first President was a layman.152 Women itinerants served on local circuit committees, but only two of the circuit’s travelling preachers could vote, which often served to exclude women. In any case the seven laymen (never women) on the committee would outvote them. The core Primitive Methodist committee in the first half of the nineteenth century was the quarter-day board, meeting four times a year, ‘the seat of authority, the source whence all power was drawn,’ whose membership included itinerants, local preachers, class leaders, stewards, and lay delegates.153 This meeting could make any regulation that did not contradict the Connexion’s general rules, had the power to expel members, and granted permission to administer the sacrament. A Conference ruling in 1824 prevented women from voting at

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the heyday of female itinerancy quarter-day boards, from speaking at quarterly meetings ‘unless specifically called upon,’ and banned female superintendents. Women were also not eligible for the posts of steward (in charge of finances), chapel trustee, or ­Conference delegate.154 Women travelling preachers earned less than men, usually half a single man’s salary. At the first Bible Christian conference in 1819 single men’s wage was fixed at £3 a quarter with additional allowances for a wife and children, women’s at half that amount.155 The table of salaries and allowances agreed on at the 1837 Conference allowed female preachers, whatever their marital status, £7 with board and lodging. Male preachers on trial earned £10 a year with board and lodging, which increased to £12 12s. after their probationary period, or £30 if they were married.156 The Primitive Methodists paid a little better; in 1820 single men earned £4 a quarter, women £2, both with extra compensation for board and lodging. In 1836 single men after they had completed their probation earned a maximum of £18 annually, plus a maximum 14s. a week allowance for married men. Women earned £10. Preachers could also make a 10 percent profit from the sale of books, pamphlets, or tracts.157 These salaries were maximum figures and amounted to about the same earnings as the poorest agricultural workers, hardly an incentive to itinerancy.158 Moreover, preachers did not necessarily receive the full amount. Several preachers had to raise either their whole or part of their salaries themselves, and in 1826 the Primitive Methodist Conference decreed that itinerants should not be paid more than their circuit could collect.159 Women’s lower pay could increase their attraction to circuits, particularly among the Primitive Methodists, where circuits were responsible for preachers’ entire salaries. Looking back on the Connexion’s first hundred years, James P. Langham wrote, ‘Women were in great demand because they drew large congregations and accepted smaller salaries. It was thought quite right to pay a woman less for her services than a man, even when her work was more effective and remunerative.’160 Women were also treated differently from men in their eligibility for superannuation (retirement) funds. Initially women were not included in the Bible Christian preachers’ superannuation fund set up in 1820; the 1825 Conference allowed them to subscribe ten shillings, half the amount subscribed by men.161 All working travelling preachers under the age of forty-five who had travelled for two years were eligible for the Primitive Methodist Preachers’ Fund initiated in 1823, intended primarily to provide for sickness, but in the 1836 regulations single men were entitled to a maximum of 12s. a week, a woman 8s. In 1840 women were excluded from the fund altogether.162

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women and the shaping of british methodism Women were also subject to male scrutiny. O’Bryan had a Quaker great-grandfather and Bourne was influenced by the Quaker Methodists, so both advocated Quaker rules on dress.163 O’Bryan advised that: Our sisters who travel as helpers should keep their own place, be watchful, always neat, plain and clean, discreet, humble, brave as mothers in Israel, diligent according to their sex as well as their brethren, being as much as they can their own servants and helps to families wherever they go and when they leave their room in the morning leave everything in its proper place.164

At the 1825 Bible Christian Conference the men indulged in considerable discussion of suitable female dress. Mary O’Bryan had already been reproved by her father after a report that she had been wearing ‘a beaver bonnet with a broad band & clothes plain but too fine,’ but was highly indignant when she heard of the conversation, calling it ‘over-heated unreasonable zeal.’165 ‘Those Batchelors [sic] are endeavouring to lord it over us tyrannically – dictating even the colour of our garments (what husband could do more) and even having public discussions about our very petticoats.’166 Primitive Methodist regulations prescribed dress for both men and women. Female preachers should be ‘patterns of plainness in all their dress.’ Men should wear ‘single breasted coats, single-breasted waistcoats, and their hair in its natural form; and not be allowed to wear pantaloons, fashionable trousers, nor white hats.’ Any male travelling preacher who did not ‘wear his hair in its natural form’ was barred from Conference attendance.167 While O’Bryan made no such regulations for men, the 1820 Conference attendees condemned anything but a natural hairstyle and the wearing of ‘frills, chitterlings, lace and bunches.’168 ­Primitive Methodists were also concerned about propriety when travelling. In 1836, under the heading ‘SCANDAL TO PREVENT,’ the Regulations stated: No preacher, travelling or local, shall be allowed to take any female alone with him, or to suffer any female so to accompany him, (his own wife excepted) in going to or returning from any of his appointments, or do or suffer any matter that may cause scandal, on pain of being admonished for the first offence, and put out of office for the second. And the female preachers shall be under a similar regulation.169

No one expressed anxiety about young women travelling alone. In the 1820s and 1830s it was common for young rural women whose families could not afford the upkeep of a horse to walk long distances alone, to visit friends and relatives, to attend religious services, or to seek work. There is no evidence that women protested their unequal pay or, with the exceptions of Ann Mason and Ann Carr, aspired to greater

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the heyday of female itinerancy r­ esponsibility. Probably the majority accepted their subordinate status as both natural and divinely appointed. The lack of protest suggests that their subordination was not a major factor in the high turnover of women preachers. Nineteen percent of Primitive Methodist women preachers but only 5.5 percent of men dropped out in the year 1831 to 1832. In the years 1837 to 1839 ten Primitive Methodist men and ten women gave up itinerancy; proportionately this represented only 11 percent of men but 53 percent of women.170 Between 1819 and 1829 fifty-four women began preaching in the Bible Christian Connexion but forty-two (78 percent) left, a net gain of twelve. In contrast, over the same period ninety men became preachers and thirty-six (40 percent) left, still a high rate of attrition but a net gain of fifty-four.171 Bible Christian women’s average length of service before 1829 was three and a half years, men’s five and a half. It is possible that some of the men who preached for only one or two years were trying to avoid ‘going on the parish’ at a time of high unemployment. Hugh Bourne called such men ‘runners-out of circuits’ and dismissed some of them.172 Men who began itinerancy in the early days were far more likely than women to have long careers. James Thorne and William Mason both served the Bible Christians for fifty-five years, William Reed for thirty-eight, William Bailey for thirty-four. Only two women in the entire history of the Bible Christian Connexion worked as itinerants for more than twenty years, one of whom, Catherine Harris, retired in the 1850s after at least twenty-six years of largely undocumented work. The Primitive Methodist Elizabeth Bultitude, who worked for thirty years, mostly in eastern England, was the longest-serving woman in either Connexion. No other Primitive Methodist woman came close.173 Gender expectations were probably the most important factor in women’s short periods of service. Among both Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians the average length of service for itinerant women in the nineteenth century was under five years and the modal number was three.174 Of the female preachers whose birth date is known, 70 percent were in their early or mid-twenties, with almost all the rest younger than twenty.175 The average age to start preaching for a Primitive Methodist woman whose birth date is known was just under twenty.176 Preaching for a few years fitted well into the norm for young rural women, who expected to work as servants, companions, housekeepers or apprentices, usually in dressmaking or other similar trades, before they married in their early to mid-twenties and took on domestic duties.177 Mary O’Bryan pointed out the relative freedom of young women, writing, ‘My Mother and others have taught me that single Females have only to please the Lord – but those who are married their husbands.’178 Although the

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women and the shaping of british methodism O’Bryan daughters were better educated than most rural women, their parents expected them to work before marriage. Apart from Mary, the eldest, all their daughters served apprenticeships or, when in the United States, opened ephemeral schools as the family moved from Pennsylvania to Ohio, and then to New York. Young itinerant women must have found it almost impossible to imagine a lifetime of travelling; probably most saw their itinerancy as an interlude not their life’s work. While on the Isle of Wight, Mary O’Bryan occasionally contemplated a life given to God’s service but found it hard to envisage what it might be other than an early death: ‘I think I will not endeavour to ease myself at all but labour on till I die in the Work – supposing it will shorten my days & feeling willing to be speedingly removed hence to my heavenly home.’179 Dorothy Graham identified two other important reasons for women’s short terms of service: sickness and marriage.180 The health of both women and men broke under the strain of constant travelling in all weathers. The Primitive Methodist minister John Perry wrote that, ‘Scores of men … who entered our ministry strong and healthy, in a few short years were either carried to the grave, or were compelled to relinquish the ministry for a less laborious calling.’181 F. W. Bourne wrote that itinerancy in the early days was ‘no place for weaklings, either of body or mind. Persons daintily brought up, whatsoever their culture or piety, must have signally and disastrously failed.’182 Women seem to have been stricken in greater numbers. Between 1835 and 1837 an average of more than one third of Primitive Methodist women preachers were sick, compared with approximately 21 percent of men in 1837.183 Over the period of ten years between 1819 and 1829 fifteen Bible Christian women were listed as supernumeraries – unable to work but paid a small stipend – while only five men were superannuated over the same period. Thirty-seven percent of women preaching in the 1830s took time off for sickness.184 Mary O’Bryan complained of headaches and fatigue, and wrote in her diary, ‘It seems more as tho’ I were sure of not being able to travel about another Winter as I did the last – sometimes I think it is not required of Females or their bodies would be more calculated for it.’185 In a move that reflected waning Connexional support for female itinerancy, by the 1860s Bible Christian women had to have their worthiness and health certified by their minister and get a certificate of recommendation approved by the circuit stewards and sent to the district meeting and Conference.186 At least as common a reason for women leaving itinerancy was marriage. Mary O’Bryan saw marriage to Samuel Thorne as a way of leaving a life she found increasingly intolerable. She had asked herself whether ‘sharing the joys and sorrows of life with – and enduring the

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the heyday of female itinerancy caprice of one individual’ could be much worse than enduring the criticisms of other male preachers, and decided that Samuel was the better option.187 Ann Mason meditated on the pros and cons of marriage: I am … persuaded of the propriety of its not being good, (in general) for men to be alone: yet it is evident there are but few, that permit the Lord to guide them and choose for them, and therefore much misery results from their marriage. I believe there are none that can take this important step without loss, but those who are living wholly to and for God; and with them it is the reverse. As they receive each other only from and for the Lord, their power of doing good is increased, and consequently their joy: they have more to dedicate to God.188

Twenty-one female Bible Christian itinerants married between 1819 and 1833, most of them older and probably less ambivalent than Mary, and at least eighteen Primitive Methodist women preachers were married between 1820 and 1840, twenty-four of them to male itinerants. Very occasionally women continued itinerancy after they married, but usually, as Mary knew, they were expected to retire from travelling although most continued as local preachers, unpaid if they were Bible Christians, but with the possibility of being paid among the Primitive Methodists. Primitive Methodist rules required married women to work in their husbands’ circuits (an exception was made for Mary Porteous), which in almost every case confined them to local preaching.189 However, like Wesley before them, leaders in both Connexions were wary of employing married preachers because of the expense of maintaining their families. Bible Christian policy toward preachers marrying was somewhat inconsistent during O’Bryan’s pre-eminence. O’Bryan had explained his own preference for remaining single in his 1821 letter to Hugh Bourne.190 Mary O’Bryan maintained that her father, like Wesley before him, preferred his travelling preachers to be celibate, and he ‘often deplored having married my Mother,’ since otherwise he might have been able to continue with the Methodists.191 An important reason for O’Bryan’s opposition to married itinerants was that in most cases the infant denomination could not afford to pay a couple’s living expenses. His daughter cited the case of Edmund Warne, who gave up his farm to join the ministry. Married and with children, as his family increased he aroused O’Bryan’s hostility, and was told ‘to leave the ministry and go away’ as his family was too burdensome. He remained in the Connexion only because his circuit refused to allow his dismissal. At least one preacher resigned to marry.192 Yet at the Connexion’s second Conference in 1820 male preachers were encouraged to marry female itinerants.193 It is unlikely that this was an attempt to domesticate the women and confine

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women and the shaping of british methodism them to their home circuits since their ability to draw crowds was crucial and their greatest successes were yet to come. Probably the initiative came from the young male preachers themselves who were trying to establish acceptable grounds for marriage over O’Bryan’s reluctance. In 1823 James Thorne told Andrew Cory that he ‘was for … marrying, provided it was done scripturally and rationally.’194 Yet the policy of encouraging itinerants to marry each other brought trouble in Cory’s circuit when two male preachers he could ill afford to lose resigned after rivalry over a woman itinerant.195 As a result, in 1823 all preachers who wished to marry were told they had first to get the consent of the Conference.196 They quickly found that permission did not mean support. Two months after the ruling James Thorne married Catherine Reed with the Conference’s consent, but O’Bryan ordered the circuit stewards in London where they were appointed ‘to provide no house, furniture, or lodging, or a wife’s salary.’ Catherine was forced to work throughout her pregnancy to earn her preacher’s salary, then got nothing from the superannuation fund.197 This must have fuelled Thorne’s resentment of O’Bryan’s highhandedness. Trouble in both Connexions during the 1820s provided another reason for attrition among itinerants, both female and male. In the Bible Christian Connexion resentment against O’Bryan’s autocratic leadership was growing, with James Thorne at its head. Despite his own past inability to adhere to rules laid down by his Wesleyan Methodist superiors, O’Bryan was relentlessly paternalist, requiring total obedience to his will, claiming the right to veto any policy, and insisting on his authority to assign preachers to circuits, sign chapel deeds, and control Connexional finances. One of his preachers remembered that ‘the government of the Connexion was a kind of absolute or despotic monarchy in the hands of Mr. O’Bryan, who had said, “I have the right to say to any preacher, Your labours are no longer needed; as I have not specified how long a preacher shall labour with me, approved or not approved.” … Thus, as to my itinerant life, I was in jeopardy every hour.’198 In contrast, the majority of the preachers, including Thorne, wanted a more democratic governance, similar to the New Connexion’s, ‘a perfect equality of the brotherhood’ with authority vested in the annual Conference. Other causes of dissension included whether O’Bryan’s should be the only name appearing on chapel deeds, concern over mounting debts, problems in the management of the book room, O’Bryan’s personal extravagance, his arbitrary assignments to preaching circuits, and his leniency in dealing with a preacher who was associating with a woman ‘that bears A bad name.’199 In 1828, after an acrimonious exchange at a preliminary meeting, O’Bryan resigned the presidency at the annual Conference. A year later

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the heyday of female itinerancy he refused all attempts at compromise and stormed out of the Connexion altogether, an event known as the Disruption of 1829. After briefly trying to establish a secessionist sect, he emigrated to the United States in 1833 with all his family except Mary, who sided with the Thornes when forced to choose between her father and her husband. Two preachers initially remained with O’Bryan and five others later joined him including one woman; all but one reunited with the Bible Christian Connexion six years later. The Disruption was a crucial event in Bible Christian history, beginning Thorne’s more democratic but also more bureaucratic long ascendancy in Connexional affairs. It caused a crisis of confidence and financial problems. At the 1830 Conference preachers’ salaries were cut and there were references to ‘a depressed state’ of Connexional affairs, particularly chapel debt. An 1830 circular to circuit stewards and other laymen asked them to take responsibility for providing preachers’ families with housing, furniture, and heat, ‘as well as meeting the deficiencies at Quarterly Meeting.’200 However, under Thorne’s leadership the crisis passed and the sect’s average annual growth rates were the highest ever in the 1830s.201 Since power was already democratic and decentralized in the Primitive Methodist Connexion, and neither Hugh Bourne nor William Clowes had anything beyond moral authority, no such leadership crisis occurred in the 1820s. However, between 1824 and 1828 the Primitive Methodists also experienced financial and recruitment problems that Bourne feared might engulf them. Between 1824 and 1828, at a time of acute distress in manufacturing districts, the Primitive Methodists lost nearly 2,000 members. Several societies left the Connexion with their preachers. For example, in 1828 there was a small secession when some societies around Bingham in Yorkshire left because they did not believe ministers should be paid, forming the ‘free gospel’ Independent Primitive Methodist Connexion.202 Numerical losses were a partial cause of the financial crisis; in 1826 the total circuit debt was about £2,000, with many circuits unable to pay their preachers. John Petty, a nineteenth-century historian of Primitive Methodism, believed that the main reason for the crisis was too rapid expansion, which had attracted unsuitable recruits to the ministry. Other factors included the general poverty of the membership, the continuing ‘free gospel’ tradition, and a belief that preachers were primarily motivated by free board and lodging (‘bacon preachers’). Bourne urged action, dividing preachers into ‘useful’ and ‘running-out,’ the latter blamed for running circuits into debt. In 1826 the Conference decided that no circuit could take on any more debt, nor could any circuit without debt take on obligations beyond its income. Circuits had to pay their own itinerants and preachers had to give up some of their

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Figure 1 womenWomen and the shaping of british methodism preachers as a percentage of all preachers 1820–1844

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1 Active Women Preachers 1817–1850

salary until circuit finances improved. Although thirty itinerants left the Connexion, ultimately the solution worked and membership grew again after 1829, helped by the cholera epidemic of 1832–33, which killed more than 2,500 people in the Black Country in July 1832. Fear of death added 7,120 members. Elizabeth Smith reported from the Darlaston circuit, ‘We may pray and preach all day long, and the people will gladly receive the word. The most profane cry for mercy; the oldest backsliders are reclaimed; and the places of worship crowded.’203 Another epidemic in 1849 produced the highest net membership increase in the history of the Connexion.204 This crisis had no noticeable effect on the numbers and support of Primitive Methodist women preaching. Between 1825 and 1828 the number of male itinerants dropped by forty-seven but the number of women stayed relatively constant, rising to eighteen in 1830, and peaking in the following decade (Figure 1).205 While female itinerants were always a small proportion of the total itinerancy, the male–female ratio remained much the same until 1835 (Figure 2). The effect of the Disruption on the less numerous Bible Christians was more marked. Ten women left preaching in 1827, before the Disruption, but while discontent was fermenting.206 This may have been coincidence, since half of them resigned for ill health, and the total number of women preachers was at an all-time high of twenty-seven between 1826 and 1828 (Figure 1). However, the numbers of both men and women preachers in the Connexion declined in 1828 and continued over the period of the Disruption (1829–31). Fifteen women and eighteen men resigned between 1827 and 1830, a major loss. While male recruitment revived in the 1830s, the numbers of women increased

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Figure 2

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2 Women Preachers as a Percentage of All Preachers 1820–1844

only moderately in the 1830s and never again reached the peak of the 1820s (Figure 2). Both Hugh Bourne and James Thorne continued to support women’s right to preach. When a Church of England clergyman criticized the Bible Christians for allowing female itinerants, Thorne replied, ‘If, sir, the Bible Christians are wrong in allowing women to pray and speak, … how do you justify the practice of your own church, when the royal authority is vested in a Queen, in acknowledging her as the supreme Head of Church, who, consequently, nominates the Bishops?’207 Yet Thorne seems to have embraced the idea of women’s ‘extraordinary call’ rather than the general right Bourne had earlier embraced. The 1838 Bible Christian Rules and Regulations stated that God ‘in certain circumstances, calls women, as well as men, to publish salvation to their fellow-sinners.’ The Primitive Methodist ideal was probably Rebecca Tims, whose obituary in the 1866 Primitive Methodist Magazine described her appropriately reliable yet subordinate behavior: In attending to her appointments she was, perhaps, seldom equalled, and never surpassed as a female preacher. If she was not run after and admired for her great talents, what was far better, she was beloved and honoured for her sterling piety, good sense, and exemplary deportment … Many profited under her plain, sensible and affectionate ministry. In church affairs she knew her place and kept it. She sowed no seeds of discord.208

By the 1840s female itinerancy was in what proved to be terminal decline. Between 1837 and 1839 equal numbers of men and women ceased

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women and the shaping of british methodism to travel, but that represented 11 percent of men and 52.6 percent of women. The decline in the numbers of woman preachers contrasts with an increasing number of male itinerants in both Connexions. While many women continued to preach locally where they had support from their male superiors, fewer sought travelling positions and as woman itinerants retired they were not replaced. By 1850 there was only one active Primitive Methodist and four Bible Christian women travelling. The last of these, Primitive Methodist Elizabeth Bultitude, retired in 1862. It was the end of an era. Throughout the heyday of female itinerancy woman preachers’ position and experiences were affected by gendered expectations and assumptions that eroded male support for their employment. Rising standards of respectability for women even among rural families on the edge of poverty suggested that travelling alone and speaking in public were becoming unsuitable female occupations, even if the women were unmarried. As both Bible Christian and Primitive Methodist congregations became more settled they often sought greater respectability and some saw female itinerancy as a reflection of undesirable unruliness, an echo of the ranting tradition they wanted to leave behind. The ideal of domesticity was promoted to the barely literate by cheap pamphlets like Hannah More’s, and was echoed in articles in denominational magazines. Such articles and pamphlets were prescriptive and often irrelevant to the daily lives of many of their readers, but represent an ideal that at least some Connexional leaders embraced. As early as 1832 a Primitive Methodist Magazine article maintained that, ‘If there is a qualification in which a female ought to excel, it is a thorough and practical acquaintance with the arts and duties of domestic life.’ In the 1840s the magazine began regular sections addressed to parents and juveniles, and in 1844 the new editor, William Antliff, included a piece taken from an American magazine entitled, ‘A Word with Mothers,’ which included comments such as, ‘The mother is the presiding genius of the household … In the little world of home, she is the sun, the star.’209 Antliff himself published a pamphlet, Woman: Her Position and Mission, based on a lecture he gave as a fund-raiser for the Haslingden Young Men’s Institute. He made it clear that his subject was mainly middle-class women, defining their principal mission as ‘the discharge of the duties of a pious, intelligent, and faithful wife, mother, and friend.’ He admitted that ‘there are other duties for women than those included under these heads – and for some women more especially so,’ but did not want to see women ‘aping the Amazon’ or practicing as lawyers or doctors. He emphasized women’s subordinate role as ‘helpmeet,’ and the need for self-sacrifice: ‘Man loves woman

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the heyday of female itinerancy for his own sake rather than hers; she loves him more for his sake than her own.’ Women’s education should be ‘for the sphere they will have to fill.’210 Antliff was a prominent Primitive Methodist minister but his ideas may not have been widely accepted in the first half of the century. Linda Wilson’s comparison of obituaries of Primitive Methodist women in 1850 and 1870 suggested that separate-sphere ideology was not predominant in the earlier years, but prevalent in 1870.211 David Hempton found that ‘by 1850, women came to be admired more for their pious domesticity than for their public contribution to the work of mission.’212 While changing gender expectations may have discouraged women from active and public evangelism, institutional change was also an important factor in the decline of female itinerancy. Roland Robertson differentiated between religious movements and organizations: ‘a movement is geared to effecting a specific series of alterations in the condition of the wider world … while a religious organization exists to serve the needs and desires of members and clients.’213 During the 1830s and 1840s both the Bible Christians and the Primitive Methodists became organizations, moving from cottage religion and outdoor evangelism to formalized denomination. This change was epitomized in a flurry of chapel-building, bringing worship indoors in dedicated buildings, led by an increasingly educated male ministry. Between 1831 and 1841 the Primitive Methodists built 779 chapels, more than double the number of the previous decade, and between 1841 and 1851 they built 940 more.214 The Bible Christians also built chapels at an increased pace after the Disruption; F. W. Bourne wrote that chapel-building, ‘which had been checked by the separation, now received a fresh impetus’ in the 1830s.215 By 1839 the sect had 272 chapels, which had risen to 351 by 1843, a 29 percent increase in four years.216 Yet although the 1830s was a period of numerical growth in both sects, the unsettled situation after O’Bryan’s departure encouraged Bible Christian leaders to concentrate on maintaining ground. Ministering to and retaining the converted became as important as gaining new converts, especially as the Connexion’s membership growth dropped off in the 1840s and competition for members with Primitive and Free Methodists increased after 1850.217 Evangelical Nonconformist growth rates in general began to decline around 1840, and both Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists lost members between 1851 and 1856.218 The membership included increasing numbers who had grown up within the Connexions. For them the maintenance of the organization often took precedence over the recruitment of new members.219 The 1838 Bible Christian Rules and Regulations distinguished between the duties of an itinerant and a pastor. The former were to ‘preach the word, … reprove,

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women and the shaping of british methodism rebuke, exhort,’ to teach publicly, to visit the sick, and ‘to administer suitable spiritual instruction and reproof to all as they have opportunity.’ Pastors had greater responsibilities – to set the preaching plan, arrange and preside over meetings unless the district superintendent was present, to audit accounts, supervise chapel-building, keep records, and write reports.220 Despite greater local autonomy, Primitive Methodist pastors had similar duties. Although the historian J. Robinson Gregory, writing in 1911, still maintained that, ‘The Primitive Methodist minister possesses no pastoral authority whatever. There is no function which a layman cannot, in theory and practice, discharge just as well as a minister,’ in fact their ministers’ functions became increasingly pastoral in the 1840s.221 Henry Freeman’s distinction between preaching and ruling, between evangelism and ministry, became more important in defining women’s roles. An 1830 Bible Christian circular requesting lay financial help described a ministry of educated males working within a defined constituent body: ‘a race of men in the church, whose business is to further the spiritual progress of the whole.’222 Connexional leaders endorsed women’s right to speak but did not appoint them to minister, which included responsibilities for discipline, planning, and budgeting. The growing professionalization of the ministry also served to exclude women from paid itinerancy. Despite both Connexions’ origins among the poor and illiterate and the continuing presence of barely educated local preachers, first the Bible Christians and then the Primitive Methodists began to require more education for those seeking to work as salaried pastors. In a pattern similar to the professionalization of medicine in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this education was closed to women. In 1833 Samuel and Mary O’Bryan Thorne opened a school in Shebbear. At first they enrolled thirty-six boys and nineteen girls, but, like many of their joint enterprises, the school did not do well. Six years later shareholders took over and James and Catherine Thorne were appointed to run it as the Connexional school where adult men could also study for the ministry. Girls were no longer admitted, and although the sect later established a girls’ school, there was no thought of training girls for careers as evangelists.223 The Primitive Methodists maintained access for the illiterate for longer, and there was considerable opposition to establishing a ministerial training college, both for financial reasons and for fear that it would curtail evangelism. However, in the 1850s the Conference heard complaints about inefficient ministers, and as the length of service of itinerants increased, leaders recognized the need for more training. In 1855 circuits were required to testify to candidates’ ability to read and write, and to their knowledge of the English language.224 The

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the heyday of female itinerancy 1865 Conference recognized that, ‘Our young preachers should know how to prepare their own sermons and how to go through all the duties exacted of them in an efficient and successful manner.’225 The same year some candidates for the ministry started to attend the newly established Primitive Methodist boarding school for boys at Elmfield in York, and a theological college opened in Sunderland in 1868. Although a girls’ school was established in 1874, by that time female itinerancy was dead and it did not admit ministerial candidates.226 As the distinction between lay and professional ministers sharpened, women found no place in a professional ministry. They had no access to ministerial training, lived on salaries even more inadequate than the men’s, and had no wives to take on the many auxiliary circuit duties, let alone run their households. They were expected to resign from paid itinerancy on marriage, and if they did not marry received minimal if any pensions in old age. The Connexional governing bodies were exclusively male, and women had only minimal representation in governance. Both they and their work were usually described in terms of gender stereotypes. As in other fields open to women in the nineteenth century, they were employed when circumstances encouraged or even dictated their use and let go when their services appeared to be more liability than asset. External factors also contributed to the decline in women itinerants. The accelerated pace of industrialization in mid-century Britain brought changing economic and social conditions. A. D. Gilbert found that the deceleration in Methodist and New Dissenting growth rates in the second half of the nineteenth century was not matched by growth in new organizations like the Salvation Army, the Plymouth Brethren, and the Churches of Christ. He claimed that, ‘English society was … becoming much less conducive to the kind of extra-Establishment Protestantism which had revolutionized English religious life in the first half of the century.’227 Obelkevich maintained that the easing of social tension and the rising standards of living after 1850 allowed the sects to ‘relax, consolidate, and turn inward.’228 Sectarian outdoor preaching, at which women often excelled, lost much of its subversive appeal.229 Industrialization and urbanization produced a population harder to reach through evangelical preaching, especially as life in the cities put many other claims on their time. Rural congregations suffered from the disappearance of smallholders as land became increasingly concentrated in the hands of large landowners.230 The pattern of women’s lives also changed. As domestic industry and the household economy declined, rural women increasingly moved into agricultural wage labor, taking them out of the home and removing some of the spaces for cottage religion. The age of marriage for women, which

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women and the shaping of british methodism had been rising in the second quarter of the century, began to drop after 1850, reducing the time young women spent before taking on domestic duties.231 Agricultural depression in the ‘hungry forties’ and improvements in transportation both encouraged and pushed young women from rural areas. Low-paid, unskilled agricultural work for women became increasingly seasonal and, like the Female Revivalists, they migrated to cities to find steady work.232 Emigration may also have reduced the number of potential female recruits to itinerancy, especially among the farming and mining communities where the Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists were strongest. As early as 1846 a letter to the Bible Christian Magazine from Wisconsin claimed that ‘emigration is more unfavourable to religion than all the taxes, tithes, and poverty in England,’ and advised people to ‘stay where you are.’233 In 1853 the Primitive Methodist Conference President regretted that, ‘Many of the emigrants were among the most liberal and influential members … The loss of one pious active member frequently involves the loss, or prevents the accession of several other members.’234 Between 1854 and 1855 the Primitive Methodists lost 672 members to the attractions of the Californian and Australian goldfields, and between 1850 and 1865 the average number of Bible Christians emigrating each year was just under 290, a gradual loss of about one quarter of their total membership.235 In the 1890s F. W. Bourne estimated that they had lost ‘by removals in the last twenty or thirty years enough members to start a couple of Denominations each as large as itself.’236 Seven of Mary O’Bryan and Samuel Thorne’s children tried emigration, five of them permanently. Upward social mobility may also have kept some women from public speaking. Donald McGavran described a phenomenon he called ‘lift,’ ‘the social and cultural estrangement of members of a religious group from the social environment in which they were recruited.’237 While this almost always has a dampening effect on recruitment, it may also have inhibited women from what a new social environment might regard as inappropriate feminine behavior. While there is no recorded discussion of either the Primitive Methodists or the Bible Christians abandoning support for female preaching, and probably neither could afford to do so at the local level without causing problems in the supply of local preachers, there are a few signs that the all-male leadership was becoming lukewarm in their endorsement. In an article in the 1849 Primitive Methodist Magazine, ‘Is It Wrong for Women to Preach the Gospel?,’ the author argued strongly: To argue, as some do, that men are expressly commanded to preach, while women are not, and that, therefore, the latter ought not to preach, is foolish … The fact is, Christ died for both men and women, and both

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the heyday of female itinerancy have a right, for anything I can see to the contrary, to preach his death, provided they are called and qualified by the Spirit of God to do so.

However, William Antliff, the editor, was cautious. He reminded readers in a footnote that when the author argued that St. Paul’s admonition for women to stay silent applied only to local conditions, ‘In this view our brother and most commentators are at variance,’ and added a general note at the end: ‘Though we cannot agree with the entire mode of argumentation observed in this paper, yet we think the writer is entitled to a hearing; and we may observe that our dissent from him does not amount to the belief that it is “wrong for women to preach the gospel.”’238 In 1863, faced with a rapidly declining growth in Bible Christian membership, James Thorne began negotiations for union with the New Connexion, which had never formally allowed women to preach. Thorne was willing to sacrifice one of the Bible Christians’ defining features to further a more pressing male agenda. As negotiations continued, Mary O’Bryan Thorne heard that ‘the help of women … is to be entirely dispensed with.’ She remembered that her father had been told that, ‘when you stop them [women], your cause will fail,’ and regretted that, ‘We are getting to be accounted among the past.’ The negotiations failed in 1870 because of opposition among New Connexion circuits, but Mary O’Bryan Thorne was right, the age of female itinerancy was over. In 1869 the last Bible Christian woman itinerant, Catherine Harris, retired. The all-male Conference greeted the announcement with cheers. In a report on the New Connexion negotiations, ‘it was stated to the Committee that this usage [female preaching] was gradually passing away.’239 In Prophetic Sons and Daughters, Deborah Valenze showed how the social and economic conditions of the first half of the nineteenth century fostered the emergence of female preaching among the rural poor and dispossessed. She identified cottage religion as a defining characteristic of religious self-assertion during this period, a form of worship in the household important in the early years of both the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians, and one in which women were emboldened to speak. By mid-century cottage religion was in decline as even in rural areas worship moved to the more formal atmosphere of the chapel, and maintaining membership became as important as evangelism. Women’s lives had also changed with increasing education and industrialization, and the ideal of domesticity had become more prominent.240 But female preaching did not disappear, as Valenze suggested. Women continued to preach locally, routinely in Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian pulpits, occasionally and spasmodically in other Connexions. Women who felt the call to preach also adapted to changing conditions. The

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women and the shaping of british methodism next generation of female evangelists was better educated and often of a higher social class than the Ranters. They faced opposition from a formal ministry that denied them admission to its ranks, but carved out a niche as professional evangelists who maintained some of the appeal and shock value of the female itinerants of the 1820s. Also, as congregations became more settled and respectability often triumphed over zeal, women who had no desire to speak in public were essential to the maintenance of the social fabric, educational outreach, and financial security of their societies. Their work is the subject of the next chapter. Notes 1 S. L. Thorne, A Funeral Sermon Occasioned by the Death of Mrs. Catherine O’Bryan (Shebbear: Samuel Thorne, 1860), p. 23. 2 S. L. Thorne, The Maiden Preacher: Wife and Mother (London: S. W. Partridge, 1889), p. 7. 3 Thorne, Maiden Preacher, pp. 8–9; O’Bryan, ‘Rise and progress,’ BCAM 3:3 (1824), 80; 3:4 (1824), 113; ‘Memoir of Mary O’Bryan Thorne,’ Lewis Court Bible Christian ­Collection MA 92.14, unpaginated. 4 O’Bryan, ‘Rise and progress,’ BCAM 3:9 (1824), 298. 5 Thorne, Maiden Preacher, p. 13. 6 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 13 April 1824. 7 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 9 December 1824. 8 James Thorne to Mary O’Bryan, 10 May 1823, Lewis Court Bible Christian Collection MA 94.10.2, underlining in the original. 9 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 15 October 1824. 10 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 18 August 1825. 11 Thorne, Maiden Preacher, p. 92. 12 S. L. Thorne, Samuel Thorne, Printer (Plymouth: G. F. Friend, 1874), pp. 88, 98, 102, 104. 13 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 17 January 1825. 14 Thorne, Samuel Thorne, p. 125. 15 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 5 October 1825. 16 William O’Bryan diary, interpolated passage after entry for 25 October 1825. 17 William O’Bryan diary, entry for 8 October 1825. 18 William O’Bryan diary, interpolated passage after entry for 25 October 1825. 19 Mary O’Bryan memoir. 20 James Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society: South Lindsey 1825–1875 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 252, 256. 21 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 10. 22 Ann Freeman, A Memoir of the Life and Ministry of Ann Freeman, A Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ (London: Harvey and Darton, 1826), p. 60. 23 Nolan B. Harmon (ed.), The Encyclopedia of World Methodism (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 1974), entry for ‘Women Itinerant Preachers.’ 24 Lenton, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ pp. 61–8. 25 Zechariah Taft, The Scripture Doctrine of Women’s Preaching: Stated and Examined (York: R. & J. Richardson, 1820).

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the heyday of female itinerancy 26 Taft, Scripture Doctrine, p. 24. 27 Taft, Holy Women, p. vi. 28 John Stamp, The Female Advocate: or, The Preaching of Women (London: J. Pasco, 1841), p. 45. 29 Stamp, Female Advocate, pp. 15, 17. 30 Stamp, Female Advocate, pp. 35, 40–1, 43. 31 Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 27; Bourne, Bible Christians, pp. 126, 222. 32 Buck’s Theological Dictionary, quoted in Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 142. 33 Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 73–4; Lysons, Little Primitive, pp. 13–14; Milburn, Primitive Methodism, p. 11. 34 Walford, Memoirs of Bourne I, p. 275. 35 Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 72, 77; Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 13; Graham, ‘Chosen,’ pp. 19–21. 36 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 15; Milburn, Primitive Methodism, pp. 14–15. 37 ‘Sarah Kirkland: one of the pioneers of Primitive Methodism,’ PMM 64:8 (1883), 475–8; Werner, Primitive Methodist, 81–2; Graham, ‘Chosen,’ pp. 24–6. 38 Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 142; Graham, ‘Chosen,’ pp. 10, 22–3, 33; Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 69; Primitive Methodist Minutes 1820, pp. 4–5. 39 Catherine O’Bryan to Mary O’Bryan, 24 September 1823, Lewis Court Bible Christian Collection MA 92.5. 40 William O’Bryan to Mary O’Bryan, 9 September 1823, Lewis Court Bible Christian Collection MA 91.15. 41 Thorne, William O’Bryan, p. 80. 42 Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 413. 43 Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 413; Shorney, ‘Women may preach,’ pp. 314–15. 44 BCAM 3:9 (1824), 293. 45 Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 81. 46 BCAM 2:12 (1823), 423. 47 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 17 January 1865. 48 Richard Pyke, The Golden Chain (London: Henry Hooks, n.d.), opposite p. 46. 49 Henry Woodcock, The Romance of Reality: Being Sketches of Homespun Heroes and Heroines and the Part they Played in the Making of Primitive Methodism (London: Edwin Dalton, 1910), p. 37. 50 PMM 64:8 (1883), 476. 51 BCAM 2:6 (1823), 213. Bible Christians were sometimes called Bryanites. 52 Colin C. Short, ‘The Bible Christians in Scotland,’ PWHS 48:10 (1991), 91–2. 53 BCAM 2:12 (1823), 411n. 54 Shorney, ‘Women may preach,’ p. 316. 55 Joan Mills, ‘What are our thoughts on women preachers? The female itinerants of the Bible Christian Church’ (MA Thesis, n.d., Lewis Court Bible Christian Collection), p.  19. 56 Thorne, James Thorne of Shebbear, p.144. 57 Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 112. 58 BCAM 7:4 (1828), 112–13. 59 PMM 17:3 (1837), 98; 17:5 (1837), 179, 181. 60 PMM 35:4 (1855), 202–4. 61 Woodcock, Romance, p. 35.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 62 PMM 31:4 (1861), 207; E. Dorothy Graham, Chosen by God: A List of the Female ­Travelling Preachers of Early Primitive Methodism (Bunbury: Bankhead Press, 1989), p. 24. 63 Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 155. 64 Mary O’Bryan diary, entries for 10 July 1823, 7 December 1823; Pyke, Golden Chain, p. 56. 65 PMM 17:5 (1837), 71. 66 Rev. J. Woolcock, History of the Bible Christians in the Isle of Wight (London: Bible Christian Book Room, 1897), p. 12; Woodcock, Romance, pp. 227–8; Milburn, Primitive Methodism, p. 19. 67 See Bourne, Bible Christians, pp. 78, 112, 115; Pyke, Early Bible Christians, pp. 40–1; Woodcock, Romance, pp. 228–9. 68 Rev. Joseph Wood, Sunset at Noonday: Memorials of Mrs. T. J. Robson, of Hull (London: G. Lamb, 1871), p. 183. 69 Freeman, Memoir, p. 12. 70 Quoted in J. H. B. Andrews, ‘The rise of the Bible Christians,’ Transactions of the Devon Association for the Advancement of Science 96:2 (1964), p. 178. 71 Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 38. 72 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 15 September 1824. 73 Rev. John Lightfoot, The Power of Faith and Prayer Exemplified in the Life and Labours of Mrs. Mary Porteous (London: R. Davies, 1862), pp. 99, 126. 74 PMM 38:9 (1868), 535. 75 Pyke, Golden Chain, p. 45. 76 Mary O’Bryan diary, entries for 3 December 1823, 7 December 1823. 77 BCAM 2:9 (1823), 323–4. 78 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 10. 79 Kendall, Origin and History I, pp. 257–8. 80 BCM 31:1 (1852), 19. 81 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 163; PMM 63:12 (1883), 692. 82 Thorne, Samuel Thorne, p. 8. 83 Thorne, Maiden Preacher, pp. 184–5. 84 Lightfoot, Mary Porteous, p. 112. 85 Quoted in Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 219. 86 PMM 62:9 (1882), 525–6. 87 PMM 49:9 (1869), 554. 88 PMM 2:8 (1821), 190–2. 89 Freeman, Memoir, p. 14. 90 PMM 10:8 (1830), 277–80. 91 Taft, Holy Women, p. 302 (italics in original). 92 PMM 12:3 (1832), 94–6; 64:11 (1883), 692; 74:9 (1893), 526; Lightfoot, Mary Porteous, p.  115. 93 Quoted in Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 204. 94 Chilcote, Women Preachers, p. 84. 95 PMM 10:8 (1830), 278. 96 David Shorney, ‘The Bible Christians in London,’ Wesley Historical Society: London and South-East Branch Journal 75:1 (2007), 13. 97 BCAM 3:8 (1824), 281–6.

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the heyday of female itinerancy 98 Catherine O’Bryan, ‘My Pulpit Feelings,’ lines 1–6, transcription, Thomas Shaw Collection, Library of the Royal Cornwall Institution, Truro. 99 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 27 April 1862. 100 Lightfoot, Mary Porteous, p. 83; Freeman, Memoir, p. 9. 101 PMM 2:1 (1821), 19. 102 PMM 17:5 (1837), 177. 103 Shorney, ‘Women may preach,’ pp. 318–19. 104 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 69. 105 Rev. A. Burnside, ‘The Bible Christians in Canada, 1832–1884’ (Th.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto School of Theological Studies, 1969), p. 284. 106 Freeman, Memoir, pp. 51, 66, 93. 107 Martha Williams, Memoirs of the Life and Character of Ann Carr (Leeds: S. Moody, 1841), p. 13. 108 Williams, Ann Carr, pp. 14–23, 45. 109 Williams, Ann Carr, p. 25. 110 Williams, Ann Carr, p. 73. 111 Williams, Ann Carr, pp. 115–16. 112 William Beckworth, A Book of Remembrance, Being Records of Leeds Primitive Methodism Compiled During the Centenary Year (London: W. A. Hammond, 1910), p.  51. 113 D. Colin Dews, ‘Ann Carr (1783–1841) and the Female Revivalists of Leeds: a study in female preachers, secession and Primitive Methodism,’ in From Mow Cop to Peake, 1807–1932 (Lynwood Grove: Wesley Historical Society, Yorkshire Branch, 1982), pp. 18–22; Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, Ch. 9. 114 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 195. 115 Williams, Ann Carr, p. 74. 116 Williams, Ann Carr, Appendix 1. 117 Martha Williams, Ann Carr, and Sarah Eland, A Selection of Hymns, for the Use of the Female Revivalists (Dewsbury: J. Willan, 1824), no. 330, quoted in Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 198. 118 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, pp. 197–204. 119 Williams, Ann Carr, pp. 75–6. 120 Williams, Ann Carr, Appendix 4; Dews, ‘Ann Carr,’ pp. 22–5;Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, pp. 203–4. 121 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, pp. 201–3; Dews, ‘Ann Carr,’ p. 26; ‘Memoir of Mrs. Sarah Hales Birchenough,’ PMM 37:1 (1857), 66–7. 122 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 141. 123 Paul S. Ell, and K. D. M. Snell, ‘The geographies of New Dissent,’ in K. D. M. Snell and Paul S. Ell (eds), Rival Jerusalems: The Geography of Victorian Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 141. 124 Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 175; Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society, p. 220. 125 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ pp. 143–5. 126 Lightfoot, Mary Porteous, passim. 127 Shaw, Bible Christians, p. 101. 128 John Rowe, Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution (St. Austell, Cornwall: Cornish Hillside Publications, 1993), p. 247. 129 Bourne, Bible Christians, pp. 38, 347; Lois Deacon, ‘So I Went My Way’: William Mason

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women and the shaping of british methodism

130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149

150

151 152 153 154 155 156 157

158 159 160

and His Wife Mary 1790–1873 (London: Epworth Press, 1951), pp. 24, 30; Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ passim. Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ pp. 52–5; Thorne, James Thorne of Shebbear, pp. 165–6; Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 37. The James Thorne Centenary: A Souvenir (London: Bible Christian Book Room, 1895), p. 63. Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 55. It is possible that Bourne was ‘Q,’ author of the 1865 article cited in n. 133 below. BCM 44:11 (1865), 490. Woodcock, Romance, p. 36. Thorne, William O’Bryan, p. 145. Extracts from Chatham Circuit Book, Lewis Court Bible Christian Collection MAW 91.5. PMM 16:11 (1836), 416. Shorney, ‘Women may preach,’ p. 311. Burnside, ‘Bible Christians in Canada,’ p. 25. Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 81; Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ p. 11. Catherine O’Bryan to Mary O’Bryan, 10 June 1824; Cornwall Record Office X241/4. Graham, ‘Chosen,’ pp. 95, 104; PMM 73:5 (1892), 311; Shorney, ‘Women may preach,’ p. 320. William O’Brian to Mary O’Bryan, 9 July 1824, Lewis Court Bible Christian Collection MAW 91.15. Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 98. Kendall, Origin and History I, pp. 207–8. Kendall, Origin and History I, p. 278. Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 259. Statistics from Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?’; Oliver A. Beckerlegge, United Methodist Ministers and their Circuits 1797–1932 (London: Epworth Press, 1968). Henry Freeman, False Prophets Described, and Thoughts on the Call, Appointment, and Support of Ministers, also on Worship and a Vindication of the Ministry of Women (Dublin: n.p., 1824), p. 27, quoted in Shorney, ‘Women may preach,’ p. 319. A Digest of the Rules and Regulations of the People Denominated Bible Christians (Shebbear: James Thorne, 1838); Deed for Establishing the Identity of the Bible Christian Conference (Shebbear: James Thorne, 1831). BCAM 5:12 (1826), 399–400; 6:2 (1827), 37. Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 23. Primitive Methodist Minutes 1830, p. 5. Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 136, 140–5. Pyke, Golden Chain, p. 61. Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 241. Graham, ‘Chosen,’ pp. 37, 78; Various Regulations Made by the Conference of the Primitive Methodist Connexion 1836 (Facsimile reprint, Leigh-on-Sea: M. R. Publishing, 1975), pp. 2–3. Watts, Dissenters II, p. 254. Graham, ‘Chosen,’ pp. 84–5; Watts, Dissenters II, p. 253. James P. Langham, The Tunstall Book: A Souvenir of a Hundred Years of Grace, 1810–1910 ([Tunstall?] n.d.), p. 49, quoted in Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 88.

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the heyday of female itinerancy 161 Bible Christian Minutes 1820, pp. 7, 16; 1825, p. 8. 162 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 79; The Consolidated Rules of the Primitive Methodist Church (London: Robert Bryant, 1902), p. 12. 163 Shaw, Bible Christians, p. 2. 164 Bible Christian Minutes 1820. 165 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 13 November 1824. 166 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 15 August 1825. 167 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 74; Consolidated Rules, p. 6; Primitive Methodist Minutes 1827, p. 4. 168 Shaw, Bible Christians, p. 110 (italics in original). 169 Consolidated Rules, p. 9. 170 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 251. 171 Statistics taken from Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ and Beckerlegge, Methodist Ministers. 172 John Munsey Turner, ‘Primitive Methodism from Mow Cop to Peake’s Commentary,’ in From Mow Cop to Peake, 1807–1932, p. 4. 173 Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ pp. 27–9; Graham, Chosen, p. 9. 174 Statistics from Beckerlegge, Methodist Ministers; Graham, Chosen. 175 Statistics from Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ and Graham, Chosen. 176 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 147. 177 Maynes and Waltner, ‘Women’s life-cycle transitions in a world-historical perspective,’ 13; Hunt, Middling Sort, p. 81. 178 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 15 August 1825. 179 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 7 August 1825. 180 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ pp. 252–6. 181 PMM 43:10 (1863), 595–6. 182 Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 38. 183 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 255. 184 Statistics from Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?’ 185 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 10 August 1825. 186 Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ p. 5. 187 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 15 August 1825. 188 Freeman, Memoir, p. 48. 189 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 256; Lightfoot, Mary Porteous, p. 102. 190 PMM 2:7 (1821), 162. 191 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 17 January 1865. 192 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 59; Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 17 January 1865; Beckerlegge, Methodist Ministers, p. 143. 193 Bible Christian Minutes 1820, p. 7. 194 Thorne, James Thorne of Shebbear, p. 186. 195 The resentment may have been against William Lyle and Mary Ann Soper, who married on 16 June 1823 and disappeared shortly afterwards. Mary Ann had been sent to London in 1823, but there is no record of her in Kent (Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ p. 57). 196 Bible Christian Minutes 1820, p. 7; 1823, p. 8; BCAM 6:8 (1827), 254. 197 Mary O’Bryan diary, entry for 17 January 1865. 198 ‘Memoir of R. Sewell,’ BCM 32:2 (1853), 55. 199 Edward Hocken to William Bailey, 5 March 1828, printed in Oliver A. Beckerlegge,

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women and the shaping of british methodism ‘The rule of William O’Bryan,’ PWHS 33:2 (1961), pp. 30–5 (italics in original). 200 To the Circuit Stewards, Society Stewards, Class-Leaders and Principal Friends, Who Feel Interested in the Establishment and Spiritual Welfare of the Bible Christian Connexion (Shebbear: S. Thorne, 1830), p. 2; Bible Christian Minutes 1830, p. 9. 201 Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 95. 202 Watts, Dissenters II, p. 239. 203 PMM 17:7 (1837), 259–60. 204 Kendall, Origins and History, 1: pp. 434–5; Werner, Primitive Methodist, pp. 139, 154; Graham, ‘Chosen,’ pp. 80–1; Watts, Dissenters II, p. 77. 205 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 33. 206 Beckerlegge, Methodist Ministers, passim. 207 Woolcock, Isle of Wight, p. 27. 208 PMM 46:7 (1866), 427. 209 PMM 12:1 (1832), 32–3; 24:2 (1844), 71–2. 210 William Antliff, Woman: Her Position and Mission (London: T. King, 1856), pp. 30, 31, 35, 36. 211 Wilson, Constrained by Zeal, p. 33. 212 Hempton, Methodism, p. 140. 213 Roland Robertson, The Sociological Interpretation of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969), p. 114. 214 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 262. 215 Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 230. 216 A Jubilee Memorial of Incidents in the Rise and Progress of the Bible Christian Connexion (Shebbear: Bible Christian Book Committee, 1865), p. 174. 217 Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 91; Roger Thorne, ‘The Last Bible Christians,’ Transactions of the Devon Association for the Advancement of Science 107:1 (1975), p. 50; Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, pp. 274–81. 218 Gilbert, Religion and Society, pp. 155, 188. 219 Gilbert, Religion and Society, p. 152. 220 Digest of Rules and Regulations, p. 84. 221 J. Robinson Gregory, A History of Methodism I (London, C. H. Kelley, 1911), p. 230, quoted in Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 168. 222 To the Circuit Stewards. 223 ‘History of the Bible Christian College, Shebbear,’ BCM 71:11 (1891), 668–9. 224 Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 73. 225 Primitive Methodist Minutes, 1865, p. 75. 226 Milburn, Primitive Methodism, p. 39; Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 285. 227 Gilbert, Religion and Society, p. 44. 228 Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society, pp. 256–7. 229 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, p. 281. 230 Gilbert, Religion and Society, pp. 147–8. 231 Michael Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 50–1. 232 Deborah Valenze, The First Industrial Woman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 182, 185. 233 BCM 25:11 (1846), 404. 234 PMM 33:8 (1853), 483.

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the heyday of female itinerancy 235 Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 42; Michael J. Wickes, The West Country Preachers (Published by author, 1987), p. 56. 236 F. W. Bourne, Ready in Life and Death: A Brief Memorial of Mrs. S. M. Terrett (London: Bible Christian Book Room, 1893), p. 31. 237 Donald McGavran, Understanding Church Growth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970), pp. 262–75; Gilbert, Religion and Society, p. 159. 238 PMM 29:4 (1849), 237–8. 239 Bible Christian Minutes 1870, p. 29; Diary of Serena Thorne, South Australia Synod Church History Center, Uniting Church of South Australia, Black Forest, Adelaide, entry for 12 November 1870. There is no record of this in the Minutes. 240 Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters, pp. 274–81.

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4 Philanthropists, volunteers, fund-raisers, and local preachers

I

n 1889 Sarah Mary Babbage Terrett, Bible Christian founder of the English White Ribbon temperance organization, suddenly collapsed and died while attending a meeting at which she was a featured speaker. The shock and sense of loss must have been considerable because she was well known for her stirring addresses – on the third anniversary of the White Ribbon campaign she quoted Nelson and Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade to call on ‘all engaged in this glorious work, in the name and presence of our God tonight, at all times, and under every circumstance’ to do their duty as both Nelson and England expected.1 Sarah Terrett was typical of many mid-century middle-class women who, taking advantage of the greater leisure available to them in city life and driven by their religious faith, used their abilities in voluntary work that in many cases led them to speak in public. Her public presence and eloquent oratory while certainly not typical, were not unusual. Many contemporary women of her economic and social status stepped out of their households to work for charities or campaign for moral or social reform. Many more routinely supported their religious communities in a wide variety of ways. This chapter addresses the mainly silent and unrecorded work of such women. Sarah Babbage was born in the West Country, the second of eleven children. The family was able to afford only one female servant, placing them close to poverty. In the 1850s, when Sarah was in her teens, they moved from the countryside to Bristol where her father opened a butcher’s shop with Sarah as his chief helper. Although she had been attracted to the Bible Christians before she moved to the city, her local landowner banned all Methodist preaching, and not until 1858, when she was twenty-two, did she experience conversion at a Bible Christian meeting in Bristol. She then demonstrated her faith by preaching locally and taking advantage of her father’s illness to close the shop on Sundays,

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism with no ill effects on its profits.2 In 1859 Sarah married William Terrett, a wealthy man, and had nine children, seven of whom predeceased her. The couple settled in Bedminster, a growing Bristol suburb, where she became a benefactress of Bible Christian causes. In 1877 she spoke at the laying of the foundation stone for a new Bedminster chapel, suggesting that she had been an important fund-raiser; in her speech she challenged herself to raise a further thousand guineas. She also promoted Sunday schools, abstinence from alcohol, and the need for qualified teachers, issues that were of interest to many religious women, and she echoed the rhetoric of contemporary denominational magazines by emphasizing the need to make their daughters ‘domestical, Christian, loving and devoted wives and mothers.’3 The following year, disgusted at the drunkenness she witnessed in a poorer area of Bedminster, Terrett founded the White Ribbon temperance organization. A visiting American lecturer suggested she model it on the Blue Ribbon movement founded by the American Francis Murphy and the Londoner William Noble, but she decided to choose white, the color both she and the American Women’s Christian Temperance Union associated with purity. She also wanted to avoid sectarian controversy, since Protestant abstainers wore blue ribbons and Catholics wore green.4 She bought a disused Bible Christian chapel, appointed officers, and by the 1880s had forty-four ‘battalions,’ mostly in the Bristol area and environs. The organization was interdenominational, and she worked with Methodist sects, Dissenters, and the Salvation Army. Most of the campaign’s success depended on Terrett’s charisma and drive. Her biographer praised her ‘intuitive sagacity, her sanctified common-sense, and her unfailing good humour,’ and estimated that for several years she persuaded one person a day to sign the teetotal pledge. In 1882 she travelled nearly 600 miles in nine months. On one brief stopover, ‘the streets were lined with people and intense excitement prevailed. Another large meeting was held, and the people listened with rapt attention. Mrs. Terrett preached twice in the hall with wonderful power.’5 The organization did not survive its founder’s sudden collapse and death at age fifty-three, possibly the result of her devotion to faith healing and refusal to see a doctor. Her biographer hinted at poor organization as a reason for the White Ribbon movement’s failure: ‘If it had been possible to have perfected the organization, the results would have been more lasting, and the spoils of victory after all the hard fighting much greater.’ In contrast, the Bristol Daily Press praised Mrs. Terrett for her ‘wonderful faculty for organization.’ Probably ten years was not enough to found a lasting movement.6 The Baptist minister who preached at her

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women and the shaping of british methodism funeral (epitomizing her ecumenical spirit) had a more sober assessment of her worth, emphasizing her similarity to other women of her class: ‘She had no exceptional advantage in position, leisure, opportunity. Not gifted more than any other woman, she is an instance of the extraordinary work which may be done by ordinary people when these are consecrated.’7 Her spirit lived on in her daughter, ‘Sunshine,’ who volunteered as a Bible Christian missionary to China, although poor health prevented her from going. She dedicated herself to home missions before her untimely death in 1903, when her father gave £250 toward building the Samuel Thorne Hospital in Chao Tong, China, in her memory.8 By mid-century there were many Mrs. Terretts, bridging the divide between public and private in ways that did not overtly challenge acceptable gender roles. In the 1840s and 1850s women in all religious denominations adapted the ways in which they expressed their beliefs to changing economic circumstances, social structures, and ideals of womanhood. Methodist women, even those Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists who were still working as itinerants or accepted as local preachers, found that institutionalization and slowing rates of growth in their denominations limited their opportunities for evangelism. While the 1820s and 1830s had been decades when female preachers played a vital role in the expansion of sectarian Methodism, once male leaders’ attention turned to ministering to the already converted and building chapels to accommodate them, women’s services were no longer essential. Women who felt the call to evangelism had to adapt. Methodist women did so by continuing to preach locally; even sects hostile to women preaching like the Wesleyan Methodists or the New Connexion occasionally allowed women to speak in their chapels. In mid-century a number of women developed an important role in preaching on fund-raising occasions. However, the majority of women, no doubt including some who in more encouraging circumstances might have answered a call to preach, turned their energies to philanthropy, voluntary Sunday school teaching, collecting for various causes, or organizing fund-raising events. How they did so often depended on their economic and social position. Middle-class women in comfortable circumstances were more able to engage in philanthropy than the wives of farm laborers, artisans, and cottage workers who made up the bulk of Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian congregations. Single women and teenage girls worked to support themselves, and many married women were unable to employ more than a minimal amount of domestic help and therefore spent their days in household chores. For most of their marriage Mary and Samuel Thorne could afford only one

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism servant to help with the work involved in maintaining a household that usually contained at least nine people. Thus the period between 1840 and 1860 was a time of transition for women who wanted to profess their beliefs publicly. With their access to the pulpit limited or denied, they found ways to contribute to their religious communities that were no less essential than the work of female evangelists in the formative years of some Methodist sects. By mid-century domestic ideology, promoting the home as women’s appropriate place, was prominent in prescriptive literature. Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall claimed that during industrialization evangelical religion played an essential part in the development of the ideology of separate spheres for women and men, although others, notably Amanda Vickery, Robert Shoemaker, and Patricia Crawford, have challenged their interpretation, arguing for as much continuity as change in women’s roles in the period from 1650 to 1850.9 There was certainly continuity between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Methodist leaders’ suggested roles for the majority of women as visiting the sick and poor, and sustaining religious devotion within their families. As shown in Chapter 2, the restrictions on female preaching were more a result of the particular political situation than concern about women stepping out of their sphere. All the same, by the mid-nineteenth century even sects most committed to evangelism like the Primitive Methodists often promoted domesticity for women, suggesting its growing importance as a prescriptive ideal. Elizabeth Helsinger, Robin Sheets, and William Veeder suggested a descriptive category of ‘Angel out of the House,’ extending the domestic ideal beyond the household but still within women’s realm, and largely expressed in philanthropy.10 Much of this chapter deals with the activities of angels out of the house; few of the women whose activities I describe made overt claims for leadership, and not one is publicly on record as claiming equality with men. Their justification for stepping out of home-bound domesticity was their faith and the need to save the souls of others, as well as help those in need. In her analysis of Nonconformist female spirituality between 1825 and 1875, Linda Wilson suggested that for the Baptists, Wesleyans, and Primitive Methodists who were the subject of her study, chapel provided a third sphere for women, ‘overlapping the public and private areas of life.’11 Women experienced this overlapping in a variety of ways. Within the chapel itself they sang in the choir, played the organ, and taught Sunday school. In their communities they visited the sick and poor or took part in fund-raising activities. Some, like Mrs. Terrett, moved on to much more public charitable and philanthropic activities, basing their right to do so

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women and the shaping of british methodism on their belief in women’s moral superiority. While by mid-century many affluent women had separated themselves from their husbands’ work and retreated into domesticity, many others interpreted the domestic ideal as a mandate to engage in charitable work. The rapid growth of the middle class, the increase in their incomes, and the ideal of domesticity for women as a marker of class status produced a generation of bourgeois women who could employ enough servants to free them from the physical work of running a household, giving them time to devote to philanthropic work. The Baptist minister William Landels wrote: The most efficiently conducted organizations are those which are chiefly or exclusively in the hands of women. The best collectors of funds, the best visitors of the sick and poor, even the most efficient instructors of the young, and, in a quiet way, the most devoted evangelists, are Christian women who have some leisure at command, and whose hearts are all aflame with love to Christ.12

About 11 percent of middle-class women did not marry, but were discouraged from engaging in paid work that might affect their class status, even if they had the education and training to do so.13 By 1850 advice manuals were directing single women to charitable work as necessary for their mental and spiritual health: On the grounds of self-preservation, it behoves every unmarried woman to find some harmless mode of doing active service; for, if she is without it, she inevitably becomes the prey of her own egotism, especially if she is exposed to the pernicious influence of a very secluded life, as certainly dangerous to spiritual health, as the miasma of standing water to health of the body.14

Maternalist rhetoric reinforced the message. As the detrimental social effects of industrialization and urbanization on workers and the poor became more apparent, women claimed that their sympathetic and nurturing nature especially fitted them for philanthropic activities. As John Ruskin advised in his popular Of Queen’s Gardens (1865): ‘A woman has a personal work or duty, relating to her own home, and a public work or duty, which is also the extension of that. There is no suffering, no injustice, no misery in the earth, but the guilt of it lies with you. It is you only who can feel the depths of pain, and conceive the way of its healing.’15 The 1851 religious census, when all those attending religious services on Sunday 30 March were counted, confirmed what religious leaders already knew, that the majority of church- and chapel-goers were women, reinforcing the belief that women were the religious sex. An article on ‘Religion in Women’ in the 1846 Primitive Methodist Magazine maintained,

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism ‘Religion is everywhere lovely, but in women peculiarly so. It makes her but little lower than the angels. It purifies her heart, elevates her feelings and sentiments, hallows her affections, sheds light on her understanding, and imparts dignity and pathos to her whole character.’16 Evangelical religion encouraged women toward good works, emphasizing the importance of individual responsibility for one’s own salvation, and also for the salvation of others. The evangelical weekly Revival called women to action, appealing to ‘many women’s tact and patience,’ claiming, ‘It behoves us … to carry those beams of love down to the benighted and depraved, and with a woman’s love win and woo the ignorant and the unlearned to read for themselves the glorious story of the Cross. Yes, beloved sisters in Jesus, England is needing her daughters.’ The author of another article targeted mothers, asking, ‘who can estimate the influence of one converted woman on the world? Where does her power extend? How many souls can trace their first serious thoughts to their mother’s teachings?’17 In mid-century Evangelicals placed more emphasis than previously on reaching out to those less fortunate than themselves, often justifying their actions as helping to hasten the millennium by furthering the arrival of Christ’s kingdom on earth. Among the most ardent promoters of such outreach were the Rev. William Pennefather and his wife Catherine, whose annual conferences of Evangelicals, first at Barnet, then at Mildmay in north London, included a day to discuss social problems and Evangelical efforts to alleviate them through voluntary efforts. In 1862 Catherine formed the Association of Female Workers, which included leaders of most Evangelical philanthropic organizations. The American Charles Finney, who toured England twice between 1849 and 1859, also emphasized the importance of making the world a better place for Christ’s return.18 The growing number of periodicals aimed at the female and religious markets publicized examples of middle-class women who, inspired by their evangelical faith, took advantage of their leisure and education to initiate, single-handedly, efforts to bring comfort and religion to workers, soldiers, sailors, the imprisoned, and the poor. One of these was Catherine Marsh, who worked with ‘navvies’ (railroad workers), soldiers, sailors, and prisoners, established a convalescent home for cholera victims, and published devotional books.19 A well-known example of a self-sacrificing poor woman was the dressmaker Sarah Martin, whose life devoted to prison evangelism was documented in tracts, women’s magazines, and the Edinburgh Review, culminating in an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, one of the few working women to merit inclusion. 20 The career of Annie McPherson, a single woman growing up in rural Cambridgeshire, illustrates both the accidental nature of these women’s

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women and the shaping of british methodism call to service, and its persistence. In the 1850s Cambridgeshire became a center for digging up coprolite, fossilized excrement used for fertilizer. McPherson was disturbed by the irreligion of the men working close to her home, who met any attempt to distribute pamphlets or invite them to meetings with ‘wild hideous laughs, taking one a week or two to summon courage to face them again.’ However, a violent thunderstorm forced the men to take shelter in a barn, and one of them asked her to read from the Bible. This became a daily occurrence, with many men choosing to come to have tea (possibly the main attraction) and listen. She saw her work as inspired by her religious beliefs, and therefore appropriate for a woman. She wrote to the Revival: ‘Is it not kind of the Master to employ us feeble women in his service, by allowing us to use our quiet influence for Him, and to do many little things, such as inviting wanderers to listen, providing hymns and seats; also refreshment for those sent to deliver the King’s message.’21 After three years her mission ended when she accompanied her sister and family who were emigrating to the United States. She occupied her time on ship by distributing pamphlets, and came back to England early in 1867 with the rest of her family, who had suffered from typhus and therefore decided not to settle. Like many rural women, she made the transition to urban living, moving to London, where she worked with poor widows, children, and ‘fallen women,’ setting up a Home of Industry in Spitalfields and a Bridge of Hope Refuge for prostitutes. She also worked to provide shoes for destitute children, and took widows and matchbook makers on a country outing by train. By the end of the decade she was promoting children’s emigration to Canada as a way to escape poverty, escorting them on the crossing, and staying to settle them into homes and apprenticeships. She enlisted her family’s help, allowing several groups to make the crossing every year, and opened training homes for the child emigrants in London, Edinburgh, and Liverpool. Her methods became a model for other agencies promoting child emigration.22 Anther middle-class urban women’s activity was ‘rescuing’ ‘fallen’ women from prostitution. Concerned at the large numbers and visibility of prostitutes in the growing cities, especially London, and believing that prostitution threatened the purity of the family home, women ventured into streets and brothels on a mission to persuade individual girls to come home with them, or to enter refuges where they would be trained for alternative work, usually domestic service. While men ran some of the rescue societies, by the 1850s women were setting up their own organizations, such as the Female Mission to the Fallen, established in 1858. By 1873 it had ten missionaries and was dealing with 670 cases a year.23 Evangelical Christians put particular faith in midnight meetings, an attempt to

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism attract and reform prostitutes by providing tea, religious instruction, and an opportunity to enter a refuge when they were leaving casinos and other public places. Midnight meetings were supervised by all-male committees, but they depended on women volunteers to organize and serve the refreshments, speak to the women, and lead those who wanted to reform to refuges. By 1861 there were twenty meetings in London and the provinces, attracting 4,000 women. Since prostitution was usually more lucrative and less personally restricting than the main alternatives, domestic service or the garment trade, the results were not very encouraging. Of the 2,400 women who attended London meetings in 1860 only 112, or 7 percent, accepted help. The majority of these were in homes or refuges, eighteen were in service, four had married, two had emigrated, and one was employed as a bookfolder. The evangelical Ellen Ranyard’s Bible and Domestic Female Mission was more successful, sending 12,500 prostitutes to homes and refuges in the second half of the century.24 Middle-class women also organized larger meetings, often for work­­­­­ing girls. This was another bridge between public and private, allowing women to speak in informal all-female gatherings. In a letter published in the Revival, an ‘earnest and intelligent Christian lady’ wrote, ‘I am not at all disposed to teach in the church. I had much rather get a company of poor ignorant unbelievers about me and speak to them of Jesus.’25 The Hon. Mrs. Arthur Kinnaird led a Young Women’s Christian Association in London in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Aimed at ‘the girl who came to London for employment, friendless and alone,’ meetings included Bible readings, some education, and a social tea on Sundays.26 A similar venture was the highly successful Sunday meeting connected with the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the London preaching place of the evangelist Charles Spurgeon. The meeting’s founder and leader, Mrs. Barnett, began Sunday school teaching in her rural home at age twelve.27 She progressed to district visiting in local villages, then, another illustration of middle-class migration to cities, moved to London after her husband died of cholera. She took on a Bible class at the New Park Street chapel in Southwark, where Spurgeon was then preaching, increasing class attendance from three to fifty. When the Metropolitan Tabernacle, built to hold the vast congregations Spurgeon attracted, opened in 1861, Mrs. Barnett moved with him. Within five years she had 700 people attending her class, mostly middle-aged women. Seeking to maintain the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable public speaking for women, Mrs. Barnett was careful to emphasize that her weekly addresses were not preaching, but ‘chiefly exhortative.’ They were ‘by no means a sermon, and Mrs. Barnett is anxious that the public should not be possessed with the idea that she

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women and the shaping of british methodism preaches.’28 While Mrs. Barnett welcomed both sexes at her meetings, women also organized all-female mothers’ meetings, where anywhere between under ten to several hundred poor women came together for hymns and prayers, an address, and, on the secular side, domestic hints and needlework, the last providing both a lure for women to attend and an excuse to offer their husbands. While the majority of the meetings were based in Church of England parishes, women of all denominations were active in establishing and maintaining them. Ellen Ranyard’s Mission was an important pioneer in this initiative, with at least twenty-three active meetings in the 1860s.29 Ranyard’s most lasting philanthropic venture was the organization of Biblewomen and Biblenurses, a new kind of respectable and philanthropic employment that allowed women on the edge of poverty to earn a modest but sufficient living. Concerned at the poverty and irreligion of women in the St. Giles district of London, but recognizing that her middle-class status meant that if she tried to intervene personally she would be met with suspicion and hostility, she looked for an alternative solution. She was also convinced that living by biblical principles could change lives, and that people valued what they paid for. Knowing that men had little time for going house-to-house, she started to recruit Biblewomen, ‘selected from the better informed, and Christian women of the lower middle class.’30 They received training in Scripture, hygiene, and the Poor Law, were encouraged to meet weekly and attend Mission meetings, and were paid a small but adequate salary of about £32 a year. Their duties included selling Bibles to poor families on installment and advising mothers on housekeeping and childcare. Middle-class ‘lady’ superintendents, who were also paid, making this one of the first organizations of paid social workers, supervised them. A Times article maintained that: The peculiar adaptation of this movement lies in the fact that the visitor is a woman, and the objects visited are wives and mothers. The visitor is not a fine lady full of sentimental benevolence, afraid of dirt and vulgarities, and keeping to the windward of her subjects of her ­instruction; but one who has also been in poverty and struggle … The wife and mother makes home. What she is it becomes. Her temper, tidiness, and economy are its very air, and light, and warmth. On her the Biblewoman acts with a force and success which no other instrumentality has reached; and through her, on children and fathers with a ­permanence it is impossible to dispute.31

By 1868 there were 234 Biblewomen in London alone and many more in other English towns and throughout the Empire. Rachel Marsden, the only Biblewoman for the 18,000 people in Darwen, Lancashire,

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism c­ alculated her annual expense as about £42, including salary, missionhouse rent, coal, and gas. Apart from selling Bibles and providing help and advice to poor women and their families, she held prayer meetings and Bible classes, lent linen to women about to give birth, and cooked for the sick. She reported mixed results: ‘the seed sown has not all sprung up.’32 In 1868 Lanyard’s charity set up a training center for Biblenurses to provide health care for the poor in their own homes, a forerunner of the public district nurse program. Both charities lasted until the twentieth century.33 Another opportunity for paid religious work for middle-class women was as a ‘female home missionary,’ attached to a city or town’s evangelical mission. These missions, often interdenominational, were an important aspect of evangelical philanthropy after the Napoleonic Wars.34 The London City Mission, established in 1835, employed women from the start. The numbers of female missionaries grew substantially in the early 1860s, when by 1866 all such city and town missions employed over 270 women, mostly Anglican. Each was assigned a district of about 500 houses that they were expected to visit each month. They held small meetings in people’s homes, reading and explaining passages from the Bible.35 In the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, the campaign for total abstinence from alcohol became a prominent part of mission work. Women like Mrs. Terrett were important voluntary supporters of and campaigners for temperance, and the movement also provided oppor­ tunities for women to become paid temperance campaigners. By 1888 there were approximately 500 temperance societies in Britain, with up to 50,000 members.36 For much of the nineteenth century British reformers had seen drunkenness as an entirely male problem, affecting public behavior and work discipline, without paying much attention to its effects on the home. For this reason, the earliest British temperance organization, the British and Foreign Temperance Society (BFTS), founded in 1828, was a male endeavor. Its campaign was closely modelled on the anti-slavery movement, part of a general attempt by middle-class philanthropists to impose their version of morality on what they perceived to be the ­undisciplined working classes. Evangelicals and Nonconformists were prominent in the organization, which also had considerable transatlantic influence.37 But the BFTS did not insist on total abstinence, allowing beer consumption, and in the 1830s its critics formed several ­societies promoting teetotalism. The best known was the Preston Temperance Society (1833), which soon sent speakers throughout the country promoting teetotal principles.38 Although Wesley strongly advised against alcohol consumption, Wesleyan Methodists were not prominent in the temperance movement.

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women and the shaping of british methodism Some of the American evangelist Phoebe Palmer’s difficulties with the Wesleyans (see Chapter 5) stemmed from her uncompromising intolerance of alcohol consumption. In 1841 the Conference, fearing that total abstinence would lead to ‘infidelity,’ officially condemned teetotalism, refusing to allow chapels to be used for total abstinence meetings and requiring preachers who wished to advocate teetotalism to have a superintendent’s permission. Many Wesleyans fought the decision, and some Cornish Methodists seceded over the issue, but not until the 1880s did the Conference become more active in promoting temperance.39 Primitive Methodists were much more supportive of total abstinence; three of the seven original Preston Temperance Society members were Primitive Methodists. Hugh Bourne and William Antliff were total abstainers, but William Clowes was not, so the Connexion never officially adopted teetotalism or imposed it on its members. In an 1836 article Hugh Bourne described teetotalism as ‘a valuable handmaid to religion; and as far as it has gone in a sound course, it has been a blessing to the world, and bids fair to be a still greater blessing.’ As early as 1832 the Conference recommended the formation of temperance societies, and in 1841 they ordered that unfermented wine be used at celebrations of the Lord’s Supper.40 The Bible Christian James Thorne took the pledge in 1837, but was cautious about advocating teetotalism throughout the Connexion. In 1838 the Conference endorsed temperance societies, but warned against too active proselytism as tending to be divisive, and the 1854 Conference forbade circuits from making teetotalism a requirement for local preachers. By 1900 attitudes had changed somewhat, when the Conference passed a resolution reaffirming ‘our emphatic opinion that so great and terrible are the evils of the liquor traffic that the Church of Christ should be free from all complicity with the same,’ and banned anyone with a liquor license from holding office in the Connexion.41 While there were a few ephemeral independent women’s temperance groups, on the whole women were overwhelmingly supporters not leaders in the temperance movement before 1875, segregated into Ladies’ Committees and engaged in visiting women and children.42 In 1858 the evangelical Mrs. C. L. Wightman, influenced by Catherine Marsh, published Haste to the Rescue about the importance of teetotalism in converting working men, and the National Temperance League distributed a copy to every Church of England clergyman. However, no woman was prominent in the United Kingdom Alliance, which advocated total prohibition.43 One new departure in the 1840s that depended on female initiative was the formation of Bands of Hope to educate children in temperance principles. In 1847 Mrs. Anne Carlile, a visiting temperance worker, encouraged the

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism formation of a ladies’ committee of the Leeds Temperance Society to visit local schools and form groups of children who signed a pledge to abstain from alcohol and tobacco. The movement spread quickly, becoming closely connected with Sunday schools; by 1860 London had 120 Bands of Hope. Female support of total abstinence grew as they observed links between domestic violence, poverty, and drunkenness in their charitable work. Rachel Marsden, the Darwen Biblewoman, received requests from wives: ‘Could you not do something for our husbands? They are such quiet men when they are sober: but oh that drink!’44 The work of Joshua Poole, a reformed drunkard, and his wife Mary in the 1860s explicitly linked drunkenness with violence against women. Poole, a fiddler, son of a Methodist saddler, was imprisoned in Wakefield, Yorkshire, because he ‘could not keep the peace toward his Christian wife.’ His wife feared he would commit suicide in jail, and he intended to kill his entire family and himself when he was released until two prison officers converted him while in prison. On his release he and his wife began touring as a husband and wife team, combining evangelism with promoting total abstinence.45 The Pooles’ linkage between drink, family poverty, and domestic violence became conventional wisdom, and since home visiting was conventionally women’s work, it became a female cause. The Independent Order of Good Templars, an American temperance fraternal organization, established itself in Britain in the 1860s, recruited both men and women, and as home missionary societies increased their presence in the cities in the last two decades of the century, women, some of them paid temperance workers, increasingly took on the temperance cause as their own. When the American Gospel Temperance movement, combining evangelical religion and teetotalism, reached Britain in the 1870s, women became more prominent in leadership positions. In the United States in 1870 Frances Murphy combined gospel preaching and moral suasion in Maine, and in 1873 the women of Hillsboro, Ohio, worked together to close all the saloons in town. From these two initiatives grew the Blue Ribbon campaign for men and the White Ribbon for women, the latter evolving into the powerful Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), with the Methodist Frances Willard its charismatic leader. Eliza ‘Mother’ Stewart, one of the Ohio women, brought the movement to England, invited by Dwight Moody in 1874. Blue Ribbon missions and enterprises like Mrs. Terrett’s White Ribbon Army sprang up in the 1870s.46 Many leading Evangelicals joined the Temperance Union of Christian Workers, founded in 1875 to help charitable workers teach temperance as part of their duties.47 By the end of the 1880s women had established four large temperance associations, one of them the British Women’s Temperance

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women and the shaping of british methodism Association (BWTA), founded by the American temperance worker and WCTU leader Eliza Stewart with the Scot Margaret Parker as its president. Nevertheless, the British temperance movement continued to be male-dominated in its administration to the end of the century. Charitable work like promoting temperance, rescuing prostitutes, helping young female workers and poor mothers, distributing Bibles and providing health care were largely urban activities. Many women in Methodist sects lived in rural areas where there were few opportunities for charitable activity in their communities beyond sick and family visiting and religious pamphlet distribution. Nonetheless their volunteering was increasingly and vitally important in maintaining their religious congregations. By the 1850s all Methodist Connexions were struggling to maintain their membership, competing with each other, with Nonconformist congregations, with a reviving established church, and with the growing number of secular attractions available in cities. For the ­Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians, who had experienced strong growth in previous decades, this was especially distressing.48 At the 1853 Primitive Methodist Conference the President, after reporting a loss of 1,051 members, suggested a plan of action that relied heavily on women’s domestic and voluntary work, paying attention to the ‘spiritual welfare’ of the 121,000 Sunday school scholars, expanding family visits to non-­Primitive Methodists, promoting family prayers and the religious instruction of children, and encouraging temperance societies.49 Although some of this was addressed to the ‘head of the family,’ and men often distributed religious tracts, women were responsible for most family visitation and tract distribution.. Wilson found that from a sample of obituaries of 240 nineteenth-century Nonconformist women, the authors mentioned visiting as an activity of 18 percent of Wesleyans and 7 percent of Primitive Methodists, although, as she suggests, in the poorer Primitive Methodist districts visiting sick or indigent peers could have been so much the expected norm that it was not worth recording.50 The Wesleyan Elizabeth George found visiting the poor ‘my most delightful employment,’ praying over each case after she had left.51 Mrs. J. T. Robson, wife of a local Primitive Methodist preacher in Hull, epitomized the ideal of the Angel out of the House. A chapel trustee, a class leader and Sunday school teacher, she visited the poor and sick, played the harmonium in the chapel, partly managed the choir, ran tea meetings, and organized bazaars. The author of her memoir emphasized how she used her motherly qualities in her charitable endeavors: ‘Where a mother unites piety, wisdom, and perseverance in the training of her children, she seldom fails to draw down that influence which turns them from nature to grace.’52

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism Like Mrs. Robson, Methodist women continued to lead classes, although some evidence suggests that they did so less often than men. In 1858 Mrs. Sarah Armitage took charge of a new all-female class, which she sustained for twenty-one years. Similarly, Ellen Page, an intinerant’s wife, ‘discharged the duties of a class-leader’s office with great diligence, faithfulness, acceptability, and success’ for more than twenty-eight years.53 In Wilson’s sample, 8 percent of Primitive Methodist women and 13 percent of Wesleyans led classes, compared with 38 percent of Primitive men and 28 percent of male Wesleyans. Of the five Primitive Methodist women, one led a class containing both men and women, while Wesleyan women usually led all-female groups. Wilson suggested that the reason for the disparity between Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists might have been because the latter, typically poorer and more rural, had less leisure. Another possibility is that the Primitives had a greater number of mixed-sex classes, more likely to have male leaders.54 By mid-century some Methodists were concerned about a decline in attendance at class meetings, which may have been a result of the general upward social mobility of their congregations. In 1847 members of the Wesleyan Conference worried about falling numbers at most weekday events, including classes, and in 1864 a Wesleyan writer claimed that, ‘a dislike to class meetings is spreading among the families of our more wealthy people,’ who resented being interrogated about their personal lives by ‘poor illiterate men.’ A Free Methodist suggested that class meetings were too formal and boringly repetitive: ‘They say it is the same old thing repeated over and over again.’55 Obelkevich found a growing trend toward more public forms of religious observance among the Primitive Methodists in Lindsey.56 Thus a growing trend toward respectability took its toll, and by 1902 an article in the Aldersgate Primitive Methodist Magazine claimed that class meetings were ‘in widespread neglect.’ Currie maintained that, ‘by 1900 the class meeting had partly disappeared or been altered out of recognition,’ in favor of communal worship.57 Although some aspects of this development, like the Bible Christians’ desire for the class to be ‘more like a family circle,’ might have encouraged women’s participation, the general decline in attendance and importance in the second half of the century must have adversely affected women’s opportunities for ­leadership. Like Mrs. Robson, many of the class leaders Wilson identified were itinerant ministers’ wives, in most cases vital forces in their communities, although their influence was likely to be ephemeral, as their husbands did not usually stay in a circuit for more than six years. They often provided useful extra voices in the pulpit as local preachers. The Cambridge Primi-

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women and the shaping of british methodism tive Methodist circuit committee stipulated that they must hire a preacher whose wife could preach.58 Harriet Wallis, local preacher and wife of the Primitive Methodist itinerant and later superintendent George Wallis, epitomized perfection: She was one of the most frugal, industrious, and economical wives, and one of the most kind and generous of God’s causes. She was emphatically a helper in the cause of Christ; her counsel to God’s people was judicious; her labours in the distribution of tracts incessant; her visits to the chambers of the sick and dying frequent; her attendance on the means of grace regular; her prayers short and fervent; her melodious singing charming; her addresses from the pulpit, clear and pointed; and her success considerable.

She was also a Sunday school teacher, active in temperance, and welcomed other preachers into her home. ‘But those who knew her best, think she shone most conspicuously in private … making her home a Bethel and her household happy.’59 During the centenary celebrations of the life of James Thorne, one of the speakers said of Thorne’s wife, the former woman preacher Catherine Reed: I do not think she was second to her husband. For strength of character, for patient but indomitable courage, for true womanly instinct and tact, there were but few who were her equals. How much the Denomination, in the former part of its history, was indebted to her quiet heroism will, perhaps, never be known. That her services in an exceptionally trying position have never been duly recognized must, I think, be clear to many.

Another speaker maintained that, ‘Mr. Thorne could never have accomplished what he did if he had not had an intelligent wife in full sympathy with his work.’60 Other less experienced wives found it harder to adjust to their duties. The Primitive Methodist Mrs. Sherman ‘was not a little distressed in her mind at finding that, being the minister’s wife, duties were expected of her, in regulating and conducting the [Sunday] school, to which she was wholly unaccustomed.’ However, she quickly became the epitome of the mid-century philanthropic woman. She commenced a systematic and regular weekly visitation of the families, instructing the poor ignorant mothers in the training of their children, and in the way to make their domestic life happy; as well as in the more important lessons of evangelical truth. At first she was coldly received, but after a few visits became such a favourite that the children would run out to welcome her, and every door in the district was thrown open to receive their ‘friend.’

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism When they were later stationed in London she instituted a class for teenage girls and a Maternal Association, ‘composed of mothers, whose education, piety and station gave them influence on the church and congregation.’61 Wifely support might sometimes be essential in keeping their husbands in the ministry. The wife of Primitive Methodist Joseph Preston would not let him, ‘like a coward,’ give up travelling.62 The work of many female local preachers was essential to their circuits, filling pulpits that lay male preachers could not cover. Many, like Mary O’Bryan Thorne, served for most of their lives. In Lincolnshire Elizabeth Swinton’s tombstone recorded thirty-seven years of preaching.63 Mrs. Anne Francis, a Primitive Methodist, started local preaching at age nineteen, preached on average ten Sundays every three months, and travelled up to twenty miles at a time to fulfill her obligations.64 Another Primitive Methodist local preacher, Annie Swales, justified her ministry: ‘I have felt the pulpit has been my right place for twenty-nine years, and sometimes I have had to contend with people that have tried to assail me saying it is not right for a woman to preach and so on, but God Himself has interposed and they have been convinced.’65 Methodist lay preachers had to be official members of their societies, professing salvation, holding class tickets, and paying annual dues. They differed from itinerants in that they were part-time, usually unpaid, and did not move from circuit to circuit, although they frequently travelled within their circuits according to the preaching plan. They held services in chapels when an itinerant was not present. They were subject to a probationary period before being accepted in full Connexion, after which they could in principle do most of the things a minister could.66 The Primitive Methodists were unique in having paid or ‘hired’ local preachers, with all the same duties as an itinerant except that they were subject to district or circuit authority, not to the Conference, and the appointments were often temporary.67 In all Methodist Connexions by far the majority of preachers were local. Between 1830 and 1860 Primitive Methodist local preachers comprised more than 90 percent of all preachers, reaching a total of 11,384 in 1860, about one for every twelve members.68 Bible Christian ratios were about the same. In 1843 they had more than 1,000 local preachers, one for every twelve members, although by 1907 that ratio had dropped to one in twenty-one.69 Since women were the majority in most congregations and as it is unlikely that all male members were lay preachers, a significant proportion of local preaching must have been done by women. It is impossible to estimate the percentage of female preachers with any precision from the surviving records. At least one third of Primitive Methodist female itiner-

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women and the shaping of british methodism ants or paid local preachers preached locally at some time in their lives, usually before travelling or after marriage, but these were a special and experienced group.70 On the Weare Bible Christian circuit for 1849/50 four out of eighteen local preachers were women. At the end of the century in London there were 432 local Primitive Methodist preachers, only eleven of whom were women, but this may reflect the tenuous Primitive Methodist presence in the metropolis.71 These small samples from different times, locations, and circumstances can tell us little, but it is probably safe to say that throughout the nineteenth century the majority of Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian congregations experienced female preaching at some time in their lives. As Methodist sects became more formally organized, so did their worship, providing opportunities for the majority of women who did not feel called or had no opportunity to speak in public to participate in services in other ways. Hymn singing had been central to Methodist worship from the beginning; Methodists claimed that their Connexion had been ‘born in song.’72 Wilson found that hymns were important to Primitive Methodist women’s private spirituality, but music also allowed them to step into the intermediate sphere of the chapel community.73 As congregations built chapels, music remained central to worship, but often with the addition of choirs, organs, or harmoniums. Many women sang in choirs, sometimes taking solo parts, and some accompanied the singing on musical instruments. Where chapels were affluent enough to afford a full organ it was usually played by a man, but the harmonium was more likely to be played by a woman, since it was closer to the piano, generally regarded as a female instrument. Music was also important in Sunday schools, with children’s and sometimes adult choirs competing against each other in music festivals.74 Sunday school teaching provided women with another respectable bridge between public and private, endorsed by the support of the religious community. Sunday schools, popularized by an evangelical newspaper proprietor, Robert Raikes, in the 1780s, were intended to provide an opportunity for poor children who had neither the time nor the money to go to school on weekdays to learn to read the Bible and acquire other basic educational skills. Their significance as a means of social control in the early nineteenth century is a subject of debate among historians, but initially Raikes certainly intended them to instill standards of acceptable behavior.75 Many eighteenth-century Sunday schools were not linked to any particular denomination or religious community, but this caused problems over the forms of worship used and where children should attend church services. By 1800 bitter denominational squabbles over

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism who should control the schools were a common feature of religious life in northern England, and Birmingham experienced sectarian struggles over Sunday schools in the 1780s.76 Control was important because of the question of the type of religious education received by the large numbers of children attending, although this was probably of little importance to many of the parents. Working-class parents enthusiastically seized on the opportunity for their children to become literate, or at least able to read. The number of children between the ages of five and fifteen attending Sunday schools rose from 425,000 in 1818 to over one and a half million in the 1830s. At the time of the 1851 religious census Thomas Laqueur estimated that the total Sunday school enrollment of around 2,600,000 included about three quarters of all working-class children, although attendance varied considerably from area to area.77 Methodists embraced Sunday schools in Wesley’s lifetime; he called the schools ‘one of the noblest institutions which has been seen in Europe for some centuries.’78 Jabez Bunting, a leading promoter, originally em­­­­­­ braced cooperation with other denominations, but by 1826 he had realized that nondenominational schools did not bring in new Wesleyan members. He therefore objected to Methodist children attending them and advocated that there be a school for every chapel. Under Bunting’s influence, the Wesleyan Conference began having Sunday school reports in the 1820s, and a committee recommended that there should be closer ties between chapels and Sunday schools, with teaching more attuned to specific denominational beliefs. However, between 1808 and 1826 Bunting conducted a prolonged campaign to prevent Wesleyan Sunday schools from teaching writing, maintaining that it was Sabbath-breaking; children who wanted to learn to write should attend night school, a difficult proposition for most child factory workers. His position reflected the majority view among the total number of Sunday school providers; Laqueur estimated that only around 20 to 22 percent of pupils were taught to write.79 Despite local resistance, by the 1840s Bunting had largely succeeded in enforcing his view, to the detriment of attendance at Wesleyan schools, since most schools run by other Methodist Connexions taught writing as well as reading.80 Although the Primitive Methodist Magazine advised that teachers’ duties should be, ‘First, to collect children together, and teach them to read the Bible; and secondly, to explain and enforce the truths of Scripture in a familiar and impressive manner, suited to the capacities of the young,’ almost all Primitive Methodist Sunday schools appear to have taught writing as well.81 In the 1840s non-Wesleyan Methodist Sunday schools were a small minority of the total number. In the first quarter-century of their exist-

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women and the shaping of british methodism ence the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians recruited most of their members through outdoor preaching to adults and did not look on Sunday schools as potential recruiting grounds for members. This at least partially explains the relatively low attendance at their denominational schools in the 1851 census, when K. D. M. Snell found a weaker correlation between Sunday school attendance and chapel-going for the two Connexions than for other denominations. In a parish-level analysis of fifteen representative counties, Primitive Methodist schools enrolled only an average of 4.2 percent of total Sunday school attendance, compared with the Wesleyan 13.5 percent, and the 43.6 percent enrollment in Church of England schools. The Bible Christians were even further behind. Only four out of twenty-two parishes (18.2 percent) where the Bible Christians were present had a Bible Christian Sunday school, in comparison with 39 percent where the Primitive Methodists had a presence.82 Another factor affected these statistics; Snell found a high correlation between Sunday school attendance and manufacturing areas that employed child labor, areas that had not proved particularly fertile for Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian recruitment.83 Nonetheless, in proportion to their denominational size, the numbers of Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian Sunday scholars were impressive. In 1837 seven Primitive Methodist districts reported more than 30,000 students enrolled in their schools, and in 1843 the Bible Christians enrolled 11,519 pupils at a time when their total adult membership (a count that did not include most Sunday school attendees) was only 13,598.84 By mid-century, as outdoor evangelism waned in importance as a recruiting strategy even among the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians, all denominations were eying Sunday school pupils as potential adult members. In most cases Snell found a strong link between promoting Sunday schools and denominational growth.85 Hugh Bourne was a Sunday school advocate, and the Primitive Methodists started one of the first British periodicals aimed specifically at children in 1824, attracting over 6,000 subscribers within six months.86 An article in the 1828 Primitive Methodist Magazine noted that, ‘Sunday school instructions are like bread cast upon the waters, which appears after many days.’87 In 1832 the Conference issued rules for Sunday schools and the denomin­ ational magazine started a Sunday school section. In 1846 the ­Primitive Methodist Magazine carried an article on ‘The importance of Sunday schools,’ advising that ‘the susceptibility of children to religious impressions deserves the serious consideration of ministers,’ and claiming, ‘The labour bestowed on children is in many respects more important than the doings of our legislative assemblies.’88 In 1850 the number of pupils

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism in Primitive Methodist Sunday schools topped 100,000 for the first time, with more than 20,000 teachers. Between 1860 and 1870 the number of scholars grew by 52.3 percent, the highest growth rate of the major denominations, and rapid expansion continued until the 1890s. Bible Christian growth rates were much lower, never more than 10 percent between 1880 and 1910.89 Sunday schools usually met twice for about four hours, with different pupils attending each time. They also attended Sunday worship, although this could cause difficulties in finding seats for the entire congregation, putting pressure on space for pew rents.90 Student turnover was fairly rapid; those who reached a certain reading standard often had to leave to make room for others. Pupils spent most of their time in reading and religious instruction. The rapid rise in the number of Sunday school pupils obviously produced a need to recruit suitable teachers. While Laqueur’s thesis that the majority of teachers came from the working classes is controversial, the Primitive Methodist and the Bible Christian teachers’ backgrounds probably reflected their general membership, predominantly from the poorer sections of their communities.91 Both Laqueur and Philip B. Cliff agree that many, probably a majority, of the teachers were former pupils.92 In the eighteenth century, when teachers were paid, some of the earliest recruits were women who were already teaching in weekday schools. Many women, the most famous being Hannah More, founded Sunday schools, wrote texts for teachers to use, and managed school finances.93 Around the turn of the century volunteers started to step forward to replace paid instructors; by mid-century teaching in Dissenting and Methodist schools was almost entirely voluntary.94 Pupils were segregated by sex, necessitating recruitment of both male and female teachers, and by 1862 the ratio of men to women was equal in all Sunday schools of all denominations.95 The Primitive Methodists may have been an exception, since men appear to have predominated at least until the last decade of the nineteenth century. In reports from seven districts in 1837, although the percentages of girl and boy pupils were almost equal, 61 percent of teachers were male, 49 percent female, giving a pupil–teacher ratio of 4.4 for boys but 6.5 for girls.96 The author of an article in the 1848 Primitive Methodist Magazine on ‘Qualities of a Sabbath school teacher’ expressed dismay at the lack of young men willing to teach Sunday school, noting that boys should be taught by their own sex. Yet forty years later the male– female imbalance was greater than in the 1830s, with 66 percent of the teachers male although the sex ratio of pupils remained almost even. The 1888 magazine editor commented: ‘The disproportion of the sexes is too great. More of the women of Primitive Methodism should be found in our

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women and the shaping of british methodism schools; it would be good for themselves, and their presence and influence would be an incalculable blessing to the schools; by their tact and tenderness, and gentleness they would often succeed where teachers of the sterner sex fail.’97 Linda Wilson found that although 31 percent of her total sample of 240 Nonconformist women taught Sunday school, only 10 percent of Primitive Methodist women did so.98 Some women probably disliked teaching. In Ireland the Primitive Methodist Miss Blizard of County Down wrote in her diary, ‘I am at a loss to know what to do. I have been invited to take a class in the Sabbath school; if it be the Lord’s will I shall submit, although it is one of the things my nature dislikes.’99 This could apply to women in all denominations, but a possible reason for Primitive Methodist women’s low participation was that they could use their talents as local preachers. A historian of Congregationalism suggested that the reverse was true in his denomination where women did not have the same outlet: Sunday schools ‘provided women members … with a suitable and valuable sphere of activity where the ban on female participation … was not applied.’100 Most Methodist celebrations took place within chapel boundaries, but Sunday school anniversaries were major events where congregations claimed public space.101 These festive occasions were fund-raisers; although teachers were volunteers, they still needed money for rent and supplies. The average cost per pupil at a Lincolnshire school in the 1830s was about two shillings a year.102 Anniversary celebrations required considerable planning and organization, much of it women’s preserve. In 1857 the anniversary of the Primitive Methodist Sunday school in Wootton Bassett began on Sunday with prayers at 8 a.m. At nine o’clock the teachers and children went in procession to the marketplace to hear an address, moving on to a local field where they listened to two more addresses and recitals by several of the boys. In the afternoon the procession formed again in the marketplace and wound through the streets to the field, the children singing as they went. There were more addresses and recitals by pupils before evening service in the chapel, which consisted mostly of children singing and reciting. The next day there was a tea meeting with a special sermon, and then at an evening public meeting the schoolmaster examined the children in history, arithmetic, and geography. The celebration continued on Tuesday when the scholars heard an address on the Bible, after which 300 children processed in decorated wagons to the grounds of a local landowner where they were served cake and tea.103 In 1876 a joint tea organized by the Penzance Bible Christian Sunday school and the local Band of Hope temperance society required over 200 pounds of cake, eighteen dozen butter buns, six pounds of butter, twelve pounds

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism of sugar, and five pounds of tea.104 At the annual Primitive Methodist Sunday school tea in Blackburn around 400 people ‘partook plentifully of the “cup that cheers, but not inebriates.”’ Organizing events like these included booking fields, printing and distributing tickets, and the major logistical effort of providing the tea, recruiting large numbers of volunteers to bake and serve. The last was certainly women’s responsibility. Tea meetings were important fund-raisers. A writer in the Primitive Methodist Magazine recommended that teas should be ‘feasts to worship God with a holy worship,’ with at least one preaching opportunity for ‘such preachers as noise will not interrupt.’ They could be occasions when Sunday school pupils sang or recited, or when missionaries reported on their activities.105 Another major fund-raising event, the charity bazaar, required even greater and more sustained planning. Charity bazaars became popular in the 1820s, and by the 1870s London and provincial newspapers were probably advertising more than 1,000 a year, with many more too small to afford advertising space. As the rather disillusioned author of a series of articles in ‘Voluntaryism’ in the Revival put it, they were ‘human devices which promise … pleasure, or possible gain, in order to obtain from Christians and others for the work of God and the good of man what they do not otherwise supply.’106 The Baptist William Landels was not sure that the competitive atmosphere of many bazaar committees was truly Christian: ‘There are, to say the least, so many feelings of a questionable nature brought into play, as to leave one in doubt if the good be not more than counterbalanced by the evil.’107 Landels expressed his doubts in a pamphlet aimed at young women, and there is no doubt that bazaars were a women’s preserve; Prochaska found no evidence of male participation in their management or operation. Women provided most of the articles sold, whether it was their own or their children’s work, or donations solicited from patrons and local merchants. The bazaar committee also had to organize the opening celebrations, usually presided over by a local dignitary, decorate the hall, and provide the ever-present tea.108 Methodist bazaars were usually small-scale affairs, raising modest amounts. A bazaar on a country circuit that featured ‘agricultural instruments, potatoes, onions and other valuable things’ raised over £22 for missions. In Manchester a bazaar netted over £76, eliminating the chapel debt.109 The effort put into a bazaar in aid of a new Bible Christian chapel in the Channel Islands proved well worth the women’s time: The ladies of the congregation took up the matter with considerable spirit. Not much stir was made, but there were silent operations working as effectually as the roots in winter, and when the time of opening came, the results were seen in a rich accumulation of articles of the most varied

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women and the shaping of british methodism forms and hues. The branches of the tree had budded, the buds had blown into blossom, the blossom had brightened into fruit. Six tables were admirably managed by seventeen ladies. A lady and a gentleman conducted a refreshment stall. About half-a-dozen friends furnished a choice collection of plants, with a stand, which greatly added to the appearance of the room, as well as to the funds of the bazaar. A post office, a galvanic battery and other amusements were provided for the entertainment of the young people. The room was gaily decorated with flags, &c. The attendance of visitors was large. Very great harmony prevailed among the workers. The utmost gratification was felt at the financial result, which considerably exceeded the highest expectations. Total £165. Net £162. 19s.110

Fund-raising became vital to Methodist congregations in the second half of the century. Almost all Methodist Connexions were originally sustained by weekly member contributions, collected by stewards and passed on to the district quarterly meeting. The delegates to the quarterly meeting stationed preachers, paid their salaries and expenses, and transferred a certain amount into a Connexional general fund that was divided among societies that petitioned for help. In the early years of the nineteenth century Wesleyan members were expected to contribute a penny a week and a shilling a quarter to circuit funds, plus an extra amount each year to help pay off Connexional debt. One of William O’Bryan’s differences with the Wesleyans was over the required contributions, which were onerous for poor members. While he was the Bible Christian leader member contributions were voluntary. Primitive Methodists also initially accepted that ministers should be supported by voluntary collections. However, the voluntary system caused problems, both in the recruitment and support of itinerants, and in rising Connexional debt. After O’Bryan’s departure the Bible Christians recommended that it would be ‘reasonable’ for members to pay a penny a week, although in fact the average weekly contribution was less than a halfpenny in 1862. In 1832 the Primitive Methodist Conference forbade circuits to pay their ministers more than they could raise themselves.111 By the 1830s Methodist congregations had taken on expenses that could not be covered by subscriptions from their members. Of these, the most important were chapel-building and maintenance, financing both home and foreign missions, and maintaining Sunday schools. Before 1850 the average cost of building a Primitive Methodist chapel was £200, rising to £1,179 in the 1870s as many buildings became more elaborate to reflect the rising social and economic status of their members.112 Construction was partially financed by voluntary contributions, including donations of

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism land or labor, and by collecting pew rents, giving the contributor the right to a specific seat in the chapel. In 1860 the average Bible Christian pew rent in South Devon was sixpence a quarter, which was probably within the reach of most members. In 1869 the very prosperous Spring Bank Primitive Methodist chapel on the Hull first circuit, with 360 members and a Sunday evening congregation of 1,000, collected £226 in pew rents.113 Women could be important patrons. For example, the Primitive Methodist Elizabeth Barker of Halifax, a local preacher and a tradeswoman, lent the chapel the substantial sum of £130 without interest, eventually forgiving the debt and leaving the chapel the rest of her estate.114 In 1841 the Bible Christian minutes listed sixty-three female and forty-five male contributors to the Chapel Loan Fund, suggesting that local fund-raising was inadequate to cover the costs.115 Chapel debt was a perennial topic at Bible Christian conferences. In 1854 the President lamented, ‘Many of our chapels were erected prospectively, and at a time when the friends of the cause were few and generally poor, and consequently considerable debts were left upon them; and now how to relieve these houses of God from their respective debts, becomes a subject of considerable moment.’116 In 1841 Hugh Bourne cited the example of the Wootton Bassett chapel, which opened with £64 15s. 10d. raised from subscriptions and donations, which he considered ‘answered well,’ but still left £200 owing. The congregation then added a gallery, increasing the debt to £247. However, enlisting additional support from members and their children, in 1840 they raised just under £74. Bourne commended their achievement and advocated that all chapels adopt what he called ‘the golden system’ of regular subscribers, which increased contributions considerably, but rarely eliminated the debt.117 Both Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians instituted Connexional chapel funds to be applied to debt reduction, but without much success. In 1841 the Bible Christian fund needed £2,000 yet collected little more than £309, and by the end of the century the Primitive Methodist chapel debt was over one million pounds.118 Thus much of the initiative in reducing chapel debt and funding other chapel activities still remained with local societies’ fund-raising activities. Apart from teas and bazaars, these included door-to-door collecting and special services attracting larger than usual congregations, where collections were expected to be substantial. Women played a major part in these activities, thus helping provide essential financial support for their religious communities. Door-to-door collections were most commonly to fund both home and foreign missions. The Primitive Methodists encouraged each class to select a missionary collector.119 Collecting was largely the province of women and children, who maintained records of donations and

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women and the shaping of british methodism distributed missionary collection boxes to local households. In 1841 the Methodist Missionary Society’s first children’s Christmas appeal netted 6 percent of the total annual receipts; by 1901 children, many of whom were now organized in juvenile associations, were collecting 20 percent.120 Women were diligent collectors. Primitive Methodist women competed with each other for the unofficial title of ‘queen’ of missionary collectors. In 1843 Mrs. Jenkinson of Filey, in Yorkshire, won by collecting just over £20 from fishermen and ‘the warmhearted people of Filey,’ beating her London rival Mrs. Gordon, who had held the title the previous year by collecting in a more affluent and geographically compact area. The following year enlargement of the chapel rivalled missions for Filey’s generosity, and Mrs. Gordon triumphed, collecting ‘the amazing sum of £31 2s. 6d.!!! which occasioned immense cheering. By a vote of the meeting, she ascended the platform, when the audience rose, and she was consecrated afresh to the collecting work under the new title of Empress of the Primitive Methodist Missionary Collectors.’ It was the end of the rivalry; rural Filey could not compete with cosmopolitan London. By 1848 Mrs. Gordon was collecting £40 annually.121 Such success was built on persistence despite the constant experience of rejection common to all forms of door-to-door collecting. Miss Blizard confided to her diary, ‘Yesterday I met with many unpleasant things in collecting money for the missionaries. This day we commenced collecting for the Bible Society. I felt rather uncomfortable when we went out at first.’122 The Wesleyan Methodist Mary Cryer wrote, ‘I find the cross in canvassing from door to door for Missions, and perhaps not succeeding in one case in twenty; I find it still more in begging for a poor starving fellow-creature, and perhaps now and then meeting with a chilling repulse.’123 Women also collected for missions in other ways, notably in ‘Dorcas meetings,’ when they got together for sewing and conversation. In 1845 a group of Primitive Methodist women in Lincolnshire formed the Louth Ladies’ Primitive Methodist Sewing Society. Each of the twelve members paid one shilling to purchase materials. A committee of six, including a secretary and treasurer, ran the society’s business. The women met for over six hours in the afternoon and early evening once a month, rotating between members’ houses; the month’s hostess had to provide ‘a plain tea, not using wine, fruit, or other articles of superfluity.’ While most of the women sewed, one read aloud from a suitably religious source, and the meeting began and ended with singing and prayer. The committee imposed fines on latecomers and absentees without a substitute or a valid excuse. The hostess was responsible for selling the month’s output, and by the end of the year they had raised £10. In 1848 they raised £11. 10s.124

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism The most regular Methodist fund-raising activities in the nineteenth century were the annual celebrations centered on the chapel and Sunday school anniversaries and the yearly mission sermon, with harvest festivals gaining popularity in the 1880s.125 All of them usually lasted more than one day, with special services and sermons, a tea, and a meeting with several speakers. Chapel anniversaries started on Sunday with sermons and a tea meeting, and often continued on Monday with more addresses at a public assembly. Chapel openings were also celebratory occasions, often lasting from Friday to Sunday, and including at least three services and tea.126 Missionary services also began with the Sunday sermon and continued with meetings in the week. An article in the weekly Christian had ‘hints for Lady Workers at Mission Services,’ advising them to station two or three women outside to entice people in, and two just inside the door to welcome the timid. They should not wear ‘rustling attire,’ and be prepared to sing at the end of the meeting.127 The collections at all the special services were of supreme importance. Local societies hoped that the offerings would fund the Sunday school for the year, help keep home and foreign missions solvent, or contribute to lowering the chapel debt. Sometimes the chapel committee appointed special collectors, who were expected to make substantial donations, and at the end of the evening service the minister announced the total amount collected. The editor of the Primitive Methodist Magazine would not publish reports of any fund-raising activity unless they included the sum raised. While the Sunday school activities were intrinsically attractive enough to ensure an audience of parents and families, the proceeds at chapel anniversaries and missionary sermons usually increased if there was a special draw, either a popular itinerant who had moved on to other circuits or a preacher from outside the circuit who would entice backsliders, potential new members, and the merely curious to attend. The 1834 Primitive Methodist Conference Minutes advised that, ‘Public missionary services shall be supported by as powerful advocates of the missionary cause as can be conveniently secured at a reasonable expense,’ and encouraged circuits to coordinate with each other and pool resources.128 Here women preachers had the same advantage they had enjoyed in the days of outdoor and cottage preaching: their novelty attracted crowds. Sarah Brayshaw, a local Primitive Methodist preacher in demand for special services, travelled 7,000 miles, mostly on foot, and preached around 1,000 sermons.129 Mary O’Bryan’s diary includes numerous engagements for anniversary celebrations. Between 1830 and 1865 the Primitive Methodist Magazine recorded more than 500 occasions on which women preached at special services,

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women and the shaping of british methodism averaging around sixteen mentions per year. A total of 204 women spoke on these occasions, only seventeen of whom were paid itinerants at the time, although a few more may have been paid local preachers. A further sixteen can be identified as ministers’ wives; probably that is a considerable underestimate. It is impossible to gauge the full amount of women’s participation. The magazine included reports on only a very small minority of the total number of special services and collections; for example, in 1841 there were 1,219 chapels, allowing for the possibility of more than 3,500 chapel and Sunday school anniversaries and missionary sermons. The editor was dependent on local societies to report from their circuits, and probably chose only the more successful events for publication; it was extremely rare for anyone to report a smaller collection than the previous year. In the 1840s the editor estimated that circuits reported less than 20 percent of the results of their missionary meetings.130 Certainly women were a novelty since men preached at the great majority of the reported events. In one representative year, 1856, women accounted for less than 9 percent of the named preachers at special services. They were far more likely to preach at chapel openings and anniversaries than at missionary services. Thirty-eight percent of their recorded invitations between 1830 and 1865 were for openings, 28 percent for chapel anniversaries, and only 8 percent for missionary services.131 One factor that probably inhibited invitations to women was the presence of ministers from other denomin­ ations who did not allow female preachers. It was common practice to invite ministers from other local Methodist and Nonconformist congregations to preach at the services and join in the celebrations, but only three women were reported as preaching when ministers other than Primitive Methodists were participating. In the 1860s the independent evangelist Geraldine Hooper declined to speak when ministers were on the platform.132 Nonetheless, women’s effectiveness was clear. Reports of women preaching were more likely than those of men to include comments on the large and often overflowing congregations and the generous collections. When Mrs. Hirst, a minister’s wife, preached at the 1841 anniversary of the Boston (Lincs.) chapel the collection was a ‘liberal’ £30, compared with £5 the previous year. In her obituary her son noted that at first she read sermons because there were only two local preachers on her husband’s circuit, but then began regular preaching. ‘It will always be one of the most cherished associations of our childhood days, that we were privileged to accompany her, to see the crowded chapels, the rapt attention of the audiences who listened to her pulpit efforts with breathless interest.’ A minister’s wife always in demand for special services was

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism Mrs. E. Jackson. In 1848 her ‘high esteem’ attracted a congregation large enough that the proceeds were greater than the previous year despite high unemployment. When Miss A. Darly spoke at a Brierley Hill anniversary she had to preach again on the Monday night because so many could not get in, and the collections were more than double those of any other anniversary. In the same year when Mrs. Thomas preached at Fulletby in Lincolnshire, ‘the excitement was so great that the whole village seemed to be on a move.’133 Clearly the attraction of female preaching had not waned. Some women travelled considerable distances to speak. Miss Rose Wilson, from Hull, spoke on at least ten different occasions in 1856, all outside her local circuit. In the following year she preached a ‘pointed, experimental sermon’ at a tea meeting in Biggleswade, raising money to replace a burned barn where the Primitive Methodists had met. At Hutton, close to her own circuit, the chapel committee advertised her presence at an opening in advance and put up a tent capable of holding 300 people. Preaching with another woman, Mrs. Lonsdale, they had to use both tent and chapel to accommodate the crowd, and ‘the collections far transcended … calculations.’134 Rose Wilson was a new breed of woman preacher. She stepped beyond the intermediate space between public and private that the local chapel provided into a public career.135 She began as many other women did, teaching Sunday school, visiting, and preaching locally, but by the 1850s her reputation had spread far beyond her Yorkshire home territory. Her expenses were paid from the collections, so she was under pressure to attract crowds.136 As well as preaching at anniversaries she spoke on special occasions such as a fund-raiser for cleaning, painting, and repairing a chapel.137 Unlike the women preachers of the first half of the century, she was not an evangelist going into new areas to convert souls, but a professional speaker who could attract a crowd and encourage them to give generously to fund existing enterprises. Women like her were probably rare before 1860. Only eight other Primitive Methodist women are recorded as preaching more than five times at special services between 1830 and 1865. Of these, one was an itinerant in the 1830s, at least three were ministers’ wives and two more were married, thus probably limiting their movement. Mrs. Grice of West Bromwich was a possible exception, recorded as preaching nearly twenty times between 1839 and 1856 to large congregations.138 Similar women were active in Bible Christian chapels. In the second half of the 1860s Miss Potter of Exeter preached on at least twelve Bible Christian circuits spread across the south of England from Cornwall to Kent.139 There may also have been women who made special evangelistic tours, as had happened earlier in the century. In 1857

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women and the shaping of british methodism Mrs. Shum, ‘a lady of colour,’ spoke on at least four occasions in different Primitive Methodist circuits. In the 1850s the Primitive Methodist Mary Clarissa Buck (1810–76) of Leicester was the most successful of the women who, like Wilson, became professional speakers at fund-raisers. She came from typical Primitive Methodist stock, rural, poor, and with little formal education. Her parents were ‘strictly honest, industrious and moral, although poor in worldly circumstances.’ They opened their home to Primitive Methodists’ preaching for fifteen years, and welcomed itinerants and local preachers as guests. Clarissa was described in her obituary as ‘a patient, painstaking, and plodding young woman,’ traits that contributed to her persistence. She received ‘the merest rudiments of an elementary education,’ but ‘her soul thirsted for knowledge … and self-culture became a habit for her. By thinking she learned to think, until she could grapple in a masterly manner with the most difficult subjects in philosophy and theology.’140 She converted at age twenty at a Wesleyan love-feast, but immediately joined the Primitive Methodists, becoming first an exhorter at prayer meetings, then a local preacher. Her talent for preaching was clear: ‘Wherever she went to preach the word of life large congregations crowded to hear her.’ She was hired as a paid local preacher in the Northampton mission in 1835 and the following year began a ten-year stint as an itinerant. She preached frequently outside her own circuit, and in 1846, probably at her request since she was concerned about her health, her circuit leaders granted her unusual latitude, agreeing ‘not to plan her altogether as before, but leave her more at liberty either to rest or to serve others as she thought best.’ Shortly afterwards she resigned as an itinerant altogether, freeing herself to travel throughout the Connexion, speaking at anniversaries and special services.141 This blossomed into a twenty-five-year career; between 1842 and 1865 the magazine recorded her preaching nearly 100 times at special services throughout England and Wales; certainly these reports were merely a small portion of her activity. In 1850 she attracted more than 2,000 people to an opening, and the following year a correspondent noted that she attracted larger congregations than two male preachers. On another occasion, ‘the pews, free seats, aisles, and pulpit stairs were crowded and it was thought hundreds were unable to get in.’ Her sermons were described as ‘eloquent and impressive,’ ‘gifted and powerful,’ ‘pathetic and thrilling,’ although some thought them too long. Reports attested to her drawing power. At a Sunday school anniversary she raised ‘by far the largest amount ever obtained on any similar occasion here,’ and when she spoke at a tea meeting she raised twice the amount raised at previous teas. On her third visit to Bradwell, ‘the interest created was equal to that

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism of either of the former years.’ On some occasions she spoke in larger premises; in Banbury the local chapel committee hired the Corn Exchange for their anniversary, and at Skelmanthorpe she preached in the Wesleyan chapel lent for the occasion. By 1858 she was also charging admission for a lecture on ‘Female Preaching,’ although no description of its content has survived. In 1866 the Conference granted her a £20 annuity, possibly unprecedented for a non-itinerant, and she may have retired, although she spoke at an opening in Ludlow in 1871. She suffered a severe stroke in 1872, losing the use of one side of her body, and died in 1876.142 Clarissa Buck’s main function was to raise money; saving souls was important but secondary. In the late 1850s another Primitive Methodist woman embarked on a similar career, but her primary aim was salvation. Miss E. Bennett of Huxley, near Chester, began by speaking at special services, but probably more often stayed in a locality for two weeks or more, holding meetings and visiting families. In 1857 she spent a week on the Hadnall circuit, ‘clothed with power in preaching.’ Three years later she was ‘converting sinners’ on the Oswestry circuit, in 1861 she was in Shrewsbury, in 1867 Congleton, and in 1869 Hexham.143 Significantly, unlike Clarissa Buck’s, her activities were occasionally noted in the Revival, an interdenominational weekly devoted to promoting evangelism and religious revival in England in the 1860s. Bennett was just one of a significant number of women who emerged as independent evangelists in that decade, whose work is the subject of the next chapter. Buck and Bennett were exceptional Methodist women. By far the majority who wanted or felt called to move beyond the private realm of family religion were content to be ‘Angels out of the House,’ to stay within the limited public space of the chapel, where their contributions were vital to sustaining both their religious and their local communities. In particular, their fund-raising activities were essential to chapel finances and supporting Sunday schools and missions, and the Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian Connexions would have had difficulty sustaining their preaching plans without female local preachers. Their work contributed to their sense of self-worth, which sometimes led to small but important acts of defiance. In 1857 a member of the Church of England at Billbroughton put up a gate that prevented access to the newly constructed chapel. Mrs. Cuttriss, in whose house they had worshipped before the chapel was built, ‘with a zeal for the house of the Lord, and from a firm conviction of the illegality of the afore-mentioned gentleman’s proceedings, cut the bars of the gate.’ The gentleman replaced them, but she cut them again, after which there was no more trouble.144 Without women like Mrs. Cuttriss, or the ladies of the Louth sewing circle, the bazaar organizers in Jersey, and

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women and the shaping of british methodism the Wotton Bassett Sunday school teachers, or even exceptional women like Sarah Terrett, who ventured well beyond local concerns, chapel life would have been at least less colorful, certainly poorer, and probably unsustainable. Notes

1 2 3 4



5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24

Bourne, Ready in Life, pp. 79–80, 138–9. Bourne, Ready in Life, pp. 7, 13–29. Bourne, Ready in Life, pp. 36–49. Doreen Rosman, The Evolution of the English Churches 1500–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 224. Bourne, Ready in Life, pp. 49–68, 75–83, 100–1, 106. Bourne, Ready in Life, pp. 100, 109, 123, 132, 138–9, 155. Bourne, Ready in Life, p. 118. Bible Christian Minutes, 1903, p. 20. Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); Amanda Vickery, ‘Golden age to separate spheres? A review of the categories and chronology of women’s history,’ Historical Journal 36:2 (1992); Robert Shoemaker, Gender in English Society, 1650–1850 (London: Longman, 1998); Crawford, Women and Religion in England. Helsinger, Sheets, and Veeder (eds), The Woman Question, pp. xiv–xv. Wilson, Constrained by Zeal, p. 11. William Landels, Woman: Her Position and Power (London: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1871), pp. 254–5. Martha Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women 1850–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 27. [Mrs. Ann Judith Penny], The Afternoon of Unmarried Life (London: Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts, 1858), p. 142, quoted in Vicinus, Independent Women, p. 13. John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies (Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, n.d.), pp. 156, 160–1. PMM 26:12 (1846), 736. The Revival: A Weekly Record of Events Connected with the Present Revival of Religion (London: J. F. Shaw), 23 July 1863, 55; 15 March 1866, 148. Kathleen Heasman, Evangelicals in Action: An Appraisal of Their Social Work in the Victorian Era (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1962), pp. 18–22, 26–7. L. E. O’Rorke, The Life and Friendships of Catherine Marsh (London: Longmans, Green, 1917). ‘Memoir of Sarah Martin,’ PMWM 27:4 (1849), 241–55; Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, pp. 163–9. Revival, 18 February 1864, 119. Revival, 23 July 1863, 55; 25 October 1866, 277; 8 November 1866, 259; 21 February 1867, 107; 16 January 1868, 30; 13 February 1868, 87; Christian, 24 March 1870, 14; 11 August 1870, 9; Heasman, Evangelicals, pp. 102–5. Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, pp. 186–96; Christian, 23 January 1873, 26. Revival, 24 March 1860, 91; 18 August 1860, 55; 10 November 1860, 148; Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, pp. 189, 195.

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism 25 Revival, 7 June 1866, 317 (italics in original). 26 Revival, 14 July 1860, 10. 27 Not to be confused with Mrs. Henrietta Barnett, wife of Canon Samuel Barnett, one of the founders of Toynbee Hall. 28 ‘Woman’s work at the Metropolitan Tabernacle,’ Revival, 15 March 1866, 147. 29 F. K. Prochaska, ‘A mother’s country: mothers’ meetings and family welfare in Britain, 1850–1950,’ History 74:10 (1989); Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, p. 189. 30 Valerie Griffiths, ‘Biblewomen from London to China: the transnational appropriation of a female mission idea,’ Women’s History Review 17:4 (2008), 527; Revival, 11 September 1862, 118. 31 ‘The Biblewoman in London,’ quoted in Revival, 11 September 1862, 118. 32 Revival, 1 September 1864. 33 F. K. Prochaska, ‘Body and soul; Bible nurses and the poor in Victorian London,’ Historical Research 60:143 (1987), 337–9; Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, pp. 127–8. 34 Brian Dickey, ‘“Going about and doing good”: evangelicals and poverty c. 1815–1870,’ in Wolffe (ed.), Evangelical Faith and Public Zeal, pp. 39, 41, 48. 35 Donald M. Lewis, ‘“Lights in dark places”: women evangelists in early Victorian Britain 1838–1857, ’ in W. J. Shiels and Diana Wood (eds), Women in the Church (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), pp. 415, 419–20, 422. 36 The Yearbook and Directory of Women’s Work (London: Labour News Publication Office, 1888), p. 54. 37 Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England 1815–1872 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971), pp. 90–9. 38 Harrison, Drink, pp. 125–6. 39 Lysons, Little Primitive, pp. 175–6; Harrison, Drink, p. 180; John Kent, Holding the Fort: Studies in Victorian Revivalism (London: Epworth Press, 1978), p. 318. 40 PMM 16:10 (1836), 388; Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 176. 41 Shaw, Bible Christians, pp. 53–4; Pyke, Golden Chain, p. 107. 42 Lilian Lewis Shiman, ‘“Changes are dangerous”: women and temperance in Victorian England,’ in Gail Malmgreen (ed.), Religion in the Lives of English Women, 1760–1930 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), pp. 194–7. 43 Harrison, Drink, pp. 175, 182, 192–3, 225. 44 Revival, 1 September 1864, 137. 45 Revival, 8 September 1864, 150; 23 March 1865, 186; 30 March 1865, 203; 13 April 1865, 230; 25 May 1865, 330; 8 June 1865, 363; 8 February 1866, 75; 9 May 1867, 261; 11 March 1869, 7; Christian, 26 May 1870, 10; 10 July 1873, 8. 46 Shiman, ‘Changes are dangerous,’ pp. 201–2. 47 Heasman, Evangelicals, pp. 129–34. 48 Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 95. 49 PMM 33:8 (1853), 480–2. 50 Wilson, Constrained by Zeal, pp. 193–5. 51 Linda Wilson, ‘Beads of memory: activism in the biographies of Methodist women,’ in Virgoe (ed.), Angels and Impudent Women, pp. 134–5. 52 Rev. Joseph Wood, Sunset at Noonday: Memorials of Mrs. T. J. Robson, of Hull (London: G. Lamb, 1871). 53 PMM 64:3 (1884), 180–2.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

76

77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

Wilson, Constrained by Zeal, pp. 202–4. Currie, Methodism Divided, pp. 125–8; WMM 77:11 (1864), 881 (italics in original). Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society, pp. 253–4. Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 128. Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 186. PMM 33:5 (1853), 265–6. James Thorne Centenary, pp. 63, 71. PMWM 27:2 (1849), 84–5. PMM 18:6 (1838), 233. E. Dorothy Graham, ‘Women local preachers,’ in Geoffrey Milburn and Margaret Batty (eds), Workaday Preachers: The Story of Methodist Local Preaching (Peter­ borough: Methodist Publishing House, 1995), p. 176. PMM 24:3 (1844), 83. Quoted in Wilson, ‘Beads of memory,’ p. 138. Geoffrey Milburn, ‘The local preacher’s role and status in divided Methodism 1850–1932,’ in Milburn and Batty (eds), Workaday Preachers, pp. 62–7. Graham, ‘Women local preachers,’ p. 182. Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 33; Milburn, ‘Local preacher,’ p. 63; statistics derived from Primitive Methodist Minutes 1830–60. Jubilee Memorial, p. 174; Milburn, ‘Local preacher,’ p. 63. Statistics derived from Graham, Chosen. Graham, ‘Women local preachers,’ pp. 180, 186. Rosman, Evolution, p. 235. Wilson, Constrained by Zeal, pp. 123, 198. Rosman, Evolution, p. 214. See Thompson, English Working Class, pp. 389–90, 414–15; Thomas Laqueur, Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture 1780–1850 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976); Malcolm Dick, ‘The myth of the working-class Sunday school,’ History of Education 9:1 (1980); Philip B. Cliff, The Rise and Development of the Sunday School Movement in England 1780–1980 (Redhill: National Christian Education Council, 1986). Rosman, Evolution, pp. 174–5; Hempton, Methodism and Politics, pp. 89–90; K. D. M. Snell, ‘The Sunday school movement: child labour, denominational control and working-class culture,’ in K. D. M. Snell and Paul S. Ell, Rival Jerusalems: The Geography of Victorian Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 303, 317–18. Snell, ‘Sunday school movement,’ pp. 277–8; Laqueur, Religion and Respectability, pp. 44, 246; Cliff, Rise and Development, p. 131. Quoted in Snell, ‘Sunday school movement,’ p. 275. Laqueur, Religion and Respectability, pp. 103–4. Hempton, Methodism and Politics, pp. 90–1; Cliff, Rise and Development, pp. 82–3. PMM 17:10 (1847), 601; Laqueur, Religion and Respectability, p. 105. Snell, ‘Sunday school movement,’ pp. 298, 300. Snell, ‘Sunday school movement,’ pp. 292–3, 304–5. PMM 17:7 (1837), 272; 17:8 (1837), 306, 317; 17:9 (1837), 341, 354; 17:10 (1837), 377, 398; Jubilee Memorial, p. 174. Snell, ‘Sunday school movement,’ p. 277.

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women philanthropists preachers’ place and inlocal a divided preachers methodism

86 87 88 89

90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124

Werner, Primitive Methodist, p. 160; Laqueur, Religion and Respectability, p. 117. PMM 9:11 (1829), 403. PMM, 12:6 (1832), 234–5; 13:6 (1833), 65; 17:1 (1837), 22; 16:5 (1846), 279–80. Primitive Methodist Minutes 1850; Snell, ‘Sunday school movement,’ p. 318; Cliff, Rise and Development, p. 201. Cliff, Rise and Development, pp. 83–4. Laqueur, Religion and Respectability, p. 92. Laqueur, Religion and Respectability, pp. 91–3; Cliff, Rise and Development, pp. 101–3, 109, 133, 151; Snell, ‘Sunday school movement,’ pp. 283–6. Snell, ‘Sunday school movement,’ p. 283. Laqueur, Religion and Respectability, pp. 91–3; Cliff, Rise and Development, pp. 56–8, 100–13. Revival, 11 September 1863, 118. PMM 17:7 (1837), 272 ; 17:8 (1837), 306; 17:9 (1837), 341, 354; 17:10 (1837), 377, 398. PMM 68:1 (1888), 22. Wilson, Constrained by Zeal, p. 189. PMWM 20:2 (1842), 116. R. T. Jones, Congregationalism in England 1662–1962 (London: Independent Press, 1962), p. 164. David C. Harvey, Catherine Brace, and Adrian Bailey, ‘Parading the Cornish subject: Methodist Sunday schools in west Cornwall,’ Journal of Historical Geography 33:1 (2007), 27. Cliff, Rise and Development, p. 100. PMM 37:10 (1857), 625. Harvey, Brace, and Bailey, ‘Cornish subject,’ 38. PMM 21:1 (1841), 13–14. Revival, 13 February 1868, 113. William Landels, Woman’s Sphere and Work, Considered in the Light of Scripture: A Book for Young Women (London: J. Nisbet, 1859), pp. 224–5. Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, pp. 52, 57, 64. PMM 38:6 (1858), 367. BCM 48:6 (1869), 283. Watts, Dissenters II, pp. 237–8; Shaw, Bible Christians, pp. 44, 48, 60. Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 63; Milburn, Primitive Methodism, p. 48. BCM 39:5 (1860), 196; PMM 49:2 (1869), 104. PMM 16:11 (1836), 415–16. Bible Christian Minutes 1841, pp. 20–4. BCM 21:12 (1842), 283; Bible Christian Minutes 1854, p. 25. PMM 21:1 (1841), 36–7; 21:2 (1841), 56–7. BCM 21:12 (1842), 283; Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 65. Primitive Methodist Minutes 1843, p. 22. Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, p. 82. PMM 23:4 (1843), 150; 24:5 (1844), 186–7; 24:11 (1844), 440; 25:10 (1848), 630. PMWM 20:2 (1842), 116. Mary Cryer, The Devotional Remains of Mrs. Cryer (London: Hamilton Adams, 1854), p. 102, quoted in Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, p. 121. PMM 26:6 (1846), 374–5; 28:4 (1848), 246.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142

143 144

APMM 91:11 (1910), 916. PMM 38:2 (1858), 108, 114. Christian, 6 November 1873, 3–4. Primitive Methodist Minutes 1843, p. 22. PMM 72:5 (1892), 311. PMM 24:11 (1844), 440. Statistics compiled by author from PMM reports. Fanny Grattan Guinness, ‘She Spake of Him,’ Being Recollections of the Loving Labours and Early Death of the Late Mrs. Henry Dening (Bristol: W. Mack, 1873), p. 149. PMM 22:3 (1842), 101; 28:10 (1848), 628–9; 35:12 (1855), 753, 755. PMM 34:8 (1854), 509; 34:10 (1854), 615; 37:9 (1857), 553, 560; 40:10 (1860), 552; 44:8 (1864), 484; 72:11 (1892), 691. Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 31. Primitive Methodist Minutes 1832, pp. 13–14. PMM 35:10 (1855), 620. Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 190. BCM 44:3 (1865), 139; 47:3 (1868), 142; 47:6 (1868), 281. ‘Miss Buck,’ PMM 57:2 (1877), 111. PMM 57:2 (1877), 112–13; Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 6. PMM, 30:4 (1850), 244; 30:6 (1850), 371; 31:1 (1851), 54; 32:8 (1852), 58; 33:2 (1853), 124; 33:5 (1853), 309; 34:3 (1854), 180; 34:6 (1854), 370; 34:12 (1854), 748; 36:10 (1856), 620; 38:1 (1858), 52; 38:2 (1858), 113; 51:9 (1871), 567. PMM 38:2 (1858), 103–4; 40:6 (1860), 357; Revival, 30 March 1861, 103; 16 May 1867, 273; 25 February 1869, 7. PMM 37:9 (1857), 554.

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5 Women as Revivalists

S

erena Thorne was born in 1842, the ninth of Mary O’Bryan and Samuel Thorne’s thirteen children. She grew up in a tense household; her parents were often at odds, Samuel’s business ventures, including the Bible Christian Connexional printing company, did not go well, and he alienated his elder sons. Perilous family finances probably meant her education was largely at home. The surviving portions of her mother’s diary do not record her conversion, but at age eleven Mary thought her ‘very pious.’ Her sister remembered her as ‘lively and vivacious … full of fun and frolic – she was ready for any merry-making.’ After a year of apprenticeship she returned home and began helping out with her mother’s class. In 1860, aged eighteen, she preached for the first time. Six months later she was on the preaching plan as a local preacher, when ‘the knowledge of her coming to take a service always meant overflowing congregations.’1 By the 1860s she could not expect to make a career of preaching among the Bible Christians, so she embarked on a career as a travelling evangelist, developing an ‘exciting record of continuous preaching, eager crowds, and constant additions to the church.’2 In 1862 she was in Wales, attracting more than 1,000 people to a large Welsh chapel.3 However, family troubles intervened. Tensions were so high between her father and her brothers Ebenezer and William, who worked together in the printing business, that in 1863 she agreed to emigrate with them to Queensland, Australia, together with her older sister Susannah. In Queensland Serena began working as an evangelist for the Primitive Methodists. She was so popular that when she fell gravely ill with scarlet fever there were public prayers for her recovery. A year later she was able to earn enough to support herself.4 She was contemplating a re-engagement with the Primitive Methodists when the Bible Christian Conference in England asked her to help open a mission in Queensland

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women and the shaping of british methodism and maintain it until the officially appointed missionary arrived. She did so gladly, but when the missionary, William Woolcock, came, according to her mother, he treated Serena in ‘so coarse and ungentlemanly manner that she has requested a removal to some other colony.’ Woolcock probably found himself no match for the energetic Serena; a member of the Queensland government once told her husband, Octavius Lake, ‘If your conference had made Miss Thorne general superintendent here, she would have had Bible Christian circuits in every part of Queensland.’ Instead she preached one more sermon in defiance of Woolcock’s wishes, and moved to Victoria, where a local Bible Christian itinerant reported her success in detail in the Bible Christian Magazine. At a missionary meeting in Sandhurst, Serena made it clear her purpose was now fundraising rather than conversion, ‘her object being in visiting different parts of the colony to assist the funds of the Bible Christian missionary society.’ Her sex and her eloquence were the keys to her success. A local paper reported: The young lady displayed none of that masculine manner that might have been anticipated from one of the fair sex placing herself in so prominent a position, but opened the service by reading in a very clear and articulate voice, without the slighted affectation … The fair ministress read, in a peculiarly distinct and impressive manner … She then offered up a most pure and simple, but affecting prayer … preaching a really eloquent sermon, in a nicely modulated voice, which was distinctly audible in every corner of the building – the discourse being of a truly Christian character, delivered unostentatiously, without the least hesitation – the words flowing from her lips with a marvellous rapidity and precision.5

In 1870 Serena accepted an invitation from the local Bible Christians to move to Adelaide in South Australia with promise of a salary of £1 a week, double what she had been earning in Victoria, with travel, board, and lodging expenses met by the circuits.6 She arrived in May in somber mood, suffering, like her mother, from fear of unworthiness (‘I am ashamed and confounded to see how dull and weak and imperfect I am’), and worrying about her aging parents; in her diary she contemplated staying for a year and then returning to look after them.7 Despite her pessimism, her success continued. In South Australia, while fundraising remained an important aspect of her mission, she returned to evangel­ism. She took over the Adelaide Town Hall, capacity 1,500, for thirteen weeks, where, the Bible Christian Magazine reported, ‘On every occasion hundreds are unable to obtain admission. The audience is composed of all classes – merchants, bankers, lawyers, shopkeepers, and

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women as revivalists working people – who hang upon her lips with breathless attention.’ She held a number of midnight meetings for prostitutes, successful enough to fill the local refuge.8 That year, at a time when she was feeling alone and homesick, she became reacquainted with the Bible Christian minister Octavius Lake, whom she had known when he studied for the ministry at Shebbear. She was wary of him because she believed he did not respect her family, but he was able to convince her otherwise and they quickly fell in love. They planned to marry at the next district meeting in March, but a letter from Octavius while she was travelling among farming and Cornish mining communities outside Adelaide caused her to rethink, since he appeared to disapprove of her life’s work. He admitted to being ‘among the members who in the Eng. Conference cheered the announcement that we had not a single woman preacher left,’ and he rejoiced ‘that the practice is receiving such discontinuance that only in special cases it can find support.’ She ‘thought my heart would have broken – for I read in that the knell of our intercourse. It is no trivial feeling, it is a solemn deeply rooted conviction with me. I dare not sacrifice principle & duty … to love.’ She broke off the engagement. Octavius’s response was swift. He replied that he had been ill when he wrote the letter, and that ‘he thought he had given me once and for all to understand that I had his full sympathy & that he would never oppose or hinder me. He has fully satisfied me by his explanation.’9 The engagement resumed, and she continued her successful preaching career; in one afternoon in Gawler the contributions enabled the community to pay off their chapel debt.10 Serena and Octavius married as planned in March 1871 and spent the rest of their lives in South Australia. Despite frequent pregnancies and the deaths of six of their seven children as infants, perhaps because of the extreme heat in the rural circuits that were the majority of Octavius’s postings, Serena continued her preaching career, becoming the leading woman preacher in South Australia. She spoke in every town in the state, and the Adelaide Register reported that ‘probably no woman in South Australia was personally known to more people.’11 In 1886 Octavius was appointed superintendent in Adelaide, and Serena was able to attend the foundation meeting of the Women’s Suffrage League in 1888. She seconded the motion to found the League, arguing that, ‘If the principle that woman, who was made the divine helpmeet of man, had been carried out in its entirety the confusion of the past would not have occurred.’12 As in the United States, the South Australian suffrage and temperance movements were closely allied, and the Social Purity Society of Adelaide were the initiators of the 1888 meeting. Serena was a passionate supporter of total abstinence, arguing that, ‘Womanhood Suffrage means the ultimate

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women and the shaping of british methodism a­ bolition of the drink traffic.’13 In 1889 she accepted the joint position of State Superintendent for Suffrage and first organizer for the South Australian Women’s Christian Temperance Union, using her considerable experience in public speaking and her persuasive oratory to advance both causes. Despite her husband’s appointment to rural Gladstone that year, she travelled widely, organizing twenty-seven suffrage and twentytwo WCTU unions by 1890. She argued from the point of view of women’s difference and their role as mothers: ‘The aim of our work is to wake both men and women up to the injustice and absurdity of a national life in which the mother influence has no acknowledged authority or legal recognition.’14 In 1891 she resigned both positions and the WCTU appointed her Honorary Vice President for Life, apparently expecting she was leaving Australia. Before their marriage Octavius had suggested that they become missionaries in Ceylon; perhaps, with their only child now eighteen, they were contemplating it again. They did not go; in 1892 the family moved to an Adelaide suburb, where Serena became President of the Bible Christian Women’s Missionary Board, securing the appointment of two female evangelists to preach on rural circuits. She also attended the Women’s Suffrage League annual meeting, where she was appointed to the League’s committee.15 By 1894, when the South Australian Woman Suffrage Bill passed the legislature, the Lakes were in the Cornish mining community of Moonta, which had a strong reputation for female activism; the couple (Octavius was also a strong suffrage supporter) would have rejoiced with the local women. Eight years later Serena died of breast cancer. She stipulated no ‘crape or signs of mourning … Let there be no symbol of defeat; I am going home with a song.’ In her obituary her husband wrote, ‘Mrs. Lake’s reputation as a preacher did not rest on mere womanly attraction. There was something in that, but there was more in her strong and lofty thinking … As a temperance speaker she stood alone among the womanhood of the continent.’16 Serena Thorne Lake’s preaching career illustrates some of the limitations on and possibilities open to women preachers in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although she was born into a Connexion that still supported women preaching at the local level, and was the daughter of one of the best known of them, James Thorne’s negotiations with the New Connexion at the time when she began her preaching career made it clear that support was tenuous. She immediately began to work as a travelling evangelist and fund-raiser within the Bible Christian Connexion. Her move to Australia, while motivated by family friction, eventually allowed her to support herself by her preaching. Her primary purpose was to raise funds by attracting crowds to hear her, and initially she almost always

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women as revivalists spoke in local Primitive Methodist or Bible Christian chapels. But her large audiences soon necessitated hiring public secular spaces to accommodate them; in this she was like a number of women evangelists of the 1860s in England who rented or owned their own preaching places. She attracted opposition as well as support, but, as with other visiting female evangelists in Australia, contemporary reports portrayed her as ladylike and non-threatening.17 Once in South Australia she worked as a revivalist at least as much as a fund-raiser, and she continued her career after marriage, like similar woman revivalists in Britain. However, unlike those women, her fervent religious belief and considerable reputation as a public speaker contributed to her activism in the pioneering South Australian temperance and woman suffrage movements. No British woman evangelist achieved a similar prominence in those campaigns, and in Britain links between female preaching and suffrage and temperance were weak. A new breed of woman evangelists emerged in Britain in the 1860s: female revivalists. Unlike Clarissa Buck and other women preachers who travelled among circuits in the previous decade, their aim was not to raise money, although they had to cover their expenses, but to save souls. Also unlike Buck, they were mainly from the middle class. They spoke on invitation, usually for several weeks at a time in one place, rarely in the open air unless the crowds were too great.18 They differed from Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian female preachers in the first half of the century because their work was interdenominational. A Scottish minister defined the evangelists of the 1860s, both men and women, as ‘irregulars, free lances, knowing no church, understanding nothing of parochial divisions, subject to no master but Christ.’19 These women were pioneers of a new form of revivalism, nondenominational and based on large meetings, often in secular spaces, at which the number of converts defined success. By mixing music with exhortation, some 1860s revivalists were forerunners to the success of the Americans Moody and Sankey in the 1870s. Yet these women also had something in common with their predecessors in the first half of the century. As in the past, their novelty attracted crowds, and their youth made them the more appealing. Their prominence revived the simmering debate on whether it was scriptural for women to preach, a debate that women themselves joined. But their heyday was brief, waning as hopes for a general revival faded and died by 1870. The Irish Presbyterian described a revival as taking place ‘whenever religion becomes more flourishing than for some time it has been. It consists in the impartation of spiritual life to the dead in sin, and the

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women and the shaping of british methodism quickening and invigorating of the graces of believers.’20 Revivals had two purposes: while hoping to attract new converts they also reinvigorated religious fervor in existing congregations. While they could be spontaneous and home-grown, from the 1840s they were increasingly managed events based on the short-term residency of a professional revivalist, often American. Calvin Colton, a New York Presbyterian and author of History and Character of American Revivals (1832), distinguished between revivals that came from God without human intervention and revivals that were ‘matters of human calculation,’ firmly advocating the latter.21 John Kent distinguished between ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ revivalism. The former was local and community-based, with meetings and services usually held in religious spaces, and any professional revivalist coming from across the Atlantic. After 1860 ‘modern’ revivals were nondenominational, based on huge mass meetings and instantaneous conversion.22 Although an indigenous revivalist strain in British Methodism led to revivals in Scotland, Cornwall, and northern industrial areas in the 1830s and 1840s, including the two ‘cholera revivals’ of 1832–33 and 1849 that coincided with periods of economic distress and social tension, certainly in the first half of the nineteenth century much of the stimulus for religious revival came from American evangelists.23 Beginning with Lorenzo Dow at the beginning of the century, Americans came to Britain to speak in the open air, to preach on invitation to established congregations, to attend conventions, or to raise money for causes ranging from anti-slavery to anti-Catholicism. Those making the crossing included some women like Dorothy Ripley, travelling with Dow, and Nancy Towle in the 1820s. The O’Bryan family welcomed Towle when she spoke in Plymouth, and she reciprocated by meeting two of William and Catherine’s daughters off the ship when they emigrated to the United States, taking the elder, Thomasine, on a preaching tour of the South.24 Between 1820 and 1840 English Nonconformists welcomed a number of American revivalists in their churches, of whom Calvin Colton was the most successful, and in the 1840s and 1850s American evangelists like Charles Finney and James Caughey developed or adapted specific conversion techniques designed to encourage public repentance and conversion.25 An important influence in British attitudes toward revivalism in the first half of the century was the publication in 1837 of Charles Grandison Finney’s Lectures on Revivals, with a special British edition appearing in 1839. Finney, brought up a Presbyterian but a practicing Congregationalist, made his name as a revivalist in the ‘Burned-Over District’ of upstate New York, where his methods inspired both controversy and emulation. He taught a methodical approach to revivals, emphasizing

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women as revivalists advance planning and specific measures proved effective in provoking religious fervor.26 While many of his devices were not new and owed much to American Methodism, he both popularized them and made them acceptable to more respectable Presbyterians and Congregationalists. The most important techniques were theatrical preaching, protracted meetings held over several days, prayer meetings at which women were encouraged to speak, and the ‘anxious seat’ at the front where those who where concerned about their salvation could go to be prayed over, thus making a public commitment to seek salvation.27 He also taught a moderate Calvinism, downplaying the doctrine of predestination and emphasizing sinners’ active roles in their own conversion and salvation. In his sermons Finney appealed more to the intellect than the emotions. A British observer noted: ‘There is a total absence of display, and a complete forgetfulness, on most occasions at least, of the graces of elocution. There is the most rigid exactness of statement, the severest simplicity, the closest reasoning, and the discourse proceeds step by step, the judgment of the hearer forced along with it, until the end.’28 In 1849, aged fifty-seven, at a time when professional revivalists were not much in demand in the United States, Finney and his new second wife, Elizabeth Ford Atkinson, crossed the Atlantic at the invitation of a Birmingham Baptist pastor and a Huntingdonshire layman, both admirers of his ­revivalism and his moderate Calvinist theology. He began his evangelism in a tent, but moved on to missions in Baptist and Congregational chapels in Birmingham and London, accepting invitations to preach in special services all over Britain, including some from Methodist congregations. His tour was only moderately successful in terms of lasting conversions. Richard Carwardine attributes this partially to timing, coinciding with a period of reduced interest in revivalism, partially to lack of publicity, and, perhaps most importantly, because he was advised to rely on invitations to advance his ministry, thus limiting him only to places where he had supporters.29 His presence was less important than his practices as described in his book, which influenced later revivalists. Of greater importance for Methodism was James Caughey’s evangelical tour of Ireland and Britain between 1841 and 1847, which created considerable excitement, but also disruption when concern over the fanaticism of some of his followers and over his evangelistic methods split the Wesleyan Methodist leadership, contributing to the Fly Sheet controversy and exacerbating the tensions leading to the forming in 1850 of the UMFC, the most damaging secession in Wesleyan Methodism (see Chapter 2). An experienced revivalist Methodist preacher in upstate New York with a successful Canadian tour behind him, for the most part

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women and the shaping of british methodism Caughey presided over revivals in growing northern industrial centers, notably in Sheffield. He kept statistics of his results, and by the end of his tour claimed, perhaps with some exaggeration, to have made over 20,000 converts.30 While Caughey’s techniques were in some ways similar to those of Bramwell and others in the Great Yorkshire Revival, their differences were more marked. Described by Carwardine as a ‘revival technician,’ Caughey rarely preached outdoors.31 He was not recognized by the Wesleyan Conference and often arrived in circuits without invitation. He advertised his visits in advance and sold books and portraits to raise money for his mission. He held daily services for months, used ‘penitent benches’ for those seeking help, and preached repeatedly on the same text. Even more than Finney he emphasized the immediacy of conversion as an act of will on the behalf of the sinner, and taught that there was no need for long soul-searching. It was also unnecessary to feel specific confirmation of conversion; purity of heart was available to all who sought it.32 His methods were better suited to revival as reinvigoration than attracting new converts; most of those he converted already attended Methodist services but were not members. He particularly appealed to the young. In Sheffield the majority of his converts were between sixteen and thirty years old and brought up in Methodist families.33 There is little evidence that these revivalists produced large numbers of lasting converts, although they could be effective in reviving zeal among existing members. In a detailed analysis of Caughey’s effect on a UMFC congregation in Rochdale, Kent concluded that he boosted membership temporarily, but, as a local historian put it, ‘after the mission, wonderful as it was, reaction set in and years elapsed before the church and circuit returned to their position of steady work and reliance upon God for the gathering in of souls.’34 Although clearly influenced by Finney’s techniques, Caughey’s greater willingness to ignore sectarian differences and to operate outside established religious networks made him a transitional figure between Kent’s ‘ancient,’ community-based revivalism and the ‘modern’ non­denominational evangelist. Kent argued that this transition occurred in the 1860s, and culminated in the huge mass meetings of Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey in the 1870s in a very changed religious environment when ‘an underlying belief that God revealed himself in the events of everyday life’ was vanishing, and audiences ‘badly … wanted to prove that God existed, that he did things here and now which could be seen and heard.’ According to Kent, the 1860s were a time when the British religious middle classes tried to make contact with the working classes, and were ultimately rejected.35 The 1851 religious census, whose results were published in 1853, had shown that no religious denomination had

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women as revivalists been very successful in reaching the working classes, particularly in the new manufacturing towns. This failure spurred numerous efforts to reach the unchurched, especially through special meetings intended to attract working-class audiences. In 1854 the twenty-year-old Baptist Charles Haddon Spurgeon, arguably the greatest English preacher of the nineteenth century, began preaching in Southwark, south London. The crowds he attracted forced him to move to progressively larger venues, and in 1861 he opened the purpose-built Metropolitan Tabernacle where his audiences regularly approached 6,000; 14,460 people were baptized during his ministry. Yet Spurgeon was exceptional, and while his influence was worldwide and spread through his training school for ministers, his converts were largely confined to London and within the Baptist church.36 Although there were simultaneously a number of local revivals within Wesleyan congregations, sometimes adapting Finney’s methods, what many religious lay people hoped for in the 1860s was a widespread interdenominational revival.37 In 1857–58 the Protestant churches in the United States experienced a year of significant revival; growth in the two main Methodist branches was 16 percent, and Presbyterians and Baptists also added substantial numbers of new members, many of them young people recruited from Sunday schools. According to New York’s Methodist newspaper, the revival began in ordinary rather than special services, it was calm, and encouraged interdenominational cooperation rather than rivalry. An important feature was midday prayer meetings for businessmen, beginning in Fulton Street, New York, and spreading to other northeastern cities and Chicago. Young men were prominent among the converts, especially those connected with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). Contemporaries believed, probably with justification, that the economic depression of 1857–58 fuelled the revival, which waned with the return of prosperity in 1859.38 By that time revival enthusiasm filled British evangelical magazines and newspapers, and various groups had begun sponsoring midday prayer meetings. Although there were no clear links with the American revival, in Ireland Protestant Ulster was gripped with revival fever, including reports of trances and mass fainting.39 The American evangelist Phoebe Palmer witnessed such phenomena: ‘Now you may go into a Presbyterian church but a few minutes’ walk from where I write, and you will hear young men and maidens, old men and children, speaking with tongues touched with living fire, of the wonderful works of God.’40 In England the behavior of some of the female converts gave cause for concern. Some of the accounts of conversion were sympathetic, if condescending:

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women and the shaping of british methodism Poor, uneducated, wretched creatures, who previously could scarcely tell who the saviour of sinners is, or anything about the terms of salvation or the gracious promises of the glorious Gospel, seem to know Jesus as by intuition … A very remarkable physical feature, wondrously displayed by some, especially females, when enjoying these celestial scenes and society, is that every movement, every gesture of the person, the countenance, the head, the hands, is the very perfection of gracefulness, though the party be utterly uneducated, and naturally most uncouth and awkward.41

Others feared what could be defined as hysterical behavior, particularly among young women, might bring the revival into disrepute. In a letter to the prominent Irish revivalist Henry Grattan Guinness, a doctor tried to dispel any connection, quoting medical authority defining hysteria as an overwhelmingly female malady and ‘infinitely more prevalent among the rich and unemployed,’ so that ‘the Revival and hysteria have scarcely any symptoms in common.’ He claimed that since the revival was mainly among the lower and middle classes, and ‘amongst perfectly healthy and vigorous females, in the country districts. When [hysteria] does take place even in the female sex, it is amongst the debilitated, nervous, and unhealthy.’ In any case, it was not an exclusively female phenomenon: ‘more cases of Revival have occurred in the MALE subject in one town, within three months, than are to be found in the whole records of medicine.’42 Despite such attempts to downplay its more sensational aspects, while the revival spread to Wales and Scotland its effect on England was minor. Despite the presence of Americans Finney, Caughey, and the husband and wife team Walter and Phoebe Palmer, reports of its success in England were to a considerable extent wishful thinking. Nonetheless it was eagerly promoted by some English laymen who were alienated from the professional ministry, including Richard C. Morgan, publisher of the interdenominational Revival, a weekly newspaper devoted to promoting a nonsectarian and interdenominational revivalism in England, untainted by Irish extremism.43 In the summer of 1859 the Revival carried reports of activities from the Church of England, the Baptists, the Wesleyans, and the Primitive Methodists, often interdenominational prayer meetings. These could become protracted. One correspondent wrote, ‘The difficulty used to be to get the people into the church, but the difficulty now is to get them out of it. One night and morning we had three services. The first was three hours and a half.’ In 1860 an article in the Quarterly Review noted the extensive involvement of lay people, the involvement of people in ‘the educated classes of society.’44 In London, where the revival was

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women as revivalists most pronounced, lay leadership was essential. Lay religious organizations or wealthy laymen rented public theatres (not without opposition from those who disapproved of any connection with popular entertainment), or endowed private mission halls, called ‘iron churches,’ where popular evangelists like Reginald Radcliffe, Brownlow North, and Henry Grattan Guinness, or the Primitive Methodist collier Richard Weaver spoke to large crowds. As Olive Anderson pointed out, ‘for the first time a race of professional, full-time lay evangelists appeared in Britain.’45 Some of them were women. From 1859 onwards journalists and their correspondents noted and commented on women’s involvement in revivalism. At first they reported on women who acted as adjuncts to their husbands. An important part of Finney’s ministry was the women’s prayer meetings organized and led by his wife Elizabeth. In 1860 between 400 and 700 women were at her Bolton ‘meetings for ladies,’ which she held four times a week, with separate addresses for mothers and young single women. The Revival’s correspondent was quick to quiet any fears of unwomanly American radicalism in her methods: It cannot be denied that what has been heard in England of ‘woman’s rights’ and their advocates on the other side of the Atlantic, has created a prejudice against this particular form of usefulness here. No one, however, who has attended Mrs. Finney’s meetings could for a moment identify her or her proceedings with those eccentric exhibitions to which we have referred. A Christian lady, of gentle demeanour and winning address, meets those whom she rejoices to call her sisters … and pouring out her heart in prayer for them, speaks with them of their common duties to husband, children and home; of their common joys, their common sorrows, their common interest in the sympathy of the Divine Redeemer.46

In other areas women organized prayer meetings along the same lines. Nine women in Wokingham started meeting in late 1859, attracting an average of forty-five to fifty attendees within five months. ‘The meeting is unisectarian in character, but is strictly confined to females, and the length of time never exceeds an hour, so that none may find it wearisome. The exercises of the meeting consist of short prayers, reading portions of God’s Word, any interesting facts connected with present Revival are related, and the singing of appropriate hymns.’47 Elizabeth Finney spoke only to women, avoiding any controversy attached to females addressing mixed audiences. In 1860 the Revival offered ‘A Word of Counsel’: ‘It is very undesirable for young women at … meetings to address themselves to the other sex. In a world so full of

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women and the shaping of british methodism snares, and especially in London, where it makes one’s heart sick to think of the numberless temptations which beset young women, particularly those who have to earn their bread, it is hardly possible to be too circumspect.’48 Therefore the mission of the Americans Phoebe and Walter Palmer, in which Phoebe regularly spoke to both men and women, caused greater concern. Since the 1830s the Methodists Phoebe Palmer and her sister had been holding interdenominational meetings open to both sexes in their New York home where they promoted holiness, encouraging their participants to ‘lay all on the altar’ in an act of faith. As a correspondent to the Revival noted, ‘Holiness of life seems to be the culminating point of all her argument, and she insists upon the fact that if anyone will promptly follow up the convictions of sin, which all men sometimes feel, he will find peace and happiness at once through faith in Jesus.’49 Walter Palmer was a successful and wealthy New York physician who used his money to finance the couple’s religious activities, and Phoebe wrote several bestselling books on holiness. In a pamphlet, The Tongue of Fire on the Daughters of the Lord, she used the Joel 2: 28 text to justify women speaking in public, although in The Promise of the Father: or a Neglected Spirituality in the Last Days she made it clear that women could do so only as conduits for the Holy Spirit, who spoke through them.50 Although Palmer’s claims for women were limited, and excluded any idea of leadership in religious matters, in general, holiness theology’s endorsement of spontaneity in religion, the lack of emphasis on original sin, and its insistence on the possibility of instantaneous conversion encouraged women’s public participation. In the 1840s the Palmers began touring the American northeast and Canada, and in 1859 they responded to numerous invitations to visit Britain, where they remained until 1864.51 The form of their interdenominational meetings was designed to undercut any suggestion that Phoebe was taking the lead and doing anything more than exhorting. A correspondent wrote from Macclesfield: The manner of these meetings was not such as to create excitement, yet great numbers, evening after evening, assembled to listen to the plain and earnest enforcement of Christian doctrine and privilege. After the opening hymn and prayer Dr. Palmer selects a portion of Scripture, and so reads it that we are made to feel that the words are the words of God. Then Mrs. Palmer, taking the subject of the lesson as the basis of her remarks, proceeds to explain and enforce the claims of some cardinal gospel truth … After this, Dr. Palmer follows with a short introduction to all classes to come at once to Christ.52

However, a description from London made it clear that Phoebe was the main attraction:

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women as revivalists Dr. Palmer gave out a hymn, read a portion of Scripture, with an occasional comment, then Mrs. Palmer entered the communion ­enclosure, and with emotion pourtrayed [sic] in her countenance, great earnestness in her manner, and, I am sure, much of holy in her heart, gave utterance to words bearing upon that plain Christian duty, ‘Entire consecration to Christ.’ There could be no mistake as to her aim. The truth was uttered with that warrantable boldness which all may and ought to manifest who can truly say, ‘What we have felt and seen, that declare we unto you.’ Oh, what searchings of heart took place, what penitential tears, what longings of soul. Dr. Palmer followed in a short address full of the tenderness of love. The best of all is, ‘God is with us.’53

Despite these effusions, some expressed doubts. A number of pamphlets attacked Phoebe Palmer’s ministry as unscriptural.54 Several correspondents wrote to the Revival claiming that the Palmers had exaggerated their success in Stroud, and the editor acknowledged that it was ‘very possible that their perception of events may be highly tinged by their earnest desires, and that transient impressions may be taken for prominent results.’ In 1868 a review of Phoebe Palmer’s account of their British mission, Four Years in the Old World, claimed that, ‘There is much in the book which many of our readers would be slow to endorse.’55 Despite the Palmers’ Methodist credentials, Wesleyans were wary of their lay status and Phoebe’s prominent presence. In 1862 the Wesleyan Conference told district superintendents to prevent evangelists outside their circuits from preaching in Wesleyan chapels, and the Primitive Methodists followed suit. Phoebe Palmer was seriously ill that fall, which prevented her from challenging the ruling. After she had recovered, for the rest of their stay the couple spoke mainly in New Connexion and UMFC chapels, although a number of Wesleyans refused to comply with the Conference ruling.56 The Palmers, while American, clearly met the expectations of the British middle class. The first British woman evangelist to emerge into the limelight in the 1860s was far more akin to the young Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian women of the 1820s and 1830s – relatively poor, largely self-educated, and growing up within the Methodist tradition. Catherine Mumford Booth came from the lowest end of the middle class. She was the daughter of an artisan, a Wesleyan Methodist lay preacher who eventually lost his faith, took to drink, and became estranged from the family. Her intensely pious mother supervised her education, and the two developed a very close relationship, especially after Catherine contracted tuberculosis and curvature of the spine. Her frailty kept her out of school and in bed or convalescent for much of her teen years, a time when she became an avid reader of the Bible and religious literature, including Finney’s

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women and the shaping of british methodism books. After the family moved to Brixton, then a London suburb, Catherine missed the warmth of the Wesleyan congregation she had known in Derbyshire, and joined the Wesleyan Reformers, a short-lived offshoot in the wake of the Fly Sheets controversy that became one of the founding groups of the UMFC. There she met William Booth, one of the Reformers’ paid preachers. The couple became engaged in 1852 but William’s income was so uncertain they did not marry until 1855. During their long courtship, while William was training for the ministry with the Methodist New Connexion, Catherine managed the family’s precarious finances, at one point contemplating working as a domestic servant. She also began to advise her future husband on sermon topics, progressing to writing his sermons herself. She also read Phoebe Palmer’s books, which, she told her mother, ‘have done me more good than anything else I have ever met with.’57 Catherine Booth’s experience deviated from those of her Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian foremothers, and also from Elizabeth Finney’s and Phoebe Palmer’s, in her lack of a sectarian home. William Booth’s trajectory out of Wesleyan Methodism had many echoes of William O’Bryan’s forty years earlier. Unable to earn a decent living as a Methodist Reform preacher, he moved to the New Connexion. During his ministerial studies he toured northern industrial areas as an evangelist with the Connexion’s blessing. He was greatly influenced by both Caughey’s and Finney’s techniques, and his reputation as an effective revivalist grew, so that when he had completed his studies in 1855 the New Connexion Conference gave him the unusual position of travelling evangelist with no assignment to a particular circuit. Yet, despite his success, the Conference grew uncomfortable with the enthusiasm and sometimes disorder of the crowds he attracted, and after two years appointed him to a circuit. While he did well, particularly in Gateshead, where he more than doubled the membership, he felt confined, and consulted with Caughey who advised him to consider an independent ministry. Matters came to a head in 1861 when the Newcastle district meeting objected to his constant preaching outside the circuit, and the Booths left the Connexion to begin their own evangelical ministry.58 Even when William was earning a salary as a circuit preacher the Booths’ finances were still problematic, and as their family grew (they had four children by 1860) Catherine was anxious to earn extra income. This, more than anything, spurred her to conquer her shyness and poor health and embark on a public speaking career. She had been contemplating women’s position in religion since 1855, when she sent a letter in reply to a Congregational minister’s sermon on women’s inferior nature,

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women as revivalists maintaining that until women had an equal education no one could know their natural abilities. She sent William a copy of the letter, but he was not very encouraging: ‘I would not stop a woman from preaching on any account. I would not encourage one to begin. You should preach if you felt moved thereto: felt equal to the task. I would not stay you if I had the power to do so. Altho’ I should not like it.’ In 1857 she and William went to hear a ‘popular female preacher,’ possibly Clarissa Buck, and she wrote to her parents, ‘I only wish I had begun years ago if I had been fortunate enough to have been brought up among the Primitives I believe I should be preaching now.’ She began by speaking to temperance groups, then, in the manner of Phoebe Palmer, occasionally preached after William on Sundays. She was attracted by the possibility of earning money from speaking on temperance – as much as 10s. a lecture; in 1860 she wrote to William, who was on leave recovering from illness in a hydrotherapy clinic, ‘If the money fails, I will try and get some more. I will get up some lectures and charge so much to come in.’59 William’s illness propelled her into greater activity, filling in for him in his circuit duties and attracting large and appreciative congregations, usually with the support of her New Connexion superiors. Her confidence grew.60 When William left the New Connexion the Booth family depended entirely on the parents’ earnings as evangelists. Catherine was William’s equal partner and an important female presence in the revival, preaching with him in revivals in Cornwall, Wales, and midland and northern industrial areas before settling in London’s East End. Their seventeenweek mission to St. Ives, Cornwall, in 1861 was enormously successful, with at least 1,000 converts.61 They acted as a team, with William either refusing invitations unless they included Catherine, or announcing her as a speaker when they arrived.62 Catherine disarmed at least some of her critics. ‘A Preacher’ wrote to the Wesleyan Times: We have a long-cherished and strong dislike to female preaching, and have had some misgivings as to the utility of this lady’s proceedings. She opened up with much ability the fullness of the gospel blessings, and urged with much sweetness and pathos our immediate acceptance of them. Although the day was intensely warm, and the chapel packed, yet there was not one listless or inattentive person; the preacher chained her audience, and drew from them responses at her will. We confess ourselves to have been disarmed of our criticism, and our longcherished antipathy to female preaching somehow melted out of our heart long before Mrs. Booth had done, and we secretly wished that thousands of Mrs. Booths were going through the land alluring the masses to the cross. The sermon was one of the most closely reasoned

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women and the shaping of british methodism and logical discourses we have heard for a long time; and, accustomed as we have been for many years to hard and close thinking, it was to us a refreshing and sanctifying discourse. Most fervently do we pray that the blessings of heaven may attend this lady’s ministrations wherever she may go.63

In 1864, with William ill again, and the couple £85 in debt, Catherine embarked on an independent preaching career. By 1865 she had established a substantial reputation as an evangelist, and in that year she moved the family to London while she conducted revivals for the Rotherhithe and Bermondsey Free Methodists. Six months later Morgan of the Revival engaged William to preach for three weeks on the streets of Whitechapel, where he attracted substantial crowds and moved into a large tent.64 When the three weeks were up the Booths determined to stay and rented the Assembly Rooms on New Road in Whitechapel for Sunday services. This became the nucleus of their East London Christian mission to the poor and working classes. At the same time Catherine continued to operate independently since her income was essential to support the new venture. In 1866, despite time off after the difficult birth of her seventh child, she conducted a series of revival services in Peckham and Croydon, and the following year rented a hall in St. John’s Wood where she spoke to a largely male audience. An observer noted that her ‘argumentative mind’ made her particularly suited to addressing men.65 She began to travel independently from her husband. In 1867 the Revival included reports of her speaking in Norwich and Margate, the latter, a seaside town, one of the Mission’s first outposts outside London. Thus Catherine’s work was essential in the early years of the Booth’s independent mission, in supporting William’s work in London’s East End, in opening new areas, and in upholding family finances.66 Catherine Booth was one of a small but very visible group of independent female evangelists who had taken advantage of the lay character of the revival to embark on independent preaching careers. These women had found a way to evade the increasing professionalism of the Methodist and Nonconformist pastorate by ignoring it and following a nondenominational path to evangelical ministry. The Revival mentions more than sixty such women over its eleven-year run. Many started as young women and either remained single or continued preaching after marriage. Reflecting women’s greater access to education, and unlike Catherine Booth, by far the majority were well-educated middle-class women. They did not always rely on the sensational appeal of women preachers since several of them preached for weeks or months at a time in the same venue, thus dispelling the novelty. Unlike Elizabeth Finney

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women as revivalists and Phoebe Palmer, they moved beyond the confines of all-female prayer meetings or the fiction of being an adjunct to a man to address mixed audiences without male sanction. Some of their initiatives were tentative and possibly unplanned. In 1862 a women’s delegation from London sponsored by the Tottenham Association for the Relief of Distress in Lancashire visited Blackburn during the cotton famine caused by the American Civil War. Much of their work was unthreateningly gendered female: setting up sewing schools, visiting the sick and dying, distributing tracts, and teaching Sunday school. However, the Revival reported that one of the women did not ‘take part in public meetings,’ suggesting that the others did. Mrs. Ford of Islington was credited with the conversion of ‘some of the very worst characters’ in Glossop, and addressed 500 men at a penny Bible class. A Dissenting minister opened his chapel to whatever ‘kind of services they thought proper, to bring sinners to Jesus,’ although there is no record of the women actually conducting any.67 Several female evangelists were from Scotland, partially the result of a strong revival between 1859 and 1861 among Congregationalists and Free Churchmen led by the American Edward Payson Hammond.68 The revival also greatly strengthened the evangelical Scottish Brethren, who held most of their meetings in informal spaces or the open air, places conducive to female evangelism. According to Neil Dickson, during the 1860s, ‘female evangelists were an accepted part of mainstream brethren activity in Scotland.’69 A prominent member of the Brethren, Gordon Forlong, became convinced of biblical authority for female preaching, and encouraged several women to embark on evangelistic careers, although he later admitted that ‘many good Christian preachers laid the rod heavily upon me for … introducing daughters who would prophesy.’70 Two of the most prominent were Jessie MacFarlane and Margaret Graham. Mac­Farlane began to preach at evangelical meetings in Kelso in 1862. In 1864 she teamed up with another woman evangelist, Mrs. Thomson, to preach in Edinburgh. Forlong reported, ‘Mrs. Thomson deals with the truth of God in a very calm, cool, regular manner, but very solemnly. Miss MacFarlane, whose labours have perhaps been more owned amongst young persons, is earnest and energetic, pleading from her heart with their hearts, but always acting according to the Word of God.’ A report from the Edinburgh Morning Journal contained a more detailed description of her preaching, emphasizing her appearance and speaking style, while subtly suggesting that as a woman she was inclined toward the emotional rather than the rational:

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women and the shaping of british methodism Miss MacFarlane is somewhat tall and prepossessing in appearance, and her elocution is graceful and cogent … We believe her clear silvery voice could be heard by each of the about four thousand present … Her style is simple and copious, and she did not appear to use notes of any kind; nor did she much descant upon the profounder and abstruser points of theology. Her forte lies in the picturesque and illustrative rather than in powerful reasoning and logical sequence, and, although in the opinion of most people, as well as the Apostle Paul, a woman is greatly out of place when standing up thus in public, yet, so far as we could learn, she conducted the services very much to the satisfaction of those present.71

Their public appearances cost Thomson and MacFarlane dearly. Thomson was asked to resign from being superintendent of the local Biblewomen, a paid position, and MacFarlane’s local congregation considered expelling her, ‘although she is much esteemed among them.’72 Her public speaking so shocked her fiancé that he broke off the engagement. From Edinburgh MacFarlane moved north to Peterhead, where Margaret Graham, from the Free Church of Scotland, had already conducted a successful mission. In 1865 the two women joined forces to evangelize the area around Aberdeen. MacFarlane then moved to England, where she spoke in London at several large halls and conducted missions in Bedford and Leicester.73 An article in the Woodford Times described her way of conducting meetings: Having sung a striking hymn, she offers a short, earnest, breathing prayer for the divine blessing. She then reads a considerable portion of Scripture, and without a sermon book or notes she pours forth from her well-stored memory and compassionate heart a stream of living truth and almost overwhelming appeals, enchanting her hearers, who, although they have been listening for an hour, yet feel the shortness of the service.74

A report from Manchester included a unique report of her actual words, illustrating her straightforward and uncomplicated appeal: If you would be blessed in the church and in the world, if you would be used by God, and win souls to Christ, be truthful, be honest, be faithful in your words and in your work, so that when you say, ‘I do love Jesus, I do trust Christ, my sins are forgiven,’ those who hear you may say, ‘Well, I do believe you are true and honest,’ and so the cause we seek to serve may not be injured by our inconsistency.75

In 1868 and 1869 she travelled widely, speaking in London, the Midlands, and Wales, before marrying Dr. Brodie of Edinburgh. According to her husband, domestic duties and poor health resulting from pleurisy

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women as revivalists contracted when speaking in draughty halls prevented her from continuing to preach. She died in 1871, famous enough for a biography to be published shortly after her death.76 A more controversial independent evangelist than Jessie Macfarlane was Mrs. William Bell, mostly because she insisted on preaching outdoors, a significant feature of the revival but largely a male preserve. Usually referred to as Mrs. Colonel Bell, she was the wife of an army colonel who was frequently away on his job as Inspector of Barracks. Her children were grown, her husband’s income was comfortable, he encouraged her evangelical work, even working with her on occasion, and she had the ‘leisure at her disposal to do her Master’s work.’ In 1863 she rented a hall in Bristol and began holding preaching meetings ‘to promote the spiritual prosperity of believers, and the immediate conversion of the unconverted.’ A female supporter and colleague described her preaching as an emotional mix of the sentimental and the sensational, ‘usually of the gentle, loving, entreating order, but she also knows how to put the terrors of God’s wrath before poor sinners.’ She soon branched out to open-air preaching from her carriage in the surrounding countryside, where her ‘powerful voice and strong constitution’ were invaluable assets in attracting large crowds. In 1864, accompanied by a male evangelist who usually spoke first and then sold Bibles at her meetings, she took her mission to Swansea in Wales and then to the north of England and Scotland. In Scotland she drew the wrath of Scottish ministers. She was told that she ‘would win more souls to Christ, and would occasion less scandal in the world and in the church (perhaps she might even obtain larger audiences), were she to confine her preaching to females.’ One blasted her in a public letter, claiming that, ‘Christianity did not commence by obliterating the distinction between man and woman, or stripping the female disciple of that retiring modesty which is the fairest ornament of the female character.’77 She was also ­criticized for producing only ephemeral results, that her visits were ‘so transitory, that the good she is instrumental in promoting does not, in some instances, receive sufficient confirmation.’ Her brashness got her into trouble. In Swansea she was arrested and fined for ‘alleged obstruction of the thoroughfare,’ a very unusual experience for a female evangelist in the 1860s. The Revival defended her, insisting that she had not been causing an obstruction and that she had been singled out for her unwomanly outspokenness: ‘Why such a course should be followed so persistently and in so high-handed a manner for putting down a Christian woman, the only charge against whom is that her zeal is not always tempered by what the world deems discretion, and that by men not usually unsympathetic with Christian

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women and the shaping of british methodism effort, passes any ordinary understanding.’ Mrs. Bell refused to pay the fine and would have spent fourteen days in jail if someone had not paid it for her. She moved on to London, where she spoke outdoors and filled the City of London Theatre. This was the high point of her career, although she continued her evangelism for several years.78 Mrs. Bell was just one of several successful woman evangelists in mid-century. In 1866 the Revival began publishing a special section announcing ‘Preaching by Ladies.’79 A Sunday afternoon lecture series at the London Polytechnic hosted a number of women in the second half of the year, including Catherine Booth, Miss Graham, and Jessie MacFarlane. One of the most successful was Mrs. A. F. Thistlethwayte. A reporter from the Daily News described a meeting she conducted in the hall of the Literary and Scientific Association, where she ‘dwelt at length upon the fitness of woman as an instrument of salvation and a messenger of mercy.’ Again, the reporter emphasized her dress and voice. Wearing ‘an elegant black silk dress with plain white collar and cuffs,’ and ‘gifted with the most perfect self-possession, a deep rich contralto voice, which is modulated with considerable skill and tact, and having her great natural advantages supported by that dramatic faculty, without some share of which every appearance before the public falls flat,’ she proved ‘that intelligent earnestness is more than a match for that touch of the ludicrous which attaches itself to the unconventional, the exceptional, and the peculiar.’ At the Polytechnic she attracted aristocrats and Members of Parliament, including Gladstone, giving the erroneous impression that the latter supported female preaching.80 Mrs. Thistlethwayte was a Londoner, but the majority of women evangelists had their greatest successes outside the metropolis. They spoke wherever they were invited, often in the largest hall available; for example, in 1868 in Newcastle Miss Graham preached in Baptist, New Connexion, and Wesleyan chapels as well as in the New Theatre and the Town Hall. In Birmingham Miss Hart planned to open a ‘preaching station’ with a room holding up to 600 people, plus two rooms for Sunday schools. Two women from Norfolk, Octavia Jary and Miss Robinson, maintained their own halls, the latter taking over a space previously occupied by the Roman Catholic advocate of monastic revival ‘Father Ignatius.’81 Jary attracted some hostility. While she was conducting a revival at Atherstone in Warwickshire, the incumbent of ‘a ritualistic church in the vicinity’ preached a sermon that he later published on the text of ‘Silly women.’82 When she visited London in 1866 she arrived late for a meeting at the Assembly Rooms in St. John’s Wood, where Catherine Booth was a regular speaker, and did not impress at least some of her audience:

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women as revivalists Our impressions were these: Miss Jary knows the truth of the gospel, and is used of God’s Spirit to preach it with unction. On this occasion, however, she laboured under serious disadvantages. First, that of late arrival. It is greatly to the assistance of a preacher to be early at the place of meeting, and to come before the people fresh from individual or united prayer, or both. Secondly, the attention of the audience, who had already become a little impatient, was still further diverted by an ­irrelevant address. The result was that speaker and hearers being comparatively out of tune, the solemn subject dwelt upon (the judgment of the great white throne) produced far less effect than it might otherwise have done.83

Other woman evangelists also provoked criticism. As Mrs. Bell’s experience illustrates, despite the Brethren’s endorsement, the majority of Scots ministers were hostile to women preachers. When Mrs. McCallum of Glasgow conducted a revival the Hamilton Advertiser commented that female preachers were doing more harm than good.84 A Pres­byterian elder who gave Isabella Armstrong a ticket to attend Communion was censored by his kirk session.85 Even the woman described as the ‘star in the revivalist firmament,’ Geraldine Hooper, was not immune.86 Her biographer alluded to ‘many a cruel and bitter satire’ that ‘appeared in the public prints under the guise of impartial record,’ and quoted from an Exeter journalist: Miss Geraldine Hooper has been here, has talked, and is about to go. We hope soon to hear that this zealous young woman has got a good husband. That is the best cure for teaching propensities. Whilst Miss Hooper and those who heard her were groaning and inflicting unnecessary pangs on themselves, and spending precious time in praying and talking, the committee of the Soup Kitchen were zealously engaged in alleviating the pangs of hunger experienced by the poor in our midst. How easy, and no doubt pleasant, it is for people to consume hours in the gratification of their love of the sensational – running after Tom Thumbs, converted lawyers, and preaching females! But how much harder it would appear to be, to attend to the wants of Lazarus at our doorstep! … Females are admirable in their own spheres, but we cannot say we like them so well when they take the man’s place.87

Hooper was the daughter of minor landed gentry and baptized in the established church. She grew up in Bath, ‘an intensely warm-hearted, sensitive, affectionate girl’ who seemed destined for a life of gaiety and social whirl. However, disillusionment with a woman she had admired affected her health, and while visiting France to recuperate she experienced religious conversion and decided to devote her life to God’s work. Like many other pious women, she began with Sunday school teaching

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women and the shaping of british methodism and visiting the sick and poor, then established and led an early morning family prayer meeting for the poor on their way to work. At age twentyone she began to address gospel meetings, attracting large audiences to the Temperance Hall. Her biographer Fanny Grattan Guinness, wife of the male evangelist and a successful woman preacher herself, noted that the novelty of a female preacher eventually wore off over the ten years Geraldine Hooper preached in Bath, but the overflowing congregations continued. In late 1863, while visiting Norfolk, she began preaching in barns to crowds of up to 1,000 people. Over the next eight years she spoke between four and five thousand times, mostly indoors in large halls or specially erected tents in the West and Midlands, with forays into East Anglia and London, where she participated in the Polytechnic series.88 Fanny Grattan Guinness described the first time she saw her, at a service held outdoors in a Bristol street: The crowd had already gathered, and we had to stand on its outskirts behind the preacher. It filled the decayed deplorable-looking street for some distance, yet formed only part of the congregation; for at every window were to be seen people of all ages and both sexes, equally interested in what was going forward. The young evangelist, who was tall and graceful in figure, and who was well but quietly dressed in black, was standing on a chair; her audience consisted of a motley group – sweeps in their every-day black attire, costermongers, tramps, beggars, not a few who looked like confirmed drunkards, and many of a more respectable class; tidy women with babies in their arms, aged widows, old men leaning on their sticks, and lads and lassies not a few. Immediately round the speaker were a few nicely dressed young women, members, as I learned afterwards, of her Bible-class, who came to lend their help in her singing. Her clear, powerful voice, was distinctly heard all down the street, and her utterance was free and natural.89

In Dunstable, where the Primitive Methodists erected a special tent, she attracted about 3,000 people nightly, and gave twenty-seven addresses in eighteen days. Mary O’Bryan Thorne went to hear her in Plymouth, where her audiences averaged 2,000 at a time, and thought her ‘an interesting young lady – not sectarian and advertising in the pages – crowds came to hear her.’ Although she remained a loyal member of the Church of England, an observer remarked on the ‘absence of bigotry’ that ‘renders it impossible to be judged from her discourses to what particular religious body, if to any, she belongs.’ A Plymouth reporter was reminded of ‘Methodism in days of yore.’90 In 1868 Hooper married Henry Dening, a Devon landowner and fellow revivalist. They continued their ministry together, maintaining a

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women as revivalists punishing schedule. In 1869 they visited sixteen different cities or towns in the Midlands and West, and had a special large tent pitched for their meetings in Norfolk. That year they decided to move from Dening’s Devon estate back to Bath, where they could better devote themselves fully to evangelism. There they erected a purpose-built hall holding up to 1,200 and costing the large sum of £2,400, partially funded by contributions with Henry Dening holding the mortgage for the remainder. They held regular Sunday services, eventually settling on the optimum arrangement of Geraldine speaking in the afternoon and Henry in the evening. They continued to travel; in 1872 the Booths invited them to speak in Whitechapel, where they were unknown but soon attracted large audiences. It was one of Geraldine’s last engagements. In July she contracted erysipelas, a streptococcal infection that blinded and eventually killed her at age thirty-one. Crowds lined the streets for her funeral in August, with at least 6,000 crowded into the cemetery and a greater number unable to get in.91 Geraldine Hooper Dening’s affluence enabled her to devote her short life to evangelism without fear of poverty. Other female evangelists had to support themselves by their ministry. Among them was Isabella Armstrong, who began her public ministry during the Irish revival in Ireland in 1859 at age nineteen, then emigrated to Wishaw in Scotland the same year. Her career illustrates the difficulties faced by a female evangelist without independent means. She spent six years as an evangelist in Scotland, where she led a very successful revival in Wishaw in 1863, beginning in a Primitive Methodist chapel. Her preaching was described as ‘most eloquent and powerful,’ but was also contentious. She complained of opposition from other women, and when preaching in Dundee in 1864 she refused to share her services with John Bowes, her mentor among the Brethren, and a champion of female preaching, causing a schism in Bowes’s congregation.92 In 1865 she moved to London, where she took over from Catherine Booth at the Eyre Arms Assembly Room, preaching twice on Sundays to ‘the superior class of working-class people.’ She remained there for over a year, preaching also in another hall during the week, but by the end of 1867 was unable to support herself. She blamed her lack of success on ‘having little or no Christian co-operation, and being a perfect stranger in the metropolis; pecuniary matters have caused me much anxiety.’ She appealed for funds and started advertising in the Revival for provincial engagements. Early in 1868 she led a mission in Nottingham, but by April she had raised the money to rent a hall in Westbourne Grove. Again she ran into financial trouble; her weekly expenses were £2 5s., causing her ‘much anxiety,’ and temporarily forcing her back to Scotland.

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women and the shaping of british methodism By August 1869 she was again advertising for provincial appointments and accepted engagements in Nottingham and the Isle of Man. In 1870 she widened her scope, soliciting invitations from the United States.93 In the following decade she campaigned for temperance as a lecturer for the Independent Order of Templars, which included advocacy for woman suffrage, one of the few examples in Britain of an intersection between female evangelism and the temperance and suffrage movements.94 Armstrong’s childhood education had been limited, but she argued for the importance of women’s education. The majority of independent female evangelists in the 1860s were better educated than and socially superior to Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian woman preachers, although at least two of the women associated with the Scottish Brethren came from the working class.95 Some, like Mrs. Thistlethwayte and Catherine Booth, appealed to the intellect more than the emotions. However, like the Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian women, they spoke extempore and only a few detailed reports of what they said have survived. From the remaining records it appears that, as in the first half of the century, female evangelists of the 1860s spoke of sin, the threat of hell, and redemption through faith, but in general spent less time on the perils of hell fire than the Ranters, and appealed to a sentimental strain in their audiences.96 A typical text was, ‘Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.’ Boyd Hilton detected a mid-century shift in religious doctrine from emphasizing the atonement to highlighting the incarnation, but evangelical women in the 1860s continued to preach on Christ’s sacrifice.97 Isabella Armstrong ‘showed how a sinner might be weighed in the unerring balances of Jehovah and found wanting nothing, being accepted in the righteousness of Christ and brought nigh by his blood.’98 One indication of Geraldine Hooper Dening’s popularity was that several of her addresses were published as penny pamphlets with printings of more than 50,000 copies, providing the best source for topics covered by at least one female evangelist. They bear out her reputation as a plain and sincere speaker who used everyday experience to illustrate her points. Fanny Grattan Guinness wrote that she ‘reached the soul through the avenue of feeling, more than through those of intelligence or conscience.’ Hooper herself said that she generally had ‘three or four divisions of the subject’ in mind, ‘but I never make a point of keeping to these “heads,” for if I do I lose my own! To try to recall what I meant to say, would prevent my saying anything, and there is always plenty to be said; so I say what comes to me at the time.’99 Hooper Dening’s published addresses include reflections on the stories of Jairus’ daughter, whom Jesus raised from the dead, the Pharisee

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women as revivalists Nicodemus, who sought Christ’s wisdom, and the Prodigal Son – a favorite of evangelists. She imagined Jairus’ impatience as Jesus stopped on the way to his house to heal a woman who touched his robe, and Nicodemus’ feelings as he tried to understand Christ’s views on rebirth. She used everyday images – of a sailor with one foot on land and one in a boat, of how you cultivate lilies, of a tarnished coin. She spoke of the ‘doctrine of free unmerited grace,’ and told her listeners, ‘with Christ in the vessel we smile at the storm,’ but she also warned that ‘the time is fast, fast approaching when your laughter shall be turned into the wail of the lost … And oh, remember, dear souls, where you must go, if you never reach this glorious other side! To the lake of fire! To the bottomless pit!’100 In an address to children she adapted her style to her audience, describing the wolf, the bear, and the lion as enemies of sheep, and equating them to the world, the self, and Satan. She ended with a homely metaphor that continued with the sheep theme: There are some animals that love dirt and love to roll in the mud; they are never happier than when they are rolling in the mud. But the sheep hates mud; he can’t bear it; he avoids it. And God’s children hate mud; they can’t bear sin; they can’t love sin. Oh, no! The sheep is a nice, clean creature, not like the filthy swine in its ways. Now, wouldn’t you like to be a nice clean sheep? A nice white little lamb in Jesus’ flock? (The children: ‘Oh, yes, yes!’) Then come to Jesus now, and may God bless you for Jesus’ sake.101

Her views were sometimes controversial. Early in her career Luton Wesleyans denied her the use of their chapel, the largest hall in the area, because they found her views ‘too Calvinistic.’102 She did occasionally suggest that salvation was not in the hands of humanity: ‘You cannot save yourself; no earthly physician can cure thy sin-sick soul.’ In one of her sermons she came close to the idea of an elect, telling those who were saved to spread the word, not ‘wrapping the garment of salvation around you, and lulling your conscience to rest with the miserable narcotic, that, because God has his own elect, He will bring them into the fold without your aid.’103 A controversial subject for female evangelists was the second coming. In the first half of the nineteenth century the majority evangelical view was post-millenarian, maintaining that Christ’s kingdom on earth, a thousand-year period of peace and prosperity, would precede the second coming or millennium. Post-millenarians like Catherine Booth interpreted the Joel verse, ‘Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,’ as having already happened at Pentecost, justifying female ministry.104 However, in England (but not Scotland) premillennialism, the belief

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women and the shaping of british methodism that the millennium would be preceded by a period of social and moral ­deterioration, and was imminent, with Christ’s kingdom coming after it, was gaining ground.105 Some female evangelists interpreted the Joel prophecy as suggesting the second coming was imminent. Geraldine Hooper asked her readers, ‘Does not everything bear witness that we are in the last times? What mean the wars and rumours of wars, the political and financial panics, and the distress of nations, with perplexing and many other notable signs of the times?’106 Octavia Jary also subscribed to this view. After hearing her preach in London a Revival correspondent wrote critically: It has unfortunately happened that several Christian women, whom we doubt not God has sent out to preach the gospel, have, on visiting London, been associated with those teaching extreme views on the Lord’s coming. Whatever may be our hope and belief, the assertion that he will come within a brief and specified period is based upon no ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ and it is very undesirable that evangelists should identify the gospel of God with these speculations.107

Both premillennialist and postmillennialist female evangelists used the Joel verse to justify their public presence. However, although Richard Morgan, the Revival’s founder, personally supported women’s ministry, the magazine itself, sensitive to the opposition of many of its evangelical readers, was inconsistent in its support of female preaching.108 A leading article on ‘Women’s Ministry’ in 1862 reiterated that women’s subjection started in Eden, and that they should be silent in church: ‘The first woman taught her husband with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and with a righteous wisdom the Holy Ghost forbids her ever to teach the man again.’ The author nevertheless cautiously endorsed the idea of the ‘extraordinary call’: ‘Shall any one forbid that women rich toward God, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love Him (though obediently silent in the assembly of the saints), should tell to the poor and dying world, of Him who is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe?’ The justification was premillennial: ‘If He in his last days pours out his Spirit upon his handmaidens and they prophesy, and signs follow in the conversion of souls, they who reject the testimony can only do so by saying, with the infidels of old, that the devils of lust, or avarice, or selfishness, or deceit, are cast out by Beelzebub the prince of devils.’109 Two years later the paper received letters from Scotland objecting to reports of female preaching, particularly Mrs. Bell’s activities: ‘I appeal to yourself whether it is fair for the brethren in England not only to send down among us parties who are obnoxious to the great body of the friends of the Revival in Scotland, but to chronicle their visit

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women as revivalists to Edinburgh as if in triumph over our prejudices as you think them, but which are really our conscientious convictions of piety.’ A male evangelist travelled to England to tell Morgan that publishing such reports might result in the foundation of a rival Scottish paper.110 The following issue another correspondent defended female preaching, citing the biblical examples used by Mary Bosanquet, Zechariah Taft, Hugh Bourne, and William O’Bryan, adding Elizabeth Fry and Catherine Marsh to the list.111 Morgan, sensitive to the Scottish threat, cut off the correspondence, but the topic did not lapse for long. In December an account of Mrs. Bell’s London visit provided a stronger endorsement than previously. Beginning with the Joel verse, the writer went on: We are not quoting to prove that it is lawful for a Christian woman to speak to the unconverted about their souls and salvation, whether in a cottage, or a chapel, or a theatre, whether to larger or smaller numbers. In our humble judgment the word of God nowhere interdicts this; did we believe otherwise we could not, of course, in any degree countenance it. God is approving now-a-days in a very marked way the labours of many of His handmaidens on whom he has indeed poured out His Spirit; we are thankful therefore that we do not find ourselves fixed on the horns of so awkward a dilemma as that of believing them called to their work, and that God is of a truth working with them, and yet to be honestly obliged on scriptural grounds to set ourselves against it.112

Editorial support continued throughout 1866. An article on ‘The Ministry of Women’ concluded: ‘1. That the Christian woman is under no obligation to silence in the church when she can speak to edification; and 2. That she is perfectly free to teach and preach Christ on every suitable occasion, whether in public or in private.’ However, the author sounded a note of caution: ‘Let it be understood that preaching and teaching by no means imply or necessitate the use of pulpits, large buildings, or bodily posture, according to the prevalent custom, for which there is not a shadow of scriptural precedent or obligation.’ This provoked a reply from an ‘earnest and intelligent Christian’ female evangelist. She called on women to work together to overcome male prejudice, and wrote, ‘I sometimes think [women] are more against us than the men. I believe many shrink from the responsibility, and are very well pleased with any excuse for silent nonentity, while others seem to have an idea that it is a proof of superior humility and modesty to turn with horror from anything so public.’113 Eventually caution prevailed in the Revival, perhaps the result of adverse reader reaction, or maybe because hope of a major revival was waning. A note in very small print referring to the Polytechnic lectures warned of the ‘danger of extremes. To make such services as these an area

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women and the shaping of british methodism for lady-preaching exclusively, seems to us as objectionable as to confine them to men – perhaps more so. Nothing will more deservedly bring the legitimate ministry of women into disrepute than making it a sensational attraction.’ Another article on women’s ministry, possibly a veiled criticism of Mrs. Bell, acknowledged that there was nothing to prevent unmarried women ‘from doing any work in the things of God for which they are suited,’ but continued: ‘The great evil in the matter of service is that many take upon themselves work to which they are not called of God. They do not wait upon Him to know what He would have them do, but they set about some work in imitation of others, or because they desire to be busy, working in self-will instead of having their own wills lost in the will of the master.’ The author concluded that, ‘Women being the weaker vessels, are not suited usually to the work that men are called to; but God may fit one here and there, to show that He will work by whom He chooses; and there is nothing in Scripture against the woman doing the same work as the man.’ By mid-1866 Morgan gave up, announcing that despite much correspondence on either side, he was discontinuing the discussion.114 There was no more overt support for women preaching in the Revival’s pages. For the first time in the nineteenth century women themselves defended in print their right to preach. Three of the best-known evangelists published pamphlets on the subject. First was Catherine Booth, whose 1859 pamphlet Female Teaching was a reply to an attack on Phoebe Palmer by a Free Church minister in Sunderland. In 1866 Isabella Armstrong wrote her Plea for Modern Prophetesses, based on lectures she had given in Scotland in 1863, and in 1869 Geraldine Hooper Dening published a version of an extempore address on Women’s Ministry in the Gospel she gave by special request in Plymouth, possibly at the meeting Mary O’Bryan Thorne attended. Of these the most extensive was Armstrong’s, running to more than sixty pages, and the least ephemeral was Booth’s pamphlet, with a revised edition reissued in 1870 with references to the Palmers removed.115 All their justifications followed a pattern familiar since the eighteenth century. They cited the Joel and Acts passages about daughters prophesying, they listed biblical prophetesses, they refuted St. Paul’s prohibitions in Corinthians and Timothy against women speaking by pointing out inconsistencies with other passages and arguing that he was referring to particular conditions in Corinth. Booth, brought up a Methodist, cited the Methodist Adam Clarke to justify her arguments. Armstrong cited Greek and Hebrew sources, taken from more accessible scholarly work, and possibly intended to impress her well-educated Scottish opponents.116 Hooper Dening, a member of the

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women as revivalists Church of England, pointed out that a woman, Queen Victoria, was head of the church.117 Dening confined most of her argument to the New Testament, but both Booth and Armstrong argued against the natural subordination of women in the creation. Booth maintained that Eve’s subordination to Adam was not original but a punishment for sin: ‘If woman had been in a state of subjection from her creation, in consequence of natural inferiority, where is the force of the words, “he shall rule over thee,” as a part of her curse?’ Armstrong argued that the Hebrew word translated ‘helpmeet’ suggested equality, so, ‘We conclude, then, that woman by creation is equal with man, possessing all the qualities of mind that are amiable and good of which his nature is capable.’118 Booth made the widest claim for women’s right to preach, claiming that they were naturally suited for it: ‘God has given to women a graceful form and attitude, winning manners, persuasive speech, and, above all, a finely-tuned emotional nature, all of which appear to us eminent natural qualifications for public speaking.’ Dening repudiated the idea that the scope of women’s ministry should be limited: ‘Some Christians allow that it is right to hold Bible classes, and small meetings in a cottage or a small room, but then it is not right to address a large number. If the Lord sends many are we to refuse to minister to them?’ Armstrong, the least secure in her profession, was more cautious, agreeing that ‘generally speaking, home is woman’s peculiar sphere,’ and embracing the idea of the exceptional call: ‘While the Word of God makes it as binding on the female as on the male members of the body of Christ to preach the Word as they have fitness and opportunity, and holds them equally responsible for every talent they have received, public preaching is but one way to make known the truth.’ She was careful not to claim access to the ministerial profession, and primarily argued for a woman’s right to address the unconverted. ‘I am not advocating that females should be pastors in the church … Preaching the Gospel’ is not ‘ruling over the man in any sense.’ Both Armstrong and Booth acknowledged the rights of parents and husbands over unmarried and married women; Booth believed that husbands had the right to prevent their wives from public speaking.119 Armstrong and Dening both argued that they heard little objection to women singing in church or chapel, or lecturing, or otherwise performing in public on non-religious topics. Dening personalized the argument in her usual fashion: Is it not marvellous that a woman may sing in public about the sufferings of the Messiah, but may not speak of Him as suffering for His church. Yes! Mrs. Balfour may lecture on the great men of the world, but we

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women and the shaping of british methodism may not lecture on the greatest, even the God-man Christ Jesus. It is right for Mrs. Siddons to read, to act in public; but then hers is fiction, ours is truth. Women may read essays, lecture, dance, sing, in public (at least, so says the world), but women may not testify of the saving name of Jesus.120

Dening also argued for activism, criticizing both women and men for claiming to be Christians but not acting on their beliefs, comparing them to gluttons, and asking, ‘And so, when a Christian is continually studying and feasting on the word of life, is it not a natural question, to ask them what are they doing with the spiritual strength they derive from their spiritual food? … He feeds us, that we may go and work today in his vineyard.’ Her biographer went so far as to suggest that women who denied their call ‘may become, and often do become, troublers in church and torments to their ministers, instead of inestimable blessings to all around.’121 Of the three, only Armstrong mentioned millenarian beliefs: ‘A few years ago we heard of very few women wholly engaged in the work of the Gospel; now there are many. It seems as if their time, in the last of the latter days, had come to arise and shine.’122 But their time passed quickly and left little trace. Much of Dening’s and Armstrong’s effectiveness depended on their lack of denominational affiliation and their unwillingness to challenge male authority, which allowed them to have broad appeal but prevented them from building a lasting and committed following. As had happened with the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians, the Scottish Brethren let female preaching die as they formalized their organization.123 Dening’s biographer pointed out that while ‘in many instances a strong esprit de corps exists among converts brought to the Lord under one ministry, or perhaps in one season of revival,’ it was impossible for a woman to form a new church: ‘A female pastor would be an ecclesiastical monstrosity indeed!’ In most cases they could not know what happened to those converted at their meetings. Dening recommended that converts make the choice of which services to attend for themselves: ‘She felt her mission was not to discuss points of Church government, or debate questions of doctrines or practice … She would urge them to attend a converted ministry and a soul-feeding one, but whether at church or chapel was in her judgment of little moment.’124 By 1867 hopes of a general English revival had faded. The Primitive Methodist Magazine editor could detect no signs of revival activity: ‘When shall we have the joy of recording … accounts of revival and ingathering which faith might recognize as tokens for good, as drops before a coming shower?’125 The Revival’s support for female preaching waned. The editor stopped listing their activities separately from men’s,

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women as revivalists then discontinued its special section, ‘Evangelists,’ altogether. In 1869 the Eyre Arms meeting room, previously occupied by Catherine Booth and Isabella Armstrong, reopened, but with a male preacher. The following year the Revival changed its name to the Christian since the former title was ‘no longer sufficiently descriptive.’126 Other factors in the decline of independent female evangelism included the early deaths of Dening and Jessie MacFarlane, which removed two important female stars, and a change in the religious climate. Kent identified a ‘gradual displacement of the fear of damnation in the middle-class imagination’ that reflected the shift of emphasis from atonement to the incarnation, to ‘Jesus as man rather than lamb,’ and undercut an important theme in female evangelism.127 While a woman standing alone speaking of sin and calling for repentance could attract a sympathetic audience of fellow sinners, a woman talking of Christ’s essential humanity and his affinity with human beings might both draw attention to her sex as problematic and also perhaps complicate Jesus’ appeal as a masculine figure. Between 1872 and 1875, in another example of transatlantic revivalism, the Americans Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey brought the mass evangelism Kent identified as ‘modern’ to Britain. Moody, the preacher, and Sankey, who played the organ, arranged the music, and conducted the mass choir, were closely tied to the holiness movement and emphasized instantaneous conversion rather than a sustained effort to change.128 Their appeal was a powerful combination of preaching and music. Moody emphasized storytelling and downplayed the threat of hell, while Sankey’s hymns reinforced the message and encouraged his hearers to come forward into the ‘enquiry room’ after the meeting. In 1875 they attracted London audiences of 12,000 or more in spaces like the Agricultural Hall.129 Their missions were similar to those of other female evangelists like Geraldine Hooper Dening in that they encouraged converts to join their local churches or chapels, so the extent of their influence is difficult to estimate, but unlike the 1860s, when the influence of transatlantic revivalism helped encourage women to embark on preaching careers, there was no significant boost to female evangelism directly linked to Moody and Sankey’s work. Catherine Booth was the only prominent female evangelist whose work survived as a discernible legacy. The Booths’ creation, the ­Salvation Army, brought the evangelical Christian message into the growing cities as no previous city missions had done, while also providing new opportunities for women’s public participation. By 1868 Catherine and William’s Christian Mission in the East End of London was holding 140 weekly services, attracting between 7,000 and 14,000 people, ­overwhelmingly

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women and the shaping of british methodism working class. At the first annual meeting in 1870, when doctrines, ­objectives, and rules were established, women were confirmed as full participants in Mission government, ‘eligible for any office, and to speak and vote at all official meetings,’ the first Christian organization to treat women with full equality in all matters except pay; women earned roughly two thirds of men’s wage.130 In 1878 the Mission adopted a military structure, renaming itself the Salvation Army the following year.131 The hierarchical organization adopted in 1878 gave the Booth family, men and women, considerable authority, but did not affect sexual equality in the ranks. The Orders and Regulations for Field Officers (1886) stated that ‘in the army men and women alike are eligible for all ranks, authorities, and duties, all positions being open to each alike.’132 The organization of the Salvation Army ministry was similar to Methodism. Members could begin as prayer leaders or exhorters, then become unpaid local preachers or full-time paid evangelists. The authoritarian chain of command probably enhanced women’s opportunities, since women were not subject to the possibly capricious authority of local committees or the annual conference, as in Methodism, and could count on the Booths’ steadfast support of women’s leadership. By far the majority of women who joined were single, working in unskilled or semi-skilled occupations. Many of them had a Methodist background. In 1880 the Army established formal training for both men and women, and by the middle of the decade it employed nearly 1,000 women, publicly identifiable by their conspicuous uniform. The Army recognized their potential as had Hugh Bourne and William O’Bryan earlier in the century. Catherine Booth pointed out that ‘generations of suppression of women, and the consequent prejudice and curiosity with respect to her public performances conspire immensely toward attracting the people.’133 While preaching on street corners and trying to fill halls was hard work, the Salvation Army provided women with unparalleled opportunities for public religious leadership, and both working-class men and women with a professional career.134 Catherine Booth herself led the way, and all but one of her daughters achieved significant authority in the organization. Catherine established the Army’s presence in France, Emma trained women officers and commanded the Indian branch, Eva led the United States’ branch and eventually became the overall general in 1934, and Lucy worked in Ceylon.135 Yet the freedom and authority the Salvation Army offered to women was constrained by its hierarchical organization, and its insistence on obedience to superiors, including wifely obedience to husbands.136 The Army was by far the most lasting outcome of mid-century revivalism, a Methodist offshoot aimed specifically at the unchurched and unskilled laborers in the cities, as the

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women as revivalists Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians had evangelized rural areas in the first half of the century. The Salvation Army’s strongholds were in urban areas, but Kent’s brand of ‘ancient’ revivalism, local and in religious spaces, was not dead in small towns and the countryside, where female evangelism continued despite lack of official encouragement. Methodists in general had remained aloof from ‘modern’ mass revivalist fervor. The Wesleyan leadership mistrusted the use of emotion in preaching, and insisted that all ministers were evangelists.137 Both Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists discouraged circuits from inviting evangelists from outside their Connexions, although in practice many did so. One Primitive Methodist circuit proudly disclaimed any outside influence on an increase in members: ‘This improvement has not been affected by the attractions of novelty, nor the excitement of strangers.’ Another blamed a decrease in numbers on ‘what is called revivalistic agency, which was much resorted to a few years ago by some circuits that now report decreases.’ In 1860 the Bible Christian Magazine reported several examples of revival, but at least one correspondent thought they came more through prayer meetings than through preaching. The 1862 Conference discussed employing special evangelists, but decided against it.138 Yet there were still successful female evangelists in Methodist pulpits, some connected with the holiness movement. The Wesleyan Polly (Mary) Atkins ‘frequently gave addresses chiefly on scriptural holiness’ on the Rye circuit in the 1870s, leading to a revival. The American Quakers Hannah Whitall and Robert Pearsall Smith, both of whom had experienced sanctification at a Methodist camp meeting, visited Britain in the early 1870s, where Hannah spoke effectively on holiness at private gatherings and published the influential Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life.139 Among the Bible Christians, Miss Potter both preached at special services and acted as an evangelist. In 1865 she preached on ‘Revivals and Their Effects,’ the congregation listening ‘with profound attention.’ In 1867 she stayed on the Launceston circuit for several months, ‘helping to promote the present revival.’ The author of an article on the Connexion’s history commented, ‘We heartily believe in the authority of a female ministry; and have remarked that when the spirit of revival has visited our churches, this agency has been revived also.’140 In one sample year (1886) the Primitive Methodist, a weekly magazine of circuit news, included thirty-six examples of women preaching on their circuits, the majority clearly evangelists engaged in revival activity.141 In the 1890s the Wesleyan Thomas Champness’s Joyful News Mission, founded in 1885, also provided opportunities for female evangelists. The Mission, which settled in Rochdale in 1886, trained lay evangelists to

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women and the shaping of british methodism work in rural circuits. Champness had employed a woman he called a ‘deaconess’ in Bolton in 1868, and visited the deaconess training institute in Kaiserwerth in 1871. He employed female evangelists on the Newcastle circuit, and made it clear he was open to employing women for ‘the special work which godly women could do in the villages and small towns. Their ministry was just the kind of thing needed in scattered hamlets, where lonely Methodists were seldom visited by the ministers.’ In 1886 he recruited one woman for foreign missions and another to work at home, and in 1887 he encouraged his friend George Clegg to open a Female Evangelists’ Home, training women who had neither the education nor class status to enter the sisterhoods and deaconess institutions being established in the cities (see Chapter 7) – ‘godly servant-maids and factorlasses, and others, who were longing for openings into Christian service, but who could never hope to find an outlet in the city Sisterhoods, where women of gentle birth and better education were preferred.’142 During the 1890s there were at least twenty residents, and the Home trained between fifty and 100 women in about twenty years, before declining in the early twentieth century after Champness’s death in 1905.143 These women, like Serena Thorne, Catherine Booth, Geraldine Hooper Dening, and Isabella Armstrong, were religious professionals, supporting themselves by their evangelical work. Denied access to the ministry and deprived of the informal atmosphere of cottage religion that had sustained the itinerants in the 1820s and 1830s, they defined their own careers. As Anderson argued, their examples, if largely ephemeral in themselves, contributed to a climate in the last two decades of the century when women’s professional religious work was more widely accepted.144 Two publications by Baptist minister William Landels illustrate this shift in attitude. In his 1871 pamphlet Woman: Her Position and Power, he envisaged a more extensive role for women than in his Woman’s Sphere and Work, Considered in the Light of Scripture (1859). In the former he had insisted that a woman’s place was ‘by her insinuating and persuasive influence, to apply to the heart and conduct the truth which man has expounded.’ By 1870, although he called for an education that was ‘more thorough and efficient in its nature,’ than before but with the same end, ‘the training of wives and mothers, not of senators, or lawyers, or doctors,’ he supported the Married Women’s Property Act and suffrage for female heads of household and taxpayers. He acknowledged that, ‘All through the history of the Christian church female disciples have outnumbered those of the other sex, and at some important junctures in its history they have rendered the most valuable service.’ He particularly encouraged single women to serve, telling them:

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women as revivalists Life will become beautiful when it is seen to what good purpose it may be appropriated; and the denial to them of all conjugal and maternal love, with the joy which it yields, will be largely, if not altogether, balanced by the happy exercise of affection, which they find in ameliorating the suffering and promoting the welfare of those helpless and distressed ones, who need sympathy as much as their benefactors require objects on which to lavish their benevolent regard.145

In the 1880s Louisa Hubbard edited an annual Yearbook and Directory of Women’s Work, in itself an indication of the growing acceptance of single middle-class working women. In 1882 she wrote, ‘The social conditions of life in England, at this time, absolutely require a body of women, at leisure from household cares and ties, to fulfil public duties.’ That year the yearbook included a list of eleven religious organizations offering employment to women (not including the Salvation Army). Occupations included missionaries, deaconesses, parish workers, temperance workers, and Biblewomen.146 For the rest of the nineteenth century these provided the main outlets for women’s religious vocations. Notes 1 Mary O’Bryan diary, entries for 21 August 1853, 31 July 1859, 22 July 1860, 26 January 1861; BCM 81:9 (1902), 421. 2 Octavius Lake, Obituary of Serena Lake, 25 July 1902, pasted at end of Serena Thorne’s diary. 3 Serena Thorne to Samuel Thorne, 15 May 1862, Lewis Court Bible Christian Collection MAW 92.13. 4 Mary O’Bryan diary, entries for 24 January 1864, 20 March 1864, 25 October 1865. 5 Mary O’Bryan diary, entries for 30 June 1867, 15 September 1867; Obituary of Serena Lake; BCM 45:5 (1866), 234–5; 46:6 (1867), 290–1. 6 R. Sexton, ‘Serena Thorne’s diary,’ Uniting Church of South Australia Historical Society Newsletter 1:1 (1978), 6. 7 Serena Thorne diary, entries for 6 June 1870, 17 June 1870. 8 BCM 49:9 (1870), 434. 9 Serena Thorne diary, entries for 13 August 1870, 15 August 1870, 23 October 1870, 24 November 1870, 28 November 1870. 10 BCM 50:2 (1871), 88–9. 11 Obituary of Serena Lake; Arnold D. Hunt, The Bible Christians in South Australia (Adelaide: Uniting Church Historical Society, South Australia, 1983), p. 34; BCM 81:9 (1902), 420. 12 South Australian Register, 21 July 1886, 6, reprinted in Elizabeth Mansutti and Zaiga Sudrabs (eds), Read All About It: Women’s Suffrage from the Newspapers of South Australia 1885–1894 (Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1994); Elizabeth Webb Nicholls, Torch-Bearers: The Women’s Christian Temperance Union of South Australia, 1886–1948 (Adelaide: WCTU of South Australia, 1949), p. 59.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 13 Millicent Harry, A Century of Service: The History of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union of South Australia (Adelaide: WCTU of South Australia, 1986), p. 1; Helen Jones, In Her Own Name: A History of Women in South Australia from 1836 (Kent Town, South Australia: Wakefield Press, 1994), p. 148. 14 Jones, Own Name, pp. 103–6. 15 Serena Thorne diary, entry for 14 January 1871; South Australian Register, 17 May 1882, 7; BCM 81:9 (1902), 420–2; Hunt, Bible Christians in South Australia, p. 34. 16 Obituary of Serena Lake. 17 Shurlee Swain, ‘In these days of female evangelists and hallelujah lasses: women preachers and the redefinition of gender roles in the churches of late nineteenthcentury Australia,’ Journal of Religious History 26:1 (2002), 65. 18 Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ 470–2. 19 Revival, 10 September 1868, 504. 20 Irish Presbyterian, June 1853, 145, quoted in David Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005), pp. 105–6. 21 Kent, Holding the Fort, p. 18. 22 Kent, Holding the Fort, p. 30. 23 Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, pp. 73, 82–3, 86. 24 Nancy Towle, Vicissitudes Illustrated, in the Experience of Nancy Towle, in Europe and America (Portsmouth, NH: John Caldwell, 1833), pp. 73, 97, 168, 283. 25 Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, p. 67. 26 Bebbington, Dominance, p. 106. 27 Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, pp. 8, 16–17; Kent, Holding the Fort, p. 70. 28 Revival, 12 March 1860, 83. 29 Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, Ch. 5. 30 Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, pp. 110–11. 31 Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, p. 128. 32 Bebbington, Dominance, p. 201; David Bebbington, Holiness in Nineteenth-Century England (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2000), pp. 65–6. 33 Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, pp. 110, 124–9. 34 A Centenary History, 1837–1937 (Rochdale: United Methodist Church, 1939), p. 47, quoted in Kent, Holding the Fort, p. 86. 35 Kent, Holding the Fort, pp. 33–4. 36 Bebbington, Dominance, pp. 40–5. 37 Robert Jay Rice, ‘Religious revivalism and British Methodism, 1855–1865’ (Ph.D. Diss.: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1979, published by University Microfilms International), pp. 65–70. 38 Bebbington, Dominance, p. 107; Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, pp. 161–9. 39 Kent, Holding the Fort, p. 72. 40 Phoebe Palmer, Four Years in the Old World (New York: Foster and Palmer, 1867), p.  46. 41 Revival, 13 August 1859, 24. 42 Revival, 22 October 1859, 103 (italics in original). 43 Kent, Holding the Fort, pp. 77, 104. 44 Revival, 30 July 1859, 4–6; 13 August 1859, 24; 27 August 1859, 39–40; 10 September 1859, 56; 11 February 1860, 47

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women as revivalists 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69



70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84

Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ p. 475. Revival, 17 March 1860, 84. Revival, 4 February 1860, 36. Revival, 15 September 1860, 87. Revival, 8 May 1860, 159. Nancy A. Hardesty, Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the Nineteenth Century (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999), pp. 64–5. Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, p. 182; Bebbington, Dominance, pp. 202–3. Revival, 29 June 1861, 207. Revival, 19 November 1859, 135. Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, p. 24. Revival, 12 February 1960, 172; 16 July 1868, 392. Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, pp. 184–5. Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, pp. 9–15, 23. Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, pp. 20–2. Quoted in Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, pp. 18–19, 32, 33. Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, pp. 32–4. Revival, 22 February 1862, 63. Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, pp. 35–7. Quoted in Revival, 19 June 1862, 231. Revival, 13 July 1865, 27. Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ p. 472. Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, pp. 37, 45–9, 59; Revival, 24 November 1864, 324; 17 May 1866, 271–2; 28 March 1867, 178; 9 May 1867, 262; 29 August 1867, 483. Revival, 30 October 1862, 204; 29 January 1863, 55. Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, pp. 185–6. Neil Dickson, ‘Modern prophetesses: women preachers in the nineteenth-century Scottish Brethren,’ Records of the Scottish Church History Society 25:1 (1993), 91, 98, 102. Christian, 7 September 1871, 13. Revival, 10 March 1864, 150; 25 August 1864, 101. Christian, 14 September 1871, 11–12. Revival, 22 October 1863, 259; 26 November 1865, 288; 31 January 1867, 66. Revival, 25 July 1867, 418. Revival, 2 July 1868, 365. Christian, 14 September 1871, 11–12; Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ p. 470 n. 11. Revival, 30 June 1864, 412. Revival, 25 June 1863, 308; 20 August 1863, 123; 31 March 1864, 412; 25 August 1864, 118; 8 September 1864, 155; 3 November 1864, 284; 15 December 1864, 376; 21 November 1865, 186. Revival, 11 October 1866, 204. Revival, 6 March 1865, 215; 5 July 1866, 11; Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ p. 470 n. 10. Revival, 4 April 1867, 191; 21 January 1869, 760; 28 January 1869, 781; Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ p. 473 n. 19. Revival, 30 June 1864, 412. Revival, 29 November 1866, 306. Revival, 7 March 1867, 133.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

94 95 96 97 98 99 100

101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115

Dickson, ‘Modern prophetesses,’ 99. Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ p. 470. Grattan Guinness, ‘She Spake of Him,’ pp. 73–4. Grattan Guinness, ‘She Spake of Him,’ pp. 11, 19, 24, 36, 41. Grattan Guinness, ‘She Spake of Him,’ p. 3. Grattan Guinness,‘She Spake of Him,’ pp. 49, 76, 81, 83; Thorne, Maiden Preacher, p. 165; Revival, 17 May 1866, 272; 13 May 1869, 7; Christian, 19 May 1870, 12. Grattan Guinness, ‘She Spake of Him,’ pp. 77, 145–7, 165, 206–25, 218; Christian, 29 August 1872. Dickson, ‘Modern prophetesses,’ pp. 96, 98–9. Revival, 10 August 1863, 232; 16 February 1865, 102; 11 October 1866, 204; 21 March 1867, 166; 12 December 1867, 695; 19 December 1867, 703; 30 January 1868, 59; 26 March 1868, 176; 3 December 1868, 680; 18 February 1869, 12; Christian, 26 May 1870, 6. Dickson, ‘Modern prophetesses,’ p. 101. Dickson, ‘Modern prophetesses,’ p. 96. Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ p. 472. Boyd Hilton, The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought 1785–1865 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 288–97. Revival, 9 July 1866, 34; 30 January 1868, 59 (italics in original). Grattan Guinness, ‘She Spake of Him,’ pp. 112, 196 (italics in original). Geraldine Hooper, Sanctified Affliction, or Jairus’s Daughter (London: S. W. Partridge, n.d.), pp. 6, 9; ‘Let Us Pass Over to the Other Side’ (London: S. W. Partridge, 1868), pp.  9, 11, 14; ‘Consider the lilies, or lessons from the flowers,’ in Addresses and Hymns by the Late Mrs. Henry Dening (London: S. W. Partridge, n.d.), p. 2; ‘Ye must be born again,’ in Addresses and Hymns, p. 3; ‘Lame on his feet,’ in Addresses and Hymns, p. 10; ‘Homeward bound, or the Prodigal Son,’ in Addresses and Hymns, p. 8. Grattan Guinness, ‘She Spake of Him,’ pp. 99–100. Grattan Guinness, ‘She Spake of Him,’ p. 56. Hooper, Sanctified Affliction, p. 5; ‘Let Us Pass,’ p. 15. Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ p. 480. Bebbington, Dominance, pp. 139–41, 190–6. Hooper, ‘The speedy coming of Christ,’ in Addresses and Hymns, p. 10. Revival, 29 November 1866, 306. Murray, ‘Gender attitudes,’ p. 109. Revival, 20 November 1862, 234. Dickson, ‘Modern prophetesses,’ p. 100. Revival, 30 June 1864, 412; 7 July 1864, 12. Revival, 15 December 1864, 376. Revival, 3 May 1866, 241–2; 7 June 1866, 317. Revival, 5 July 1866, 11; 2 August 1866, 66–7; 23 August 1866, 110. Catherine Booth, Female Teaching; or, the Rev. A. A. Reese versus Mrs. Palmer, Being a Reply to the Above Gentleman on the Sunderland Revival (2nd edn) (London: George J. Stephenson, 1861); Isabella T. Armstrong, A Plea for Modern Prophetesses (Glasgow: George Gallie, 1866); Mrs. Henry Dening [Geraldine Hooper], Women’s Ministry in the Gospel: An Extempore Address Delivered at St. James’s Hall, Plymouth (London: S.  W. Partridge, 1869); Catherine Booth, Female Ministry, or, Women’s Right to Preach the Gospel (London: Morgan and Chase, 1870).

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women as revivalists 116 Dickson, ‘Modern prophetesses,’ p. 106. 117 Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, p. 29; Armstrong, Plea, p. 18; Dening [Hooper], Women’s Ministry, p. 5. 118 Booth, Female Teaching, p. 6; Armstrong, Plea, p. 11. 119 Booth, Female Teaching, p. 3; Dening [Hooper}, Women’s Ministry, p. 14; Armstrong, Plea, pp. 16, 19, 22, 66 (italics in originals). 120 Dening [Hooper], Women’s Ministry, p. 14. 121 Grattan Guinness, ‘She Spake of Him,’ p. 197. 122 Dening [Hooper], Women’s Ministry, p. 13; Armstrong, Plea, p. 54. 123 Dickson, ‘Modern prophetesses,’ p. 111. 124 Grattan Guinness, ‘She Spake of Him,’ pp. 151–2. 125 PMM 31:7 (1861), 428; 32:5 (1862), 302–3; 37:1 (1867), 1–14, 414. 126 Revival, 28 March 1867, 180; 12 September 1867; 4 August 1869, 13; 23 December 1869,  1; Kent, Holding the Fort, p. 136. 127 Kent, Holding the Fort, p. 185; Hilton, Atonement, p. 5. See also Bebbington, Dominance, pp. 168–72. 128 Kent, Holding the Fort, p. 154. 129 Kent, Holding the Fort, pp. 316–17; Bebbington, Dominance, pp. 46–8. 130 Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, p. 115. 131 Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, pp. 50–63. 132 Orders and Regulations for Field Officers (London: Salvation Army, 1886), Ch. 7, section 5, quoted in Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, p. 62. 133 Quoted in Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, p. 198. 134 Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, pp. 111–12, 71–2, 116, 243. 135 Walker, Pulling Devil’s Kingdom, p. 62. 136 Pamela J. Walker, ‘A chaste and fervid eloquence: Catherine Booth and the ministry of women in the Salvation Army,’ in Kienzle and Walker (eds). Women Preachers and Prophets, p. 296. 137 Rice, ‘Religious revival,’ p. 59. 138 BCM 39:1 (1860), 31–6; 39:2 (1860), 73; 39:3 (1860), 115–18; 39:6 (1860), 233; Shaw, Bible Christians, pp. 79–80. 139 Lenton, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ p. 70; Bebbington, Holiness, p. 76. 140 BCM 44:3 (1865), 139; 46:3 (1867), 141; 44:11 (1865), 91. 141 Statistics compiled by the author. 142 Eliza M. Champness, The Life-Story of Thomas Champness (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1907), pp. 258–9. 143 Lenton, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ pp. 73–5. 144 Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ p. 481. 145 Landels, Woman’s Sphere, pp. 221–2; Women: Position and Power, pp. 107, 121, 246. 146 Yearbook and Directory of Women’s Work 1882, pp. 5, 73, 210; 1883, pp. 125–6.

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6 Women in missions at home and abroad

L

ois Anna Malpas (1858–1904) grew up in a family of Wesleyan Methodist preachers. Her father, a market gardener, and three of her brothers were local preachers in a village near Chepstow, just inside the Welsh border. We know little about her religious conversion; she herself only said that, ‘The good seed which was sown in my heart was a long time before it began to grow.’1 When she was nineteen her mother died, and as the only surviving daughter she kept house for her father until he remarried two years later. She then went to live with her unmarried brother, moving to Essex with him as he looked for work. In 1882 she heard that the China Inland Mission’s founder Hudson Taylor had called for prayers to recruit seventy new workers. The following year her brother married and she felt free to volunteer to go to China as a missionary. Lois Malpas arrived in China in late 1883 and spent more than a year learning Chinese. She began her missionary work among Chinese women about 100 miles inland at Yangzhou, where she developed a great sympathy for the Chinese people, writing home, ‘Since I came here I have grown to love the Chinese more than I could think it possible. At first it was for Christ’s sake I was drawn to them, but now I love them so much for their own sakes.’ She stayed in Yangzhou only two months before setting out with another woman, Miss Todd, for Yunnan Fu (Kunming) in Yunnan province, deep in the southwestern Chinese interior, where they worked among indigenous women, holding classes and services for women in their house and dispensing simple medical care, occasionally venturing out into neighboring villages. A male colleague later remembered Lois Malpas as ‘the picture of health, a typical English farmer’s daughter, ready for any kind deed, never happier than when helping someone, everything she did was done heartily, a ring of sincerity in her praise and prayer. No one ever doubted the goodness of such a soul.’2

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women in missions at home and abroad In 1886 the first two Bible Christian missionaries arrived in the area. Initially sponsored by the China Inland Mission (CIM), Thomas Vanstone and Samuel T. Thorne, Mary O’Bryan Thorne’s grandson, eventually set up an independent Bible Christian mission. Soon the two men were taking tea with Malpas and Todd every Wednesday, when they sang hymns accompanied by Lois on the harmonium, and Lois and Samuel shared trips to the temples on the nearby lake. By the following year Lois and Samuel were engaged, but almost immediately separated when she and Todd moved north to Chungking (Chongquing), possibly for Todd’s health, and Thorne travelled to Chao Tung (Zhaotong) to open a mission station. After a year’s engagement Lois Malpas married Samuel Thorne and moved with him to Chao Tung. Samuel Pollard, later the Bible Christian mission’s superintendent, described her dedication to the cause, indicating women’s value in attracting potential converts: Mrs. Thorne was the pioneer of our womens [sic] work in this city. Her tall figure and the unusual sight of her ‘big’ feet contrasting so startlingly with the tiny mutilated lilly [sic] feet of the Chaotung women drew crowds of the latter to the mission house … She cared little for the luxuries of home life. Her whoul [sic] soul was bent on her business. She spoke Chinese as possibly not a dozen missionaries could speak it in the whole of China. Work was her watch word and her mind was constantly planning how to lead these women with their dwarfed minds into a larger life … She got to know to a wonderful degree all their customs and prejudices and was careful not to offend. Her whole life was sacrificed to these people if haply she might lead them to nobler and better things.3

Husband and wife worked together in great harmony. Lois sometimes accompanied Samuel on preaching and book-selling tours in the surrounding villages. At one point when both Samuel and their colleague Frank Dymond were away she faced a congregation with no preacher available, so began to preach in Chinese to both sexes, a practice she continued. In Yunnan Fu in 1889 Samuel conducted the service, but ‘Mrs. Thorne also spoke.’ But the idyll did not last. Both Samuel and Lois had recurring fever, probably malaria, so they retreated to the coast for six months’ recuperation. When they returned to Chao Tung in March 1891 to resume their mission, tragedy struck. Samuel contracted typhus while on a preaching tour, and managed to get back to the mission station only to die. Lois was devastated, but accepted that it was God’s will. She intended to carry on working but had no authority to do so. The Bible Christian district meeting decided she should return to England on an overdue leave.4

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women and the shaping of british methodism Arriving in England in time to speak at the Bible Christian Conference, Lois’s address stimulated the foundation of the Bible Christian Women’s Missionary League to support the work in China. She then spent the next year as a travelling fund-raiser, speaking at missionary meetings dressed in Chinese clothing. In 1893 she was well enough to return to Chao Tung, where she and Samuel had worked. At this point she had seniority both in age and in experience, and was more fluent in Chinese than any of her colleagues, but there was never any suggestion of giving her any administrative authority. In the missionary field, as in home missions, women’s role was to attract converts, not run missions. After three years she returned to Yunnan Fu, the site of her first full mission, to reopen the abandoned Bible Christian mission there. She wrote to the Bible Christian Magazine: ‘The work here is at a low ebb, outwardly things look gloomy. People are indifferent and full of pride, and do not at all feel in need of the foreigner’s Christ.’5 Yet she must have had some success since by 1899 there were four other Bible Christian missionaries there, freeing her to move to Tung Chuan (Dongchuan), where the Bible Christians had a well-established mission but three inexperienced missionaries, two men and one woman. In Tung Chuan tension developed between Lois and the other staff, probably because her greater experience caused resentment, especially since she was a woman. In her diary she noted, ‘Owing to a slight misunderstanding with one of our band, have not spent a happy day, but greatly exercised in mind about many things. How to avoid collision!’6 She may have felt the missionaries were not devoted enough; she later wrote a letter to the Bible Christian Magazine comparing the mission’s work unfavor­ ably to that in Chao Tung: ‘Our Tung Ch’uan people are, I fear, behind in spiritual gifts; they leave all to the missionary, and seem to lack enthusiasm. Perhaps it is because we ourselves fail to inspire them.’ One of the men responded defensively: ‘I think when Mrs. Thorne was with us she felt a keen disappointment because of the inferior quality of the church members and enquirers … I believe that the Bible Christian Church is too honest to desire imaginative descriptions of cheap success.’7 Shortly afterwards Lois’s horse trod on her foot, confining her to her house for several days, and she then developed severe rheumatism, somewhat relieved by one of the other women ironing her back. She decided to go to Chao Tung for medical help. The other missionaries were cool in saying good-bye, suggesting continuing tension. Lois Thorne spent at least two months recuperating before returning to Tung Chuan in July 1900. Meanwhile the Boxer rebellion against Western influence, which specifically targeted missionaries, had arrived

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women in missions at home and abroad in Yunnan Fu, where the Bible Christian missionaries’ homes were looted and burned. Samuel Pollard and his family elected to leave, and as they passed through Tung Chuan Lois decided to join them, although her fellow missionaries stayed and survived unharmed. She wrote in her diary, ‘Joined the Pollards & party, feeling that it is right to do so, having only a small stock of courage, but it is not without a pang in saying good bye to friends and work.’ She never saw China again. After an arduous and sometimes dangerous three-week journey the party reached French Indochina and then Hong Kong. The Pollards stayed in Shanghai until it was safe to return to Yunnan, but Lois went back to England on leave. She immediately resumed speaking at Bible Christian missionary meetings, but soon became seriously ill, probably with a stomach ulcer.8 Her recovery was slow and no doctor would provide her with the clean bill of health necessary for her return to China. Still in her early forties, she found the verdict devastating, pouring out her anguish to Frank Dymond in a letter that clearly illustrates her passionate ‘call’ to the work, and is probably representative of the feelings of many missionaries either denied or recalled for reasons of health: I am told I am organically unfit to come to China … As you may imagine, it came as a thunderbolt and has, I must confess it, filled my heart with great sorrow. Nothing I have ever experienced, with the exception of losing my dear husband, has cut so keenly … Can it be that my work in China is done? Had I to go through all the training, the education, etc., for those few years only? … Why did God give me the language, and (shall I say it?) a general adaptation for the work? And whence all the yearnings, the intense consuming desire to live for and labour amongst the Chinese? Do these emanate from within, or are they purely selfish, human? If I know anything of my own heart at all, I can say, No!. God gave me these ardent feelings, that desire to win the Chinese for him.

Despite her frustration, she threw herself into speaking at missionary meetings and participated informally in the 1904 interdenominational Welsh revival. A Bible Christian itinerant described her there, ‘standing in the great hall, the center of one of the many groups scattered over the area. She stood pleading with young men to surrender all to Jesus.’ A year later she was dead, aged forty-six, from an internal haemorrhage. Frank Dymond’s obituary, published in the annual Minutes, ended, ‘A holy quiet fell upon our Annual Meeting when news came … Upon whom shall her mantle fall?’9 Lois Malpas Thorne never met her husband’s grandmother Mary O’Bryan Thorne or her Australian aunt Serena Thorne Lake, but she was the fourth generation (by marriage) of the women in the O’Bryan/Thorne

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women and the shaping of british methodism family to follow a religious career. Like her predecessors, she began her career young and unmarried, married a fellow worker, and continued to serve with her husband. But unlike her foremothers, and perhaps attracted by the lure of exoticism, freedom, and adventure, her call was not to the unchurched at home or in British settler colonies, but to non-Christians outside Europe, what nineteenth-century European Christians called ‘heathen.’ Her career illustrates how women with a call to evangelism seized alternative opportunities as others diminished. As a Wesleyan, in the first half of the nineteenth century her main option would have been local preaching with her superintendent’s permission or joining one of the sects that allowed women to preach more freely, but opportunities for women to make preaching a career contracted in Methodist sects after 1860, and revivals in the late nineteenth century offered fewer spaces for female evangelists. However, by the 1880s a new choice had opened up for adventurous women: missionary work had now become an acceptable female profession. Indeed, building on common stereotypes, propagandists sometimes argued that women’s presumed patience and aptitude for languages made them more suited to the work than men.10 The reasons for beginning to recruit female missionaries had more to do with developments within the missionary field than women’s own pressure for inclusion, but the result was the same – a new opportunity for religious women, although still within a patriarchal structure. This coincided with increasing professionalization of home evangelism, placing corresponding limitations on paid evangelistic work for women. However, earlier in the century, while not recognized as missionary professionals, women were significant participants in home and colonial missions. In this chapter I therefore evaluate women’s work in three types of missions: at home; to members of the English-speaking diasporas; and to non-Europeans, and the changing opportunities for women within them. Mission work, designed to save the souls of those who had not heard the Christian message, was at the heart of Methodism from its beginning. David Hempton described Methodism as ‘a missionary organization that thrived on mobility and expanded in association with the rise of markets and the growth of empire.’11 In his mission to Georgia and when he returned and began to preach outdoors, John Wesley intended to reach those who never came to formal religious services. The nineteenth-century evangelical offshoots also saw missionary work as central to their existence. A speaker at the 1862 Primitive Methodist missionary meeting claimed, ‘We look on the whole Connexion as one great and grand missionary organization,’ and the Bible Christian Thomas Ruddle, head of the Connex-

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women in missions at home and abroad ional school, wrote, ‘We have always been a Missionary Church since the day when James Thorne set out on his mission-journey into Kent.’12 Throughout the nineteenth century Methodism, both Wesleyan and sectarian, was expansionist, its outreach growing within Britain through home missions, within the English-speaking world by serving emigrant communities and indigenous populations, and in non-Christian areas, including India, Africa, and China. In all of these efforts women’s work was vital, as fund-raisers, evangelists, and missionaries. Women’s fund-raising was critical for supporting missions and thus a vital element in their contributions to chapel life (see Chapter 4). By the end of the nineteenth century this support was increasingly organized. In 1858 the first known Methodist organization for funding women’s missionary work, the Wesleyan Ladies’ Committee for the Amelioration of the Condition of Women in Heathen Countries, and for Education, etc., was founded, later changing its name to the less unwieldy Ladies’ Mission Auxiliary (LMA), the term ‘lady’ denoting its middle-class membership. In 1876 Mrs. Caroline Wiseman became its foreign secretary, holding the position until her death in 1912, by which time the Auxiliary was supporting ninety-three female overseas missionaries. Wiseman encouraged circuits to form branches, offering a place on the London committee for any branch that raised £200 a year. By 1882 there were fortyone branches, five of which had gained London representation by 1907. Other Connexions were slower to found nationally organized women’s auxiliaries. The Bible Christians did so in 1892, the UMFC in 1897, and the New Connexion in 1899. Primitive Methodist women did not organize nationally until 1908, although their London Women’s Missionary Society was active by 1902, raising £203 by ‘very pleasant and profitable methods’ such as drawing-room and garden parties, again suggesting the gentility of its members.13 The UMFC defined its Ladies’ Missionary Auxiliaries’ objectives as ‘education, inspiration, concentration,’ including collecting subscriptions, distributing literature such as missionaries’ letters, and forming reading circles, Young Helpers’ Leagues, and working parties to make objects to sell or send abroad. Membership was ‘open to Ladies who promise to pray for missions, and are willing to show their interest in the same by working for, or giving to, the cause.’14 Men did not necessarily give the women’s efforts wholehearted support, sensing possible inroads into their monopoly of denominational power. The Rev. John Kilner, General Secretary of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, addressing the Wesleyan Ladies’ Auxiliary in 1874, spoke of the ‘not infrequent … somewhat strong prejudice’ against the organization, and in the 1880s the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society continued

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women and the shaping of british methodism to resist ‘incursions of women into “a man’s world.”’15 The UMFC Conference opposed the foundation of the Ladies’ Mission Auxiliary, some of them claiming that LMA stood for ‘Leave Men Alone.’ According to the Connexional Mission Report, the women pointedly retaliated by choosing as their official hymn ‘Go labour on,’ which includes the verse: Go labour on; ’tis not for naught Thine earthly loss is heavenly gain; Men heed thee, love thee, praise thee not, The Master praises; – what are men?16

Their persistence led to official recognition, but the Auxiliary was not able to raise enough to support any foreign missionaries in its ten years of existence before the UMFC merged into the United Methodist Church.17 The oldest form of Methodist missionary activity was the home mission. Almost all branches of Methodism maintained home missions throughout the nineteenth century. Most of these were informal organizations where there was no circuit and, in many cases, no formal preaching place, and the itinerant worked alone aided only by local preachers. The aim was to attract enough members to form a society, at which point the mission would either join a circuit or itself become the nucleus of a new circuit. Late in the nineteenth century several Connexions formed missions to work with the poor and dispossessed in the inner cities, led by non-itinerating ministers; by 1900 the Wesleyan Home Missions department greatly eclipsed foreign missions in importance and funding.18 In the first half of the century home missions were vital to Methodist offshoots that aimed to reach the unconverted, like the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians, but less important to secessions like the United Methodist Free Churches, formed from existing congregations. As late as 1899 the UMFC had ten home missions, compared with eighty-eight Primitive Methodist home missions in the 1860s.19 In 1834 the Primitive Methodist Conference established rules for home missionaries: they had to preach eight sermons a week in the open air in different places, including three on Sundays in towns. Other duties included holding prayer meetings and home visitations. Their aims were to form societies of converts and foster local preachers; once they had achieved these goals they were to move on. They had to live on the mission, raise their own salaries through collections, and ‘expect privations.’20 The second Bible Christian Conference in 1820 set up a Missionary Society ‘for the purpose of sending Missionaries into the dark and destitute parts of the United Kingdom and other countries as Divine Providence might open the way.’ Its work was entirely at home for more than ten years.21 In many

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women in missions at home and abroad cases women were part of the home mission team, sometimes the only missionary, like the Primitive Methodist Sarah Kirkland in Derby or the Bible Christian Mary Billings who was the first Connexional preacher on the Isle of Wight, in Portsea (Portsmouth), and Bristol. In the 1820s twelve women served in sixteen Bible Christian mission stations, and nine served in fifteen stations in the 1830s. However, women were less likely to be appointed to such responsibility in later years when preparation for ministry became more formalized and inaccessible to women. By 1841 only one of the thirty-four Bible Christian preachers appointed to home missions was a woman, and only five women served as paid home missionaries between 1840 and 1907, almost all in the 1890s.22 In the second half of the nineteenth century home missions were as vital as they had been in the early years of each sect’s formation. In 1863, after more than forty years of independent existence, the Primitive Methodists maintained that ‘the necessity for home missions was still urgent.’23 In 1881, alarmed at a decrease in membership the previous year, the author of an article in the Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review called for a renewed commitment to evangelism, including ‘a larger employment of female talent in evangelistic work in all our societies and circuits.’ He envisaged most women in stereotypically female roles, such as Sunday school teaching and district visiting, but, reflecting the greater social respectability of Connexional members, he maintained that, ‘Perhaps there never was a time in Primitive Methodism when so many women could be found possessed of leisure and in a position to devote the whole or chief part of their time to evangelistic work.’24 In 1888 the Bible Christians initiated a Home Extension Scheme, opening missions in Blackburn, Durham, and Gravesend. As migration into cities with their multiple attractions increased, and denominations competed with newer charismatic churches, Methodist growth rates began to slacken, especially after 1890, with actual decline setting in during the first decade of the twentieth century. There was also a shift in areas of growth from north to south. Currie suggested that these trends produced pressure toward union, especially among the smaller sects, created greater emphasis on respectability, and weakened denominational allegiance. They also elevated the importance of home missions to recruit new members to offset losses, and in fact between 1880 and 1907 both the Bible Christians and the Wesleyans recruited more members than they lost.25 The symbolism attached to the end of the century also spurred most denominations to greater efforts for renewal, especially in the cities. In 1901 the UMFC called for a more aggressive urban outreach: ‘For patriotic reasons we must bring our own countrymen under the spell of the gospel.’26

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women and the shaping of british methodism The Bible Christians launched the ambitious New Century Movement, aiming to convert 100,000 souls and raise £100,000. Connexions also paid greater attention to attracting young people through Sunday schools, Bands of Hope, and Christian Endeavour societies, in all of which women played prominent roles. By the end of the century most sects emphasized city missions to the poor. Six of the UMFC’s ten home missions were in London, and both the Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists maintained missions in poor areas of the metropolis. In 1900 the Primitive Methodists defined the most important targets of home missions to be London, large provincial towns, and spas, although the latter seemed to be aimed at the well-to-do. Both the Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists employed some women in missions. In 1894 three out of the forty-six paid Bible Christian missionaries attached to district missions were women, including one in London, while the Primitive Methodist deaconesses were vital to their East London mission (see Chapter 7).27 Home missions’ importance in the last quarter of the century was demonstrated by the employment of full-time evangelists paid by the Conference, available either for recruitment or for fund-raising to any circuit that requested their presence. There had been precedents. William Booth had a short-lived engagement of this type with the New Connexion, and Clarissa Buck functioned in a similar manner with the Primitive Methodists in mid-century. By the 1880s such arrangements had become more formal, and provided some opportunities for women. The Bible Christian Rules and Regulations for 1892 instructed the Missionary Committee to employ two or three evangelists, guaranteeing their salaries, with all local expenses to be met by collections and subscriptions. The previous year they had employed Eva Costin as a full-time evangelist reporting directly to the President, guaranteeing her salary of £3 7s. 6d. per single mission to a circuit. Pay discrimination had persisted; male evangelists received 30s. per week plus 15s. from each circuit visited, giving them at least £3. 15s. per mission. Costin’s missions usually lasted at least two weeks, and in 1895 the Bible Christian Magazine listed ten engagements, netting her at least £33. She was an effective evangelist for ten years, and active in the New Century Movement, where she was reported as dealing ‘effectively with the soul-winning aspect.’28 Not all women’s missionary activity was uncontroversial. In 1884 Miss McLain, a Northumberland evangelist, led several evangelistic meetings in the Bible Christian Mission to miners in Durham. The Bible Christian Magazine reported that in six weeks she had preached eight sermons a week, attracting overflow congregations, and converted nearly 100 adults: ‘In preaching, praying, singing, in public and private pleading long and

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women in missions at home and abroad earnestly with God, Miss McLain works very hard.’ Yet the following year a special circuit meeting exempted the New Herrington chapel ‘from all blame in closing the chapel against Miss McLain,’ and the quarterly meeting resolved that ‘only our ministers be employed as evangelists, unless the quarterly meeting approves.’ While there is no record of the nature of the dispute, and the New Herrington congregation was described as ‘in a low state’ before McLain’s arrival, the society’s collapse shortly afterwards was probably connected to the controversy.29 By the end of the nineteenth century even those sects that allowed women preachers were turning against their employment Connexionwide as official evangelists endorsed by the Conference. The fund-raising aspect of the Bible Christian New Century Movement appeared to require men; by 1902 the only Conference-supported Bible Christian evangelists were male.30 The Primitive Methodist Conference was similarly cautious. In 1899 the Missionary Committee engaged Miss Perrett to visit Sunday schools and form missionary associations. She was already very active as an evangelist in the Connexion; in 1898 she held 180 services and addressed fifteen ladies’ meetings. Despite her ‘sweetness and beautiful Christian temper’ and the committee’s belief that ‘many devoted ladies might be found to become colleagues in Miss Perrett’s work,’ she was never funded by the Conference. In 1901 the Conference considered creating a special evangelistic department with two ministers, one responsible for Sunday schools, but since Miss Perrett was already doing much of this work through the Missionary Committee, they decided the expense was unnecessary. The five Connexional evangelists employed by the Conference in 1905 were male, although Miss Perrett held 139 homemission meetings in the last quarter of 1904, and was still working at the end of the decade.31 Similarly, men staffed the mission cars sent out to villages in the summer by the UMFC and the Primitive Methodists to take temperance pledges and attract members.32 An article entitled ‘Days of Power: The Story of a Revival’ in the Aldersgate Primitive Methodist Magazine revealed some of the issues raised by female evangelism among women themselves. Eight applicants, six men and two women, replied to an advertisement for an evangelist to lead a local revival. The men on the hiring committee were ‘strongly for a woman’ because they saw female evangelists as more effective, but a woman argued that women were too hard to please in their lodging arrangements, and ‘some of them think far more about sweethearting than visiting.’ All the other women present agreed with her: ‘The married women feared for their sons, and the unmarried for their sweethearts,’ so they chose a man.33 Although women were losing ground at home as missionaries and

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women and the shaping of british methodism evangelists, by the end of the nineteenth century they had new opportunities abroad. In the first half of the century, women were almost always thought unsuitable for mission work outside Britain and Ireland. Before the 1850s all Methodist denominations except the Wesleyans confined their missionary efforts beyond their home territory to Englishspeaking settler colonies where significant numbers of their members had emigrated. A speaker at an 1862 Primitive Methodist missionary meeting maintained that the Connexion had ‘especially … considered as [its] province the mission to our own countrymen in our distant colonies,’ and a much later article in their magazine asserted, ‘The seed sown in chapel schools in England is carried in the heart of the emigrant to [a] distant land, and there brings forth a harvest that goes on multiplying itself with the passing of the years.’34 The Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians were particularly vulnerable to loss through emigration of members from their core areas of support – farmers from rural areas seeking a better living on virgin soil, and Cornish miners who seized opportunities worldwide. (There was a saying that wherever there was a hole you would find a Cornishman at the bottom of it.)35 Both Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians established viable organizations in Upper Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The Primitive Methodists sent missionaries to Canada in 1829 and by 1843 had 908 members and nine chapels, and seven itinerants and sixty-two local preachers for fifty-one congregations. Feeling competitive with the Primitive Methodists, and although their missionary fund was in debt, at the request of Canadian emigrants from the West Country, the Bible Christians supported sending two missionaries to Canada in 1831. By 1865 the Bible Christian Conference in Canada had 5,000 members, fifty-two itinerants, and 132 chapels.36 In Australia, the Primitive Methodists maintained missions in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and Tasmania, adding eight missionaries in 1863. By the end of the century a few aborigines were attending services and one ‘bush’ missionary preached in an aboriginal camp.37 The development of copper mining in South Australia in the 1840s attracted Cornish miners and their families, who opened the first Bible Christian chapel in 1849. In response to an appeal from that congregation, the following year the English Conference sent out two experienced missionaries who quickly organized societies in both mining and farming communities. Unlike the Canadian mission, which attracted little support from home congregations, the Australian mission was popular and within six years supported fourteen itinerants and their families, including Serena and Octavius Lake, on six circuits in Australia’s ‘Little Cornwall,’ with a mission station in Victoria and a small presence in Queensland. In 1841

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women in missions at home and abroad ‘a boatload of Bryanites,’ at least thirty-nine Bible Christians, left for New Zealand on the appropriately named ship William Bryan. On arrival they quickly established a chapel, but delays in home support forced a union with the Primitive Methodists, who had opened a mission in 1844, funded by Sunday school contributions. In the 1870s the English Bible Christian Conference funded another mission, but it grew slowly, with just over 500 members by 1886, and four circuits by the 1890s. Other Methodist sects also established colonial missions. The New Connexion maintained missions in Canada and Australia, the latter only a tenuous presence, and by the end of the century the UMFC supported twenty-three missionaries in Australia.38 These colonial communities’ religious identity was essential to maintaining the group’s cohesion, and as a link to home.39 They often requested that the home Conference send out a missionary to work among them. Those who volunteered to go had to build a Methodist organization either from a small and scattered nucleus, particularly in farming areas where a good part of their work was travelling in often difficult and rugged terrain, or in the rowdy, predominantly male mining communities. Women were not thought suitable for either task. Missionaries’ pastoral work among the group that had requested them was also essential, and here the emigrants expected a father figure. The American Methodist Episcopal Church, a considerable presence in Canada, after controversy over a female preacher’s work in an upstate New York circuit, had decided against allowing women to preach in 1830, probably influencing attitudes to female evangelism.40 The Bible Christian Paul Robins wrote from Canada, ‘There appears to be a prejudice against female preaching.’ However, missionary wives were important to their husbands’ successes and sometimes filled in for them while they were away. While some communities preferred a missionary to be unmarried to save expense, most either brought wives with them or married soon after arrival. Before the Bible Christian John Hicks Eynon sailed for the Upper Canada mission in 1833 he married Elizabeth Dart, the first woman evangelist in the Connexion and the woman who had converted him. Despite the reported prejudice against women preachers, she often preached for him locally while he was away in the Canadian backcountry. Similarly, Mary, wife of Francis Metherall on Prince Edward Island, became an essential partner in sustaining the fragile Bible Christian community by holding class and prayer meetings during his frequent extended absences in other parts of the island. Her death after childbirth in 1840 leaving nine children added immensely to her husband’s burdens in a difficult station. In the very small Primitive Methodist outpost in Yorktown, Upper Canada,

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women and the shaping of british methodism Nathaniel Watkins’s wife spoke ‘occasionally.’ Missionaries also encountered women who had been local preachers before their emigration and continued to speak in public. Martha Jago Sabine, a Bible Christian local preacher, emigrated to Prince Edward Island with her husband, where she spoke in Methodist chapels, sometimes attracting large crowds, before rejoining the Bible Christians.41 Once congregations became more established, ministers’ wives were expected to support their communities, as did their counterparts at home. The Canadian Observer, the Bible Christian newspaper, advised ministers’ wives that they should be ‘earnest workers in the Lord’s vineyard. If you have no small children, or bodily infirmities to prevent, you should have a class in the school, and you should visit the sick and the distressed, without distinction or partiality. Work, work, sisters, while it is called today.’ A report from the small Bible Christian mining community in Hancock, Michigan, in 1869 showed that women’s support was as vital in these small communities as it was at home. For a tea meeting in aid of the chapel opening, ‘the provisions were presented by the kind ladies of the Town and vicinity, several of whom were members of other Churches.’ The meal was ‘what I never remember to have seen at a similar gathering in Canada,’ an example of American largesse: ‘a large joint of beef, kindly given by one of our butchers, hams, pickles, preserves, &c., &c. Of one thing I am now certain, that, although we live in a land of rocks, yet our people will, and do, live (as they say) up to the handle.’42 Perhaps emboldened by their frontier surroundings, women continued to defy rules and stereotypes. Elizabeth Hoskin, probably the wife of itinerant James Hoskin, so overcame the prejudice against women preachers in Upper Canada that in Huntingdon she was known as Rev. Mrs. Hoskin, ‘being the first preacher of the Bible Christians in this section of the country, by the divine blessing on her labours, she planted our society in this place.’ In the 1880s Ann Gordon, wife of the Bible Christian minister Andrew Gordon, was the Canadian Serena Thorne, well known as a preacher and temperance and suffrage worker in Manitoba.. In Australia, while Serena Thorne Lake was by far the best known of female evangelists, in the 1890s at least four other women were preaching on Bible Christian circuits. In New Zealand the Bible Christian Fanny Luxton appears to have worked with her husband William Ready in Dunedin, and another Dunedin woman, Maud Cannon, volunteered for the Bible Christian Chinese mission. At the last Bible Christian Conference in Canada before Methodist union (1884), a speaker urged that they take with them their ‘estimation of women’s work in the church … Where God has endowed a woman to preach don’t let us keep her

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women in missions at home and abroad out of the pulpit.’ Foreshadowing the effects of later unions, his plea was unanswered.43 None of the women who preached in Canada and Australia were sent out as missionaries by their home Connexions. The only example of a woman missionary in an English-speaking area being so supported was in the early days of female evangelism. In 1829, for their first foreign mission, the Primitive Methodist Conference appointed Ruth Watkins, a very successful evangelist who had attracted large crowds on the Tunstall circuit, to go to the United States along with three married men. Although the mission was at the request of emigrant Primitive Methodists, the fluid social structure and religious climate in the United States was tough ground for small British sects. The American Methodist Episcopal Church had separated from British Wesleyanism in 1784 and was active both on the Western frontier and in Canada, which limited opportunities for British Methodists; in the 1830s an English accent was still unwelcome in some areas. The Bible Christian William Hooper ‘thought we should never do any thing in the United States, on account of the natural prejudice against anything British.’ In cities there was some prejudice against the open-air preaching essential to mission work. In cosmopolitan New York the Primitive Methodist William Knowles wrote, ‘I never in my life was in a place where religious people were so much opposed to open-air preaching, except that each body has a camp meeting once a year, which they hold about a week. They have said if I preach in the open-air, I shall be sure to lose my character.’ Furthermore, frontier regions teemed with independent congregations. William Hooper’s compatriot Henry Ebbott, trying to sustain a small mining congregation in Wisconsin, complained, ‘We have to contend with universalism, spiritualism, unitarianism, and every other ism that is calculated to damn the souls of men … This is a Free country; and we have thousands of free-thinkers.’44 Nonetheless, Ruth Watkins’s 1829 mission was at least initially successful. Together with William Knowles and his pregnant wife, she began her work in New York City, living in a cellar, and preaching to large numbers of people in the Bowery, both outdoors and in a large rented room whose floor once buckled under the weight of the crowd. Within five months a chapel had been built with the help of two local benefactors, but support from Britain was weak and Knowles was accused of reckless spending, so it remained heavily in debt.45 The following year Anne Wearing, a former Wesleyan female preacher who had emigrated with her parents, joined Watkins. Together they moved to Philadelphia where they continued to preach in the open, attracting large audiences. Watkins was eventually put on the preaching plan before resigning to

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women and the shaping of british methodism marry an Episcopal minister. Meanwhile, another of the original missionaries, William Knowles, also left New York, moving first to New Jersey and then to Cincinnati. There his wife, who preached regularly during his mission, became a sensation. She more than filled a church that seated up to 3,000 people who came to hear her preach on the Prodigal Son. When she gave the same sermon in Ohio to about 1,000 people, the Eaton Register reported that, ‘she surpassed all who have ever preached in our village from the same text.’ She continued to attract crowds as the couple travelled the frontier through Indiana and Kentucky. By that time the couple had joined the small Reformed Methodist church, which allowed women to preach, so she may have persisted in speaking in public.46 The Knowles’s experience mirrored the fate of the Primitive Methodist mission as a whole. While the Connexion established circuits in New York and New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, and among textile workers in New England and miners in Wisconsin, the home Connexion never gave the missionaries adequate moral or financial support, so in 1840 they became the independent American Primitive Methodist Church, with the majority of its members British emigrants.47 The Bible Christians also had little success in the United States, even among the mining communities that were their main areas of strength. In mid-century their Canadian Conference sustained small communities in Wisconsin and Michigan, but they remained fragile and were eventually included in the union of the Bible Christians, Canadian Episcopal Methodists, and the Primitive Methodists in the Methodist Church of Canada in 1884. This union and a similar union in Australia in 1890 resulted in considerable membership losses for the home Connexions, encouraging them to turn to new mission fields. In the second half of the century Methodist missionary activity was shifting to converting the ‘heathen’ rather than rescuing the nominally Christian or ministering to emigrants. While the first Wesleyan missionaries to Ceylon and India went out in 1814, the smaller sects did not finance missions to Asia or Africa until the second half of the century. The New Connexion established a mission in China in 1859, the Primitive Methodists in West Africa in 1870, and by the end of the century the UMFC supported missions in East and West Africa, Jamaica, and Central America. The Bible Christians began their mission to China in 1887, motivated by significant membership losses resulting from the Canadian Methodist union. Additionally, among an increasingly affluent and staid membership, support for both home and colonial missions was diminishing. One prominent Bible Christian believed the survival of the Connexion was at stake: ‘Mission work was dull and the interest flagging. It was widely felt that if the Society was to prosper, or even continue to

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women in missions at home and abroad exist, some new departure must be made.’48 Apart from the quest for new members, the opening of China to Christian missions after the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, the publicity given to David Livingstone’s missions in Africa in mid-century, and the British government’s direct rule of India after 1857 widened the opportunities for missionary activity, encouraging all branches of Methodism to consider expanding their missions outside Europe and settler colonies. A further impetus was the search for new outlets for evangelical zeal linked to the influence of the holiness movement, the latter having a particular impact on Hudson Taylor, the founder of the nondenominational evangelical China Inland Mission (1865). Catherine Hall maintained that the logic of evangelical Christianity’s insistence that God’s grace was available to all made missionary activity an essential aspect of evangelical religion, giving rise to a new model of church community in which, by mid-nineteenth century, a ‘missionary public’ was created, committed to converting non-Christians. It included both men and women, mainly from the middle class and artisans. Its organization straddled the divide between public and private, with national organizations appealing to the public through the press and public meetings, but also reliant on private prayer and individual collectors.49 An article in the 1907 Primitive Methodist World illustrated this combination of imperialist sentiment and evangelical zeal. The author proudly claimed that he was an imperialist, chosen by God, but cautioned, ‘Every Christian who has a nobler conception of Empire than aggrandisement and greed should insist upon duties and responsibilities while others are talking of privileges and rights.’ He maintained that ‘even good Christians find the colour line hard to ignore,’ but wrote of ‘positive wrongs’ done to ‘subject peoples,’ warning that ‘we must not expect too much, for the work of uplifting a people takes a great time.’50 The article exemplified racial attitudes in the second half of the nineteenth century, illustrating a gradualist approach to ‘uplifting’ non-white colonials that was expected to last indefinitely. Hall argued that by the 1860s the Sepoy rebellion (Indian Mutiny) in 1857–58 heralded changing racial attitudes, epitomized by reactions to the 1865 Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica, where some blamed missionary influence for the uprising and public opinion on the whole supported Governor Eyre’s harsh punishment of the rebels. Hall’s thesis was that missionaries and their public in the second half of the century lost faith in the eventual evolution of mixed-race Christian communities of equals and began to view non-white people not as potential brothers but as children.51 This in turn fostered a shift in emphasis from the public conversion of male leaders who would bring their followers with them to the private sphere of

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women and the shaping of british methodism home and, in line with separate spheres ideology, thus subject to women’s influence. The Rev. Kilner told the Wesleyan Ladies’ Auxiliary, ‘The home life, embracing especially the mother’s influence on the family, is, to a very large extent, the type and mould by which the national life is formed. In the homes of Heathendom, as in homes elsewhere, we find this is the key which locks or unlocks the destiny of the nation.’52 His exhortation illustrates what Clare Midgley identified as the ‘internally contradictory nature of evangelical prescriptions for women,’ emphasizing the importance of their influence while simultaneously confining it to the home.53 A focus on women’s private space was vital since many Asian women were secluded from public view and in general men resisted giving male missionaries access to their wives. In India many women were secluded in zenanas, while in China, where girl children were regarded as burdens and women were not valued, they rarely left their homes or immediate neighborhoods, especially if their feet were bound.54 Reaching them required female workers. At the same time, missions increased their focus on children’s education, requiring women teachers for girls’ schools. Thus the second half of the century saw the entry of women into the mission field not just as supporters of male endeavor, but as paid employees with a particular mission to work with non-Christian women and girls. This development coincided with growing concerns about women’s status in non-Christian societies, including campaigns to increase the age of marriage, especially for girls, and against practices like sati, Indian widows immolating themselves on their husbands’ funeral pyres, and efforts to improve the lot of Chinese women through education. As David Hempton observed, ‘married women supported educated single women to go abroad to christianize and civilize foreign populations in ways that would raise the lowly status of women, which was regarded as the hallmark of non-Christian civilizations.’ Susan Thorne called this ‘missionaryimperial feminism,’ where the ‘employment opportunities, the valorization of (British) women’s skills and virtues, the institutional and social space for self-assertion, collective action, and aggressive challenging of male prerogatives … rested on the existence of a degraded female Other in the colonies and at home.’55 Contemporary female missionaries like Lois Thorne, secure in their call to the work, confident of the superiority of European culture, and concerned for the welfare of the women who came to their meetings, would not have recognized themselves in this description. While Lois Thorne’s very presence and her tireless evangelism were witness to her belief in the superiority of the Western way of life and the Christian religion, her diary suggests that she was genuinely attached to the Chinese women among whom she worked, and believed

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women in missions at home and abroad sincerely that Christian conversion would improve their lives. She was convinced of her call to spread Christianity in China and was devastated when she could no longer do what she accepted as God’s will. Her space for self-assertion was also limited, since she worked mainly with women in enclosed spaces, and any attempt to claim authority based on her greater experience, as she may have done on her final posting in Tung Chuan, was unsuccessful. Yet her work was informed by an underlying assumption that Chinese women’s low status indicated the inferiority of their civilization, and that Christian conversion was a way to improve it. Her persistent but minimally successful effort to teach Chinese girls to learn the tonic sol-fa and sing Methodist hymns was an example of her attempts to introduce European culture in an alien environment.56 Lois Thorne was a professional missionary, but before the 1870s almost all women in foreign missions were either missionary wives or had some family link that enabled them to overcome prejudice against female missionaries. By far the majority of missionaries sponsored by the main missionary societies in the first half of the century were ordained ministers, emphasizing the importance of conversion rather than improving lives in this world. Their tasks were to preach Christianity, translate the Bible into the local language, and to establish schools, only the latter offering potential openings for women.57 Missionary societies preferred male missionaries to be married, partly because they tended to stay healthier than single men, presumably because their wives took better care of them than they would themselves, but also because their wives’ unpaid work among women was invaluable to the cause.58 The Rev. Kilner maintained that the missionary wife was ‘often the very center and spring of the evangelistic and educational work among the adult women and children of Heathendom.’59 In the first half of the century wives’ presence in records is largely anonymous, sometimes indicated only by an asterisk by their husband’s name to indicate he was married. When they were identified as individuals, their wifely subordination was emphasized, as was their cheerful and self-sacrificing adaptation to the privations of missionary life. They were examples of an ideal wife and mother for indigenous women, and their contributions to mission work were seen as an extension of their womanly traits.60 In the second half of the century a number of publications described missionary wives in such terms. John Telford’s Women in the Mission Field: Glimpses of Christian Women among the Heathen (1895), a popular Sunday school prize, described the work of Margaret Smith Cargill, wife of a Methodist missionary to Tonga in the 1830s, where she ran a school for girls and women, visited the sick, and distributed medicine, all activities later assigned to professional woman

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women and the shaping of british methodism missionaries. She lasted only six years, during which she witnessed cannibalism, before dying of dysentery in 1840. Another missionary wife who encountered cannibalism in the South Seas was Mary Calvert in Fiji, where in her husband’s absence she successfully appealed to the local ruler to stop a cannibal feast at which fifteen women were being killed, the last cannibal feast on the island. For the most part, however, ‘In the early days of the … mission, the missionary’s wife was so completely identified with her husband that people seemed indisposed to regard her work as worthy of individual comment. She was her husband’s helper: that sufficed.’61 Yet a wife who could not take charge in her husband’s absence could be a liability. The Bible Christian Samuel Pollard wrote home, ‘Some of them – rightly – cannot be left alone on a station. Mr. Evans came home to find his wife nearly dead once, all alone! Give us one, strong center & the husband goes on journeys with a light heart.’ Wives were also not necessarily the angels idealized in the literature, especially when single women started arriving to threaten their positions. Miss Johnson, an Anglican missionary sent out to Delhi in 1869, encountered fierce opposition from the missionary’s wife, with both complaining bitterly to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel’s secretary.62 Few single women were supported by missionary societies before 1870. The London Missionary Society (LMS) sent out only one female missionary before 1864.63 Judith Rowbotham estimates that before that date approximately 100 single women, mostly middle-aged or widowed, managed to establish themselves in work that was later regarded as missionary, but who were rarely described as missionaries themselves.64 Many of them went out as teachers. As early as 1834 the nondenominational Society for the Propagation of Female Education in the East (Female Education Society) began to recruit, train, and outfit single women to work as teachers in India and China, aiming to evangelize girls in their schools, and through them reach their mothers, sending out fifty single woman ‘agents’ by 1847.65 The Society’s committees and officers were all female except for a male treasurer. The first teacher they sponsored, Miss Thornton, left in 1835, settling in Batavia.66 Another pioneer was the Methodist Mary Twiddy, who went to Ceylon in 1841, at age twenty-seven, to run a recently established girls’ school in Jaffna. She soon married a widowed Wesleyan minister and the couple spent several years paying back the cost of her passage. By 1858, when she had forty girls attending her school, she was well aware of the great need for more teachers. She wrote a letter suggesting the formation of what became the Methodist Ladies’ Committee, later the Ladies’ Auxiliary, committed to recruiting female ‘agents’ (they avoided the word ‘missionary’) to send abroad.67

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women in missions at home and abroad Between 1858 and 1862 they recruited eleven teachers, sending them to British Honduras, India, Fiji, South Africa, and China. Only two of them served for more than seven years, with death or marriage claiming the rest.68 It was a beginning that later became a flood. Before 1850 the term ‘missionary’ was rarely applied to a woman, although it was not unknown.69 One example was Hannah Kilham (1774–1832), briefly the wife of Alexander Kilham, founder of the New Connexion, before his early death within eight months of their marriage. Hannah, the seventh child of a respectable Sheffield artisan and his wife, grew up a Wesleyan, but objected to ‘some points of Church Government … that she considered contained the seeds of evil and corruption,’ so joined the New Connexion. After Kilham’s death, leaving her pregnant and with a stepdaughter, ‘distinct convictions of duty’ led her to attend Quaker meetings, formally joining the sect after her own daughter’s death from scarlet fever. Since her husband’s death Hannah had kept schools, but ‘her attention was particularly directed to relieving the wants of the poor and distressed,’ setting up a society to better the conditions of the poor in Sheffield that became a national model. Then, coming into contact with Quakers active in the anti-slavery movement, around 1816 she decided to become a missionary in Africa. Her primary aim was education, not conversion. She realized that the plethora of African dialects, none in written form, would be a stumbling block, so building on a natural talent she had discovered as a teenager, she produced an elementary grammar for children in missions in Sierra Leone, and began to learn two West African dialects from sailors. In 1823 she left with three other Quakers on the first of three African tours. Although they failed to establish a Quaker settlement in the Gambia, Kilham opened schools for girls and boys. On her second tour between 1825 and 1828 she studied twenty-five languages with a view to writing rudimentary grammars, and on her third (1830– 32) she got permission from the Sierra Leone governor to take charge of children rescued from slave ships and set up a school for them. Her death on the voyage home meant that her many enterprises did not reach fruition.70 Kilham’s view of the missionary enterprise, as reported by her biographer, was idiosyncratic but typical of missionaries in the first half of the nineteenth century in that she optimistically envisaged missions as ideal communities with missionaries as role models: With regard to foreign missions, I believe it would be better for the cause of Christianity, if not any were appointed as pastors without some active employment as schoolteachers, translators, &c … It is necessary that young missionaries should have a time of trial, under oversight, before

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women and the shaping of british methodism they leave England … If they could be practised in surgery, carpenter’s work, gardening, printing, bookbinding, &c., it would be valuable to them. Missionaries would, I think, have more effectual success, if they could present a little community of farmers, spinners, weavers, joiners, and the simple arts of life, and teach schools, and give religious instruction at the same time. They should shew, in such a community, how people may provide themselves with all the necessities of life easily, and have time to spare for study.71

Like Baptist missionaries in Jamaica before 1850, she was convinced of the humanity of Africans and their ability to live equally with Europeans; in most cases, she believed, Europeans set a terrible example to Africans. She was also sure that girls could do as well as boys in school, probably remembering that her own schoolmaster had thought her ‘overstepping the bounds of the female province’ when she showed her unusual aptitude for grammar.72 Like most of the small number of women who worked outside English-speaking communities in the period before 1860, Hannah Kilham never received official recognition or salary as a missionary, and her work was primarily teaching children, a recognizable female occupation. As was also typical, she was a widow and almost fifty years of age when she travelled to Africa, therefore beyond the duties of motherhood. Her ability to overcome the popular stereotype of the helpmate depended partly on her own independence and determination, and partly on Quaker recognition of women’s abilities. Other denominations’ prejudice against female missionaries remained strong until the 1880s. The Wesleyan Methodist Society’s all-male General Committee was ‘for the most part strongly resistant to incursions of women into “a man’s world,”’ and Methodist audiences often laughed loudly when a speaker was described as a ‘lady missionary.’73 By the end of the century three major changes had taken place. First, it had proved difficult to tempt ordained ministers to leave their usually comfortable lives for the privations of a missionary station, so lay workers now outnumbered clergy in foreign missions. As Barbara Welter pointed out in a pioneering article on missionary work in the United States, as men proved difficult to recruit, missionary societies turned to women.74 Second, in the 1880s the holiness/revivalist movement centered on the annual Keswick Conference rekindled missionary enthusiasm.75 Third, the number of women had increased to 37.5 percent of British overseas missionaries, perhaps numbering 1,000 by 1900.76 Several factors con­­­ tributed to this substantial shift. The first was the lack of success in converting ‘heathen’ populations, particularly in India. Rhetorical claims

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women in missions at home and abroad that Britain’s expanding empire was the work of divine providence made this failure embarrassing. Missionary society officials suggested that indigenous women resisted the conversion of their men and families, and that conversion rates were lowest in places where women were secluded. In China, where women were not valued, female missionaries were needed to attract them to all-female gatherings, often providing simple medical care.77 Therefore women needed to be recruited to work under the supervision of men. Second, the need was too great to be entrusted to the unpaid work of missionary wives. The Methodist Rev. William Arthur argued that the work was ‘too vast to be left wholly to the wives of Missionaries. Some must be found who would take woman’s cause as woman’s mission, and who, wedding that cause, should make it their life-work.’ The use of the marriage metaphor was appropriate. A third factor that encouraged the recruitment of female missionaries was the mid-century realization that the 1861 census revealed a surplus of women over men, raising the specter of ‘redundancy,’ a pool of middle-class women who would never marry and, since there were few opportunities for respectable paid work, would become a burden to their families and the nation. Commentators like William Greg advocated emigration as one solution; missionary work became another.78 Women themselves welcomed the opportunity, surprising the missionary societies by their enthusiasm. Many were no doubt influenced by letters from missionary wives in the field, others probably by reading articles in denominational magazines emphasizing the exoticism, freedom, and adventure of missionary work, while usually downplaying the difficulties. The first CIM missionaries to go to China included two couples, five single men, and eight single women.79 Lois Thorne was recruited through listening to the China Inland Mission’s Hudson Taylor, although, typically, she did not offer herself as a candidate until she felt her family obligations at home were complete. A candidate in the 1870s told the women’s committee of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel that she was looking for ‘a wider field for her talent than that which she found in England.’ Yet by far the majority of these women must have been motivated by religious zeal, their ‘calling.’80 This is difficult to measure since much of the evidence comes from women’s applications to missionary committees, when they would obviously emphasize, if not exaggerate, their faith. An applicant to the LMS wrote, ‘I trust that [the disagreeable aspects] should loosen my affection more for earth and raise me nearer to God … If God shall have me I will gladly bear all.’ Another, Elizabeth German, longed ‘to be in full work for my Master, whether abroad or at home.’ Lois Thorne’s diary, covering less than a year of her life during the Boxer rebellion, has few references to her spiritual

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women and the shaping of british methodism state, although all who knew her attested to her personal piety. She was more open in a letter published in China’s Millions, the CIM’s magazine: ‘I do thank God for the privilege of being a witness for Jesus in this dark land. My heart overflows with gratitude as I recall His past mercies. He makes Himself so real: He is ever near.’81 Thus by the 1870s, when women were losing ground as professional evangelists at home, missionary work was a new opportunity for women to become religious professionals. Yet the missionary societies and committees that oversaw foreign missions remained male-dominated, women were subordinate to men in the field, and their assignments remained within the boundaries of ‘women’s work.’ Female missionaries were in most cases paid less than men. The Bible Christians paid an unmarried male missionary in China £50 a year, while a single female received £40. The salaries of missionaries supported by the Church of Scotland varied by educational level, class, and sex. Ordained workers, all male, received the most, followed by teachers, then evangelists and engineers, then ‘artisan evangelists.’ By the end of the century women teachers were being paid the same as men, but got smaller incremental raises, and women doctors earned less than their male colleagues. The most egalitarian was the nondenominational China Inland Mission, which treated women and men the same, and worked on Hudson Taylor’s ‘faith principle,’ that if missionaries in the field prayed earnestly for support it would be forthcoming. The CIM therefore did not guarantee a specific wage, which may have discouraged male applicants and probably kept CIM salaries lower in general. This allowed the agency to send out proportionally more missionaries than other organizations that raised the money first, since their workers were responsible for their own support.82 Entry into the missionary profession was not easy. Only 186 of the Ladies’ Committee of the LMS’s 400 female applicants between 1875 and 1900 actually went out as missionaries, and by the 1890s the Church Missionary Society was rejecting 70 percent of candidates.83 The Committee wanted to recruit ‘the comparatively young between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-eight, full of health and vigour, … and … ladies of some education, culture and refinement.’ Most of those rejected were too old, or had insufficient education. The much less formal CIM was more likely to attract ‘respectable’ working-class recruits, since Hudson Taylor put less emphasis on education than the LMS.84 Recruiting practices in Methodist sects were probably closer to the CIM’s than the more formal LMS approach. The first Bible Christian missionaries to China, Thomas Vanstone and Samuel Taylor Thorne, both ordained ministers within the Connexion, went out under the auspices of the CIM,

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women in missions at home and abroad after which the Connexion did its own recruiting. Poor health was a major reason why missionary agencies rejected candidates. In 1895 the Bible Christian Eva Costin applied to go as a missionary to China, but was not accepted because of her age, health, and her ‘evangelistic usefulness in the Home work,’ and in the following year three more women were rejected for health reasons. There were good reasons to insist on good health for both men and women, particularly for those going to tropical areas. Of Hannah Kilham’s party of four Quakers on her first visit to the Gambia, both men died. A Primitive Methodist missionary to Fernando Po in West Africa had to return because his wife and children were too ill for them to stay, and his colleague lost his infant daughter, while his wife hung on despite what were probably attacks of malaria: ‘Her cheerfulness, faithfulness, and unwearied toils, providentially did much toward saving me, and making the missions so successful.’85 Her China mission ruined Lois Thorne’s health. There was occasionally some reluctance to send women into the least healthy climates, mostly in central Africa, but there is no evidence that women were more vulnerable to disease than men. By the end of the century some societies were recruiting enough missionaries to allow one year’s leave in England after two years’ service as a way for missionaries to recover both health and enthusiasm. This did not necessarily mean rest, because while on ‘furlough’ they were expected to make the rounds of missionary services and meetings, drumming up contributions and attracting recruits. Lois Thorne wore herself out attending missionary meetings in her Chinese clothing, and by 1874 CIM workers, missionaries, society officials, and local volunteers were preaching 5,000 sermons and organizing 4,000 public meetings a year. A Church Missionary Society missionary on furlough in 1875 addressed approximately 30,000 people in three months.86 Some of these appeals were highly effective. Miss Turner, granddaughter of the woman preacher Elizabeth Nichols, speaking of her experience as a teacher in China, captured the ‘breathless attention’ of the 1884 Bible Christian Conference, and resulted in the Connexion’s commitment to its Chinese mission.87 On the other hand, not all missionaries were suited to or embraced the punishing schedules and need to address large audiences, causing organizing secretaries considerable trouble.88 Once accepted as recruits, all missionaries underwent training. This varied according to the resources of the mission, the position the female missionary was to occupy (teaching, medical, evangelical), and the prior education of the recruit. Some, like the Bible Christian Ethel Squire, were already well qualified. She was a pupil at Edgehill, the Bible Christian girls’ school, had a BA and teaching certificate, and was teaching in

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women and the shaping of british methodism London when she heard the call for a teacher in China. However, most women underwent special training in institutes designed for the purpose, including the Women’s Training Institute in Edinburgh, the Pennefathers’ Mildmay Institute, or Henry Grattan Guinness’s Harley House in London, the latter training more than 900 men and women between 1872 and 1896. The Mildmay course lasted two years, with a curriculum including Bible study and theology, the necessary languages, and comparative religion. Students learned elementary medicine, bookkeeping, housekeeping and singing, and engaged in practical work in their local communities, including domestic visitation and Sunday school instruction. Some were specifically trained in teaching or medicine.89 The Methodist LMS required teachers to take at least a three-month certificate course, and encouraged them to get some training in first aid and midwifery; recruits for specifically medical work had to complete their medical training. Most also had to spend up to three months working in religious and/ or charitable institutions to gain some experience with the poverty and indifference they could expect to encounter abroad. The Bible Christian Emily Bailey trained at Dr. Gummer’s Training Institution, where she ‘learned about running men’s and women’s meetings, speaking in open air and in public houses.’ The CIM did some of its own training at home, but expected recruits to spend at least a year learning the language in the field, as Lois Malpas had upon her arrival in China.90 Women were generally expected to commit themselves to a certain length of service. Wesleyan recruits had to pledge to repay some of the money spent on training them if they served less than three years, and others had to promise not to marry, generally for at least four years, although the Bible Christians set the limit at two. CIM missionaries had to get Hudson Taylor’s permission to marry, and missionary couples had to work together after their marriage, as did the Thornes. Candidates were screened for whether they appeared to be looking for a husband, and a female missionary’s marriage often meant loss of professional status, although in the CIM married women could remain as paid missionaries, a practice emulated by the Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists, who probably saw them as the equivalent of local preachers. The CIM maintained a school for missionary children so their mothers could keep up with their work in the field. Men in the mission field were strongly advised not to marry for the first three years while they settled into the work.91 Despite such discouragements, many female missionaries married their male counterparts. Twenty of the first forty-six women appointed by the Wesleyan Ladies’ Auxiliary married while in the field, as did seven of the fifteen Bible Christian women who served in China before 1907.92

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women in missions at home and abroad Female missionaries were recruited to work with women, and their roles were familiarly feminine: teaching, healing, and evangelizing within all-female gatherings. They taught domestic skills as well as the rudiments of Christianity; Jane Haggis described missionary women’s work as ‘a project of domestication aimed at colonized women.’93 Rev. Kilner called on Englishwomen to ‘take the lead, and sway an influence for home and for Christian character.’94 A Primitive Methodist missionary wrote that a mission had three ‘clearly defined departments of service’: educational, medical, and religious, the last including both preaching and instruction. All three, apart from preaching, were acceptable and commonplace roles for women in their religious communities, and recruiting agencies usually expected that candidates had been Sunday school teachers and active in home visitation. Education was central to all their work, whether in meetings for adult women where they were taught aspects of Western culture as well as Bible study, or in girls’ schools. Some missions opened girls’ schools to teach literacy and train them to be good Christian housewives. Ethel Squire’s school in Chao Tung was ‘a success any mission might be proud of … crowded out, pupils refused.’ Some of them were boarding schools to remove girls ‘from the evil influences surrounding them.’ The justification for the Primitive Methodist Girls’ Training Institute in their West African Mission was that, ‘The future motherhood must be won for purity and holy living.’ The school taught a basic academic curriculum, together with cookery and other aspects of housewifery. The girls spent one day a week doing laundry, with each assigned a specific task.95 The most effective way to draw indigenous women and men to missions was to offer free medical care, usually from women. All female missionaries were expected to provide very basic medical care to local populations. People came to clinics with family members and friends, thus extending the missionaries’ outreach. In 1883 5,492 people visited the New Connexion’s clinic in China, but only just over a quarter of these actually received treatment, the rest becoming captive audiences for missionaries. In 1905 twenty people a day were attending the Bible Christians’ clinic among the Miao people, and four years later that number had risen to 100. All attendees received pamphlets, probably many attended Bible readings, and in some cases more formal schooling. The UMFC missionary Miss Hornby held classes for patients and their families in their Chinese hospital. Women’s paramedical missionary work paradoxically made it more difficult for more highly trained women to gain the respect of their co-workers and the native populations. LMS missionaries in Almora, India, reported that patients did not know the difference between ‘amateur relief and professional doctoring,’ and tended to think

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women and the shaping of british methodism that even qualified women offered the former. However, in the last twenty years of the century missionary societies recruited women as specialized medical missionaries, both nurses and doctors, although by far the majority of the latter were male. The Wesleyan Women’s Auxiliary began sending out medical missionaries in 1883 and first sponsored a woman doctor to go to China in 1895. The Bible Christian Lilian Grandin paid for her own training as a physician so she could join their Chinese mission in 1905, but few women called to become missionaries had Grandin’s resources or aptitude. More nurses were recruited, but by far the majority of women offering medical care in the mission field had received at best a short course in basic medicine.96 More often female missionaries’ work was speaking to women in enclosed spaces. When she first started work Lois Malpas found that women brought men with them, but at her first official station she reported, ‘During the week we only meet the women. When the days are fine they come in great numbers.’ However, since women missionaries worked in isolated stations with few colleagues, they often had to take on extended duties officially defined as male. On their first assignment Malpas’s colleague Miss Todd wrote to China’s Millions, ‘We have visited three villages outside the city, where no foreigner has been before: the people received us very kindly and listened attentively.’ After her marriage Lois Thorne began preaching to mixed audiences in Chinese when both her husband and the other male missionary were absent, and continued to do so, especially as her Chinese was so fluent. Ethel Squire, also an able linguist, at least assisted at services, and probably conducted them, since at her station they worshipped four times in a morning. In the UMFC Chinese mission, Miss Hornby travelled to distant villages, ‘conducting evangelistic services, nursing, dispensing, and in many other ways doing the work of a true missionary.’ Samuel Pollard, the Bible Christians’ superintendent in China, recorded numerous occasions in his diary when his wife preached.97 Teaching could easily become something very similar, if not identical, to preaching. One female missionary noted that they would ‘use every opportunity of giving religious instruction to adults, whether male or female.’98 In some cases women had almost complete autonomy. The evangelical Presbyterian Amy Carmichael founded her own settlement in India at Dohnavur, where ‘she managed both children and adults with absolute authority.’99 Missionaries also recruited converted native women who had received enough Western education, often at one of their boarding schools, as nurses or nursing assistants, teachers and Biblewomen. Emmie Pollard, Samuel Pollard’s wife, reported from China that Ethel Squire’s pupils, ‘the

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women in missions at home and abroad once inert, ignorant, useless, despised Chinese girls’ were ‘in the Hospital actively nursing the sick, or in the school as assistant mistress[es], or away up in the hills ministering to [their] heathen sisters.’ It is possible that the establishment of a normal school to educate ‘Christian Female Teachers, English and Native’ in Calcutta in 1851, training mostly Anglo-Indian girls who found it easier to penetrate zenana walls, may have influenced Ellen Ranyard’s development of her Biblewoman initiative. Ranyard was also deeply interested in the status of Chinese women, and through Hudson Taylor supported two Chinese Biblewomen in 1864.100 In the 1890s all schoolteachers and the women working with other women in the New Connexion’s Chinese mission were Chinese, and in 1905 the UMFC employed at least two native Biblewomen. In India Biblewomen were poor and low caste, a group for whom the egalitarianism of Christianity was attractive. Their duties were to meet with and distribute Bibles to enclosed women, usually higher-caste women in zenanas. Their great asset was being able to address other women in their native languages. In Travancore, India, at first the main qualification to be a Biblewoman was exemplary Christianity, but by the 1890s this was no longer enough. Although their work had changed little over the period, Biblewomen became increasingly professionalized. Missions were requiring ‘Christian women, who can speak and sing well … we require superior teachers … Training Classes are very important … higher general training is necessary for our Christian workers.’ As Jane Haggis pointed out, this sent a mixed message to local female converts. While missionary rhetoric and education stressed domesticity, both the woman missionaries themselves and their native assistants were paid professionals, suggesting an alternative and more independent femininity.101 Despite women’s essential mission work, the leadership in missionary societies remained entirely male. Women’s auxiliaries remained as described, auxiliary, until the end of the century. Men chaired and conducted the public meetings of the Ladies’ Missionary Auxiliary until 1893. The independent female Church of England Zenana Missionary Society kept up the appearance of deference to male leadership. In the field, women were always seen as helpers to the ordained missionaries, even in the more egalitarian CIM. Despite Lois Malpas Thorne’s sixteen years’ experience in China and fluency in the language, her problems with her inexperienced male colleagues in Tung Chuan were most likely caused by their reluctance to accept her criticism. However, the Bible Christians recognized female missionaries as equal to their male colleagues in governance. The 1894 Conference passed a motion that, ‘Female missionaries are recognised as in full standing, if their character

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women and the shaping of british methodism and work be satisfactory to the Committee and the Conference, after they have been four years in the country, with the right to speak and vote at all official meetings.’ No other Methodist sect gave women missionaries the same privileges. As Judith Rowbotham observed, ‘women remained ministering angels and not ministers.’102 How successful were these missionary efforts, especially given the large sums raised at home to support them? In India, where most converts were untouchables, Christians had to contend with three major world religions, complex class relations, and a bewildering variety of languages. Slow progress could cause tensions. In 1889 Wesleyan failure to win conversions in India sparked a major controversy over whether their missionaries in India were overpaid and lived in too luxurious conditions.103 In Africa the main stumbling blocks to conversion were linguistic barriers and local beliefs and customs, ‘egbo, juju, and polygamy,’ as a Primitive Methodist in West Africa put it. After eighteen years in West Africa, by 1911 the Primitive Methodists had three circuits, eleven European and two native ministers, two training institutes, one for each sex, with twenty teachers and two evangelists, all to minister to just 278 members, although actual attendance at churches and clinics would have been greater. In China the strong Confucian tradition and general mistrust of European influence also made for disappointing results; at the end of the century there were an estimated 90,000 Christians in the whole of China. The New Connexion’s China mission struggled. After ten years their total membership was just over 1,200, and the Missionary Committee reported their ‘bitter disappointment in the humiliating failure … to place the Mission on an independent and self-supporting basis.’ Funding a girls’ school took years, and in 1898 had attracted only eleven pupils.104 Missionaries also frequently had to deal with the effects of opium addiction on potential converts. Opium suicides were common, especially among women, and missionaries were frequently called on to save them. Samuel Pollard once attended ten cases in two weeks.105 However, Pollard’s Bible Christians achieved the most lasting Chinese presence. They had little success with Han Chinese – Pollard lamented that he had worked for five years with no conversion, and at the beginning of the twentieth century the Connexion supported eleven missionaries with only eighty-four Chinese members. However, in 1904 a non-Han people, the Flowery Miao or A-Hmao, invited Pollard to visit them and participate in a religious revival. Pollard described the Miao and No Su as ‘the Welsh and Cornish of China,’ probably because of their minority status, which, as with Indian untouchables, made the Christian message attractive. Soon he and his wife were in the middle of a full-scale revival.

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women in missions at home and abroad In 1905 he reported that 4,000 Miao had been to the mission, and the following year 1,000 attended a single service. In 1915 there were 4,800 baptized members and more than 5,000 on trial. He spent the rest of his life (until 1915) working with the Miao, developing a new script to translate the New Testament into their language, founding societies, and seeking justice for tenants from officials and landlords.106 Despite Miao enthusiasm, dangers were always present. Pollard was brutally beaten and left for dead by opponents of his influence, probably working for local landlords. In general, missionary work was hazardous. Commentators often saw the hazards as particularly great for women. The Primitive Methodist Herald described two women who volunteered to go to West Africa to open a girls’ school as having ‘a great daring that enables gentle ladies to face the hazard of a deadly climate and the conditions of life among a debased people.’ Many wives returned to Britain to protect their health or give their children an adequate education. In 1907 the UMFC lost two female missionaries in China, one going home with her children, and the other for her health. Travel was often difficult, and the local populations could be hostile. The greatest single danger missionaries faced was the 1900 Boxer rebellion in China, specifically targeting Western influence. Most of the Bible Christian missionaries, like Lois Thorne, left, but three of them, including one wife, decided to stay, and were unharmed, although cut off from all outside news for a considerable period. Other missions were less fortunate. A total of 230 missionaries died, thirty-one in the Shan Si province alone. Most victims were their converts; more than 18,000 were slaughtered, the majority of them Roman Catholic.107 By the end of the nineteenth century women had established themselves in a paid professional occupation, the missionary, not open to them earlier in the century, and had made it their own. Recruited to work among women, they taught them Western ideals of domesticity as part of what they construed as a civilizing mission. Some strong-minded and independent women were able to transcend feminine stereotypes. Women like Lois Thorne and Emmie Pollard displayed a self-confidence that could not be ignored, although some of their authority derived from their status as missionary wives. Once widowed, Thorne struggled to make her colleagues respect her expertise and experience, while Pollard, working among a more receptive population, blossomed as the wife of the local superintendent. At the United Methodist Conference in 1910 she described her work among the Miao to the Women’s Auxiliary. The United Methodist Magazine contrasted her assured performance with the general quality of speakers at missionary meetings: ‘What a pity Mrs.

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women and the shaping of british methodism Pollard cannot lend her voice and graphic powers of description to all woman speakers on mission platforms … We men have not much to boast of, I know, in this respect. Strange that a man who spends his life in speaking to large audiences cannot be heard!’108 Here was the epitome of the female missionary, confident, competent, but exceptional among women, and causing a little male anxiety. In some ways Thorne and Pollard were not so distant from the female preachers in the early days of the Bible Christians, bold, outspoken, committed to bringing the Christian message to those whom it had not touched, and willing to accept their roles as equals in evangelical work if not in professional status. Unlike those pioneers, they were well educated and professionally trained, although not to the same extent as ordained men. Their work was essential to the success of the missionary enterprise since converting women was central to all missions from mid-century. All missionaries also relied on a vast army of female support at home; by the 1890s women dominated the position of secretary in mission societies.109 However, female missionaries’ sphere of work was more restricted than that of female evangelists in the first half of the century. Missionary women were recruited to work with women and girls, and while they spoke to men and boys in medical clinics and schools, addressed mixed audiences at home, and some preached in public in the field, recruiters and missionary societies saw their roles as entirely female-centered. This could result in patronizing attitudes and marginalization. In his Short History of Wesleyan Methodist Foreign Missions, published in 1906, John Telford, himself the author of Women in the Mission Field, devoted only four pages of 272 to the work of the Women’s Auxiliary, although almost one fourth of the professional Wesleyan missionaries in 1905 were women.110 A 1999 report on the UMFC China mission included an example of a lingering prejudice that women missionaries’ work was less important than men’s. The male missionary, Mr. Heywood, was on medical leave in Japan, so the female missionary, Miss Hornby, had taken over his work, ‘conducting evangelistic services, nursing, dispensing, and in many other ways doing the work of a true missionary [my emphasis].’111 Even if they had the experience and language fluency, like Lois Thorne, women were not appointed superintendents of missions, and most of them had no say in mission administration, although doctors, nurses, and schoolteachers had considerable local autonomy. Yet women’s visible and essential presence in the field and their frequent public appearances at missionary meetings and services at home contributed to the increased female participation in formal religious settings in the last two decades of the century. Judith Rowbotham argued that women mission-

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women in missions at home and abroad aries’ visibility had a cumulative effect: ‘These women, who undoubtedly considered themselves consecrated if not ordained, acted as a powerful agency in the feminine, if not yet feminist, advancement of the women’s cause in organized religion in Britain.’112 They were joined in this by women evangelists at home, who had moved into the poorest areas of the cities, working in organizations called missions. Methodist sects in settler colonies had in most cases united and become independent of home Connexions, but the home mission was again of central ­importance. Notes 1 Quoted in R. Keith Parsons, My Moving Tent: A Biographical Sketch of Lois Anna Thorne 1858–1904 (privately printed, n.d.), p. 2. 2 China’s Millions 10:4 (1885), 116; BCM 84:7 (1905), 308. 3 Samuel Pollard, ‘First mission house at Chaotung,’ Samuel Pollard 1888–1970 (Kendall papers) 1289, Missionary Archives, SOAS, University of London. 4 Thomas Ruddle, Samuel Thomas Thorne, Missionary to China (London: Bible Christian Book Room, 1893), p. 97; Parsons, Moving Tent, pp. 6–9. 5 BCM 76:12 (1897), 629. 6 Parsons, Moving Tent, p. 14; R. Keith Parsons, The Diary of Lois Anna Thorne (privately printed, n.d.), p. 5. 7 BCM 79:1 (1900), 702; 80:7 (1901), 302. 8 Parsons, Thorne Diary, pp. 15, 23. 9 BCM 84:1 (1905), 35; 84:7 (1905), 309–10. 10 Rosemary Gagan, A Sensitive Independence: Canadian Methodist Women Missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881–1925 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992), pp. 20, 89; Susan Thorne, ‘Missionary-imperial feminism,’ in Mary Taylor Huber and Nancy C. Lutkehaus (eds), Gendered Missions: Women and Men in Missionary Discourse and Practice (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), p. 47. 11 Hempton, Methodism, pp. 7, 158–9. 12 Metropolitan Tabernacle Meeting, p. 7; Ruddle, Samuel Thomas Thorne, p. 131. 13 Cyril Davey and Hugh Thomas, Together Travel On: A History of Women’s Work (London: Cargate Press, 1984), pp. 1, 5, 6, 7, 10–12; APMM 83:9 (1902), 707. 14 UMFC Mission Reports, 1902, pp. 29–30. 15 Rev. John Kilner, Remarks on Christian Women’s Work in Heathendom (London: Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society for Promoting Female Education, 1874), p. 18. 16 Horatius Bonar, in The Church Hymn Book (Hatfield: Edward Francis, 1873). 17 Davey and Thomas, Together Travel On, pp. 6, 11; UMFC Mission Reports 1900, p. 17. 18 Christopher Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes: Founder of a New Methodism, Conscience of a New Nonconformity (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999), p. 311. 19 UMFC Mission Reports 1899, p. 21; Metropolitan Tabernacle Meeting, p. 6. 20 Lysons, Little Primitive, pp. 24–6; PMM 14:3 (1834), 102–3. 21 Shaw, Bible Christians, p. 33. 22 Statistics from Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?’; Bible Christian Minutes 1841, pp. 9–11; 1894, p. 28.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 23 Metropolitan Tabernacle Meeting, p. 6. 24 PMQR 3:4 (1881), 695–6. 25 Bible Christian Minutes, 1889, pp. 26, 39; Currie, Methodism Divided, pp. 95, 99, 103, 108. 26 UMFC Mission Reports 1901, p. 17. 27 BCM 79:3 (1900), 130; UMFC Mission Reports 1899, p. 21; APMM 81:4 (1900), 286; Bible Christian Minutes 1894, p. 28. 28 A Digest of the Rules, Regulations, and Usages of the People Denominated Bible Christians (6th edn), (London: Bible Christian Book Room, 1892), p. 1; Bible Christian Minutes 1891, p. 41; 1897, p. 16; BCM 74:11 (1895), 699; 79:7 (1900), 535. 29 Colin C. Short, Durham Colliers and West Country Methodists: The Story of the Bible Christian Mission in County Durham 1874–1910 (Kidderminster: Colin C. Short, 1995), pp. 137, 145–6, 192. 30 Bible Christian Minutes 1902, President’s circular, p. 10. 31 APMM 80:3 (1899), 235; 81:8 (1900), 635; 82:6 (1901), 477; HPMMS 1:3 (1905), 43; 2:6 (1906), 84; 5:11 (1909), 149. 32 UMFC Mission Reports 1901, p. 8; 1902, p. 9; HPMMS 3:6 (1907), 84. 33 APMM 83:6 (1902), 420. 34 Metropolitan Tabernacle Meeting, p. 6; APMM 83:1 (1902), 39. 35 Sherrell Branton Leetooze, The Damascus Road: The Bible Christians of the Canadian Conference 1832–1884 (Bowmanville, ONT: Lynn Michael-John Associates, 2005), p.  275. 36 PMM 23:7 (1843), 271; Leetooze, Damascus Road, p. iv. 37 Metropolitan Tabernacle Meeting, pp. 7, 14; APMM 83:1 (1902), 36–7. 38 Report of the Methodist New Connexion Home, Colonial and Foreign Missionary Societies (London: John Hudston, 1875), p. vii; UMFC Mission Reports 1899, p. 22; Milburn, Primitive Methodism, p. 35. 39 Burnside, ‘Bible Christians in Canada,’ p. 284; Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims, pp. 268–72. 40 Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims, pp. 270–1. 41 Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ p. 21; David Weale, ‘Francis Metherall,’ Historical Sites and Monuments Board of Canada Agenda Paper, 1996, pp. 6–7; Burnside, ‘Bible Christians in Canada,’ p. 103; Leetooze, Damascus Road, pp. 97, 177–81; PMM 11:3 (1831), 94–5; BCM 27:3 (1848), 123; Warren W. Gross, Methodists, Bible Christians, and ­Presbyterians in Prince Edward Island (Campbelltown, PEI: Minnegash Fellowship Group, 1984), p. 189. 42 Canadian Observer, 18 August 1869, quoted in Burnside, ‘Bible Christians in Canada,’ p. 373. 43 Burnside, ‘Bible Christians in Canada,’ p. 373; Leetooze, Damascus Road, pp. 109–10, 135–6; Elizabeth Howard, ‘The Voyage,’ in Sherell Branton Leetooze, A Corner for the Preacher (Bowmanville, ONT: Lynn Michael-John Associates, 2005), p. 50; Hunt, Bible Christians in South Australia, pp. 10–11, 16–17, 20–1, 34–5; Rev. L. R. M. Gilmore, ‘The Bible Christian Church in New Zealand,’ PWHS (New Zealand Branch) 5:3 (1947), pp. 4–6, 10, 12; Canadian Observer, 18 June 1884, quoted in Burnside, ‘Bible Christians in Canada,’ p. 372. 44 PMM 9:7 (1829), 247; 9:11 (1829), 380; BCM 37:5 (1858), 189, 191. 45 John H. Acornley, A History of the Primitive Methodist Church in the United States of America (Fall River, MA: B. R. Acornley, 1909), pp. 18–21.

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women in missions at home and abroad 46 PMM 9:11 (1829), 384; 10:4 (1830), 127; 10:7 (1830), 239; 11:5 (1831), 169, 184; 11:6 (1831), 208; 12:3 (1832), 96; Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims, p. 134; Kevin Watson, ‘National identity and Primitive Methodism in the United States: a transatlantic perspective,’ American Nineteenth Century History 4:2 (2003), 41; Acornley, Primitive Methodist Church, p. 22. 47 Watson, ‘National identity,’ pp. 36, 38, 41. 48 Shaw, Bible Christians, p. 66; Revs. T. D. Crothers, T. Rider, W. Longbottom, and W. J. Townsend, The Centenary of the Methodist New Connexion 1797–1897 (London: Geo. Burroughs, 1897), p. 125; Davey and Thomas, Together Travel On, pp. 1, 12; UMFC Mission Reports 1899, p. 22; Ruddle, Samuel Thomas Thorne, pp. 32–3. 49 Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830–1867 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), pp. 293–4. 50 Quoted in HPMMS 3:3 (1907), 44–5. 51 Hall, Civilising Subjects, p. 264. 52 Kilner, Remarks on Women’s Work, p. 4. 53 Clare Midgley, Feminism and Empire: Women Activists in Imperial Britain, 1790–1865 (New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 109. 54 Griffiths, ‘Biblewomen,’ pp. 522–3. 55 Jane Haggis, ‘“Good wives and mothers” or “dedicated workers”? Contradictions of domesticity in the “mission of sisterhood,” Travancore, South India,’ in Kalpana Ram and Margaret Jolly (eds), Maternities and Modernities: Colonial and Postcolonial Experiences in South Asia and the Pacific (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 88–9; Hempton, Methodism, p. 159; Thorne, ‘Missionary-imperial feminism,’ p. 60. 56 Parsons, Thorne Diary, p. 6. 57 Rosemary Fitzgerald, ‘A “peculiar and exceptional measure”: the call for women medical missionaries for India in the later nineteenth century,’ in Robert A Bickers and Rosemary Seton (eds), Missionary Encounters: Sources and Issues (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996), p. 176; Midgley, Feminism and Empire, p. 94. 58 Judith Rowbotham, ‘Ministering angels, not ministers: women’s involvement in the foreign missionary movement, c. 1860–1910,’ in Sue Morgan (ed.), Women, Religion and Feminism in Britain, 1750–1900 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp.  180–1. 59 Kilner, Remarks on Women’s Work, p. 7. 60 Sean Gill, ‘Heroines of missionary adventure: the portrayal of Victorian women missionaries in popular fiction and biography,’ in Anne Hogan and Andrew Bradstock (eds), Women of Faith in Victorian Culture: Reassessing the Angel in the House (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), p. 174. 61 John Telford, Women in the Mission Field: Glimpses of Christian Women among the Heathen (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1895), pp. 109–17; Davey and Thomas, Together Travel On, p. 2. 62 Rev. Augustus Buckland, Women in the Mission Field, Pioneers and Martyrs (London: Isbister & Co. Ltd., 1895), p. 69, quoted in Rowbotham, ‘Ministering angels,’ p. 180; S. Pollard to Charles Stedeford, 6 February 1915, Kendall papers 1302; Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes, p. 180. 63 Rosemary Seton, ‘“Open doors for female labourers”: women candidates of the London Missionary Society, 1875–1914,’ in Bickers and Seton (eds), Missionary Encounters, p.  51.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 64 Rowbotham, ‘Ministering angels,’ p. 181. 65 Midgley, Feminism and Empire, p. 98. 66 Margaret Donaldson, ‘“The cultivation of the heart and the moulding of the will …”: the missionary contribution of the Society for Promoting Female Education in China, India, and the East,’ in Shiels and Wood (eds), Women in the Church, pp. 431–2, 435. 67 John Pritchard, ‘Women’s work: Mary Batchelor to Muriel Stennett,’ in Virgoe (ed.), Angels and Impudent Women, pp. 148–52. 68 Haggis, ‘Good wives,’ p. 88; Davey and Thomas, Together Travel On, pp. 2–4. 69 Midgley, Feminism and Empire, pp. 101, 104. 70 Clara Lucas Balfour, A Sketch of Hannah Kilham (London: W. & F. G. Cash, 1854), pp. 9–19, 21–5, 30–45. 71 Balfour, Hannah Kilham, pp. 42–3. 72 Hall, Civilising Subjects, pp. 184–5; Balfour, Hannah Kilham, pp. 10–11, 39–40. 73 Davey and Thomas, Together Travel On, p. 6. 74 Barbara Welter, ‘She hath done what she could: Protestant women’s missionary careers in nineteenth-century America,’ American Quarterly 30:5 (1978), 637. 75 Steven Maughan, ‘“Mighty England do good”: the major English denominations and organization for the support of foreign missions in the nineteenth century,’ in Robert A. Bickers and Rosemary Seton (eds), Missionary Encounters: Sources and Issues (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996), p. 20. 76 Haggis, ‘Good wives,’ p. 89; Rhoda Anne Semple, Missionary Women: Gender, Professionalism and the Victorian Idea of the Christian Mission (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2003), p. 3; Jane Haggis, ‘“A heart that has felt the love of God and longs for others to know it”: conventions of gender, tensions of self and constructions of difference in offering to be a lady missionary,’ Women’s History Review 7:2 (1998), 172; Maughan, ‘“Mighty England do good”’, p. 33 n. 72. 77 ‘Women’s work in China,’ Highways and Hedges 11:8 (1898), 190–1. 78 Rowbotham, ‘Ministering angels,’ pp. 181–2; Rev. William Arthur, Women’s Work in India (London: T. Woolmer, 1882), p. 11. 79 Revival, 31 May 1866, 305; Griffiths, ‘Biblewomen,’ p. 529. 80 Rowbotham, ‘Ministering angels,’ pp. 183, 185–7; Gagan, Sensitive Independence, pp. 20, 89; Gill, ‘Heroines,’ p. 174; Haggis, ‘Heart that has felt,’ p. 173. 81 Quoted in Semple, Missionary Women, p. 46; quoted in Haggis, ‘Heart that has felt,’ p.  181; Parsons, Moving Tent, p. 4. 82 Haggis, ‘Good wives,’ p. 89; Gill, ‘Heroines,’ p. 183; Rowbotham, ‘Ministering angels,’ p.  188; Bible Christian Minutes, 1895, p. 52; Semple, Missionary Women, pp. 140–2. 83 Maughan, ‘Mighty England do good,’ pp. 20, 29. 84 Haggis, ‘Heart that has felt,’ p. 14; Semple, Missionary Women, pp. 13, 20. 85 Balfour, Hannah Kilham, pp. 36–7; Henry Roe, West African Scenes (London: Elliot Stock, 1874), pp. 153, 162–3. 86 Maughan, ‘Mighty England do good,’ pp. 24–5. 87 Bible Christian Minutes 1895, p. 53; 1896, President’s circular, p. 10; HPMMS 5:12 (1909), 164; Ruddle, Samuel Thomas Thorne, pp. 33–4. 88 Maughan, ‘Mighty England do good,’ p. 25. 89 Semple, Missionary Women, pp. 65–8. 90 Mrs. Pollard, Rev. W. A. Grist and Rev. F. B. Turner, ‘Our retired missionaries,’ Kendall papers 1298; Bebbington, Dominance, pp. 111, 189; Rowbotham, ‘Ministering angels,’

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women in missions at home and abroad

91 92 93 94 95

96

97

98 99 100 101

102 103 104 105 106

107 108 109 110 111 112

p.  184; Haggis, ‘Heart that has felt,’ pp. 176–7; Davey and Thomas, Together Travel On, p. 10; Parsons, Moving Tent, p. 2. Davey and Thomas, Together Travel On, p. 6; Semple, Missionary Women, pp. 156, 201–2; Bible Christian Minutes 1894, p. 53. Joy Fox, ‘Excellent women, 1870–1970: the female role in missionary service,’ in Virgoe (ed.), Angels and Impudent Women, p. 171. Haggis, ‘Good wives,’ p. 81. Kilner, Remarks on Women’ Work, p. 10. William J. Ward, In and Around the Oron Country (London: W. A. Hammond, n.d.), pp. 66, 79; Semple, Missionary Women, p. 62; Harriette J. Cooke, Mildmay (2nd edn) (London: Elliott Stock, 1893), Ch. 7; Parsons, Thorne Diary, p. 6; Samuel Pollard, ‘A fresh move at Chaotung,’ ‘Showers of blessing,’ (Kendal papers 380690); Report of the Methodist New Connexion 1881, p. xxxviii; HPMMS 5:8 (1909), 108–9. Report of the Methodist New Connexion 1883, p. xlii; Bible Christian Minutes 1903, p.  18; 1905, p. 21; Samuel Pollard, ‘Story of the Miao Ch. VII’, Kendall papers 1297; Davey and Thomas, Together Travel On, p. 6; Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ p. 26; Semple, Missionary Women, pp. 96, 233. Parsons, Moving Tent, pp. 3–5, 7; Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ p. 58; UMFC Mission Reports 1899, p. 16; Samuel Pollard diary, entries for 8 January 1891, 28 January 1891, 4 June 1896, Papers 1885–1915 of the Rev. Samuel Pollard, Missionary Archives, SOAS, University of London. Quoted in Midgley, Feminism and Empire, pp. 117–18. Myrtle Hill, ‘Gender, culture and “the Spiritual Empire”: the Irish Protestant female missionary experience,’ Women’s History Review 16:2 (2007), 213. Griffiths, ‘Biblewomen,’ pp. 526, 528. Report of the Methodist New Connexion 1897, p. xxxix; UMFC Mission Reports 1905, pp. 16–18; Emmie Pollard, ‘Our returned missionaries,’ UMM 2:2 (1909), 90; Haggis, ‘Good wives,’ pp. 91–6. Bible Christian Minutes 1894, p. 53; Rowbotham, ‘Ministering angels,’ pp. 188, 193. Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes, pp. 183–7. Report of the Methodist New Connexion 1887, pp. xxvii, xlvii; 1898, p. 29. Samuel Pollard, Eyes of the Earth (London: Cargate Press, 1954), p. 17. Ward, Oron Country, p. 95; APMM 82:11 (1901), 841; Kendall papers 1295; Bible ­Christian Minutes 1905, pp. 21, 28; 1906, pp. 20–1; SOAS context to the Kendall papers; Pollard, Eyes, pp. 27, 164; Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 531. HPMMS 3:10 (1908), 133; UMFC Mission Reports 1907, p. 17; APMM 83:5 (1902), 380. Kendall papers 1297. Maughan, ‘Mighty England do good,’ p. 33. John Telford, A Short History of Wesleyan Methodist Foreign Missions (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1906), pp. 233–6, 276. UMFC Mission Reports, 1899, p. 16. Rowbotham, ‘Ministering angels,’ p. 193.

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7 Deaconesses, Sisters of the People, and the revival of female itinerancy

E

mma Davis, the woman who became widely known in the central London district of Blackfriars as ‘Sister Annie,’ was born in Aldersgate in 1859, the eldest child of a poor family. Her mother died when she was eight, and the family moved to the dock area of Rotherhithe, where she attended a Primitive Methodist Sunday school. At age thirteen she abandoned formal schooling to work as a domestic servant, but left when her employer would not let her go to Sunday school. She took a job as a book folder in a City workshop where her grandmother was the forewoman. She herself became a forewoman quite young, later moving to a similar position at Frowde’s Bible House. One of her co-workers reported, ‘She was so jolly we did not mind her being so gone on her chapel.’1 Davis experienced conversion in a class meeting when she was in her mid-teens, and immediately became a Sunday school teacher, attending training classes at the Sunday School Union. After her father died she moved from Rotherhithe to live on her own in Blackfriars and began attending the Primitive Methodist Surrey chapel, where she continued teaching Sunday school. In 1893, when Davis was in her thirties, the Rev. J. Tolefree Parr became pastor of the Surrey chapel. Parr immediately decided that he needed a ‘Sister of the People,’ a term already used in the Wesleyan West London Mission to describe a woman who had dedicated herself to work among the poor. The chapel was £6,300 in debt, so he asked twenty-five friends to give him £25 each to pay the Sister’s salary. He then approached Davis, who was uncertain of her suitability: ‘I am not well-educated, and I have not been to any training home for Sisters.’ Parr convinced her that feeling a call was enough, so, following the Wesleyan practice, she dedicated herself to the work of a ‘sister’ at what was officially called a Public Ordination Service, similar although probably not identical to the service at which male ministers

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad were officially ­recognized. At that time she changed her name to Annie, thinking Emma was unsuitable.2 ‘Robust, radiant, and sunny,’ Sister Annie rapidly became ‘the bestknown figure in all the district.’ Although she remained single, Parr believed she ‘possessed the motherly instinct in a marked degree,’ and her duties were womanly and maternal: to provide food and clothing to the needy, basic medical care to the sick, and cheer and sympathy to the lonely, dying, and bereaved. She helped found a crèche, arranged children’s country outings, and persuaded the Sunday School Union to open a holiday home for older girls. By the end of her first year she had visited 1,323 cases and 450 families. Her work included spreading the Christian message. She was a class leader, advised women who stayed behind to ‘inquire’ after Sunday evening services, and ran mothers’ meetings and young women’s Bible classes. A lifelong teetotaller, she founded a branch of the British Women’s Temperance Association (BWTA), running a ‘bar’ for men serving coffee, milk, and mineral water. One of Sister Annie’s admirers donated a house adjacent to Surrey chapel that housed the bar and had space for her other outreach efforts. Valued at £1,500, the property was a very substantial gift, providing Annie with permanent lodging and adequate meeting space for her various groups. She still paid rent, ­insurance, and sick club payments, which took roughly one quarter her weekly salary of £1. She spent most of the rest on charitable gifts.3 Parr maintained that Sister Annie ‘did not figure prominently as a public speaker.’ Like foreign missionaries, she spoke mainly to women, at BWTA meetings and other female gatherings. Parr characterized her style as, ‘decidedly taking and effective. Her simple humanness, her remarkable gifts of humour and pathos, her shrewd commonsense, her deep religious fervour, and above all her thrilling stories; pictures from real life, veritable human documents; told in her own inimitable manner, completely captivated her audiences.’4 He saw her as part of a long, if fading, Primitive Methodist tradition, one he described as praying rather than preaching: ‘It is an incalculable loss to the churches that the voice of godly women are now so seldom heard in church prayer meetings. In its earlier history our denomination was peculiarly rich in its praying women; women who, to use a phrase well understood among us, “could rise into faith” in their public discourse, and “bring the power of God down upon a meeting.” In this noble but diminishing order, Sister Annie was a peeress indeed.’5 Sister Annie may have been reluctant to speak in public to mixed or male audiences, but she made sure she exercised rights women had recently acquired, always voting in municipal and school board elections. Although she was a supporter of women’s suffrage, she strongly ­disapproved of the

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women and the shaping of british methodism militant suffragettes, calling them ‘silly idiots’ who ‘ought to be birched’ because she believed ‘their tactics seriously retarded rather than hastened the triumph of the cause she had so deeply at heart.’6 In the summer of 1907, aged forty-eight, Annie was ordered to take three months’ rest for her health. She refused all offers of less demanding positions elsewhere, insisting she could not leave Blackfriars. After a brief seaside holiday she was back at work, continuing until her death four years later. She was succeeded by Sister Bertha, who had been trained as a Sister of the People at St. George’s Hall in the Primitive Methodist South London Mission. Although Annie was a religious professional in that she had received official sanction and recognition and was paid a salary, in her professional training, and probably in her class status, Bertha was more representative of the many Sisters of the People at work in London in the last decades of the nineteenth century.7 Sister Annie was, as Parr pointed out, part of a long Primitive Methodist tradition of poor and relatively uneducated women taking on religious leadership, even if not on equal terms with men. Although, initially at least, she regretted her lack of professional training, unlike her Primitive Methodist predecessors, her dedication and professionalism were recognized in a service defined as ordination that was at least very similar to Primitive Methodist reception of men into the ministry: local and relatively informal.8 Her life represents a bridge between the female local preacher whose only training was her trial period before full recognition, and the professional deaconesses and Sisters of the People who, with female missionaries, were the main faces of women’s religious leadership in the late nineteenth century. Both deaconesses and Sisters of the People were women who officially devoted themselves to Christian service, especially to the urban poor, without taking vows or necessarily making a lifetime commitment. For a significant number of educated Protestant women seeking a role in organized religion in late nineteenth-century Britain, deaconess and Sisters organizations offered opportunities for responsibility and leadership. Martha Vicinus argued that they ‘empowered women, validating women’s work and values in a world that seemed materialistic, godless, and male.’9 One Sister wrote in the periodical Young Women, ‘We have a large unworked force, a great untried resource, in that half of humanity which is only just beginning to realise the extent and significance of its mission, and of its relation to the whole.’10 Although women in both groups called themselves ‘Sister,’ deaconesses differed from Sisters of the People in their institutional positions. Deaconesses were firmly embedded in their denominational hierarchies, while the Sisters were subject only to local control. Otherwise, their

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad background, training, and work were similar. Unlike Sister Annie, they were usually recruited from the middle and upper classes and served a probationary period in which they were trained in both religious doctrine and practical subjects. Like female foreign missionaries, in most cases their duties were either specifically among women and children, or were described in maternalist terms as work for which women were by nature particularly suited. Wesleyan Sister Alice Hull wrote that a deaconess has, ‘that divine motherhood which is in the heart of every woman, not the motherhood that loves only its own children, but the motherhood clarified that shelters all hurt, and weak, and needy things, is penetrated, suffused with the sympathy of Christ.’11 While the official recognition and training gave these women a formal institutional presence, the focus on ministry to women was in some ways a retreat from the work of woman evangelists who freely addressed mixed and even all-male audiences. Yet the female diaconate also provided a way for some women to do just that, illustrating a long tradition of women called to preach seizing new opportunities to do so. These included Wesleyans and members of the UMFC, denominations where female preaching was officially banned or severely restricted. The Protestant deaconess movement that provided these opportunities was international and interdenominational. It began in the German Rhineland. Theodor Fliedner, pastor of the Prussian Evangelical church at Kaiserswerth, was concerned at the lack of spirituality within his own denomination and alarmed by the advances made in Protestant Germany by the Catholic Sisters of Charity, whom he described as ‘like a flood everywhere’ to the English prison reformer Elizabeth Fry. He saw an answer to both issues in promoting and organizing women’s philanthropic work. In 1836 he founded the Kaiserswerth community of women deaconesses, who initially worked only in hospitals, where he thought they would meet with least resistance. Recruits were mainly young single peasant women from rural areas who found it difficult to sustain themselves during a period of rapid population increase and family disruption. The women received practical and spiritual training and, if they passed a probationary period, pledged themselves to five-year renewable terms of service. They lived apart from the community, were always subject to Kaiserswerth discipline, and sent their wages back to the motherhouse to supplement the voluntary contributions that were the organization’s main support. Within ten years there were 101 deaconesses, fifty-six working outside the motherhouse in the field, and by 1851 around 3,000 patrons, including members of German Protestant royal families, helped to fund

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women and the shaping of british methodism more than 200 deaconesses. By that time Kaiserswerth also supported an orphanage, and deaconesses were working in poor houses and with individual families. After the 1848 revolutions, as part of the reactionary program to support the established church as a bulwark of stability, the organization branched out into teacher training, mostly for nursery and elementary schools. Fliedner knew that Kaiserswerth risked accusations of crypto-Catholicism and carefully distanced it as far as possible from Roman Catholic charitable and religious institutions. The deaconesses took no vows, although they participated in a consecration ritual on completing their probation. They were free to leave at the end of any fiveyear period. To further disarm criticism, Fliedner modelled the organizational structure on the generally accepted patriarchal family hierarchy that did not threaten conventional views of women’s roles, and that he himself embraced. Both Fliedner’s wives (Friedericke died in 1841) had wifely roles in the organization as superintendents of the motherhouse, responsible for internal administration and communication with deaconesses living outside the house. They reported weekly to Fliedner, who had the title of Inspector. He dealt with the outside world, raising money and negotiating contracts. The deaconesses called each other ‘Sister,’ the superintendent ‘Mother,’ and Fliedner ‘Father.’ During Fliedner’s second wife Caroline’s superintendency, deaconesses were encouraged to address her as if they were her children.12 Catherine Prelinger described Fliedner’s achievement as co-opting ‘the concept of the bourgeois mother from the rhetoric of the women’s movement’ and neutralizing it ‘by depriving it of any implication of a separate or autonomous sphere.’13 Deaconess organizations in Britain adopted a similar rhetoric and practice. Deaconesses’ work was described as maternal, and most of it was among women and children, reinforcing feminine stereotypes. Yet it was also empowering. British deaconesses, the majority of whom, like Sister Annie, worked in poor districts under the supervision of a parish priest or pastor, had considerable autonomy in their daily lives, and by the early twentieth century a few had a foothold in their institutional government. The motivations for the foundation of deaconess orders in Britain were not the same as in Germany. Although, as in Kaiserswerth, their organizers had to deal with prejudices against popery, there was no rapid growth in British Roman Catholic sisterhoods. Mid-century concerns for the fate of unmarried women – ‘redundant’ spinsters – were directed at middle-class women, not the poor rural women initially recruited in Germany. Dean J. S. Howson, a prominent promoter of the Anglican deaconess movement, believed it would diminish ‘the excessive supply of dejected governesses and distressed needlewomen,’ common occupations for middle-class

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad women without family support.14 However, in industrial Britain the main impetus for channelling single women’s charitable work was evangelical Christians’ increasing concern to alleviate the worst effects of poverty in the growing cities. As early as 1840 Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker, founded an Institution for Nursing Sisters to train women to nurse the poor. For the next twenty years efforts to engage women in inner-city relief work were mainly by high-church Anglicans like William Gladstone, who helped found sisterhoods dedicated to working among the poor. By 1860 there were about 100 Anglican Sisters in fourteen orders, all firmly tied to male church hierarchies. These mainly upper-class women lived lives of severe discipline, similar to Roman Catholic nuns, and took vows, although for a limited renewable time. Many lower-church Anglicans found the sisterhoods too close to Catholicism, and, encouraged by Dean Howson, in 1861 Elizabeth Ferard founded an Anglican deaconess order, the London Diocesan Deaconess Institution, whose mostly middle-class members lived a communal life while working in large urban parishes. Ten Church of England deaconess organizations received formal recognition at the 1897 Lambeth Conference. The actual number of deaconesses grew slowly, and was still under 200 in 1898. Cecilia Robinson, an Anglican writing to justify their existence, suggested possible reasons: the hostility of church leaders, the high standards for admission, and ‘prejudice and misunderstanding.’ Reflecting a general anxiety about appropriate roles for women in the late nineteenth century, she defensively maintained that, ‘Leaders are wanted, and were never more wanted amongst women than at the present day when there is so much uncertainly as to what should be the ideals and aims of women.’15 Still within the Church of England, but closely connected with the Evangelical and holiness movements, was the Mildmay Deaconess’ Institution, founded in 1860 by the Rev. William Pennefather and his wife Catherine in Mildmay Park, Stoke Newington, North London. Pennefather, from an intensely pious Irish Anglican family, and influenced by the American James Caughey’s and the Palmers’ revivalism, was appointed vicar of Barnet, north of London, in 1856. There he established an annual interdenominational conference focusing on missions, the second coming, and holiness. In 1864 he moved to the urban London parish of Mildmay, where, driven by his determination that each individual in his parish should hear the message of personal salvation, he and his wife greatly expanded their charitable work. Adopting the ‘faith principle’ later adopted by Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission, of never borrowing money and trusting that enough would appear, he built a large conference hall as the parish’s central meeting place. Shortly afterwards he erected

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women and the shaping of british methodism several other buildings for charitable purposes, including the Deaconess Home, an orphanage, an invalid home, a cottage hospital, and a men’s night school, all staffed by deaconesses. By 1892, nearly twenty years after William Pennefather’s death in 1873, the Mildmay Mission had twentyfour branches of work, and an annual budget of £33,000.16 The Deaconess House originated in the Pennefathers’ desire ‘that something might be attempted to call out the energies of educated Christian women not fully occupied in home duties, and teach them how to pursue a definite and systematic course of active ministry in a needy world.’17 Founded in Barnet as the Missionary Training Home for Young Women, with Catherine Pennefather its superintendent, it moved to Mildmay with them in 1864. The Pennefathers recruited educated women who were ‘not yet fully occupied by home duties.’18 William was anxious to avoid any suspicion of Catholicism, and was initially reluctant to call the women deaconesses, believing that ‘women’s work ought to be as simple and natural and unofficial as possible,’ but their work outside the parish during the 1866 cholera epidemic convinced him their efforts made them worthy of the term.19 They moved into their own house next to the conference hall in 1871. Shortly after, women seeking training for foreign missions, often sent by other organizations, moved to a separate house for a dedicated two-year course, while deaconesses remained in their original quarters.20 An American observer of the work at Mildmay in the 1890s described their mission as ‘the ministry and service of woman, trained for organized and systematic work in the various branches to which she is by nature especially adapted.’21 Most Mildmay deaconesses worked to relieve poverty in the most impoverished areas of London, while some trained as nurses or foreign missionaries. The Pennefathers were familiar with the organization at Kaiserswerth, but believed, as Catherine put it, ‘the domestic rules and practical details essentially belonging to the habits of another land must not be followed out on English ground; we may learn, but not transplant.’22 In particular, more emphasis was placed on training for home and foreign missions than nursing. Candidates, mostly middleclass women from Evangelical churches, had to produce two character references, prove their doctrinal beliefs were sound, and pass a physical fitness test. The probationary period was only a month, during which the candidate had to demonstrate her commitment, and they could leave at any time. The training included both religious and practical instruction, with afternoons spent working in the field. Initially the women wore no distinctive dress, fearing association with ‘nuns and sisterhoods of Romish disposition,’ but eventually adopted one to ensure their safety,

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad and to save unnecessary expense. At the end of the first month candidates could leave, or receive further training if young and inexperienced, or enter the Deaconess House as probationers. There was no induction ceremony, but all candidates had to undergo a rigorous examination of their spirituality and calling from Catherine Pennefather and her deputy, Miss Coventry. The house was home for those who decided to dedicate themselves to the work; deaconesses working at one of the charities in the compound or within reasonable reach of the Deaconess House returned there to sleep. Others were housed in satellite missions, in Brixton or as far afield as Oxford. By the 1890s there were 220 Mildmay deaconesses.23 The Mildmay Conference attracted evangelicals from all denominations, including Methodists, and the Pennefathers’ influence extended well beyond the Anglican communion. The deaconesses were similarly ecumenical; admission to the Institute was open to all professing evangelical beliefs. Their success inspired emulation. As with the Pennefathers, the prime motive for the foundation of the first Methodist deaconess ­institute came from a perceived need to bring charitable relief and the Christian message to city slums, and to set up institutions to alleviate social ills. The inspiration came from the tireless work of the Wesleyan Rev. Dr. Thomas Bowman Stephenson, who founded The Children’s Home (later the National Children’s Home) on Waterloo Road, East London in 1868. He soon became convinced of the need for dedicated women to work there, and, despite a lack of enthusiasm from his Board, two men and one woman were accepted for training in 1873. By that time deaconesses were also working in the Metropolitan Methodist Lay Mission in London. Stephenson avidly promoted their work, both in articles in The Methodist Family and in a pamphlet, Concerning Sisterhoods (1890). In that year the first Wesleyan Methodist Deaconess House (later ­Institute) opened in London with one probationer, and Stephenson as its first warden. Despite its often precarious finances, in 1895 the Wesleyan Con­ference decided it was strong enough to approve the writing of a constitution, which included supervision by a male warden. An article in the Children’s Home’s magazine applauded the greater amount of structure: ‘The employment of women amongst us has reached a stage in which discrimination and control ought to be exercised; though it should be introduced, gently, tenderly, and with great care.’24 In 1902 the Institute moved to Ilkley in Yorkshire, where Stephenson was now superintendent, into larger premises with room for twenty-seven students, more than double the size of its London home. It also received official Conference recognition. By 1907, when Stephenson retired, there were ninety-eight fully trained deaconesses, fifty-six ­probationers, and nineteen accepted for training.25

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women and the shaping of british methodism Meanwhile, another Wesleyan sisterhood had been founded in London by one of Stephenson’s close colleagues. In 1886, as part of the Wesleyan effort to recruit members in inner cities, Hugh Price Hughes was appointed head of the new Wesleyan West London Mission, founded in response to Andrew Mearns’s ‘A Bitter Cry of Outcast London,’ a sensational description in the Pall Mall Magazine of the appalling conditions in London slums. Hughes, an ambitious and charismatic leader, embraced an idiosyncratic version of Christian Socialism he promulgated in his newspaper, the Methodist Times. He instigated the Methodist Forward Movement, intending to create ‘a democratic Methodism embracing all classes and acting as the national conscience.’ As his biographer put it, he intended to ‘transform a second-rank Wesleyan Connexion into a first-rank Methodist Church.’ He passionately believed that true Christians should demonstrate their sanctification by their compassion for the poor and destitute, and that Christianity had to be relevant to contemporary society.26 The West London Mission became his platform for this agenda. His wife Katherine shared his passion and drive. As a girl she had been impressed by hearing the suffragist Millicent Fawcett arguing that ‘because women had to bear the burdens of motherhood, it was all the more necessary for them to have the advantages of the highest education possible; and to say that these privileges would unfit them for the duties of wifehood and motherhood was utterly false and unreasonable.’ In Katherine’s autobiography, she wrote: I thought especially of those who were not obliged to earn their own living and who remained at home after leaving school with practically nothing to do and simply longing to have some outlet for their energies and a purpose in life. Very few were the doors then open to women, and the chains of early Victorian repression still bound them and still more firmly bound their parents.27

Both she and her husband believed that women’s work could be effectively harnessed for poor relief, sick visitation, and rescue work, and envisaged a sisterhood ‘not clad in fantastic and melancholy attire, as though their mission were either eccentric or sad – but like bright sunbeams in the homes of the sick.’28 Soon after the Price Hugheses began work in West London, Katherine founded and directed the West London Mission Sisters of the People, believing that ‘amongst the educated women of the Evangelical Churches there was a great unused force.’ Hugh saw the sisterhood as central to the Mission’s work, and there were many requests for Sisters to work in other areas both in and outside London. By 1902 there were seventy Sisters attached to the mission.29 While the Hugheses were aware of the various deaconess institutions, Katherine’s sisterhood

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad more clearly reflected women’s greater confidence in their public roles at the end of the century than in the Methodist Deaconess Institute. The Sisters of the People had an overtly political intent, deliberately aiming at recruiting young privileged women both to work among the poor and to advance the cause of women’s rights. While still using maternalist rhetoric, Katherine described the appeal as a desire for freedom: ‘[The enlightened Christian woman] longed for freedom to go out into the world so sorely needing love, gentleness, and care, and there to find what she could do – to work on her own lines and in her own way, and to see what part she could take in solving the problems of sin, oppression, and misery which darken the face of God’s earth.’30 She stressed the sisters’ political engagement, describing their work as ‘talking politics to the men,’ instructing women in ‘social and political questions that specifically affect them and their children,’ and interesting themselves in both local and national elections, particularly school boards, on which women were able to serve.31 The West London Sisters of the People organization differed from the Wesleyan diaconate in that it was founded by a woman and neither subject to nor officially recognized by the Conference, thus relatively free from male control. As with the Mildmay initiative, their existence also encouraged emulation, although in other cases the initiative came from men. In 1890 the Rev. T. J. Cope of the UMFC became superintendent of the London VII circuit in Pimlico. Inspired by the work of the West London Sisters, he determined to set up a similar institution, although he found both financing and staffing it challenging. Two years later, with the support of two wealthy brothers, and after consulting with both Stephenson and Price Hughes, the UMFC Deaconess Institution opened in Pimlico with at least five residents, although it continued to experience financial and leadership problems, particularly finding a suitable Methodist female leader. While the West London Sisters were Cope’s initial inspiration, he did not copy their institutional structure. The UMFC Institution was firmly under male control. In 1891 it became subject to control by the Annual Assembly, overseen by an all-male committee.32 The West London Mission also inspired another initiative, closer to the Hugheses’ vision. In 1891 the Primitive Methodist Conference called James Flanagan to the Trinity Street Mission in Southwark. Influenced by Caughey, Flanagan worked as a Connexional evangelist and missionary in Nottingham before taking up this appointment. He became convinced that he needed what he described as a ‘Women’s Settlement,’ ‘believing that there were many intelligent, devoted, well-to-do daughters of ­Primitive Methodists who would gladly devote a portion of their time to work among the women and children of such a district of Southwark.’33 He

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women and the shaping of british methodism originally hoped they would support themselves, but when this proved to be unrealistic he appealed for funds. By 1900 he was able to tell the quarterly meeting that he had promises of the necessary money. Despite ‘small encouragement and much opposition,’ his plans were approved by the end of the year, when the meeting set up an all-male council to oversee the settlement. Two women had completed their training by the following year, their duties being to ‘visit the sick, minister to the needy, influence children of the streets to attend the Sunday school, hold prayer meetings in the homes of the people, and protect the young women of the neighbourhood from the insidious temptations to which they were exposed.’34 In 1902 Joseph Johnson succeeded Flanagan at the Mission, and ‘set himself the immense task of putting the Mission, with its agencies, on a sound financial basis,’ despite its total dependence on voluntary contributions. By 1908 he had succeeded, and five sisters and two probationers were living in a house on the Old Kent Road, with at least four others working on Primitive Methodist circuits outside London.35 While all Sisters of the People were responsible solely to the governing bodies of their local missions, Methodist deaconess institutes ultimately reported to their Connexional conferences. That difference apart, the training, life, and work of deaconesses and Sisters of the People were similar. In all cases the institutions’ founders expected to recruit mainly middle- and upper-class women, although they did not expect them to support themselves. As with women applying to serve on overseas missions, applicants were carefully screened, with those rejected often encouraged to become voluntary workers and fund-raisers. For example, unsuitable candidates for the Wesleyan diaconate were channelled into the Lady Associates to raise funds and contribute donations.36 Both Wesleyan and UMFC candidates were preferably between twenty-two and thirty-five years old and members of Evangelical churches, although not necessarily Methodists. They had to be recommended by ‘those who have had opportunities of judging of their suitability for the work,’ and had to be ‘women of good mental capacity, education, and address, and of high Christian character.’37 After writing a letter of intent and filling in a ‘paper of enquiries,’ they took a written examination, were interviewed by an all-male committee, and had a medical examination. By 1906 candidates for training at the Wesleyan Ilkley Institute spent several days there, where they took a written examination in biblical and general knowledge, were screened by a doctor, read aloud a passage from the Bible, sang part of a hymn, and engaged in conversation, particularly about their personal faith. In 1906 one candidate was rejected for her religious views, five on account of their health, and eight did not do well enough in

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad the ­examin­ation.38 Selection for the Primitive Methodist Sisters was less rigorous, with only the recommendation and interview required. Once accepted as probationers, all deaconesses and Sisters of the People were required to complete a training period that varied in length depending on their prior experience and individual needs. In most cases deaconesses received longer and more rigorous training than Sisters, attending lectures on the Bible and theology from male divines, studying church history and English literature, receiving at least some medical training, more if they planned to work as nurses, and gaining practical experience in work among the poor and needy.39 Primitive Methodist Sisters’ nine months of training leaned toward the practical, perhaps because they may have come from lower down the social scale than most deaconesses. The superintendent of the Mission and the Sister-in-Charge taught ‘the art of visiting and reaching the people, the conduct of meetings and various classes, the working of thrift, coal, clothing clubs, etc.’ Sisters received ‘theoretical and practical training in medicine and sick nursing,’ and Mrs. Johnson, the secretary, gave them ‘general education necessary to their becoming efficient and intelligent workers both in public and private life.’ They also took some classes at the UMFC Institute.40 West London Sisters, usually well-educated women, ‘ladies of leisure, culture, refinement and devotion,’ served only three months’ probation, mostly in visiting.41 At the end of their probation, in most cases (Mildmay was an exception) they confirmed their dedication in a consecration service, usually at the organization’s annual convocation.42 No Sisters took vows, but were expected to serve for ‘a considerable term of years.’ Flying Leaves, the magazine of the Wesleyan deaconesses, had the title page motto, ‘Not bound by vow: they are free to serve.’ They were also free to leave for any reason, including marriage. Flying Leaves stated, ‘If God calls her to the married state there is nothing we shall do to hinder.’ Of the twentytwo Primitive Methodist Sisters trained in the first ten years of the East London Mission, two left to marry. Some Sisters became ministers’ wives; Sister Rita Hawkins, Sister-in-Charge of the Wesleyan Institute, resigned after nine years to marry a minister.43 Deaconesses and Sisters working in cities lived apart from society in dedicated houses, leaving them by day to work among the people, and in most cases returning at night. They wore special uniforms so that they were instantly recognizable, both for their personal safety and as a matter of convenience. Their basic uniform consisted of a dress in a serviceable color, usually with detachable white collar and cuffs, a cloak and a bonnet, sometimes with a veil.44 They were usually unpaid, although some received small salaries, and they were expected to be active in

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women and the shaping of british methodism f­ und-raising. Anything they earned from other agencies went to the institution or mission. In return they received room and board if they lived in the dedicated house, or a fixed amount for personal expenditure, including uniform, board, and lodging if serving elsewhere. They could expect to be cared for in old age, either in the institution’s house, or in a hospital or rest home. Deaconesses and sisters not needed in London missions could be sent to any parish or circuit that requested their help and was willing to pay a fee for their services. Wesleyan circuits paid £26 to the Deaconess Institute fund for a year’s service, and provided board and lodging and travelling expenses one way. The central organization usually paid national insurance and superannuation fund contributions and the cost of attending the annual convention. Deaconesses’ circuit work included sick-visiting, teaching Sunday school, doing temperance work, and running children’s clubs or mothers’ meetings. The term of service was usually a year, and they worked directly for the superintendent.45 When consecrated, deaconesses and Sisters were expected to take any assignment offered. Katherine Price Hughes’s daughter described the West London Sisters’ work under three headings: preventive, alleviative, and pastoral. All three related to women’s identification as caring mothers and sisters. Preventive work was among the young, including a crèche, a kindergarten, Guilds of Play for the under-fourteens, and Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs for those in their later teens. Alleviative activities included temperance work, nursing, visiting, poor relief, and the House of Refuge for prostitutes. Sisters’ and deaconesses’ pastoral work included leading classes and working in inquiry rooms during and after services.46 A UMFC deaconess’s record over a three-month period provided an example of the varied work. She made 778 visits, forty-seven of them for nursing purposes, attended 116 meetings of various kinds, including singing at four Gospel Temperance meetings and participating in forty-eight others, and founded a new class.47 Deaconesses and sisters worked in Sunday schools, orphanages, and rescue homes, and as nurses in hospitals. They organized clubs for every age group and both sexes, took both children and adults on outings, and established and raised funds for rest homes in seaside resorts. In some cases they founded their own institutions, like the West London House of Refuge or the Primitive Methodist Home for Cripples and Poor Children. Emmeline Pethick and Mary Neal, Sisters of the People, founded a very successful girls’ club, but both left the Sisters after five years, wanting more direct contact with the poor than living in Katherine House provided. Pethick later married Frederick Lawrence and the couple became leaders in the suffragette movement.48 Sisters also worked in satellite missions. Mildmay deaconesses established a mission

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad and men’s lodging-house in Bethnal Green. In 1904 only twenty-two out of 114 Wesleyan deaconesses were serving in the central missions. Sixtytwo were working in circuits, mostly doing missionary work, eleven in foreign missions in South Africa, Ceylon, and New Zealand, five working for the order, two engaged in ‘evangelistic work,’ another two running the Rest and Convalescent Home, and one working with the army and navy, with the rest in hospital training or temporarily retired.49 Public religious work as deaconesses and Sisters allowed some women opportunities to preach with official sanction, although female evangelists caused unease in some denominations. The majority of deaconesses’ and Sisters’ evangelism was private, in meetings, visiting, and medical care, and probably most, like Sister Annie, preferred it that way. An article in the Wesleyan Flying Leaves on ‘Church deaconesses’ who helped in established congregations stated, ‘She may or may not be able to preach – that is not necessary.’ The Rev. Stephenson admitted that most people thought of a deaconess as ‘a rather superior Bible-woman, who occasionally breaks out into a little preaching.’ Edith Gresham, a West London Sister of the People who served on a number of local committees, said, ‘I dislike exceedingly to speak in public, and very rarely do so … I think women begin to lose influence directly they are much on the platform.’50 Another Flying Leaves article claimed that in general seven out of ten women would do ‘any form of public service except public speaking,’ and one Sister wrote, ‘I can’t say that, as yet, public speaking has any fascination for me. Perhaps in time I may get to enjoy it more.’51 Yet her discomfort suggests that public speaking was indeed an expectation for the West London Sisters, and a significant number of deaconesses and Sisters preached publicly as local preachers or evangelists. Pethick-Lawrence credited her public-speaking ability to her experience in the Sisterhood, and many Sisters of the People spoke at open-air meetings and at Sisters’ Services.52 Since many Primitive Methodist women had always preached locally, it seems to have been routinely expected that their Sisters would qualify to be on their local plans. The Primitive Methodist quarterly meeting minutes for St. George’s Hall, Southwark, in the first decade of the twentieth century, contain many references to Sisters being accredited as local preachers or exhorters. At least one of them was employed in full-time evangelism, and in 1912, when St. George’s Hall had only five permanent residents, Sister Ellen was listed as an evangelist.53 The female diaconate allowed Wesleyan and UMFC women to preach with official sanction. Up to the 1890s the UMFC had not accepted women as preachers, and there were stringent restrictions on Wesleyan women preaching. Nonetheless, deaconesses in both denominations

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women and the shaping of british methodism worked as evangelists, conducting missions all over the country. Henry Smith, Warden of the UMFC Institute between 1912 and 1918, explained: ‘It was soon found that some of the deaconesses possessed considerable evangelistic gifts, and a great demand sprang up in the churches for their services. The arrangement for these Sisters to conduct evangelistic services enabled them to fulfil the spiritual destiny of which God had manifestly made them capable.’54 The UMFC Deaconess Institute’s constitution stated that one of the objectives was to prepare women to work as evangelists, ‘to labour in Churches, Circuits, Mission Centres, and Villages.’ By 1898 they had conducted nearly 350 special missions, and by the following year eighteen out of thirty-four deaconesses spent more than half their time on missions. Five years later, contradicting official church policy, the Institute Committee admitted: Some of the Sisters preach the Gospel. The committee make no apology for this. From the first they have believed that women, as well as men, should get their pattern of life from God, and in determining their vocation bear in mind that the talent is the call. When the Committee found that some Sisters possessed great evangelical gifts, they recognised therein the wisdom and goodness of God, and made special arrangements that each Sister might in this direction, fulfil the spiritual destiny of which God has made her capable.55

Some Wesleyan women had always preached locally with their superintendent’s permission. John Lenton estimates that at least forty women may have been doing so in 1900, not including the 50 to 100 women evangelists in Champness’s Joyful News Mission. Wesleyan deaconesses added to these numbers.56 Stephenson had always intended them to include ‘evangelistic visitation’ in their duties, noting the examples of the West London Sisters of the People and the East London Lady Workers, both within Methodism.57 In 1891 at least one deaconess was making public addresses in the Hackney Road Mission, and when Sister Sarah Freer moved to Norwich that year she intended to work as an evangelist in local villages. Her minister cautiously endorsed the practice, while emphasizing her consecrated status: Her work is chiefly evangelistic; in this respect differing from that of the majority of the Sisters. We do not expect, or even desire, that every Sister shall be able to speak in public. This is a great gift; but there are many forms of useful work in which the Sisters may be happily engaged that have not that special power. None the less we are thankful when God gives us consecrated women who can speak with power and persuasiveness to the people.58

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad Sisters sometimes reported taking services either as part of their weekly routine, or, in rural areas, filling in when the planned preacher failed to appear. Some of them were on the plan themselves. Sister Charlotte Vinson reported from Oxfordshire that she had sixteen Sunday appointments and seven weeknight services on the current plan, and that, ‘The preaching part of the work is not easy, for my hearers are mostly very wellread men and women, and of such varying shades of opinion.’ By 1910 at least forty-seven deaconesses had preached, some in the open air, and some to very large audiences.59 By 1905 there were two Wesleyan deaconesses entirely dedicated to evangelism. Thomas Stephenson explained this development in Flying Leaves, describing them in much the same terms as could have applied to woman evangelists in the early nineteenth century: Many of the Wesley Deaconesses are good speakers; they say their say and do not say anything for the sake of saying it. A few of them preach with power and success. But ours is not an order of women preachers. Yet when the Spirit of God touches with fire a woman’s lips, we dare not bid her be silent. Two of our number are wholly devoted to mission preaching. They can command large audiences or small in large chapels and halls, or in little village sanctuaries.60

Between 1897 and 1907 deaconess evangelists conducted 1,441 special missions, usually lasting eleven days each. During each mission they took two collections for the Deaconess Institute fund, raising an average of £551 a year. In one year alone (1901–2) they made over 4,000 converts. Their success led to more appointments; in 1911 five were at work full-time.61 One such prominent Wesleyan deaconess evangelist was Sister Jeanie Banks, whose career echoed that of the Primitive Methodist Clarissa Buck in mid-century. Banks was the daughter of a missionary and sister of a prominent Methodist divine who became President of Conference in 1902. Like Lois Thorne, she looked after her elderly parents, did charitable visiting, and earned some money giving private music lessons. She preached her first sermon when she was fourteen, and determined that, ‘To preach the Gospel and save souls was … the chief thing worth living for.’62 After her parents’ deaths she spent eight years as a Lady Worker with the Wesleyan East London Mission, then joined the Deaconess Institute in 1896. Her previous experience allowed her to skip the probation period and immediately after consecration start evangelistic work, including fund-raising and evangelism. She immediately led the deaconesses in raising nearly £50 for the Institute. Later she offered to preach for free on Sundays if the local chapel would then allow her to address a meeting to raise funds for the Wesleyan Deaconess Order.63 Her

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women and the shaping of british methodism e­ vangelism took her all over the British Isles, including summers among Hebridean fishermen and three winters in Ireland, working mainly in smaller towns. In 1901 she visited ten English counties, holding between 300 and 400 missions. Sister Jeanie insisted on a methodical approach. An article in Flying Leaves, probably by her, described her techniques. A mission should be preceded by a period of special prayer, and be well advertised in advance, including house-to-house visits. No other meetings should be held during the mission. Once the deaconess arrived, she should meet with local workers to explain her methods, and take ‘entire charge of the Mission throughout.’ While Jeanie spoke she invited people to come forward to the communion rail, but she also used private enquiry rooms. She made sure collection boxes for missions and for the Deaconess Institute were readily available. The service included music, especially hymn singing. Sister Jeanie also ensured adequate follow-up at the end of the mission. New converts were enrolled as members on trial, or, if not Methodists, referred to their local congregations – she saw her work as ‘not so much to make Methodists, as to make Christians.’ Helpers took the names and addresses of enquirers who were then assigned to workers who pledged to look after individuals’ spiritual welfare for six months. Sister Jeanie was described as a ‘powerful evangelist,’ whose ‘beautiful addresses and exquisite solos will live in hundreds of hearts for many a long day.’64 Unusually for the late nineteenth century, descriptions of her work tended not to emphasize her feminine qualities but appeared genderneutral: ‘She is most efficient; her methods are excellent, her labours abundant, and her devotion entire.’ Her success led to the appointment in 1902 of another Wesleyan deaconess evangelist, Sister Helen Fieldson, whom the Newbury Wesleyan Record described in more womanly terms as having ‘such gentle modesty combined with quiet dignity; such an utter selflessness, such an evident surrender of herself.’65 The contrast probably reflected a perceived difference in the two women’s characters, and there was no suggestion that Sister Jeanie’s approach was inappropriate for a woman. The two women continued to work as evangelists for ten years until Sister Jeanie retired in 1912, after fourteen years’ service, and became the first Sister to receive superannuation payments. Two years previously she said, ‘I have not once regretted the step, or doubted the call,’ and she remained willing to take special engagements.66 On her retirement the Institute’s Committee officially recorded its ‘high appreciation of her valuable service,’ and commended her for representing the Deaconess Order ‘on many important occasions,’ and for inspiring younger Sisters ‘with the noblest ideals of service.’67

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad Since deaconesses and Sisters worked mainly with women and were under male supervision, either locally or nationally, most of their activities did not directly threaten male prerogatives. This allowed some women greater access than before to leadership opportunities within their organizations. As class leaders attended quarterly meetings and most deaconesses and Sisters led classes, women’s visibility grew. In the ­Primitive Methodist South-East London Mission, Mrs. Johnson, wife of the minister in charge, and Sisters Emily and Jennie, all class leaders, attended quarterly meetings as ‘fit and proper persons.’ Others were elected to public office, especially in the West London Mission, where Katherine Price Hughes emphasized political responsibility. Sister Katherine Page, the first Sister of the People to enroll, was the first woman to be elected to the Westminster Board of Guardians in the late 1890s, and, despite her aversion to public speaking, Sister Edith Gresham was elected St. Pancras Guardian of the Poor in 1894, one of the first women Guardians, by a majority of 300. During the campaign another Sister led a children’s choir through the district singing: Sing a song of polling day, It’s drawing very nigh, All the election candidates Are getting very spry. But don’t you get bamboozled When they all begin to sing. It’s Gresham you’ve to vote for, And all the rest may swing.

Sister Edith also represented the Mission on the St. Pancras Charity Organisation Committee, and served on its out-relief, workhouse, and infirmary committees.68 Wesleyan deaconess Sister Elise Searle was elected to the Norwich Board of Guardians, describing the meeting as ‘a miniature House of Commons.’69 Some deaconesses and Sisters exercised considerable autonomy and executive power through running the various agencies – rest homes, holiday homes, rescue houses, crèches, for example – connected with their missions. Sister Hope of the West London Mission ran the Mission’s crèche for over thirty years, serving between forty and fifty children a day. She oversaw all the day-to-day operations and raised funds to cover the two-thirds’ cost not covered by the small daily fee.70 Sisters-in-Charge, or lady superintendents, had the greatest autonomy and responsibility, and exercised the most official power available to Evangelical women outside the Salvation Army before the twentieth century. Those in charge of the Wesleyan and UMFC Deaconess Institutes and the Primitive Methodist Sisters had less autonomy than the Mildmay

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women and the shaping of british methodism and West London Sisters, being subject to control by male Secretaries or Wardens, or their Conferences or local committees. However, Miss A. M. Bushnell, who headed the UMFC Institute for seventeen years, Sister Rita Hawkins of the Wesleyans, and Sister Agnes Arnold of the Primitive Methodists, all Sisters-in-Charge in the early years of their organizations, were in most cases responsible for supervising the training of recruits and probationers, stationing them in suitable positions according to their strengths and weaknesses, supervising the Sisters’ daily work, and the day-to-day running of the houses, including their finances, the latter subject to the managing committees’ scrutiny. Both the Mildmay Deaconess Institute and the West London Sisters of the People were founded by women, Catherine Pennefather and Katherine Price Hughes. These two women occupied positions of exceptional authority. Both founded their organizations as part of their husbands’ missions, and could claim that their work was an extension of his. However, both outlived their husbands by considerable periods and continued to lead their institutions with very little male interference. They were strong role models for the Sisters. Emmeline Pethick wrote of Katherine Price Hughes, ‘She gave me my first experience of that emancipation of mental and practical powers which is to be found by working as free persons in a community of equals, and, though I did not realise it at the time, my first interview with her … was a beginning for me of a new life of the spirit.’71 The 1888 Yearbook and Directory of Women’s Work reported that the Mildmay Institute was ‘completely in the hands of women,’ confirmed by Harriette Cooke’s book-length description of the Mildmay deaconesses at the end of the century where she described Catherine Pennefather and her assistant Miss Coventry as totally in charge of all the deaconesses’ activities.72 Pennefather and Price Hughes oversaw the work of Sisters-in-Charge of the Sisters’ residences, represented their organizations in public, made policy decisions, and paid particular attention to individual needs. Price Hughes wrote, ‘My special task was to look after the welfare of each Sister individually and to see her privately as often as possible in order to talk over her work with her, to consider her suggestions, and to meet, if possible, her difficulties.’73 As well as chairing several committees directly connected with the Mission, including that of St. Luke’s Hospital, run by her brother, Price Hughes represented the West London Mission on a number of public bodies, including the London Public Morality Committee, the Executive Committees of the British Women’s Temperance Society, and the Ladies’ Liberal Federation, and on the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) Committee. A photograph of the speakers at the Protestant Reunion Conference in Switzerland in 1892 included Katherine and two other Sisters.74

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad The work of deaconesses and Sisters again raised the question of the propriety of and scriptural justification for women’s ministry. In 1907 the Wesleyan Deaconess Institute’s Flying Leaves reprinted an article on ‘The Public Ministry of Women’ by Helen B. Harris, in which she re-examined the issue. While, like her predecessors earlier in the century, she cited Joel and listed the New Testament prophetic women, she also quoted St. Paul’s ‘there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. iii.28),’ not a text used in previous justifications. Her arguments concentrated on more recent examples of female preaching among the Quakers, the Salvation Army, Primitive Methodists, and Bible Christian women. She noted that the American temperance leader Frances Willard spent much of her life speaking in public, and that both the holiness movement and the recent Welsh revival often had women on the platform. She believed that theological training should be open to women, and noted that there had been ‘some recent attention’ to this. She argued for an essential difference between male and female preaching: ‘Woman’s presentation of the Gospel has never been, and is never likely to be, exactly the same as a man’s, though we will not attempt to define the difference, but it will be complementary to it, and supply a lack from which the Church has hitherto suffered.’ However, she recommended caution: ‘We would deprecate any undue forcing of the matter. Where there is not a preparedness, let matters still rest as they are.’75 Female preaching continued to arouse strong opposition in the Wesleyan and UMFC Connexions. Thomas Cope wrote of the UMFC deaconesses, ‘Many influential ministers and members, whose sympathy and help we needed, were strongly prejudiced against women preaching,’ so he made sure to emphasize their visiting work rather than their evangelism.76 Henry Smith, second Warden of the UMFC Institute, tried to address opponents’ arguments by making the same justification by results that William O’Bryan had used in the 1820s: As might be expected, there were many who objected to the evangelistic side of the deaconess work. They said they were glad to see the Sisters giving themselves to ministries in the home and the Sunday School, and there was singular appropriateness in their doing so; but that they should conduct evangelistic services was improper and unbecoming, probably unscriptural … If God calls to this work, and equips for it, ought we to question either, simply for reasons of sex? At least the fact that the good hand of God manifestly rests upon the services conducted by the Sisters and crowns them with thousands of conversions should prove for devout hearts justification enough!77

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women and the shaping of british methodism While some Primitive Methodists argued strongly for women’s ministry, others were more cautious despite the Connexion’s long tradition of female preaching. An article on the South-East London Mission in their missionary magazine stated, that ‘enlightened’ Christians agreed that Christ ‘accepted, approved, and directly encouraged’ the ministry of women, and that, ‘In these modern days no apology is necessary for women’s ministry in the Church any more than in the home; and the salvation of the world would in all probability be more nearly accomplished had women been encouraged in such ministries as the Sisters of St. George’s Hall are rendering in “Darkest London.”’78 Other Primitive Methodists more cautiously justified the practice in terms of Wesley’s ‘exceptional call.’ The Connexion’s Quarterly Review for 1885 contained six papers, all by men, in a symposium on the position of women in the church. Of the six, one unequivocally opposed female preaching, while the rest adopted the compromise position of allowing it as occasional practice for exceptional women. As one of them put it: Though women may still possess the gift of prophecy, and be allowed occasionally to exercise in the church, yet the full work of the ministry is the exclusive prerogative of men. Whatever may be the gifts, knowledge, and piety of woman, she will not, and cannot, be equally active and prominent with man as public teacher, administrator, and labourer in the church.79

All authors agreed that women were not inferior but essentially different from men and brought different aptitudes to church work, which should be an extension of their domestic duties: in women we expect winsomeness, soul-whiteness, all-consuming affection, trustfulness bordering on unreason … Here, then, is woman’s position – to temper and refine the preponderating masculinity, to rub down the angularities, to supply the deficiencies, to give embonpoint to the churches, so that they may reflect in their organic character a spiritual life more fully developed in its manysidedness.80

Women’s normal roles in the church should be visitation, fund-raising, leading classes, and teaching in Sunday school. A decade later the Primitive Methodist Magazine expressed the same position: ‘Let women preach if they are divinely called to preach, but let not the women who are not called to preach think for a moment … their less public ministrations to personal and domestic human life are less honourable or less useful than are the more public ministrations of the pulpit or the platform.’81 The author of a 1900 article in the Aldersgate Primitive Methodist Magazine regretted that, ‘The old-fashioned home with its head away each day and

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad the mistress making the best of her nest, is not now the type of all.’ In 1902 the magazine carried a series of articles on ‘Women: Past and Present.’ The pseudonymous author admitted that, ‘Our Lord gave no sanction in his discourses to the old condition of the inequality of the sexes,’ but firmly embraced domestic ideology, arguing that women were still best suited to home life: ‘In these days, the best that yet have been, the daughters of all ages with the improved education and with so many careers open to them, besides marriage, can make of home life a better thing than it has ever been … Woman everywhere, and of all times, has shown her best attributes in her most distinctive vocation – that of motherhood.’82 Yet by the end of the century the Primitive Methodists had accepted that women could participate in Connexional government. By 1894 ‘ladies’ were ‘often the preponderating element among Conference visitors,’ and in 1899 Mrs. Townsend sat as an official representative for the Bradford and Halifax district. The Aldersgate Primitive Methodist Magazine contrasted her typically womanly qualities with male grandstanding: With a quiet dignity she fulfilled the duty that had been assigned to her. Had some other members of the Conference exercised the same selfrepression there would not have been the repeated complaints about the escape of ‘gas.’ Mrs. Townsend made in all respects a model delegate; punctual and regular in attendance, giving careful consideration to all questions, and using her voting power with discretion, she gave an impressive object lesson in favour of her sex as delegates to Conference. If all lady delegates who may be sent act with the same prudence as Mrs. Townsend, there will be no need to regret the pious wish of the ex-President that she may be the precursor of a considerable importation of the gentler sex into the chief Assembly of the Connexion.83

In the same year a woman became the first paid Primitive Methodist itinerant in forty years. Although she was not officially recognized by the Connexion, Mary Bulmer worked as an itinerant on the Stanley circuit in 1899, replacing two ministers who had died. Later, also unofficially, she travelled for three years in Chester-Le-Street before marrying the itinerant John Leuty in 1906. In 1910 she was the only invited woman speaker at the last celebration of the Connexion’s centenary at Mow Cop, and she served many years as secretary of the Missionary Society.84 Initially, no woman was invited to speak at Mow Cop, a matter for discussion in the 1807 Primitive Methodist Leader. One writer claimed that women were justified in saying, ‘If men arrogate to themselves all the power and all the responsibility, all the honour and glory, let men do the work. We will attend to the sewing meeting, and the tea meeting, which are relegated to us as our proper sphere, but beyond that the men shall

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women and the shaping of british methodism have all the discredit of failure as well as the glory of success.’ A woman letter-writer commented, ‘Many churches that will allow a coloured man or a converted clown to occupy the pulpit without a question, shut the door against a woman, no matter what her talent may be,’ and another called for female representation ‘in fair numbers.’ Another, stunned by the proposed exclusion of women from the speakers’ platform, wrote, ‘I am convinced that our church has lost immeasurably in practically silencing women so far as preaching goes, and will never recover its lost glory until it is realised that in Christ there is no male nor female.’85 In general it appears that more women were preaching in more Methodist Connexions in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. John Lenton found considerable growth in the number of Wesleyan women preachers during that time, and the Sisters of the People also enjoyed their largest numerical growth in the period before 1910.86 Dorothy Graham suggested there might have been fewer female Primitive Methodist local woman preachers in the late nineteenth century, but female evangelists remained active in the Connexion.87 In 1886 the weekly Primitive Methodist Herald included forty-five instances of women preaching, the majority conducting special missions, suggesting the importance of female evangelists in the 1880s. The Bible Christian Magazine regularly mentioned women leading missions in the 1880s and 1890s, and in 1891 Eva Costin began a ten-year career as the Bible Christians’ first full-time paid woman evangelist, preaching at fund-raisers and revivals, attracting contributions and converts. Her salary was guaranteed but her local expenses had to be met through collections and subscriptions.88 However, by the end of the century Connexional support for female evangelism had diminished. In 1900 the Conference initiated the ambitious New Century Movement, aiming to convert 100,000 souls and raise £100,000. Raising such an endowment was a task too important to be left to women; they hired a full-time male evangelist to work with Costin, and recommended another woman, Annie Carkeek, to circuits but paid her no Connexional salary. By 1902 both official evangelists were men.89 Yet by that time the Bible Christians had become the only Methodist Connexion to allow a woman access to the ministry on almost the same terms as men. By the 1890s both the New Connexion and the Bible Christians, the smallest of the surviving sects, were struggling to maintain their autonomy. Each had between 20,000 and 25,000 members; combined they still had fewer than the next larger, the UMFC.90 Neither had the resources to found either a deaconess institute or a sisters’ house. The Bible Christians’ presence in the cities was not great enough to justify it, and they preferred to focus their mission funds on China. Yet the desire

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad to channel female energy now becoming visible in other Connexions may explain why, after a twenty-year lapse, in 1890 the Bible Christian Conference revived its earlier practice of female itinerancy by appointing Eliza Giles, already a popular evangelist, on trial. An article on ‘Women in the Pulpit’ in the South Wales Argus reported, ‘In these times of revived attention to women’s work in the Church, the Bible Christians are reverting to their old ways, and encouraging consecrated women who possess the needed gifts to preach.’91 An 1892 address reprinted in the Bible Christian Magazine managed to suggest women’s inferiority while welcoming the development: ‘The duty of the hour is an ungrudging welcome of women to her work in the church. No doors should be shut to her because of the crime of womanhood.’ Official records give no reason for this significant departure from established policy, but another factor may have been the availability of female candidates, already seasoned local preachers or evangelists, at a time when many itinerants recruited in the 1860s were retiring; recruitment of men also increased at this time. In 1894 Eliza Giles was admitted into full Connexion, the first British woman to be officially recognized as a religious professional on the same terms as men, although ‘her full rights were as yet held in abeyance,’ meaning she was not yet assigned to a station and did not qualify for superannuation. Three more women, Lillie Edwards, Lily Oram, and Annie Carkeek, were admitted on trial, and the Conference laid out the terms of female itinerants’ employment. Women candidates for the ministry had to pursue the same course of reading and take the same examinations as men. During their four-year probation they would be paid £18 a year plus board and lodging, then £24 when in full Connexion, less than the £30 unmarried men received. If they remained recognized and unmarried, after seven years in full Connexion they would be eligible for superannuation up to a maximum of £20 a year. This was also less than for men, and men were not expected to remain single. In a celebratory address, the Conference President imagined slow progress toward a distant future: ‘The first woman President of the Bible Christian Conference in her address from the chair somewhere around the year 1944 … will undoubtedly dwell for a few minutes on the Bristol Conference of 1894.’92 The Conference also discussed ‘the admission of women into elders’ and other legislative and administrative courts of the Church,’ but no action was taken.93 This and the failure to make immediate use of Giles suggests some ambivalence, and reviving female itinerancy may have seemed a way to make use of women’s energy while placing them in circuits where, like deaconesses, their roles would be primarily pastoral and subordinate. An 1894 interview with Lily Oram, already a successful evangelist, shows

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women and the shaping of british methodism that she saw her role in such terms. When asked what a woman would bring to the ministry, she emphasized women’s special talents and needs: A woman has more sympathy, and especially among women could do more than a man could … I look on my work as a matter of personal dealing with people in their homes. Conversation with young girls is an important part of my work … Of course, a woman must always remain a woman. It would be a sad thing if in taking up the work of the ministry she should lose her womanly instincts and sympathies. I don’t like to see a woman putting on the masculine – immediately she does that she ceases to be useful. But I do think a woman might be a successful minister.

Her interviewer approved: ‘Miss Lily Oram has no resemblance to the “New Woman” of popular fancy, nor to the “Revolted Daughter” … and she certainly should not be classed with the “Shrieking Sisterhood” against whom contemptuous male creatures sometimes rail. She is an earnest, eloquent, cultivated woman … – a comely, sympathetic, womanly woman.’94 A year later, in 1895, Oram resigned.95 Probably she found evange­ lism more rewarding, especially financially. Female evangelists’ pay was £3. 7s. 6d. a mission, allowing a woman fully employed throughout the year to earn approximately £45; an independent evangelist could probably do better. Oram had served her probation in London, where £18 a year plus board and lodging could not have gone far.96 Other female candidates received subordinate or marginal postings. The Conference could not find Annie Carkeek a station, suggesting local resistance to woman itinerants, and Eliza Giles eventually worked alone on the small Dalwood circuit ‘under the general oversight of Br. Daniel.’97 Carkeek returned to her previous employment as an evangelist and Giles left after two years, leaving Lillie Edwards as the sole remaining candidate for the ministry.98 In the next six years Edwards proved that a woman could be trusted with almost all the duties of ministry, although she always worked in marginal positions and never supervised male itinerants. She spent her probationary years in Sevenoaks, an ‘arduous and difficult’ mission that the Conference had specifically recommended be ‘worked at low cost’ by a woman working under the District Superintendent’s supervision. In 1895 he reported that she was ‘doing splendid work … she possesses great business and preaching ability.’99 The following year she ‘courageously attacked the ongoing debt at Seal,’ and in 1901, after she had moved on, the Bible Christian Magazine reported that in Sevenoaks, ‘The change from barrenness to fruitfulness causes the circuit great joy.’100 In her third-year examination in 1897 she ‘excelled several of the young men of the same year

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad in some subjects and two of them in the total,’ shortening her probation by a year, but when she was received into full Connexion she did not stand on the Conference platform with the male candidates. Her subsequent postings were challenging. She went first to St. Mawes, the ninth smallest circuit in the Connexion, with five local preachers, three chapels, and seventy-three full members. She managed to reduce the debt and stayed for a fifth year before being transferred to the similar Hastings Mission, where her superior reported, ‘The decline of past years has been arrested, financial difficulties have been adjusted, and the whole mission placed in working order. Best of all, several conversions have been witnessed. The Missionary receipts have been considerably increased, and the Quarter Board is clear.’101 But Lillie Edwards’s time was running out. The Bible Christians had been seeking union with at least one other Connexion since the 1860s, when James Thorne’s negotiations with the New Connexion failed. Between 1894 and 1900 Bible Christian leaders talked seriously with the Primitive Methodists, whose leaders favored the merger, but their circuits voted it down.102 In 1901 all Methodist Connexions met at a large ­Ecumenical Conference, and there the New Connexion, the UMFC, and the Bible Christians began talking seriously about union. This time they succeeded, and in 1907 the three merged to become the United Methodist Church. The Bible Christians, with the fewest members, were the weakest partner; out of seventeen appointments ranked as ‘important,’ only one went to a Bible Christian.103 They therefore had little leverage on the question of female preaching. The other Connexions had no female itinerants and did not officially sanction women local preachers. The New Connexion had always opposed women in the pulpit. In 1907, when addressing the UMFC deaconesses’ anniversary celebration, the Bible Christian representative tried to outline a limited institutional role for women in the new organization. Perhaps thinking of Lillie Edwards’s strengths, he suggested appointing women to ‘failed’ chapels to try to save them. He wanted a deaconess in every circuit, and recommended that ‘a law should be enacted that (in each pulpit) one sermon a quarter should be preached by a woman.’104 His ideas were ignored, but the deaconesses’ work was reaffirmed in the union, and the United Methodists continued to employ female evangelists. However, Lillie Edwards’s position as a fully recognized female itinerant was anomalous, and the desire for unity trumped her individual achievement.105 She was allowed to remain in the Hastings Mission as a special agent for one year, and, in recognition of her ‘conspicuous ability’ and her special talents for preaching and organizing, she was paid a lump sum of £135, with no further claim on the Female

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women and the shaping of british methodism Preachers’ Fund. The Bible Christians hoped she would continue in some role ‘for many years, believing her to be specially fitted for the duties of preaching and organizing Christian work.’106 There is no evidence that she did so. She disappeared from official records, and by 1917 another woman, Lily Cowmeadow, a former Bible Christian evangelist, was in charge in Hastings, suggesting that a woman could perform the same functions as Edwards as long as she did not claim the title of minister. Cowmeadow was by then in her late forties, and ended her career as an auxiliary deaconess, her age preventing her from full acceptance as a probationer.107 The negotiations between the UMFC, the New Connexion, and the Bible Christians inevitably forced all parties to define policies clearly. While they were willing to sanction the work of deaconesses and allow women to preach locally, they avoided the far more controversial issue of female ordination. In the second half of the nineteenth century all Methodist Connexions defined access to the ministry in terms of education and experience, requiring candidates to complete a specific curriculum, usually at the denominational college, and serve a probationary term before being ‘received into Full Connexion’ at the annual Conference. By the end of the century most of them described this induction as ‘ordination.’ The process was least formal among the Primitive Methodists, where it took place at the district level, and most formal among the Wesleyans, where the ceremony included the ‘laying-on of hands,’ introduced by Jabez Bunting at the 1836 Conference. Laying-on of hands implied adherence to the apostolic succession, an unbroken link between Christ’s apostles and newly ordained priests that appeared automatically to exclude women since the tradition was entirely male. By some definitions, an ordination ceremony requires this ceremonial practice. Eliza Giles and Lillie Edwards, and Gertrude von Petzold, a German woman who served as the minister of a Unitarian church in Leicester between 1904 and 1908, were inducted into the ministry on the same terms as men in their denominations, but this did not include the laying-on of hands for either sex. Perhaps for this reason, historians generally agree that the first ordained British woman was the Congregationalist Constance Todd, ordained with her future husband Charles Coltman by laying-on of hands in 1917.108 Thus Giles’s and Edwards’s pioneering achievements were forgotten when the Bible Christians themselves disappeared into the United Methodist Church. After union, women continued to play important roles in the United Methodist Church as deaconesses, as evangelists, and as committee members. An article on ‘Women’s Work in the Church’ in the denomina-

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad tional magazine praised the work of deaconesses as carrying out ‘a branch of church work for which women are particularly fitted: the bearing of the Gospel message, coupled with skilled sympathetical help, in homes and spheres outside the pale of the Church, or any Christian influences.’ While, like his predecessors, the author highlighted the deaconesses’ womanly qualities, he allowed that a few women could also take on more stereotypically male responsibilities: ‘Nowadays we have lady representatives at our Church conferences, and lady representatives at our District and Quarterly meetings, for the Church has come to realise the business capabilities of some of its women, and is glad to give them a voice in the management of her affairs.’109 The visibility and value of the work of deaconesses, Sisters of the People, and missionaries contributed to Methodist leaders’ willingness to be more open to female representation on official bodies. Hugh and Katherine Price Hughes actively campaigned to persuade the Wesleyan Conference to revise its positions on women’s participation and preaching. In 1895, in response to the Third London District’s election of a female Conference delegate, a committee recommended admitting women. Hugh argued passionately for its adoption, but the arguments on the other side were equally forceful. One speaker called the policy a ‘passing craze’ that would ‘perpetuate a condition of a most undesirable character,’ and another appealed to selfish considerations: ‘Remember every woman who comes into this place displaces a man.’110 The resolution failed, and the Conference did not return to the issue until 1909, after Hugh Price Hughes was dead. That year the delegates revised the rules for women preaching by removing the requirement that they speak only to women, one that had clearly been breached many times and was flagrantly disregarded by deaconess evangelists. However, they reiterated the requirement that women must have their local superintendent’s and quarterly meeting’s permission before they could preach in their own circuits, and to preach in another circuit required written permission from both their own and the host circuit’s superintendents. The Conference specifically recognized the deaconesses’ exceptional position by requiring them to obtain permission from their Warden and Institute Committee, but not from the local circuits. Those already working as evangelists or who had taken services were accepted as preachers, but new applicants had to be licensed annually by the Warden after he had examined them in doctrine and was convinced they had the ‘necessary gifts.’ The Conference remained cautious: ‘so far as is possible the preaching of women shall be restricted to neighbourhoods in which there is no special opposition to such preaching.’111 The following year, 1910, they passed a resolution allowing women to attend the annual Conference, although, as the

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women and the shaping of british methodism Warden of the Deaconess Institute put it, ‘we well know that a great many good women have no sort of desire’ to participate.112 Katherine Price Hughes was elected the following year, and became the first woman to address the Conference: ‘I felt, much as I dreaded it, that I must justify my position by making a speech of some sort. The very thought of it gave me the most acute, nervous terror, but the voice within said, “You must.”’113 Despite Price Hughes’s prominence, by 1910 no woman had achieved permanent entry into the professional ministry of any formal denomination. However effectively women showed their capabilities, their work was still usually seen as an extension of their domestic duties. Those who persisted in acting on their call to preach continued to battle with opposition and discrimination. A deaconess evangelist working in a London slum in the early twentieth century had no less but also no more autonomy than Mary O’Bryan travelling alone on the Isle of Wight in the 1820s. Both worked within an all-male hierarchy that did not accept them as equal partners. O’Bryan was paid less than her male counterparts, while the deaconess evangelist existed on a meager stipend intended only to cover her living expenses. The deaconess typically came from higher in the social hierarchy than most female Bible Christian preachers, and in most cases she had more education. The gains women had made in the last quarter of the century had given them a limited role in local and Connexional government, but overall it is hard to see much progress. Yet for the vast majority of these women, progress was not what they were seeking. As Francis Prochaska observed, ‘We are perhaps too prone to see limitations where the women of the past saw possibilities.’114 Nineteenthcentury women who wanted to follow a career in organized religion sought opportunity rather than status. They were persistent; as one door closed, they pushed open another. They argued for their right to speak, but not for their right to enter the ministry on the same terms as men. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries evangelical religion created an environment in which women could claim public space within religious organizations. Evangelicals’ belief in the possibility of salvation for every individual, the emphasis on each person’s responsibility for becoming worthy of divine love, and the focus on experiencing a conversion in which God intervened personally in that individual’s life, allowed women autonomy in their spiritual lives. In particular, Methodist organization provided women with almost unprecedented opportunities for leadership in their chapel communities, emboldening some to speak in public. Yet while evangelicalism encouraged women to claim autonomy, it also taught submission to God’s will, promoting an environment in which women claimed the right to preach but until the end of the century very

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad rarely challenged their subordination to all-male hierarchies within their organizations. In mid-century many of them distanced themselves from the nascent women’s rights movement. As Anderson pointed out, women preachers of the 1860s had almost no connections with the stirrings of the women’s movement in Britain.115 Until the 1890s none of the female evangelists in Britain expressed any support for political equality, and some explicitly repudiated it. Jane M. Richardson summed up the prevailing position in the 1870s in a pamphlet, An Address to Christian Women: ‘There is at the present time much said about the rights of women. I would that … we really understood the true dignity of our position as Christian women. We should not then “stretch ourselves beyond our measure,” or meddle in worldly matters unsuitable to our calling.’116 Even in the temperance movement, supported by a number of female evangelists, women were not prominent until the 1880s, and the main British temperance organization did not develop strong ties to the suffrage movement as in the United States. By the end of the century this situation had changed as women began to gain some political rights. Both deaconesses and Sisters of the People voted in Board of Guardians elections, and served on official local government committees. Many supported women’s suffrage. Women were also challenging the male monopoly of Connexional governance, winning the right to vote at annual conferences, and speaking out at quarterly meetings. While within religious organizations men routinely described women’s work as defined by their feminine qualities, and much of that work was confined to ministering to other women, evangelical women had developed a powerful moral authority justified by their religion. In doing so, they kept doors open for others to build on their achievements. In the twentieth century some women, most of them with ties to the women’s rights movement, began to fight for equal status in religious organizations, for access to the ordained ministry. Constance Todd, an Oxford graduate, deliberately applied to Mansfield College in 1913, intending to seek ordination.117 Brian Heeney pointed out that, for Anglicans at least, ‘By 1916 advocacy of the priesthood for women had become a recognized part of the church feminist cause, and its champions were recognized as the avant-garde of that cause.’118 Links between religious organizations and suffrage agitation were particularly strong in the Women’s Political and Social Union (WSPU), led by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. The WSPU’s tactics were modelled on those of the Salvation Army, making use of open-air meetings, parades, and doorto-door visiting – some of these methods were also common among Methodist sects in the early part of the century. Suffragettes described

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women and the shaping of british methodism their joining the movement as a conversion to militant feminism. In 1913 the WSPU publicly accused the Church of England of siding with the government against woman suffrage and initiated a campaign against Anglicanism that included arson and bombing. Previously, in 1909, a group from the militant Women’s Freedom League had founded the Church League for Women’s Suffrage (CLWS), one of whose members planned a conference on the topic of women’s ordination, cancelled because of the war. However, the war caused a shortage of male ministers, causing women, often ministers’ wives, to step in and replace them. In 1917 Maude Royden, Constance Todd’s friend, became ‘pulpit assistant’ at the Congregationalist City Temple, becoming an inspiration to others. With these precedents to call on, after the war the CLWS, now called the League of the Church Militant, made women’s ordination a major goal.119 Yet the established church shied away from allowing women other than deaconesses any official role in ministry. Therefore some suffrage leaders followed a path well established by nineteenth-century women – female evangelism. The former Sister of the People Emmeline PethickLawrence preached in an all-woman church. Edith Picton-Turbervill of the non-militant National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies preached in both Anglican and Nonconformist pulpits and wrote pamphlets advocating women’s right to preach.120 Perhaps most famously, Christabel Pankhurst embarked on a successful international career as an evangelist. In 1918 Pankhurst read the evangelical Henry Grattan Guinness’s The Approaching End of the Age Viewed in the Light of History, Prophecy, and Science, and underwent a conversion experience in which she became convinced that Christ’s second coming was imminent and would solve the problems of the world. Making contact with the Baptist evangelical F. B. Meyer before leaving for a lecture tour of the United States, she was able to tap into Meyer’s transatlantic network and begin a career as an independent evangelist and writer on Christian premillennial themes, mostly in the United States and Canada. Like Geraldine Hooper Dening, she remained officially an Anglican, but her ministry was nondenominational. The New York Times reported in 1923, ‘She has spoken in churches of practically all denominations and in halls connected with the Anglican churches, where women are not allowed to speak in the church proper.’121 Thus, while feminists were arguing for women’s ordination, female evangelism continued into the twentieth century as most denominations continued to deny women access to the ministry. Like the suffrage struggle, the campaign for female ordination took several generations. Opposition to women’s ordination was fierce. Even the pioneering Congregationalists ordained only one woman a year during the interwar period. The

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad Baptist College in Bristol agreed to admit women in 1919, but no woman enrolled until 1937, and in general theological colleges put up barriers against women’s admission, including the lack of female toilets.122 Within Methodism, despite the continuing presence of local women preachers and deaconess evangelists, there was no progress toward female ordination between the wars. As in the earlier negotiations to form the United Methodist Church, an important inhibiting factor was movement toward more extensive union, encouraging accommodation of the most conservative approaches. A Primitive Methodist ­historian writing soon after union suggested that a few women might have considered applying to the ministry in the 1930s but were discouraged for that reason.123 In 1932 the secessions of the early nineteenth century were finally healed when the Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, and United Methodists reunited into a single Methodist Church. That year 642 Wesleyan Methodist women were fully accredited local preachers, with a further 117 on trial, and sixty received on full plan. Immediately after union there were 1,422 fully accredited female local preachers, 208 on trial, and 110 on full plan, the substantial increases suggesting the greater persistence of women preachers among the Primitive and United Methodists. While the percentage of women to men was only just over 4 percent, these statistics illustrate the continuing importance of female local preaching, at least in some circuits. Yet since the combined Primitive and United Methodist membership was less than the Wesleyan total, their influence was correspondingly weaker, and women’s ministry remained local or diverted into missionary work or the diaconate.124 In the second half of the twentieth century talk of union with the Church of England again inhibited movement toward female ordination, so Methodists did not accept women as fully ordained ministers until 1973. Few of their nineteenth-century foremothers could have imagined that moment, but Lillie Edwards would have cheered. Notes 1 J. Tolefree Parr, The Angel of Blackfriars, or the Sister with the Shining Face (London: W. A. Hammond, 1912), pp. 1–5. 2 Parr, Angel of Blackfriars, pp. 3–19, 64. 3 Parr, Angel of Blackfriars, pp. 20–1, 32, 35–6, 46, 54, 55–8, 66, 81–2. 4 Parr, Angel of Blackfriars, pp. 54–5. 5 Parr, Angel of Blackfriars, pp. 84–5. 6 Parr, Angel of Blackfriars, p. 75. 7 Parr, Angel of Blackfriars, pp. 90–7. 8 Lysons, Little Primitive, p. 126. 9 Vicinus, Independent Women, p. 83.

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women and the shaping of british methodism 10 Quoted in Vicinus, Independent Women, p. 83. 11 Highways and Hedges 10:12 (1897), 278. 12 Catherine M. Prelinger, ‘The nineteenth-century deaconessate in Germany,’ in Ruth-Ellen B. Joeres and Mary-Jo Maynes (eds), German Women in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), pp. 215–29; Catherine M. Prelinger, Charity, Challenge, and Change: Religious Dimensions of the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Women’s Movement in Germany (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), pp. 18–23. 13 Prelinger, ‘Deaconessate,’ p. 225. 14 Quarterly Review 108 (1860), 384, quoted in Vicinus, Independent Women, p. 47. 15 Vicinus, Independent Women, pp. 47–8, 57–8; Cecilia Robinson, The Ministry of Deaconesses (London: Methuen, 1898), pp. 110–17, 136–7, 169. 16 Cooke, Mildmay, p. 208. 17 Rev. Robert Braithwaite (ed.), The Life and Letters of Rev. William Pennefather (London: John F. Shaw, n.d.), p. 336. 18 Cooke, Mildmay, p. 45. 19 Braithwaite, Pennefather, pp. 408–9. 20 Cooke, Mildmay, pp. 117–29. 21 Cooke, Mildmay, p. 51. 22 Cooke, Mildmay, p. 43. 23 Cooke, Mildmay, pp. 43, 46, 52, 57, 59, 88, 116; Catherine Prelinger, ‘The female diaconate in the Anglican church: what kind of ministry for women?’ in Malmgreen (ed.), Religion in Lives, p. 182. 24 Highways and Hedges 9:1 (1896), 18. 25 E. Dorothy Graham, Saved to Serve: The Story of the Wesley Deaconess Order 1890–1978 (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 2002), pp. 240–7. 26 Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes, pp. 138, 336; Bebbington, Holiness, p. 67. 27 Katherine Price Hughes, The Story of My Life (London: Epworth Press, 1945), pp. 37, 67; Philip S. Bagwell, Outcast London: a Christian Response: The West London Mission of the Methodist Church 1887–1987 (London: Epworth Press, 1987), pp. 24–5. 28 Brighton Daily News, 14 December 1874, 5, quoted in Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes, p. 129. 29 Hughes, Story, p. 89; Advance 12:5 (1902), 35, 91, 103. 30 Katherine Price Hughes, ‘Sisterhoods, Anglican and Nonconformist,’ Review of the Churches 1:9 (1892), 393, quoted in Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes, p. 167. 31 Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes, pp. 168–9. 32 Graham, Saved, pp. 326–31. 33 R. W. Russell, The Life of James Flanagan (London: Holborn Publishing House, 1920), pp. 112, 148; Denis Crane, James Flanagan: The Story of a Remarkable Career (London: S. W. Partridge, n.d.), pp. 56, 98, 107, 117, 125, 158–9; ‘Sister’s Settlement and Training Home,’ HPMMS 20:2 (1909), 23–5. 34 Russell, Flanagan, p. 148. 35 Minutes of the Quarterly Meeting of St. George’s Hall, September 1900, October, December 1901, Minute books of the Primitive Methodist South-East London Mission, Southwark Local Studies Library, London; Light and Truth 16:5 (1908), 12, 37:4 (1960), 4; D. Colin Dews, ‘Primitive Methodist deaconesses,’ PWHS 55:3 (2005), 139–40. 36 Graham, Saved, p. 293.

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

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67 68 69 70 71

72 73 74 75 76

Henry Smith, Ministering Women (London: Andrew Crombie, n.d.), p. 49. Flying Leaves 4:36 (1904), 141; Graham, Saved, p. 300. Graham, Saved, pp. 300, 305; Flying Leaves 7:65 (1907), 68; 8:72 (1908), 186. HPMMS 20:2 (1909), 25–6; Graham, Saved, p. 365. Bagwell, Outcast London, pp. 26, 28. Graham, Saved, p. 316. Flying Leaves 2:14 (1902), title page, 189; HPMMS 20:2 (1909), 27; Graham, Saved, pp. 297, 333. Cooke, Mildmay, pp. 51–2; Graham, Saved, p. 371. Smith, Ministering, p. 53; Flying Leaves 6:60 (1906), 187, 7:70 (1907), 159. Dorothea Price Hughes, The Sisters of the People and Their Work (London: Horace Marshall, n.d.), passim. Flying Leaves 4:30 (1904), 39; 1898, 122; Highways and Hedges 10:1 (1897), 18. Bagwell, Outcast London, p. 27; Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes, p. 169. Flying Leaves 4:34 (1904), 115. Advance 12:2 (1902), 10. Flying Leaves 6:52 (1906), 31; 7:4 (1907), 53. Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes, p. 168. Light and Truth 20:3 (1912), 1124; 20:6 (1912), 1150. Smith, Ministering, p. 110. Graham, Saved, pp. 68–70; Minutes of Proceedings of the Annual Assembly of Representatives of the United Methodist Free Churches (London: A. Crombie, 1857–1907), 1903, pp. 254–5, quoted in Graham, Saved, p. 70. Lenton, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ p. 69. Lenton, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ pp. 74–5. Highways and Hedges 5:12 (1892), 234. Lenton, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ pp. 75–6. Graham, Saved, p. 56; Flying Leaves 5:38 (1905), 189. Smith, Ministering, pp. 54, 111–12. Flying Leaves 5:38 (1905), 20. Flying Leaves 6:57 (1906), 103; 10:94 (1910), 3. Quoted in Graham, Saved, pp. 60, 62. Flying Leaves 4:37 (1904), 170; 8:73 (1908), 204. Flying Leaves 5:46 (1905), 338; 7:61 (1907); 7:63 (1907), 45; 10:98 (1910), 74; 12:123 (1912), 102, 139; Highways and Hedges 11:10 (1898), 233–4; 14:3 (1901), 70; Graham, Saved, pp. 57–63. Flying Leaves 12:123 (1912), 102. Bagwell, Outcast London, p. 26; Advance 12:2 (1902), 7. Graham, Saved, p. 8. Bagwell, Outcast London, pp. 39–40. Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, My Part in a Changing World (London: Gollancz, 1938), p. 32. Yearbook and Directory of Women’s Work, 1888, p. 57; Cooke, Mildmay, passim. Hughes, Sisters, p. 108. Hughes, Sisters, pp. 109–11; Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes, p. 235. Flying Leaves 7:69 (1907), 144–7. Thomas J. Cope, The Hand of God in the History of the Deaconess Institute of the United

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women and the shaping of british methodism 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

Methodist Church(London: A Crombie, n.d.), p. 19, quoted in Graham, Saved, p.72. Smith, Ministering, pp. 114–15; Highways and Hedges, 24:3 (1911), 75. HPMMS 20:2 (1909), 23. PMQR 7:2 (1885), 435. PMQR 7:3 (1885), 678. PMM 74:2 (1894), 225. APMM 81:4 (1900), 295; 83:3 (1902), 221; 83:6 (1902), 416; 83:7 (1902), 334. PMM 74:7 (1894), 630; APMM 80:8 (1899), 628. E. Dorothy Graham, ‘Two Primitive Methodist women preachers,’ PWHS 55:5 (2007), 50–5. Primitive Methodist Leader, 28 February 1907, 7 March 1907. Lenton, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ pp. 74–7; Vicinus, Independent Women, p. 81. Graham, Chosen, p. 289. Digest of the Rules, Regulations, and Usages, p. 91. Bible Christian Minutes 1902, president’s circular 1902, 9; Bible Christian Minutes 1903. Currie, Methodism Divided, p. 87. Bible Christian Minutes 1892; BCM, September 1894, p. 569. BCM 71:9 (1894), 556–7; Bible Christian Minutes 1894, pp. 46–7. BCM 71:9 (1894), 556–7. BCM 71:9 (1894), 571–2. Bible Christian Minutes 1895. Not all pages in the minutes were numbered.. Bible Christian Minutes 1898. A male evangelist earned approximately £5 a month more than a woman. Bible Christian Minutes 1897, p. 16. Bible Christian Minutes 1895, 1897; Mills, ‘What are our thoughts?,’ p. 26. Bible Christian Minutes 1894; BCM 72:11 (1895), 698; 73:6 (1896), 497. Bible Christian Minutes 1896; BCM 80:1 (1901), 8. Bible Christian Minutes 1900, 1904; BCM 74:9 (1897), 334. APMM 81:4 (1900), 315. UMM 2:9 (1909), 390. BCM 86:7 (1907), 310. Kaye, Lees, and Thorpe, ‘Daughters of Dissent,’ p. 194. Minutes of the United Methodist Church (London: JMC Publishing House), 1907, p. 90; 1908, p. 62; Bible Christian Minutes 1907, p. 6. Graham, Saved, pp. 347–8. Kaye, Lees, and Thorpe, ‘Daughters of Dissent,’ p. 201; Elaine Kaye, ‘A turning-point in the ministry of women: the ordination of the first woman to the Christian ministry in England in September 1917,’ in Shiels and Wood (eds), Women in the Church, pp.  506–10. UMM 6:3 (1913), 121–2. Oldstone-Moore, Hugh Price Hughes, pp. 291–3. Highways and Hedges 23:10 (1910), 141. Graham, Saved, p. 390. Hughes, Sisters, p. 112. Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, p. 1. Anderson, ‘Women preachers,’ pp. 470, 474, 481. Quoted in Christian, 9 February 1871, 6.

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women deaconesses in missions and itinerancy at home and revival abroad 117 Kaye, ‘Turning-point,’ p. 508. 118 Brian Heeney, The Women’s Movement in the Church of England 1850–1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 127. 119 Jacqueline de Vries, ‘Transforming the pulpit: preaching and prophecy in the British women’s suffrage movement,’ in Kienzle and Walker (eds), Women Preachers and Prophets, pp. 321–2, 326–7, 328–30; Kaye, Lees, and Thorpe, ‘Daughters of Dissent,’ p.  204. 120 De Vries, ‘Transforming the pulpit,’ pp. 318–19. 121 Timothy Larsen, Christabel Pankhurst: Fundamentalism and Feminism in Coalition (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002), pp. 21–5, 36–9, 92–5. 122 Kaye, Lees, and Thorpe, ‘Daughters of Dissent,’ pp. 200, 206; Rosman, Evolution, pp. 326–8. 123 Thomas Graham, Mow Cop and After: The Story of Primitive Methodism (London: Epworth Press, 1936), p. 16. 124 Graham, ‘Chosen,’ p. 192.

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Afterword In 1989 I stood in Gunwen farmyard, where once William, Catherine, and Mary O’Bryan stood. But, despite the plaque establishing William’s presence, this was not just their space, it was also mine. Like them, I knew where to find the violets, the strawberries, the hazelnuts, the sloes. Perhaps Mary too read in the oak tree’s branches and spent hours on her own in the small woodland area in the far corner of the farm. William claimed he was ‘born in the shadow of Helman Tor,’ and he must have crossed the moor, as we did, to climb to the top of the first crag and on clear days see the distant sea on both Cornish coasts. According to his grandson and biographer, among the granite boulders are ‘altar stones and other remains of the Druids,’ and a cave called Lady Bridget’s Parlour.1 I learned the secrets of the tor from Margaret Rundle, one of a family who had lived for generations next to the chapel built on O’Bryan’s land – in the mid-nineteenth century a Rundle emigrated to New Zealand, taking the Bible Christian faith with him.2 Margaret never mentioned Druids or Lady Bridget. Instead, she showed me where to find the rocking stones, huge blocks of granite that will rock gently if you stand in the right place. She claimed that when you rocked them you would find out whom you would marry. Did Mary know that? Once I began my research I realized that the O’Bryans would scarcely have recognized the farm as it is now. In a folder of information collected by Thomas Shaw and now in the library of the Cornish Museum in Truro I found tracings of old maps of the farm in 1775, three years before O’Bryan’s birth, and 1842, nearly thirty years after he left. The first shows three fields: Rocky Park, Town Meadow, and Long Meadow. I knew a Rocky Park and a Long Field, but not in this configuration. The second drawing has different field names: Lower and Higher Well Park and Great Field. Here I experienced the researcher’s delighted jolt of recognition. In William’s diary in the John Rylands Library in Manchester, I had noted that he recorded three dreams of being in a field called Well Park, each time seeing water there. They are happy dreams. In 1856, the most detailed of the three, he is with his father and delights in the field ‘so richly covered over with corn almost ripe for harvest, and especially at the higher end those springs and such clear water.’ In 1863 he is sitting on a hedge next to ‘Grand [Great?] Field’ with his daughter Catherine. They went to the bottom of the field, where there was a pool of water and ‘It seemed we were in heaven. I felt it, and said, now we are in heaven.’ Less than a year

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women in missions afterword at home and abroad later, in the third dream the pool is large enough to swim in, and ‘tho waking, I never ventured to swim yet now I courageously plunged in and worked my arms briskly, without any fear, and pushed on courageously.’3 The map shows the field we called Foredoors. There was a duck pond at the higher end. The O’Bryans’ and my shared places sparked my interest in a name I would have passed by in any other location. For I too have a past, and William’s and mine intersect in interesting ways. We grew up in the same place, and both settled in New York State. Like Catherine but not Mary, I experienced involuntary emigration, and like Catherine, I learned to be an American. For the first time I felt a real connection with the past I am researching. I always knew that handling things my subjects had touched was not enough – that I felt detached, somehow lacking in empathy. Musing on what makes us choose our subjects, Blanche Wiesen Cook wrote of the need for ‘chemical, emotional, and profound connections … We may not always like our subject, but there is no reason for ­selection unless there is a basis for identification – for real understanding.’4 I needed the binding thread of a shared but private location, the extended space I still know best in the world because it was circumscribed, remote, and I had thirteen years to explore it, to know its intimate landscape. I passionately wanted to know the trivial details – it didn’t matter that they are interesting only to me. I had to know them to forge those profound connections, to reimagine the lives of people remote in time but occupying a known space. It was this that compelled me to find their diaries, to tell their stories, and to embark on the journey that became this book. Notes

1 2 3 4

Thorne, William O’Bryan, p. 32. Bourne, Bible Christians, p. 375. William O’Bryan diary, entries for 5 May 1856, 12 June 1863, 25 January 1864. Blanche Wiesen Cook, ‘Biographer and subject: a critical connection,’ in Carol Ascher, Louise de Salvo, and Sarah Ruddick (eds), Between Women: Biographers, Novelists, Critics, Teachers and Artists Write about Their Work on Women (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), p. 397.

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Bibliography Manuscripts Cornwall Record Office X241/4 Diary of Lois Anna Thorne, with introduction and notes by R. Keith Parsons. Privately printed by the author. Diary of Mary O’Bryan. Library of the Royal Cornwall Institution, Truro. Diary of Serena Thorne. South Australian Synod Church History Center, Uniting Church of South Australia, Black Forest, Adelaide. Microfiche in author’s possession. Diary of William O’Bryan. Methodist Archives, John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester. Lewis Court Bible Christian Collection, Methodist Archives and Research Centre, John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester. Minute book of the Watton Primitive Methodist Circuit. Norfolk County Record Office. Minute books of the Primitive Methodist South-East London Mission. Southwark Local Studies Library, London. Papers 1885–1915 of the Rev. Samuel Pollard, Missionary Archives, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Samuel Pollard 1888–1970 (Kendall papers), Missionary Archives, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Thomas Shaw Collection, Library of the Royal Cornwall Institution, Truro.

Periodicals Advance: A Quarterly Review of the West London Mission Aldersgate Primitive Methodist Magazine Arminian Magazine (Bible Christian) Bible Christian Magazine China’s Millions Christian Flying Leaves from the Wesley Deaconess Movement Herald of the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society Highways and Hedges: the Children’s Advocate Joyful News Light and Truth: Monthly Organ of the Primitive Methodist South East London Mission Methodist Magazine Methodist New Connexion Magazine Primitve Methodist Reader Primitive Methodist Magazine

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women in missions bibliography at home and abroad Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review and Christian Ambassador Primitive Methodist: A Weekly Journal of Denominational News Primitive Methodist Wesleyan Magazine (Ireland) Revival South Australian Register United Methodist Magazine Wesleyan Methodist Magazine

Published primary sources Antliff, William. Woman: Her Position and Mission. London: T. King, 1856. Armstrong, Isabella T. A Plea for Modern Prophetesses. Glasgow: George Gallie, 1866. Arthur, Rev. William. Women’s Work in India. London: T. Woolmer, 1882. Baggaly, Rev. William. A Digest of the Minutes, Institutions, Polity, Doctrines, Ordinances, and Literature, of the Methodist New Connexion. London: Rev. William Cook, Methodist New Connexion Book Room, 1862. Balfour, Clara Lucas. A Sketch of Hannah Kilham. London: W. & F. G. Cash, 1854. Barker, David. A Catechism of the Methodist New Connexion. Shewing the Origin of that Community, with the Great Principles on which it is Founded, also Containing Biographical Sketches of its Most Distinguished Founders. London: H. Groombridge, 1834. Beckworth, William. A Book of Remembrance, Being Records of Leeds Primitive Methodism Compiled During the Centenary Year. London: W. A. Hammond, 1910. Bonar, Horatius. The Church Hymn Book. Hatfield: Edward Francis, 1873. Booth, Catherine. Female Teaching; or, the Rev. A. A. Reese versus Mrs. Palmer, Being a Reply to the Above Gentleman on the Sunderland Revival. 2nd edn. London: George J. Stephenson, 1861. Booth, Catherine. Female Ministry, or, Women’s Right to Preach the Gospel. London: Morgan and Chase, 1870. Bourne, F. W. Ready in Life and Death: A Brief Memorial of Mrs. S. M. Terrett. London: Bible Christian Book Room, 1893. Bourne, F. W. The Centenary Life of James Thorne. London: Bible Christian Bookroom, 1895. Bourne, F. W. The Bible Christians: Their Origin and History. London: Bible Christian Bookroom, 1905. Bourne, Hugh. ‘Remarks on the ministry of women.’ In John Walford, Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Late Venerable Hugh Bourne, ed. Rev. W. Antliff. London: T. King, 1855. Braithwaite, Rev. Robert (ed). The Life and Letters of Rev. William Pennefather. London: John F. Shaw, n.d. Buckland, Rev. Augustus. Women in the Mission Field, Pioneers and Martyrs. London: Isbister & Co. Ltd., 1895.

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bibliography Champness, Eliza M. The Life-Story of Thomas Champness. London: Charles H. Kelly, 1907. The Consolidated Rules of the Primitive Methodist Church. London: Robert Bryant, 1902. Cooke, Harriette J. Mildmay; or, The Story of the First Deaconess Institution. 2nd edn. London: Elliott Stock, 1893. Crane, Denis. James Flanagan: The Story of a Remarkable Career. London: S. W. Partridge, n.d. Crothers, T. D., T. Rider, W. Longbottom, and W. J. Townsend. The Centenary of the Methodist New Connexion 1797–1897. London: Geo. Burroughs, 1897. Cryer, Mary. The Devotional Remains of Mrs. Cryer. London: Hamilton Adams, 1854. Daniels, Rev W. H. The Illustrated History of Methodism in Great Britain, America and Australia, from the Days of the Wesleys to the Present Year. New York: Hunt & Eaton, 1891. Davies, Rupert (ed.). The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989. Deed for Establishing the Identity of the Bible Christian Conference. Shebbear: James Thorne, 1831. A Digest of the Rules and Regulations of the People Denominated Bible Christians. Shebbear: James Thorne, 1838. A Digest of the Rules, Regulations, and Usages of the People Denominated Bible Christians. 6th edn. London: Bible Christian Book Room, 1892. Fell, Margaret. Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed of by the Scriptures. www.qhpress.org/text/fell.html. Fleetwood, William. The Perfectionists Examined; or Inherent Perfection in this Life, no Scripture Doctrine, To which is affix’d, the Rev. M. Whitefield’s Thoughts on this Subject, in a Letter to Mr. Wesley. London: J. Roberts, 1741. Freeman, Ann. A Memoir of the Life and Ministry of Ann Freeman, A Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ. London: Harvey and Darton, 1826. Freeman, Henry. False Prophets Described, and Thoughts on the Call, Appointment, and Support of Ministers, also on Worship and a Vindication of the Ministry of Women. Dublin: n.p., 1824. A Full Report of the Speeches at the Great Meeting Held in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London in Support of Primitive Methodist Home and Foreign Missions. London: Thomas Church, 1862. General Minutes Made at the Annual Conference of the Primitive Methodist Connexion. London: Robert Bryant, 1849–1915. General Minutes of the Primitive Methodist Connexion. London: R. Davies, 1860. Grattan Guinness, Fanny. ‘She Spake of Him,’ Being Recollections of the Loving Labours and Early Death of the Late Mrs. Henry Dening. Bristol: W. Mack, 1873. Gregory, Benjamin. Side Lights on the Conflicts of Methodism During the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century 1827–1852. London: Cassell, 1899. Herod, G. Biographical Sketches of Those Preachers Whose Labours Contributed

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women in missions bibliography at home and abroad to the Organization and Early Extension of Primitive Methodism. London: T. King, 1855. Hooper, Geraldine. Addresses and Hymns by the Late Mrs. Henry Dening (née Geraldine Hooper). London: S. W. Partridge, n.d. Hooper, Geraldine. Sanctified Affliction, or Jairus’s Daughter: An Extempore Address. London: S. W. Partridge, n.d. Hooper, Geraldine. ‘Let Us Pass Over to the Other Side.’ Being the Substance of an Extempore Address Delivered by Miss Geraldine Hooper at St. George’s Hall, Plymouth Dec. 1867. London: S. W. Partridge, 1868. Hooper, Geraldine (Mrs. Henry Dening). Women’s Ministry in the Gospel: An Extempore Address Delivered at St. James’s Hall, Plymouth. London: S. W. Partridge, 1869. Hughes, Dorothea Price. The Sisters of the People and Their Work. London: Horace Marshall, n.d. Hughes, Katherine Price. The Story of My Life. London: Epworth Press, 1945. Jackson, Thomas (ed.). The Lives of the Early Methodist Preachers. London: Wesley Conference Office, 1865–6. The James Thorne Centenary: A Souvenir. London: Bible Christian Book Room, 1895. The Journals of William Clowes. London: Hallam and Holliday, 1844. A Jubilee Memorial of Incidents in the Rise and Progress of the Bible Christian Connexion. Shebbear: Bible Christian Book Committee, 1865. Kendall, Rev. H. B. The Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church. 2 vols. London: Edwin Dalton, 1906. Kilner, Rev. John. Remarks on Christian Women’s Work in Heathendom. London: Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Wesleyan Missionary Society for Promoting Female Education, 1874. Landels, William. Woman’s Sphere and Work, Considered in the Light of Scripture: A Book for Young Women. London: J. Nisbet, 1859. Landels, William. Woman: Her Position and Power. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1871. Langham, James P. The Tunstall Book: A Souvenir of a Hundred Years of Grace, 1810 – 1910. [Tunstall?]: n.d. A Letter to the Rev. John Davis, Wesleyan Minister, on the Subject of the Late Secession from the Society under his Superintendence by a Minister of Derby. Derby: W. & W. Pike, n.d. [1832]. Life of the Rev. Alexander Kilham, Formerly a Preacher under the Rev. John Wesley and One of the Founders of the Methodist New Connexion in 1797. London: R. Groombridge and Manchester: The Methodist New Connexion Book Room, 1838. Lightfoot, Rev John. The Power of Faith and Prayer Exemplified in the Life and Labours of Mrs. Mary Porteous, ‘A Mother in Israel’. London: R. Davies, 1862. Longbottom, W. and W. J. Townsend. The Centenary of the Methodist New Connexion 1797–1897. London: Geo. Burroughs, 1897. Macdonald, George. Facts Against Fiction; or A Statement of the Real Causes which

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bibliography Produced the Division among the Wesleyan Methodists in Derby. 2nd edn. Derby: W. & W. Pike, 1832. Minutes of the Conferences of the Bible Christian Connexion. Mill Pleasant: S. Thorne, 1820–1907. Minutes of Conversations between Preachers and Representatives from the Societies in the Methodist New Connexion, at the Annual Conference. Hanley: T. Allbut, 1813. Minutes of the Methodist Conferences 1744–1798. London: John Mason, 1862. Minutes of the Methodist Conferences 1799–1807. London: John Mason, 1863. Minutes of the Primitive Methodist Connexion. London: Primitive Methodist Connexion, 1836, 1916. Minutes of the Several Conversations, between Preachers and Representatives of the Arminian Methodist Connexion, at the Yearly Meeting, Begun in Derby, on Tuesday, June 25, 1833. Derby: T. Ward, 1833. Minutes of the United Methodist Church. London: JMC Publishing House, 1907. O’Bryan, William. ‘A discourse in vindication of the Gospel being published by females.’ BCAM 2:12 (1823). O’Bryan, William. ‘Memoirs of my mother.’ BCAM 2:2 (1823). O’Bryan, William. ‘The rise and progress of the connexion of people called the Arminian Bible Christians.’ BCAM 2:8 (1823). O’Bryan, William. ‘The rise and progress of the Bible Christian Connexion.’ BCAM 2:1–3:12 (1823–4). Palmer, Phoebe. Four Years in the Old World. New York: Foster and Palmer, 1867. Parr, J. Tolefree. The Angel of Blackfriars, or the Sister with the Shining Face. London: W. A. Hammond, 1912. Parsons, R. Keith. The Diary of Lois Anna Thorne. Privately printed, n.d. Penny, Ann Judith. The Afternoon of Unmarried Life. London: Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts, 1858. Pethick-Lawrence, Emmeline. My Part in a Changing World. London: Gollancz, 1938. Pipe, John. ‘Memoir of Miss Isabella Wilson.’ Methodist Magazine 31:9 (1808). Pocock, George. A Statement of Facts Concerned with the Ejectment of Certain Ministers from the Society of the Wesleyan Methodists in the City of Bristol in February and March, 1820. Bristol: Philip Rose, 1820. Pocock, George. Facts Without a Veil, or A Further Account of the Circumstances Connected with the Ejectment of Certain Ministers from the Society of Wesleyan Methodists in this City; in Reply to a Pamphlet Published by Order of the Methodist Leaders’ Meeting and Improperly Titled ‘A Correct Statement of Facts’. Bristol: Philip Rose, 1820. Pollard, Samuel. Eyes of the Earth. London: Cargate Press, 1954. Reports of the Methodist New Connexion Home, Colonial and Foreign Missionary Societies. London: John Hudston, 1875–99. Reports of the Home and Foreign Missions of the United Methodist Free Churches. London: Andrew Crombie, 1899–19807. Robinson, Cecilia. The Ministry of Deaconesses. London: Methuen, 1898.

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women in missions bibliography at home and abroad Roe, Henry. West African Scenes. London: Elliot Stock, 1874. Ruddle, Thomas. Samuel Thomas Thorne, Missionary to China. London: Bible Christian Book Room, 1893. Rules of the Arminian Methodist Societies, First Established in Derby, in the Year 1832. Derby: Ward & Probett, 1832. Ruskin, John. Sesame and Lilies. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, n.d. Russell, K.P. (ed.). Memoirs of the Rev. John Pyer. London: John Snow, 1865. Smith, Henry. Ministering Women: The Story of the Work of the Sisters Connected with the United Methodist Deaconess Institute, together with Some Account of the Origin and History of the Institute. London: Andrew Crombie, n.d. Stamp, John. The Female Advocate: or, The Preaching of Women. London: J. Pasco, 1841. Stephens, John. Christian Patriotism: A Sermon Preached at Rotherham, February 28, 1810, the Day Appointed for a National Fast. Rotherham: John Plumbe, 1810. Taft, Mary. Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Mary Taft; Formerly Miss Barritt. London: J. Stevens, 1827. Taft, Zechariah. Thoughts on Female Preaching with Extracts from the Writings of Locke, Martin, &c. Dover: G. Ledger, 1803. Taft, Zechariah. The Scripture Doctrine of Women’s Preaching: Stated and Examined. York: R. & J. Richardson, 1820. Taft, Zechariah. Biographical Sketches of the Lives and Public Ministry of Various Holy Women; Whose Eminent Usefulness and Successful Labours in the Church of Christ Have Entitled Them to be Enrolled among the Great Benefactors of Mankind. London: Kershaw & Baynes, 1825. Facsimile reproduction: Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1992. Telford, John. Women in the Mission Field: Glimpses of Christian Women among the Heathen. London: Charles H. Kelly, 1895. Telford, John. A Short History of Wesleyan Methodist Foreign Missions. London: Charles H. Kelly, 1906. The Tent Methodists’ Magazine, and Register of Events Connected with the Spread of the Gospel at Home. Vol. 1. Bristol: Wansborough and Saunders, 1823. Thorne, John. James Thorne of Shebbear: A Memoir. London: Bible Christian Bookroom, 1873. Thorne, S. L. A Funeral Sermon Occasioned by the Death of Mrs. Catherine O’Bryan, Wife of Mr. William O’Bryan, Founder of the Bible Christians. Shebbear: Samuel Thorne, 1860. Thorne, S. L. Samuel Thorne, Printer. Plymouth: G. F. Friend, 1874. Thorne, S. L. William O’Bryan, Founder of the Bible Christians: The Man and His Work. Plymouth: J. C. Holland, 1888. Thorne, S. L. The Maiden Preacher: Wife and Mother. London: S. W. Partridge, 1889. To the Circuit Stewards, Society Stewards, Class-Leaders and Principal Friends, Who Feel Interested in the Establishment and Spiritual Welfare of the Bible Christian Connexion. Shebbear: S. Thorne, 1830.

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bibliography To the Members of the Arminian Society, Derby. Derby: T. Ward, n.d. Towle, Nancy. Vicissitudes Illustrated, in the Experience of Nancy Towle, in Europe and America. Portsmouth, NH: John Caldwell, 1833. Townsend, W. J. Alexander Kilham, the First Methodist Reformer. London: J. C. Watts, 1890. Various Regulations Made by the Conference of the Primitive Methodist Connexion 1836. Facsimile reprint. Leigh-on-Sea: M. R. Publishing, 1975. Walford, Rev. J. Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Venerable Hugh Bourne. London: T. King, 1855–56. Ward, William J. In and Around the Oron Country. London, W. A. Hammond, n.d. Wesley, John. The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley. Ed. Nehemiah Curnock. London: Epworth Press, 1909–16. Wesley, John. The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley. 8 vols. Ed. John Telford. London: Epworth Press, 1931. Williams, Martha. Memoirs of the Life and Character of Ann Carr: Containing an Account of Her Conversion to God, Her Devoted Labours and Her Happy Death. Leeds: S. Moody, 1841. Williams, Martha, Ann Carr, and Sarah Eland. A Selection of Hymns, for the Use of the Female Revivalists. Dewsbury: J. Willan, 1824. Wiseman, Nathaniel. Elizabeth Baxter (Wife of Michael Paget Baxter) Saint, Evangelist, Preacher, Teacher, and Expositor. London: The Christian Herald, 1928. Wood, Rev. Joseph. Sunset at Noonday: Memorials of Mrs. T. J. Robson, of Hull. London: G. Lamb, 1871. Wood, Thomas. Correct Statement of Facts, Connected with What Mr. George Pocock Has Termed The Ejectment of Certain Ministers from the Society of Wesleyan Methodists in the City of Bristol. Bristol: Nathaniel Lownes, 1820. Woodcock, Henry. The Romance of Reality: Being Sketches of Homespun Heroes and Heroines and the Part they Played in the Making of Primitive Methodism. London: Edwin Dalton, 1910. Woolcock, Rev. J. History of the Bible Christians in the Isle of Wight. London: Bible Christian Book Room, 1897. The Yearbook and Directory of Women’s Work. London: Labour News Publication Office, 1882–95.

Secondary sources Abelove, Henry. ‘The sexual politics of early Wesleyan Methodism.’ In Jim Obelkevich, Lyndal Roper, and Samuel Raphael (eds), Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Politics, and Patriarchy. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. Acornley, Rev. John H. A History of the Primitive Methodist Church in the United States of America. Fall River, MA: B. R. Acornley, 1909. Anderson, John. ‘Primitive Methodism and mammon.’ In James Crawfoot and the

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women in missions bibliography at home and abroad Clarendon Press, 1980. Prochaska, F. K. ‘Body and soul: Bible nurses and the poor in Victorian London.’ Historical Research 60:143 (1987). Prochaska, F. K. ‘A mother’s country: mothers’ meetings and family welfare in Britain, 1850–1950.’ History 74:10 (1989). Pyke, Richard. The Early Bible Christians. London: Epworth Press, 1941. Pyke, Richard. The Golden Chain. London: Henry Hooks, n.d. Rack, Henry. ‘Domestic visitation: a chapter in early nineteenth century evangelism.’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History 24:4 (1973). Rack, Henry. ‘James Crawfoot and the Magic Methodists.’ In James Crawfoot and the Magic Methodists. Englesea Brook: Englesea Brook Chapel and Museum, 2003. Ram, Kalpana and Margaret Jolly (eds). Maternities and Modernities: Colonial and Postcolonial Experiences in South Asia and the Pacific. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Randall, Ian. ‘The social gospel: a case study.’ In John Wolffe (ed.), Evangelical Faith and Public Zeal: Evangelicals and Society in Britain 1780 – 1820. London: SPCK, 1995. Rawlyk, George A. and Mark A. Noll (eds). Amazing Grace: Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993. Rice, Robert Jay. ‘Religious revival and British Methodism, 1855–1865.’ Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1979, published by University Microfilms International. Robertson, Roland. The Sociological Interpretation of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell, 1969. Rosman, Doreen. The Evolution of the English Churches 1500–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Rowbotham, Judith. ‘Ministering angels, not ministers: women’s involvement in the foreign missionary movement, c. 1860–1910.’ In Sue Morgan (ed.), Women, Religion and Feminism in Britain, 1750–1900. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Rowe, John. Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution. St. Austell, Cornwall: Cornish Hillside Publications, 1993. Royle, Edward. ‘When did Methodists stop attending their parish churches?’ PWHS 56:6 (2008). Ruether, Rosemary and Rosemary Keller (eds). Women and Religion in America: The Nineteenth Century. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. Ruether, Rosemary Radford and Eleanor McLaughlin (eds). Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979. Russell, R. W. The Life of James Flanagan. London: Holborn Publishing House, 1920. Scotland, Nigel. Methodism and the Revolt of the Field: A Study of the Methodist Contribution to Agricultural Trade Unionism in East Anglia 1872–96.

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bibliography Gloucester: A. Sutton, 1981. Scott, Joan Wallach. ‘Gender: a useful category of historical analysis.’ American Historical Review 91:5 (1986). Scott, Joan Wallach. ‘A woman who has only paradoxes to offer: Olympe de Gouges claims rights for women.’ In Sara E. Meltzer and Leslie W. Rabine (eds), Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Semmel, Bernard. The Methodist Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Semple, Rhoda Anne. Missionary Women: Gender, Professionalism and the Victorian Idea of the Christian Mission. Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2003. Seton, Rosemary. ‘“Open doors for female labourers”: women candidates of the London Missionary Society, 1875–1914.’ In Robert A. Bickers and Rosemary Seton (eds), Missionary Encounters: Sources and Issues. Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996. Sexton, R. ‘Serena Thorne’s diary.’ Uniting Church of South Australia Historical Society Newsletter 1:1 (1978). Shaw, Thomas. The Bible Christians 1815–1907. London: Epworth Press, 1965. Shaw, Thomas and Colin C. Short. Feet of Clay: The Life and Ministry of William O’Bryan, Founder of the Bible Christians. Porthleven: Colin C. Short, 2007. Shiels, W. J. and Diana Wood (eds). Women in the Church. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Shiman, Lilian Lewis. ‘“Changes are dangerous”: women and temperance in Victorian England,’ in Gail Malmgreen (ed.), Religion in the Lives of English Women, 1760–1930. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Shoemaker, Robert. Gender in English Society, 1650–1850. London: Longman, 1998. Shorney, David. ‘“Women may preach, but men must govern”: gender roles in the development of the Bible Christian Connexion.’ In Gender and Christian Religion: Studies in Church History 8. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998. Shorney, David. ‘The Bible Christians in London.’ Wesley Historical Society: London and South-East Branch Journal 75:1 (2007). Short, Colin C. ‘The Bible Christians in Scotland.’ PWHS 48:10 (1991). Short, Colin C. Durham Colliers and West Country Methodists: The Story of the Bible Christian Mission in County Durham 1874–1910. Kidderminster: Colin C. Short, 1995. Snell, K. D. M. ‘The Sunday school movement: child labour, denominational control and working-class culture.’ In K. D. M. Snell and Paul S. Ell, Rival Jerusalems: The Geography of Victorian Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Snell, K. D. M. and Paul S. Ell. Rival Jerusalems: The Geography of Victorian Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Swain, Shurlee. ‘In these days of female evangelists and hallelujah lasses: women preachers and the redefinition of gender roles in the churches of late nineteenth-century Australia.’ Journal of Religious History 26:1 (2002). Sykes, Richard (ed.). Beyond the Boundaries: Preaching in the Wesleyan Tradition. Oxford: Applied Theology Press, 1998.

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women in missions bibliography at home and abroad Thomas, Hilah F., Rosemary Skinner Keller, and Louise L. Queen (eds). Women in New Worlds: Historical Perspectives on the Wesleyan Tradition. Nashville: Abingdon, 1981, 1982. Thomas, Keith. ‘Women and the Civil War sects.’ In T. Ashton (ed.), Crisis in Europe. New York: Basic Books, 1965. Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. Rev. edn. London: Pelican Books, 1968. Thorne, Roger. ‘The Last Bible Christians.’ Transactions of the Devon Association for the Advancement of Science 107:1 (1975). Thorne, Susan. ‘Missionary-imperial feminism.’ In Mary Taylor Huber and Nancy C. Lutkehaus (eds), Gendered Missions: Women and Men in Missionary Discourse and Practice. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. Tosh, John. Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-Century Britain. London: Pearson, 2005. Townsend, W. J., Herbert B. Workman, and George Eayrs. New History of Methodism. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1909. Turner, John Munsey. ‘Primitive Methodism from Mow Cop to Peake’s Com­­­ mentary.’ In From Mow Cop to Peake, 1807–1932. Lynwood Grove: Wesley Historical Society, Yorkshire Branch, 1982. Turner, John Munsey. John Wesley: The Evangelical Revival and the Rise of Methodism in England. London: Epworth Press, 2002. Tyrrell, Ian. Woman’s World/Woman’s Empire: The Women’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Valenze, Deborah. Prophetic Sons and Daughters: Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Valenze, Deborah. The First Industrial Woman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Van Die, Marguerite. ‘“The double vision”: evangelical piety as derivative and indigenous in Victorian English Canada.’ In Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk (eds), Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies in Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles and Beyond, 1700–1990. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Vicinus, Martha. Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women 1850 – 1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Vickers, Jon. ‘Methodism and society in south central England, 1740–1851.’ Ph.D. Diss., Southampton University, 1987. Vickery, Amanda. ‘Golden age to separate spheres? A review of the categories and chronology of women’s history.’ Historical Journal 36:2 (1992). Virgoe, Norma (ed.). Angels and Impudent Women: Women in Methodism. Loughborough: Wesley Historical Society, 2007. Walker, Pamela J. ‘A chaste and fervid eloquence: Catherine Booth and the ministry of women in the Salvation Army. In Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker (eds). Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

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bibliography Walker, Pamela J. Pulling the Devil’s Kingdom Down: The Salvation Army in Victorian Britain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Walsh, John. ‘Methodism and the origins of English-speaking evangelicalism.’ In Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk (eds), Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies in Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles and Beyond, 1700–1990. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Ward, William R. The Protestant Evangelical Awakening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Ward, William R. Faith and Faction. London: Epworth Press, 1993. Watson, Kevin. ‘National identity and Primitive Methodism in the United States: a transatlantic perspective.’ American Nineteenth Century History 4:2 (2003). Watts, Michael R. The Dissenters I: From the Reformation to the French Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. Watts, Michael R. The Dissenters II: The Expansion of Evangelical Nonconformity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. Weale, David. ‘Francis Metherall.’ Historical Sites and Monuments Board of Canada Agenda Paper, 1996. Welter, Barbara. ‘She hath done what she could: Protestant women’s missionary careers in nineteenth-century America.’ American Quarterly 30:5 (1978). Werner, Julia Stewart. The Primitive Methodist Connexion: Its Background and Early History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984. Wickes, Michael J. The West Country Preachers. Published by author, 1987. Wilson, Bryan R. Patterns of Sectarianism: Organization and Ideology in Social and Religious Movements. London: Heinemann, 1967. Wilson, Linda. Constrained by Zeal: Female Spirituality amongst Nonconformists 1825–1875. Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2000. Wilson, Linda. ‘Beads of memory: activism in the biographies of Methodist women.’ In Norma Virgoe (ed), Angels and Impudent Women: Women in Methodism. Loughborough: Wesley Historical Society, 2007. Wolffe, John (ed.). Evangelical Faith and Public Zeal: Evangelicals and Society in Britain 1780 – 1820. London: SPCK, 1995. Wolffe, John. The Expansion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers and Finney. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2007. Wright, Sheila. ‘Quakerism and its implications for Quaker women: the women itinerant ministers of York Meeting, 1780–1840.’ In W. J. Shiels and Diana Wood (eds), Women in the Church. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. Yrigoyen, Charles, Jr. and Susan E. Warrick. Historical Dictionary of Methodism. London: The Scarecrow Press, 1996. Zikmund, Barbara Brown. ‘The struggle for the right to preach.’ In Rosemany Ruether and Rosemary Keller (eds), Women and Religion in America: The Nineteenth Century. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.

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Index Note: literary works can be found under authors’ names Annie, Sister see Davis, Emma Antliff, William 118, 123 Arminian Methodists 53, 58–62 Armstrong, Isabella 8, 187, 189–90 Plea for Modern Prophetesses 194–6 bands 29, 61 women and 30, 61 Bands of Hope 142–3 Banks, Sister Jeanie 257–8 Barritt, Mary 43, 47–8, 51, 54 bazaars 153–4 Bell, Mrs. William 185–6 Bible Christian Connexion 65–6, 72–6, 264 Australia and New Zealand 168, 216–17, 218 Canada 216, 218 China 207–9, 228–9, 234–5 Disruption of 1829 114–15 institutional change in 119–20 Sunday schools 150 teetotalism and 142 United Methodist Church and 267–8 USA 219–20 women preachers in 65, 72–6, 86, 91–4, 104–6, 107–12, 116–17, 120–3, 264–8 Biblenurses 141 Biblewomen 7, 140–1 in India and China 233 Booth, Catherine 8, 179–82, 197–9 Female Teaching 194–5 Booth, William 180–2 Bosanquet, Mary 26, 34–5, 48–9, 68–9 Bourne, Hugh 66–71, 74–5, 90–1, 108, 115, 155 on women preaching 68–9, 102

Boxer Rebellion 235 Bramwell, William 42, 47–8, 54 Brooks, Johanna 74–5 Buck, Mary Clarissa 160–1 Bulmer, Mary see Leuty, Mary Bulmer Bunting, Jabez 56–7, 149, 268 camp meetings 66–7, 69–70 Carkeek, Annie 265–6 Carr, Ann 101–4 Caughey, James 58, 173–4 chapel anniversaries and openings 157 debt 155 charitable work see philanthropy China Inland Mission 206–7, 221, 227, 228, 230 Church of England Methodist relationship with 51–2 Clarendon Code 16–17, 20 class meetings 29, 145 leaders 29 women leaders 30, 64, 145 Clowes, William 59, 68–71, 90–1, 96, 101 Conference, Irish Methodist 50 policy on women preaching 50 Conference, Wesleyan 44, 50, 51, 70 Cory, Ann 95, 100 Costin, Eva 214, 229, 264 cottage religion 6, 44, 52, 71–3, 123 Colton, Calvin 172 Crosby, Sarah 26, 30, 32–5, 58 Cutler, Ann 33, 47, 98 Dart, Elizabeth 75, 91–2 Davis, Emma 242–4 deaconesses 9, 244–9, 269 see also Sisters of the People

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index

Church of England and 247 duties of 254 evangelists 9, 245, 255–8, 269 opportunities for leadership of 259–60 recruitment and training 248–9, 252–3 UMFC 251, 255–6, 261 Wesleyan Methodist 249, 256–7 Deed of Declaration 44–5 Dening, Geraldine Hooper see Hooper Dening, Geraldine Dening, Henry 188–9 Dissent 15–17, 45 domestic ideal 118–19, 135–6 Dow, Lorenzo 66–7, 69–70, 172 Dunnel, Mary 58, 70–1, 90 Edwards, Lillie 265–8, 273 evangelicalism 18–19, 270 evangelism, female 88, 91, 199–200, 215, 264, 269, 272 attacks on 192–4 independent 161, 182–3 paid 214, 266 Evans, Elizabeth (Betsey) 42–3, 58, 77 extraordinary (exceptional) call 32, 34–6, 192, 195, 262 Fell, Margaret 34–5 Female Revivalists 102–4 Fetter Lane Society 18, 21, 32 Finney, Charles 137, 172–3 Finney, Elizabeth 177 Flanagan, James 251–2 Fletcher, Mary 60 see also Bosanquet, Mary Fliedner, Theodor 245–6 Fly Sheet Controversy 37, 173 Forlong, Gordon 183 Freeman, Ann see Mason, Ann fundraising 154–6 Giles, Eliza 265–6 Graham, Margaret 183–4

Great Yorkshire Revival 47–8, 54 Grattan Guinness, Fanny 188 Grattan Guinness, Henry 176, 230, 272 Gunwen Farm 1, 278 holiness movement 178, 197, 199, 221, 226, 247, 261 Hooper Dening, Geraldine, 158, 187–9, 196 publications of 190–1 Women’s Ministry in the Gospel 194–6 Hughes, Hugh Price 250, 269 Hughes, Katherine Price 250, 260, 270 Independent Methodists 67 itinerancy, female 3, 9, 116–17 decline of 117, 120–3 revival of 263, 264–7 Jary, Octavia 186–7 Joyful News Mission 199–200, 256 Kaiserswerth 245–6 Kilham, Alexander 53–5 Kilham, Hannah 225–6 Kirkland, Sarah 58, 91, 93, 107 Knowles, William 98, 219, 220 wife of 220 ladies’ auxiliaries 211, 224 Lake, Serena Thorne see Thorne, Serena Landels, William 136, 153, 200–1 Leeds Protestant Methodists 57 Leuty, Mary Bulmer 263 local preachers 32 female 7, 123, 147–8 London Missionary Society (LMS) 224, 228, 230 love feasts 31 Macfarlane, Jessie 183–5 McPherson, Annie 137–8 Magic Methodists 68, 90 Malpas, Lois see Thorne, Lois Malpas

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women in missions index at home and abroad Mason, Ann 95, 98, 99–101, 113 Methodist union 220, 267–8, 273 Metropolitan Tabernacle 139 women’s meeting in 139–40 Mildmay Institute 230, 247–9 millenarianism 191–2 missionaries, female 5, 210, 217–18, 222–3, 226–8 health of 229 marriage 230 pay 228 recruitment 228–9 subordination 233–4 teachers 224–5 training 229–30 work 231–2 missions 210–11, 258 city 141, 212, 214 conversion rates 234 collections for 155–6 foreign 8, 220–2 home 57–8, 212–14 settler colony 216–18 women’s influence on 221–2 Moody, Dwight 174, 197 Morgan, Richard C. 176, 182, 192–3 Mortimer, Frances 25, 30, 31 mothers’ meetings 140 Mow Cop 69–70 Murray, Grace 25, 26, 33, 50 music, chapel 148 New Connexion 53–6, 180, 264 Chinese mission 234 women preachers in 54–6 Nonconformity 5–6 O’Bryan, Catherine Cowlin 13–15, 37, 74–6, 85, 87, 91, 97–8, 99 O’Bryan, Mary see Thorne, Mary O’Bryan O’Bryan, William 1, 10, 44, 72–6, 91–2, 96, 278–9 loss of authority of 114–15 on marriage 113–14

on women preaching 74–5, 93 Oram, Lily 265–6 ordination, female 268, 272–3 Palmer, Phoebe 142, 175, 178–9 Pankhurst, Christabel 271–2 Pennefather, Catherine 137, 247–9, 260 Pennefather, William 137, 247–8 Pethick-Lawrence, Emmeline 254, 255, 260, 272 philanthropy 7, 26, 134–7, 144 Pocock, George 62–5 Pollard, Emmie 232, 235–6 Pollard, Samuel 207, 209, 224, 232, 234 Poole, Joshua and Mary 143 Porteous, Mary 95, 97, 98, 99, 104 preachers, male persecution of 94–5 Price Hughes, Hugh see Hughes, Hugh Price Price Hughes, Katherine see Hughes, Katherine Price Primitive Methodist Connexion 1, 4, 52, 60, 65–71, 101, 120–3 Australia 216 Canada 216, 217–18 institutional change in 119–20 organization of 108, 115–16 problems in 115–16, 144 Sunday schools 150–1 teetotalism and 142 USA 219–220 women in government of 263 women preachers in 65, 71, 90–1, 92, 93–4, 104, 107–12, 116, 262– 3, 273 professionalization 120–1 prostitutes, rescuing 138–9 Quaker Methodists 67 Quakers 73, 225 women speaking in meetings 20, 47 Ranyard, Ellen 139, 140, 233

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index Reed, Catherine 65, 93, 105, 114, 146 religious census (1851) 136, 174–5 revivals 7, 17, 18, 69, 171–3, 175–7, 196–7 Methodism and 199 women and 171, 176–8 Ripley, Dorothy 67–8, 172 Royden, Maud 272 Ryan, Sarah 26 Salvation Army 197–9 women and 198 Sankey, Ira 174, 197 Scottish Brethren 183, 196 sects, Methodist 6, 17, 52–3 Sisters of the People 5, 9, 244–5, 250–1 see also deaconesses duties 254–5 political activities of 259 Primitive Methodist 242, 251–2, 255 recruitment and training 252–3 Smith, Elizabeth 94, 98–9, 100, 116 Southcott, Joanna 50, 68 Spurgeon, Charles 139, 175 Squire, Ethel 229–30, 231, 232 Stamp, John 89–90 Stephenson, Rev. Thomas Bowman 249 Sunday schools 26, 148–52 anniversaries 152–3 women teachers in 151–2 Taft, Mary see Barritt, Mary Taft, Zechariah 25, 35, 48–9, 89 Biographical Sketches of the Lives and Public Ministry of various Holy Women 89 Thoughts on Female Preaching 48–9 Taylor, Hudson 221, 227, 228 tea meetings 153 temperance 133, 141–4 women and 142–3, 271 Tent Methodism 53, 62–5 policy on women preaching 64–5 Terrett, Sarah 132–4

Thistlethwayte, Mrs. A. F. 186 Thorne, Catherine see Reed, Catherine Thorne, James 73, 114–15, 123 support of women preaching 117, 123 Thorne, Lois Malpas 2, 206–9, 222–3, 227–8, 229, 232, 235 Thorne, Mary 73–4, 76 Thorne, Mary O’Bryan 1, 12, 14, 85–8, 92, 95, 96–7, 99, 110, 111–13, 115, 123, 167, 188 Thorne, Samuel 73, 87, 167 Thorne, Samuel Thomas 207 Thorne, Serena 1, 14, 167–71 Toleration Acts 16, 36, 46 Tomlinson, Betsey see Evans, Elizabeth Toms, Mary 96, 106 Todd, Constance 268, 271 Towle, Nancy 172 United Methodist Free Church (UMFC) 57–8, 173, 180, 211–12 China 236 United Methodist Church 267–8, 273 Watkins, Ruth 219 Werrey, Mary Ann 93, 100, 108 Wesleyan Methodism 1 attacks on 23, 46 divisions within 44–5 doctrines of 17, 25 French Revolution and 45 men and 22–3 organisation of 28–30, 31–2 women and 20–8, 269–70 women preachers in 89, 256, 261, 273 Wesleyan Methodist Association 57–8, 62, 226 Wesley, Charles 17–18 Wesley, John 1, 17, 18–22, 27, 52, 68 in Georgia 18 politics 19 views on women preaching 33–6

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women in missions index at home and abroad West London Mission 250 Whitefield, George 18–19, 28, 52 Williams, Martha 101–4 Willis, Sarah 99 Wilson, Isabella 25, 27, 28, 33 Wilson, Rose 159 wives, ministers’ 145–6, 217–18 wives, missionary 223–4 women preachers see also Bible Christian Connexion; evangelism, female; itinerancy, female; local preachers; Primitive Methodist Connexion content of public addresses 96–9, 190–2



descriptions 96–7, 102, 168, 178–9, 181–2, 183–4, 186, 188, 258, 266 duties 106–7 education 106, 265 earnings 109, 214, 228, 254, 265–6 health 112 hostility to 35, 56, 61, 192–3, 262–3, 269 justification for 34–5, 48–9, 55, 68–9, 74–6, 193–6, 261–2 length of service 111–12 marriage 112–13 special services 157–9 Women’s Christian Temperance Union 143–4 Women’s rights movement 271–2

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