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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 May 2025
Between 1849 and 1856, the Reform controversy cost the Wesleyan Methodist denomination an estimated 100,000 members. Triggered by personality conflicts within the Wesleyan ministry, the Reform movement drew on long-standing grievances, including tensions between itinerant ministers and local lay leaders. This case study of Wesleyan Reform in the Oxford Circuit explores the interplay of local and national events, and considers how protagonists in the controversy saw themselves as central to the structure and flourishing of Methodism and their opponents as subsidiary or peripheral. Different standpoints, combined with the perception or fear of marginalization, fractured the Oxford Wesleyan Circuit, in a microcosm of the impact of Wesleyan Reform on the denomination as a whole.
1 ‘Wesleyans’, Oxford Chronicle and Berks and Bucks Gazette, 25 August 1849, 2 [hereafter: OC].
2 Edward Thurland and W. Wiseman (to the editor), ‘A Reply to “Looker-On”’, OC, 1 September 1849, 1.
3 William Bartlett (to the editor), OC, 8 September 1849, 3, naming Josiah Crapper. Bartlett was one of the expelled preachers.
4 For the Reform crisis, see Urwin, Evelyn C., The Significance of 1849: Methodism’s Greatest Upheaval (London, 1949)Google Scholar; Ward, W. R., Religion and Society in England, 1790–1850 (London, 1972), 236–73Google Scholar.
5 Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, 1: 1744–1803 (London, 1812), 243–4. The total of 72,476 members included 13,700 in Ireland.
6 Hempton, David, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT, and London, 2005), 1–2 Google Scholar. The 1851 Census recorded attendances, not attendees, and the relationship between those categories has been interrogated by historians. A figure of 924,000 Wesleyan attendees has been calculated from the attendances by Watts, Michael R., The Dissenters, 2: The Expansion of Evangelical Nonconformity (Oxford, 1995), 22–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with table at 28.
7 The Wesleys’ itinerant or travelling preachers evolved into Wesleyan Methodist ministers in the early nineteenth century, but ministers might still be referred to as ‘itinerants’ or ‘travelling preachers’.
8 For an overview of this period, see John Kent, ‘The Wesleyan Methodists to 1849’, in Rupert Davies, A. Raymond George and Rupp, Gordon, eds, A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, 4 vols (London, 1965–88), 2: 213–75Google Scholar; Ward, Religion and Society in England, 70–104, 135–76; Norris, Clive Murray, ‘“A blessed and glorious work of God, … attended with some irregularity”: Managing Methodist Revivals, c.1740–1800’, in Methuen, Charlotte, Ryrie, Alec, and Spicer, Andrew, eds, Inspiration and Institution in Christian History, SCH 57 (Cambridge, 2021), 210–32Google Scholar.
9 Margaret Batty, ‘The Contribution of Local Preachers to the Life of the Wesleyan Methodist Church until 1932, and to the Methodist Church after 1932, in England’ (MA thesis, University of Leeds, 1969), 142, dates the change of nomenclature to 1818 and use of the word ‘minister’ to 1827. Ordination by the imposition of hands was considered in 1822, and introduced in 1836: Peirce, William, The Ecclesiastical Principles and Polity of the Wesleyan Methodists , 3rd edn (London, 1873; first publ. 1854), 278–9Google Scholar.
10 For the origins and development of the Conference, see Rack, Henry D., ed., The Works of John Wesley, 10: The Methodist Societies. The Minutes of Conference (Nashville, TN, 2011), 6–15 Google Scholar.
11 Bowmer, John, Pastor and People: A Study of Church and Ministry in Methodism from the Death of John Wesley (1791) to the Death of Jabez Bunting (1858) (London, 1975), 202–18Google Scholar. The theory was classically expressed by John Beecham in An Essay on the Constitution of Wesleyan Methodism (1829) and by Alfred Barrett in An Essay on the Pastoral Office (1839).
12 Bowmer, Pastor and People, 58.
13 Bunting was lauded by Wesleyan loyalists and vilified by reformers. For a critical appraisal, see Ward, Religion and Society in England, 256–9; idem, Early Victorian Methodism: The Correspondence of Jabez Bunting, 1830–1858 (London, 1976), xvi–xxiii. A more positive account is given by David Hempton, ‘Jabez Bunting: The Formative Years, 1794–1820’, in idem, The Religion of the People: Methodism and Popular Religion c.1750–1900 (London, 1996), 91–108.
14 This is summarized in John T. Wilkinson, ‘The Rise of other Methodist Traditions’, in Davies, George and Rupp, eds, History of the Methodist Church, 276–329.
15 See Gowland, David A., Methodist Secessions: The Origins of Free Methodism in Three Lancashire Towns (Manchester, 1979)Google Scholar.
16 The Fly Sheets … carefully copied from … the originals (Birmingham and London, n.d. [1849]), 1–2.
17 Ibid. 42, 91, 105.
18 Ibid. 62–3, 112.
19 Ibid. 68–74.
20 For instance, ibid. 19 (tyranny) and 101–2 (London clique).
21 This is described in detail in Gregory, Benjamin, Side Lights on the Conflicts of Methodism (London, 1898), 405–75Google Scholar.
22 Fly Sheets, 97.
23 Urwin, Significance of 1849, 23.
24 The first Primitive Methodist preachers arrived in Oxford in 1825 but were rebuffed; a second attempt in 1835 was short-lived: Petty, John, History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion from its Origin to the Conference of 1860 (London, 1864), 231, 320 Google Scholar.
25 Oxford, Oxfordshire History Centre, Oxford Methodist Circuit Archive [hereafter: OMCA], NM5/A/A4/1, Local Preachers’ Minute Book 1830–66, September and December 1846, March 1847; Tiller, Kate, ed., Church and Chapel in Oxfordshire 1851 (Oxford, 1987), 76 Google Scholar. The congregation in 1851 numbered 40.
26 OMCA, NM5/A/A4/1, Local Preachers’ Minute Book 1830–66, 27 December 1844.
27 Leake, Henry, Speech of H. Leake, Esq., Chairman, at a Wesleyan Reform Meeting, held in Oxford on Friday Evening, July 5th 1850 (London, 1850), 1 Google Scholar. The works which failed to convince Leake were Edmund Grindrod’s Compendium of the Laws and Regulations of Wesleyan Methodism (1841) and Charles Welch’s The Wesleyan Polity Illustrated and Defended (1829).
28 OMCA, NM5/A/MS1/1, James Nix, ‘Methodism in Oxford’, 22, 30. Leake’s father and brother were also Wesleyan trustees. For the Rose Hill chapel, see W. J. S. Bayliss, ‘How Rose Hill Chapel began’, Oxford Methodist Circuit Magazine, April 1935, 36–7.
29 OMCA, NM5/A/A4/1, Local Preachers’ Minute Book 1830–66, 27 December 1844.
30 Oxfordshire History Centre, NC6/1/A1/1, George Street Congregational Church, Oxford: Church Book 1832, unpaginated, showing Leake preaching eight times over the interregnum.
31 Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle, May 1845, 259. I am indebted to Shirley Martin for this reference. See also Henry Leake, Speech of H. Leake, Esq., 1.
32 His father Shem was described as ‘an old and respected member of the Wesleyan Connexion’: ‘City and County Intelligence’, OC, 26 September 1846, 2.
33 Foster, Joseph, Alumni Oxonienses, 4 vols (Oxford, 1888), 1: 313 Google Scholar.
34 OMCA, NM5/25/A14/1, Oxford Wesleyan Sunday and Day Schools Committee, 1842–73, 12 October 1846 (superintendent), 6 October 1848 (secretary) and 16 April 1849 (pro secretary).
35 OMCA, NM5/A/A4/1, Local Preachers’ Minute Book 1830–66, 20 June 1849.
36 Until September 1870, it was the practice for the minutes to be taken by the junior itinerant, so this was not unusual. It is striking, however, that there are no references to any difficulties with Crapper, or to the situation in Summertown, before June 1849.
37 For the cottages built in 1822–3 and named Crapper’s Row, see Fasnacht, Ruth, Summertown since 1820 (Oxford, 1977), 22 Google Scholar.
38 OMCA, NM5/A/A4/1, Local Preachers’ Minute Book 1830–66, March 1847. Four of the committee of five appointed to arrange preaching in Summertown subsequently became reformers.
39 Bartlett (to the editor), OC, 8 September 1849, 3; ‘An Office-bearer in the Wesleyan Society’ (to the editor), OC, 29 September 1849, 2.
40 Oxford University and City Herald, 8 September 1849, 3.
41 ‘Wesleyan Methodism’, Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 1 September 1849, 2; OC, 1 September 1849, 2.
42 ‘Wesleyan Methodism’, OC, 1 September 1849, 2; ‘Wesleyan Methodism’, OC, 15 September 1849, 1; ‘An Office-bearer in the Oxford Circuit’ (to the editor), OC, 27 October 1849, 2; ‘To Correspondents’, OC, 10 November 1849, 2.
43 ‘Miscellaneous’, OC, 9 February 1850, 4, reported that 1,160 of the 1,200 ministers had signed.
44 ‘Conference despotism’, OC, 23 March 1850, 2.
45 Gregory, Side Lights, 476–81.
46 For example, ‘Marriage in a Wesleyan Chapel – A Scene’, OC, 20 July 1850, 3.
47 Gregory, Side Lights, 481–90.
48 Thus Henry Leake, Speech of H. Leake, Esq., 1.
49 Gregory, Side Lights, 481.
50 Nix, ‘Methodism in Oxford’, 30–1. For praise of Earnshaw, see James Goold, ‘The Oxford Delegates’, OC, 4 May 1850, 1.
51 ‘Meeting to sympathise with the expelled Wesleyan ministers’, OC, 27 October 1849, 2.
52 For the selection, see Goold, ‘Oxford Delegates’, responding to a critical letter, ‘The Oxford Delegates’, Watchman and Wesleyan Advertiser, 27 March 1850, 102.
53 ‘Woodstock’, OC, 11 May 1850, 3; ‘The Revs S. Dunn and W. Griffith at Oxford’, OC, 13 July 1850, 2.
54 For the negotiations, see OMCA, NM5/A/A4/1, Local Preachers’ Minute Book 1830–66, 3 July 1850. For the expulsion, see OMCA, NM5/A/A4/1, Local Preachers’ Minute Book 1830–66, 18 December 1850; and OMCA, NM5/A/A2/4, Circuit Schedule Book 1845–66, September 1850.
55 ‘Mr G. G. Banbury, JP, Woodstock’, Methodist Monthly 1898, October 1898, 294.
56 OMCA, NM5/B/A2/1, Circuit Wesleyan Reform Committee Minute Book, 1850–4, entries for 9 and 16 December 1850, and 3 February 1851.
57 OMCA, NM5/B/A1/1, District Wesleyan Reform Committee Minute Book, 1851–3, 11 November 1851.
58 OMCA, NM5/A/A1/2, Plan for Wesleyan Methodist Society, Oxford Circuit, January to March 1856.
59 G. G. Banbury, ‘Oxford Circuit’, United Methodist Free Churches Magazine, May 1863, 327–9.
60 Gregory, J. R., ed., Benjamin Gregory, DD. Autobiographical Recollections, edited with Memorials of His Later Life (London, 1903), 407 Google Scholar. However, the transformation, apparently achieved within a matter of months, suggests that the situation was not quite as hopeless as Gregory (or his biographer) suggests.
61 Bebbington, David W., ‘Secession and Revival: Louth Free Methodist Church in the 1850s’, Wesley and Methodist Studies 7 (2015), 54–77 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
62 Button (1798–1879) and Day (1794–1864) both entered the ministry in 1820; Westlake (1805–58) entered the ministry in 1830. For their obituaries, see Minutes of Conference (London), 1859, 204; 1864, 15; 1879, 39–40. The Minutes of Conference were issued annually, published in London by the Wesleyan Methodist Book Room. Until 1875, several years’ worth of the Minutes were subsequently issued in combined volumes, so there are different extant volume numbers and sets. The relevant obituaries can be found by referring to the year of the Minutes and the page.
63 ‘An Office-bearer in the Wesleyan Society’ (to the editor), OC, 29 September 1849, 2.
64 Day, C. J., ‘Communications’, in Crossley, Alan, ed., A History of the County of Oxford, 4: The City of Oxford (Oxford, 1979), 284–95, at 294–5Google Scholar.
65 Nesta Selwyn, ‘Social and Cultural Activities’, in Crossley, ed., The City of Oxford, 425–41, at 441.
66 Bowmer, Pastor and People, 52.
67 ‘Conference Despotism’, as highlighted by a letter from ‘A Wesleyan Methodist’ (to the editor), OC, 23 March 1850, 2. Italics original.
68 ‘Mr G. G. Banbury, JP, Woodstock’, 294.
69 ‘Wesleyans’, OC, 25 August 1849, 2.
70 Headline in the University, City, and County Herald, 13 July 1850, 3.
71 ‘To Correspondents’, OC, 10 November 1849, 2.
72 ‘Literature’, OC, 18 May 1850, 4.
73 ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, OC, 27 July 1850, 2.
74 ‘The Contentions among the Wesleyans’, University, City, and County Herald, 13 July 1850, 2. The Herald was careful to describe Dunn and Griffith as ‘Mr’ and not ‘Rev.’.
75 ‘One of the Deacons of Summertown Church’ (to the editor), OC, 8 September 1849, 2.
76 ‘The Revs S. Dunn and W. Griffith at Oxford’, OC, 13 July 1850, 2. The Congregationalists were William Fergusson (Bicester) and John Tyndal[e] (George Street); the Baptist was Edward Bryan (New Road).
77 However, details of new members recorded in the respective church books as received ‘by profession of faith’ would not normally include comment on any previous denominational allegiance.