Methodist Union

[1] The process involved many years of negotiation and discussion, as well as a vote by the members of each denomination to approve the union.

[1] To distinguish this from Methodism in other countries (chiefly the United States), it is now styled the Methodist Church of Great Britain.

The Primitive Methodists were the second largest of these, having arisen in the first decade of the nineteenth century following the conversion of Hugh Bourne and a number of others in Staffordshire to the north of Stoke on Trent.

They had sought to recover the early faith and practice of John Wesley at a time when the Wesleyans were hoping to become more respectable.

Their return to Wesley's field preaching, notably in the form of Camp Meetings, did not suit the Wesleyans at that time, and Bourne was put out of membership along with several of his companions.