Primitive Methodism in the United Kingdom

Their social base was among the poorer members of society, who appreciated its content (damnation, salvation, sinners and saints) and its style (direct, spontaneous and passionate).

Primitive Methodism originated in "camp meetings" held in the area of The Potteries at Mow Cop, Staffordshire, on 31 May 1807.

Bourne and Clowes were charismatic evangelists with reputations for zeal and sympathy for ideas the Wesleyan Connexion condemned.

The reason given for Clowes' expulsion was that he had behaved "contrary to the Methodist discipline" and therefore "that he could not be either a preacher or leader unless he promised to attend no more Camp Meetings.

Bourne's association with the American evangelist Lorenzo Dow would have put him in a dim light with Wesleyan leaders.

The death of John Wesley removed a restraining influence on popular Methodism: there was no obvious leader or authority, and power was invested in the Wesleyan Conference.

[6][7] Despite their exclusion from the Connexion, Clowes and Bourne and assistants who appeared to help them became involved in a task which The Romance of Primitive Methodism saw as a work of primary evangelisation.

The Methodist movement challenged the Church of England — an institution widely regarded as a bulwark of national stability.

Dr Coke even suggested he would not be surprised if, "in a few years some of our people, warmest in politics and coolest in religion, would toast… a bloody summer and a headless king."

They expelled the prominent Alexander Kilham in 1795, and one year later they forbade any itinerant from any publishing without the sanction of the newly created book committee.

The movement was portrayed as a conservative force, with the leadership claiming Methodism promoted "subordination and industry in the lower orders".

When a local preacher in North Shields criticised the actions of the magistrates at Peterloo, he faced criticism from itinerants and "respectable friends".

Such fees bore severely on the poor in the war years and the subsequent depression, opening a gulf between richer and poorer members.

Its withdrawal from the Church of England made chapel building and a larger ministry a necessity, while the Connexion also invested in schools, pension funds and foreign missions.

These illustrate a vibrant movement which the establishment was unwilling to entertain, due partly to weariness of persecutions in the 18th century, and to political upheavals after the French Revolution and various wars in which Britain was engaged.

In fact Bourne was much concerned that things be done decently and in order, and worked hard to build up the official (Wesleyan) Methodist Circuit of which he had once been a member.

While Bourne had to engage in a long and difficult argument before winning a vote, Dr Coke rejected a democratic decision-making process.

Primitive Methodist preachers were plain-speaking, in contrast to Wesleyan services "embellished with literary allusions and delivered in high-flown language".

Though Wesleyan ministers in 1815 could command about £100, a house and a horse, the Primitive Methodist superintendent of the Gainsborough circuit received £62 12s in 1852.

Primitive Methodists were most likely to be small farmers, servants, mill workers, colliers, agricultural labourers, weavers and framework knitters.

[14] The Primitive Methodist Magazine of 1821 asserting that the movement had begun "undesigned of man" and was an example of "Divine Providence".

A man who set out against the Primitive Methodists was struck down by illness, and a preacher who became lost and stranded was saved when the Lord sent people to find him.

For instance, it reports that at Sheshnall in 1826, a woman fell to the ground under the purifying power of the Lord, and another cried aloud.

For instance, they vied against the race week at Preston by organising a Sunday School children's parade and a "frugal feast".

Through a combination of discipline, preaching and education both Primitive and Wesleyan Methodism sought to reform their members' morality.

Even Clowes, once an ardent enthusiast, became "convinced that religion does not consist in bodily movements, whether shouting, jumping, falling, or standing."

In 1828 women were forbidden from becoming superintendents, and in mid-century there ceased to be biographies eulogising female preachers in the Methodist Magazine.

The community's values were more in line with middle-class respectability: Parkinson Milson reported that local preachers and class leaders were offended at his plain speech.

The Primitive Methodist Church was represented at the merging denominations' Uniting Conference by William Younger, who had been elected President that year.

[18] A leading theologian of the Primitive Methodists was Arthur Peake, Professor of Biblical Criticism at University of Manchester in 1904–1929.