His early musical education mostly took place in the family home in Bristol, where Sarah Wesley, his mother, sang and played the harpsichord.

[2] Samuel informed his mother of his philosophical conviction that his marriage had been constituted by sexual intercourse, precluding any civil or religious ceremony, but after a scandalous delay he married Charlotte Louise Martin in 1793, and they had three children.

This marriage broke up with Charlotte's discovery of Samuel's affair with the teenaged domestic servant Sarah Suter.

[3] His hymnodist father expressed his opinion in the following words: While ready and resolved is he to plunge into the dark abyss And cast his soul away That poison of the Romish sect O let not his soul infect[4] To celebrate his conversion, Samuel composed an elaborate Mass, the Missa de Spiritu Sancto, dedicating it to Pope Pius VI.

His father, Charles, wrote: He was full eight years old when Dr Boyce came to see us and accosted me with, 'Sir, I hear you have an English Mozart in your house.'

Despite a reputation as the best improviser on the organ in England, he never succeeded in obtaining an organist's post though he applied to the Foundling Hospital both in 1798 and 1813 and to St George's, Hanover Square in 1824.

Generally he appeared to be mistrusted by the British establishment, perhaps due to a forthright manner, his marriage arrangements and it is possible to speculate that he was unreliable.

His ability on the organ was so highly regarded that he was introduced to, and played for Felix Mendelssohn in September 1837, a month before Wesley's death.

Mendelssohn gave a recital at Christ Church Newgate, during which Wesley said to his daughter Eliza, "This is transcendent playing!

Francis Routh[11] has compiled a list of all Wesley's keyboard works and hymn tunes, although some further organ pieces have subsequently been discovered.