Anti-methodism in eighteenth-century England: The Pendle Forest Riots of 1748

Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Volumn 49, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 257-281

  Snape, Michael Francis ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33644966796     PISSN: 00220469     EISSN: 14697637     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022046997006246     Document Type: Review

References (127)

1. A. C. H. Seymour, The life and times of Selina countess of Huntingdon, London 1844, i. 261
2. For a recent treatment of the influence of evangelicalism in nineteenth-century Britain see David Hempton, Religion and political culture in Britain and Ireland, Cambridge 1996
3. L. Colley, Britons: forging the nation 1707-1837, London 1992, 85
4. J. Stevenson, Popular disturbances in England 1700-1832, London 1992, 27-30
5. J. Albers, '"Papist traitors" and "Presbyterian rogues": religious identities in eighteenth-century Lancashire', in J. Walsh, S. Taylor and C. Haydon (eds), The Church of England c. 1689-c. 1833: from toleration to Tractarianism, Cambridge 1993, 317-333 at pp. 327-8
6. S. Johnson (ed.), A dictionary of the English language, London 1755
7. Gentleman's Magazine ix (1739), 239-42
8. G. Lavington, The enthusiasm of Methodists and papists compared, London 1754, i. 133
9. C. Haydon, Anti-Catholicism in eighteenth-century England: a political and social study, Manchester 1993, 124-9
10. J. Wesley, 'Salvation by faith', in Sermons on several occasions by the Rev. John Wesley, ed. J. Beecham, London 1851, 14
11. John Wesley was influenced by the life and example of Catholic mystics such as Thomas à Kempis and Gregory Lopez, and he transmitted these influences to his followers, particularly through his Christian Library. Wesley was also impressed by the lives of Gaston de Renty, the seventeenth-century founder of the Company of the Blessed Sacrament, and Gregory Lopez, a sixteenth-century Mexican hermit, as examples of Christian perfection, Moreover, both he and Charles Wesley found inspiration in the instantaneous conversion experience or Blaise Pascal. The Wesleys' Arminian theology, John's dictatorial tendencies and Methodist practices such as frequent communion and confession in band meetings all fuelled accusations of popery. Naturally, the conversion of Charles's son, Samuel, to Catholicism in the late 1770s was highly incriminating: E. Duffy, 'Wesley and the Counter-Reformation', in J. Garnett and C. Matthew (eds), Revival and religion since 1700: essays for John Walsh, London 1993, 1-19
12. H. Rack, Reasonable enthusiast: John Wesley and the rise of Methodism, London 1992, 420
13. T. A. Campbell, The religion of the heart: a study of European religious life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Columbia 1991, 23
14. D. Butler, Methodists and papists: John Wesley and the Catholic Church in the eighteenth century, London 1995, 31-41, 185-7
15. A. M. Lyles, Methodism mocked: the satiric reaction to Methodism in the eighteenth century, London 1960, 88-9, 94-5
16. J. Miller, Religion in the popular prints 1600-1832, Cambridge 1986, 198-9
17. Gentleman's Magazine xvii (1747), 531
18. R. Polwhele (ed.), The enthusiasm of Methodists and papists considered by Bishop Lavington, London 1820, 6-7
19. C. Goodwin, 'The religion of feeling: Wesleyan Catholicism', History Today xlvi (October 1996), 44-9 at p. 44
20. Stevenson, Popular disturbances, 38-9
21. J. Wesley, 'The nature, design and general rules of the united societies in London, Bristol, King's-wood and Newcastle upon Tyne', in R. Davies (ed.), The Methodist societies: history, nature and design, Nashville, Tenn. 1989, 68
22. For the notorious career of Westley Hall, Wesley's antinomian brother-in-law, and also for suspicions surrounding Wesley himself see Rack, Reasonable enthusiast, 52, 267
23. S. Gill, Women and the Church of England from the eighteenth century to the present, London 1994, 11-14
24. J. Rule, The vital century: England's developing economy, 1714-1815, London 1992, 18-19
25. The years 1744-8 have been identified as the years of the worst recession to take place over the period 1700-60: P. Langford, A polite and commercial people, Oxford 1989, 162
26. J. Brand, Observations on popular antiquities, London 1810, 329-32
27. R. Suggett, 'Festivals and social structure in early modern Wales', Past and Present clii (1996), 79-112 at pp. 110-11
28. For a discussion of the annual cycle of popular festivities see B. Bushaway, 'By rite': custom, ceremony and community in England 1700-1880, London 1982, 34-48
29. E. P. Thompson, 'The patricians and the plebs', in Customs in common, Harmondsworth 1993, 51-2
30. Suggett, 'Festivals and social structure', 81
31. R. W. Malcolmson, Popular recreations in English society 1700-1850, Cambridge 1973, 18
32. This was a very widespread practice in contemporary Lancashire: J. Albers, 'Seeds of contention: society, politics and the Church of England in Lancashire', unpubl. PhD diss. Yale 1988, 198
33. Spectator ii (1711), 281
34. D. Eastwood, Governing rural England: tradition and transformation in local government 1780-1840, Oxford 1994, 25
35. D. Hey (ed.), The Oxford companion to local and family history, Oxford 1996, 414-15
36. Suggett, 'Festivals and social structure', 104-5, 110-11
37. Malcolmson, Popular recreations, 6-10
38. A. F. Upton, 'Sweden', in J. Miller (ed.), Absolutism in seventeenth-century Europe, London 1992, 99-121 at p. 99
39. E. P. Thompson, 'The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century', in Customs in common, 185-258
40. R. W. Malcolmson, Life and labour in England 1700-1780, London 1981, 122
41. Gentleman's Magazine xxi (1751), 186
42. T. W. Perry, Public opinion, propaganda, and politics in eighteenth-century England: a study of the Jew Bill of 1753, Cambridge, Mass. 1962, 179-80
43. D. S. Katz, The Jews in the history of England 1485-1850, Oxford 1994, 246
44. Haydon, Anti-Catholicism in eighteenth-century England, 204-44
45. R. Burn, Ecclesiastical law, London 1763, ii. 280
46. D. Hempton, 'Methodism and the law', Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester lxx (1988), 93-107 at p. 95
47. Burn, Ecclesiastical law, ii. 47
48. Rack, Reasonable enthusiast, 370-80
49. P. Collinson, 'The English conventicle', in W. J. Sheils and D. Wood (eds), Voluntary religion (Studies in Church History xxiii, 1986), 232-4
50. H. Trevor-Roper, 'Toleration and religion after 1688', in O. P. Grell, J. Israel and N. Tyacke (eds), From persecution to toleration: the glorious Revolution and religion in England, Oxford 1991, 389-408
51. P. Corfield, 'Georgian England: one state, many faiths', History Today xlv (1995), 14-21
52. J. Albers, 'Seeds of contention', 575-6
53. F. Baker, William Grimshaw, London 1963, 130-43
54. Hempton, 'Methodism and the law', 99
55. T. D. Whitaker, An history of the original parish of Whalley, Manchester 1872, ii. 249
56. A. Wainwright, 'In the shadow of mighty Pendle', Methodist Recorder, 4 Dec. 1902
57. Whitaker, History of the original parish of Whalley, ii. 249
58. Albers, '"Papist traitors" and "Presbyterian rogues"', 236
59. Journal and diaries III, ed. W. R. Ward and R. P. Heitzenrater, Nashville, Tenn. 1988-, xx. 427
60. The Douay College diaries: the seventh diary 1715-1778, ed. E. Burton and E. Nolan (Catholic Record Society, 1928), xxviii. 159
61. M. Sharratt, 'Excellent professors and an exact discipline: aspects of Challoner's Douai', in E. Duffy (ed.), Challoner and his church: a Catholic bishop in Georgian England, Cambridge 1981, 112-26 at pp. 115-16
62. G. White, The miraculous sheep's eye at St Victor's in Paris: a poem in two cantos, London 1743, 7-16
63. J. Carr, Annals and stories of Colne and neighbourhood, Manchester 1878, 161
64. W. Bennett, The history of Marsden and Nelson, Nelson 1957, 146
65. Albers, 'Seeds of contention', 65
66. M. Smith, Religion in industrial society: Oldham and Saddleworth 1740-1865, Oxford 1994, 39-40
67. The population of the chapelry of Colne nearly quadrupled between c. 1720 and 1801: M. F. Snape, '"Our happy reformation": Anglicanism and society in a northern parish, 1689-1789', unpubl. PhD diss. Birmingham 1994, 17
68. By the second half of the eighteenth century, 'Colne had become the centre of the woollen trade in N.E. Lancashire', a cloth hall built in 1775 holding more than 190 stalls. In 1781, 42,843 pieces of worsteds were manufactured in the chapelry, having a commercial value of £54,900: Bennett, History of Marsden and Nelson, 128-9
69. CRO, EDA 2/3-8; Snape, '"Our happy reformation"', 22
70. Smith, Religion in industrial society, 34-7
71. M. Goldie, 'The theory of intolerance in Restoration England', in Grell, Israel and Tyacke, From persecution to toleration, 331-68 at p. 333
72. R. Ashcraft, 'Latitudinarianism and toleration: historical myth versus political history', in R. Kroll, R. Ashcraft and P. Zagorin (eds), Philosophy; science and religion in England 1640-1700, Cambridge 1992, 151-77
73. JRULM, MAW G/A 208: G. White, A sermon against the Methodists, Preston 1748, 21
74. W. M. Jacob, Lay people and religion in the early eighteenth century, Cambridge 1996, 77-92
75. J. Walsh, 'Religious societies: Methodist and Evangelical 1738-1800', in Sheils and Wood, Voluntary religion, 280
76. C. Podmore, 'The Fetter Lane Society, 1738', Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society xlvi (1988), 125-53 at p. 132
77. Walsh, 'Religious societies: Methodist and Evangelical' 283
78. Podmore, 'The Fetter Lane Society', 140
79. Davies, The Methodist societies: history, nature and design, 2-15
80. and H. Rack, 'Religious societies and the origins of Methodism', this JOURNAL xxviii (1987), 582-95 at p. 583
81. For evidence of the disruption which this caused see William Berriman, A sermon preach'd to the religious societies in and about London, at their quarterly meeting, in the parish church of St. Mary Le Bow, on Wednesday, March 21, 1738-9 with a view to stop the growth of some modern irregularities, London 1739, 15-23
82. JRULM, Eng. MS 1062: W. Batty, 'An account of Benjamin Ingham and his work', 12
83. B. Moore, Methodism in Burnley and east Lancashire, Burnley 1899, 1
84. Campbell, The religion of the heart, 125
85. T. Hargreaves, The rise and progress of Wesleyan Methodism in Accrington and the neighbourhood, Manchester 1883, 11
86. Batty, Account of Benjamin Ingham, 12
87. Moore, Methodism in Burnley and east Lancashire, 3
88. Journal of the House of Commons, xxii, 27 Feb. 1735/6. The Halifax petition complained that the over-zealous implementation of this act had led to prosecutions for the wearing of local fustians
89. Carr, Annals and stories of Coke, 161-2
90. J. Walsh, 'Methodism and the mob in the eighteenth century', in G. J. Cuming and D. Baker (eds), Popular belief and practice (Studies in Church History viii, 1972), 223
91. JRULM, John Bennet's diary, 3 Aug. 1784, 89
92. Walsh, 'Methodism and the mob', 222
93. Journal and diaries III, xx. 171
94. William Grimshaw to John Wesley, 20 Aug. 1747, cited in Moore, Methodism in Burnley and east Lancashire, 7
95. John Bennet's diary, 17 Dec. 1747, 27
96. Lancashire (Reports of Charity Commissioners, 1900), X: Whalley
97. W. S. Weeks, Clitheroe in the seventeenth century, Clitheroe 1900, 106
98. Hempton, Religion and political culture, 17
99. Campanilismo derives its name from the campanile, or church tower, 'the proudest and most visible symbol of the historical community': J. Walsh and S. Taylor, 'The Church and Anglicanism in the 'long' eighteenth century', in Walsh, Taylor and Haydon, The Church of England c. 1689-c. 1833, 27
100. Albers, '"Papist traitors" and "Presbyterian rogues"', 321-2. Echoes of these conflicts were detectable in local folklore as late as the early twentieth century, when one local antiquarian was told the story of a tragic young woman whose lover was killed at Marston Moor. The story was told him 'by Mr. Tattersall Wilkinson who in turn had it from his grandfather who was born in 1766, and who heard it from his grandfather who lived about the time of the occurrence': T. Ormerod, Calderdale, Burnley 1906, 30
101. Bennet, History of Marsden and Nelson, 115
102. See also A. G. Matthews, Walker revised: being a revision of John Walker's 'Sufferings of the clergy during the grand rebellion' 1642-60, Oxford 1948, s.v. Thomas Warriner
103. White, Sermon against the Methodists, p. iv
104. P. Monod, Jacobitism and the English people, 1688-1788, Cambridge 1993, 308-41
105. Within a few miles of Pendle forest lived the Towneleys of Towneley Hall, the Shuttleworths of Gawthorpe Hall, the Nowells of Read and the Halsteads of Rowley Hall. For their sympathies and activities see S. W. Baskerville, 'The management of the Tory interest in Lancashire and Cheshire 1714-1747', unpubl. DPhil. diss. Oxford 1973, 102
106. Monod, Jacobitism and the English people, 100-1
107. J. Prebble, Culloden, Harmondsworth 1967, 258-9
108. R. Sedgwick, The House of Commons 1715-1754, London 1970, ii. 424
109. W. Notestein, A history of witchcraft in England, Washington 1965, 146-58
110. J. T. Swain, 'The Lancashire witch trials of 1612 and 1634 and the economics of witchcraft', Northern History xxx (1994), 64-85
111. Malcolmson, Life and labour, 110-12
112. Stevenson, Popular disturbances in England, 57-8
113. and Whigs and hunters, London 1975, 27-80
114. Burn, Ecclesiastical law, i. 500-1
115. Jacob, Lay people and religion in the early eighteenth century, 78
116. Hempton, 'Methodism and the law', 101
117. Baker, William Grimshaw, 130-2
118. CRO, EDV 5, 1747
119. John Bennet's diary, 30 July 1748, 87
120. The Act of Toleration had made the disruption of a service held in a licensed meeting-house subject to a £20 fine, whilst the Riot Act of 1715 had made the demolition of licensed meeting-houses a capital offence: Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the laws of England, cited in ed. D. B. Horn and M. Ransome, English historical documents 1714-1783, London 1957, 391-2
121. M. Watts, The Dissenters: from the Reformation to the French Revolution, Oxford 1985, 267
122. W. Jessop, An account of Methodism in Rossendale and the neighbourhood, Manchester 1880, 107
123. Letters II, ed. F. Baker, Oxford 1980-, xxvi. 325
124. A contemporary account of an anti-Catholic disturbance in the Yorkshire village of Stokesley, in which the local mass-house was destroyed, mentions the perpetrators marching ' in order ... with drum beating and colours flying ... beating up for volunteers for his majesty's service': Gentleman's Magazine xvi (1746), 40
125. Thompson, 'Moral economy of the crowd', 236
126. Journal and diaries III, 241
127. Letters II, 325