The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion

Abstract

Abstract The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion has been one of the neglected strands in the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival. This is surprising, since the Connexion was one of the most significant of the non-Wesleyan groups within the Revival. Its importance lay less in its ministry to the upper classes, than as a grass-roots religious movement. It had its own training college (one of the first such institutions in England specifically directed to the development of ministerial skills) and formed a network of chapels across the country. Like Wesley, Lady Huntingdon started her religious life as a member of the Church of England, and clergymen played an important part in her Connexion throughout her life. But events led the Connexion to secede from the Established Church and to establish its own ordination and articles of religion. Through its preachers, congregations, and example, the Connexion made a significant contribution to the revival of Dissent in England in the late eighteenth century. This book examines in detail how the Connexion worked: who its preachers were, where their hearers came from, how chapels came to be built, and who provided the money. It examines the relations between the Connexion and other religious groupings: with the Church of England, with Dissent, with other Calvinist evangelicals, and with the Wesleyans. It shows a popular religious movement in operation, and thereby provides an important insight into English religious life at the time.