The Wesleyans, The ‘Romanists’ and the Education Act Of 1870

Abstract

The Wesleyan Church in the second half of the nineteenth century exhibited a high degree of anti-Catholicism, a phenomenon which had intensified with the ‘Romanising’ influence of the Tractarian movement in the Church of England. To many Wesleyans Roman and Anglo-Catholicism seemed synonymous and the battleground of faith was to be elementary education. The conflict began earlier in the century. When in 1848 Roman Catholic schools made application to the government for grants similar to those offered to the Wesleyans there was an immediate split in Wesleyan ranks. At the Conference in Hull in 1848 Beaumont, Osborn and William Bunting attacked their leadership. They claimed that Methodists should not accept grants in common with Catholics. Jabez Bunting, the primary Wesleyan spokesman of his age, was however rather less critical of the Roman Catholic Church than he had been previously and clearly advocated the continuation of the grant: