This online resource, compiled by Randy L. Maddox, is one of a range of invaluable research aids to emerge from the Wesley Works Editorial Project, the long-established and ambitious programme to publish all of John Wesley’s works, in a series of volumes beloved of all Wesley scholars. At one level, it is a digitization of a manuscript, in Wesley’s hand, held in the Methodist Archives and Research Centre at the University of Manchester’s John Rylands Research Institute and Library (shelfmark MA 1977/503/2). But it is so much more.As Maddox explains in his fascinating eight pages of introductory comments and analysis, the source document is a 145-page notebook in John Wesley’s hand. One approach to digitization is simply to photograph each page, but in this case that would have been of limited value. In particular, some pages appear to be missing; the numbering is erratic; the spelling of names is not always consistent; and there are significant numbers of shorthand and other abbreviated entries. So instead, Maddox has undertaken the painstaking task of transcribing—indeed often decoding—and categorizing each entry. The result is a highly readable and usable typescript, in a searchable electronic PDF file.The Foundery in London was one of the three regional headquarters from which Wesley hoped to spread his message across Britain (the others being at Bristol and Newcastle upon Tyne). His main tools were itinerant preaching, the dissemination of cheap improving literature, and the establishment and encouragement of small local groups of adherents who would meet regularly for mutual spiritual support, a practice that he took from the Moravians.The lists themselves comprise names of members of various categories of these small Methodist groups: regular bands, trial bands (of two types), penitent bands, and the so-called select society. The relationship between these and also with the parallel evolution of ‘classes’ is complex but elucidated in Maddox’s introduction. The lists were drawn up by Wesley on twelve different dates when he was based in London, the first in April 1742, and the last in June 1746. Most names appear on multiple occasions. The resulting format of Wesley’s record would make it extremely challenging to work with as a digital resource, but Maddox has helpfully reorganized the main material into a single alphabetical list, greatly facilitating search and analysis.After such detailed labours, what is the value of the resource? In short, it will be the starting point for many scholarly enquiries. All the names represent individuals whose biographies, both temporal and spiritual, await reconstruction, a task eased where they are distinctive. Thus, Abraham Grou who features here could well be the schoolmaster whose will, now in the National Archives, was proved in 1766; Nathaniel Salthouse may be the baker whose legal difficulties can still be explored in the London Metropolitan Archives; and so on. In some cases, names reappear in Wesley’s own narrative; one example is Bilhah Aspernell, who—as Maddox has noted elsewhere—is mentioned often in Wesley’s diary and was buried by him on 28 January 1774.Over time it may therefore be possible to undertake for these groups, among the earliest of Wesley’s followers, the kind of social and economic analysis of local Methodism that Clive Field has undertaken using other similar primary sources. It seems, for example, that Ephraim Bedder (or Beddor), a member of the select society, was a coal merchant. Someone of that name and occupation died in 1755 and, while in his will (again in the National Archives) he bequeathed nothing to any Methodist cause, he did ask ‘to be decently buried in Tindals burying ground [also known as Bunhill Fields] near the Foundery, Upper Moorfields’.Another area of investigation, which Maddox has opened up in his introduction, is to consider the spiritual dynamics, both individual and collective, which are at work here. This would be challenging; but in the meantime, for this reviewer, it was moving simply to reflect—on scrolling down these columns of names—that these were among the earliest people during John Wesley’s ministry to hear his message and make a personal commitment in response. For Bilhah Aspernell, if not others, it lasted until death.
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Aug 23, 2024
Giuseppe Piras + 2
Open Access
