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Occupational Groups Among the Early Methodists of the Keighley Circuit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John Q. Smith
John Q. Smith
Affiliation:
Mr. Smith is a research historian for the Department of the Air Force, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.
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Extract

The success of early Methodism in the textile-manufacturing region of Yorkshire and Lancashire is an important part of the overall story of the success of the Methodists. That Wesley's teachings and societies should have thrived in this rough area is almost as surprising as the success of the Wesleyans in Cornwall. Any attempt to explain this growth must include an investigation into the question: what kind of people chose to join the Methodists? Earlier historians of Methodism, including John Wesley Bready, Leslie F. Church, Maldwyn Edwards, W. J. Warner, and Robert F. Wearmouth, have offered largely impressionistic overviews of the social structure of early Methodism. The best way to obtain a more precise picture is to look at those records of individual circuits, such as the Keighley Methodist circuit, which provide occupational data.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 187 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1988

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References

1. See Bready, John Wesley, England: Before and After Wesley (London, 1938);Google ScholarChurch, Leslie F., The Early Methodist People (New York, 1949),Google Scholar and More About the Early Methodist People and the Eighteenth Century, rev. ed. (London, 1955);Google ScholarWarner, Wellman J., The Wesleyan Movement in the Industrial Revolution (New York, 1930);Google Scholar and Wearmouth, Robert F., Methodism and the Common People of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1945).Google Scholar

2. Church, , More About Early Methodist People, pp. viii, 1–5, 7–10.Google Scholar

3. Ibid., p. 299. Elsewhere, , in Early Methodist People, p. 68,Google Scholar he categorizes “the first Methodists” as “for the most part… poor,” while admitting the fact of an occasional “man of substance” who facilitated the building of preaching houses.

4. Semmel, Bernard, The Methodist Revolution (New York, 1973), p. 72Google Scholar; Whitney, Arthur P., The Basis of Opposition to Methodism in England in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1951), p. 42;Google Scholar and Gilbert, Alan D., Religion and Society in Industrial England: Church, Chapel, and Social Change, 1740–1914 (London, 1976), p. 60.Google Scholar

5. Wilson, R. G., Gentlemen Merchants: The Merchant Community in Leeds, 1700–1830 (Manchester, 1971), p. 184.Google Scholar

6. Gilbert, , Religion and Society, p. 67.Google Scholar

7. Wilson, , Gentlemen Merchants, p. 53.Google Scholar

8. Field, C. D., “The Social Structure of English Methodism: Eighteenth Century Studies,” British Journal of Sociology 28 (1977): 199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Ibid., p. 216.

10. Ibid., p. 201. See also Mathias, Peter, “The Social Structure of the Eighteenth Century: A Calculation by Joseph Massie,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 10 (1958): 30–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Wallace, Charles Isaac Jr, “Religion and Society in Eighteenth Century England: Geographic, Demographic, and Occupational Patterns of Dissent in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1715–1801” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1975), p. 171.Google Scholar

12. See Hammond, J. L. and Hammond, Barbara, The Skilled Labourer, rev. ed. (1927; reprint, London, 1979).Google Scholar While the Hammonds, of course, do not portray the Jives of domestic workers as especially glamorous, they do argue that these people kept a degree of control over their lives which factory laborers later lost.

13. Wallace, , “Religion and Society,” pp. 174–175, 246.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., pp. 319–320. By 1742 the followers of Benjamin Ingham, who had been one of Wesley's close associates at Oxford and Georgia, had no connection with Wesley's work. By then Wesley considered Ingham's evangelistic efforts in Yorkshire a hindrance. See Curnock, Nehemia, ed., The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., 8 vols. (London, 1909–1916), 3: 17.Google Scholar

15. Lipson, Ephraim, The History of the Woolen and Worsted Industries (London, 1921), pp. 57, 62.Google Scholar

16. Murrey, James A. H. et al. eds., The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, 1933), 2: 525, 6: 143.Google Scholar

17. Lipson, , Woolen and Worsted indostries, pp. 41, 68.Google Scholar

18. Wilson, , Gentlemen Merchants, p. 28.Google Scholar

19. Ibid., pp. 52–53, 66.

20. Ibid., pp. 28, 24, 108, 132, 235; Lipson, , Woolen and Worsted Industries, pp. 72–81;Google Scholar and see Ponting's, K. G. introduction to Edward Baines, Account of the Woolen Manufacture of England (New York, 1970), p. 31.Google Scholar

21. Wilson, , Gentlemen Merchants, pp. 30–31.Google Scholar

22. Lipson, , Woolen and Worsted Industries, p. 201.Google Scholar

23. Wallace, , “Religion and Society,” p. 170.Google Scholar

24. Along with the high proportion of weavers in the Keighley circuit (shown in table 1), it is interesting that a sermon register contained in the circuit archives mentions that a Mr. Taylor preached at an anniversary gathering of a weaver's society in June of 1780. This event further underscores the importance of Methodism in the lives of many weavers.

25. The lists used the spelling “brooker” for this group. One of these members was part of the Haworth society mentioned by Baker, Frank, William Grimshaw: 1708–1763 (London, 1963), pp. 56–57,Google Scholar who identifies the person as a broker or an agent who made sure that spinners had their wool and subsequently turned over their yarn to the worsted master. The Oxford English Dictionary, 1:1124, confirms Baker's description.

26. Lipson, , Woolen and Worsted Industries, pp. 72–79.Google Scholar

27. See Gilbert, , Religion and Society, p. 67.Google Scholar Even Wesley believed in this notion.

28. See Wallace, , “Religion and Society,” p. 244.Google Scholar

29. Wesley, , Journal, 5:374,Google Scholar editor's note.

30. Laycock, J. W., Methodist Heroes in the Great Haworth Round: 1734–1784 (Keighley, 1909), pp. 62, 341.Google Scholar

31. Ward, John, Historical Sketches of the Rise and Progress of Methodism in Bingley (Bingley, 1863), pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

32. Wearmouth, Robert F., in Methodism and the Common People, p. 226,Google Scholar admits the occasional practice of appointing artisans and sometimes even common laborers as trustees.

33. Laycock, , Methodist Heroes, p. 161.Google Scholar

34. Transcript of trust deed located in Keighley Methodist Circuit Archives, Keighley Central Library.

35. One indication that he was the same Thomas Colbeck who was the early Methodist leader in Keighley is the fact that the Overseers' accounts for 1781 list the name of Mrs. Colbeck, presumably because her husband had died. Thomas Colbeck the Methodist had died on 5 November 1779. Vestry Account Book and Churchwarden Account Book, 1722–1787, cat. no. 001–1 16589, reference library, Keighley Central Library and manuscript sermon register in Keighley Methodist Circuit Archives.

36. This term is used by Townsend, William J. et al. , A New History of Methodism, 2 vols. (London, 1909), 1: 294.Google Scholar

37. Gilbert, , Religion and Society, p. 66.Google Scholar

38. Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (1963; reprint, New York, 1966), pp. 375–400.Google ScholarGilbert, Alan, Religion and Society, p. 83,Google Scholar and Malmgreen, Gail Kathi, “Economy and Culture in an Industrializing Town: Macclesfield, Cheshire, 1750–1835” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1981), p. 336,Google Scholar affirm this conclusion for early British Methodists in other areas.