From [London] to Mary Fletcher in Madeley. Ritchie has been waiting for a letter from Bristol. Mrs Pine wrote from there about three weeks ago saying that “I shall be able to do the [financial] business of our friends to their satisfaction’ and promised to write again. As Pine’s second letter has not yet arrived, Ritchie will wait no longer to write to Fletcher. She supposes that Pine will effect the transfer at the same time that she sends the particulars of the business to Ritchie, who will have to send the documents to Fletcher for her signature and then return them to Ritchie for sending back to Bristol.
The Act has now passed through Parliament and Fletcher is now the proprietress of one share in the Kennet and Avon Canal, which she should include in her will as soon as possible as nobody is mortal. [The last quarter of the 18th century was a great age of British canal building and a vital part of the expanding Industrial Revolution. The several stages in the construction of the Kennet and Avon Canal was authorized by Acts of Parliament in 1794, 1796, 1798, 1801, 1805, 1809 and 1813.] Five percent will be called for in June – if Fletcher’s share cost £30 and Ritchie has heard nothing to the contrary. The canal managers will not receive any money except according to the regular dividends as they wish to be answerable for as little interest as possible before the time of the canal’s ‘working.’ [Carrying commercial traffic.] ‘But if you have any part of the £90 appropriated to this purpose which lies by you useless…perhaps it might be well to place it in Mrs Pine’s hand ready for the dividends as they are called for. If not, I will let you know as they are made…’ Mrs Pine has offered to do this business for a few friends.
Ritchie was pleased to read in Fletcher’s last letter of the good work that is continuing in the vicinity of Madeley. It is going well in Yorkshire too – 800 members have been added in the Leeds circuit during this last quarter. It has also reached Otley and she is informed that the revival is spreading on all sides. From Hull, Mrs [Philothea Perronet] Thompson writes ‘blessed news’ and quoting the verse by [John] Gambold as follows:
It seems a time of grants profuse/ Complete remission, open paradise/ With power to intercede for common souls.
On Good Friday at this place, twenty young men who had all been recently ‘brought in’ went as a body to the ‘Table of the Lord.’ Mr [Alexander?] Mather is a [spiritual] father to them. The fire is being spread chiefly through prayer meetings.
A great revival involving hundreds of conversions have also broke out at Hexham in Northumberland and similarly in Cornwall, Lincoln and parts of Kent.
In London ‘party matters’ still do much harm. ‘The Chancellor has fixed upon the receiver the trustees proposed to receive the revenues arising from the chapel, which is a plain proof to everyone how the suit would be determined if brought to a close. Many hurt themselves on both sides by entering into their own spirits about what they think right. My business is to gather my spirit unto God…’ [The years immediately after Wesley’s death saw a major controversy plague London Methodism. Disputes over the division of royalties from Dr James Whitehead’s proposed biography of the Methodist leader intensified into a conflict between the lay trustees of City Road Chapel, who tended to favour Whitehead, and the preachers who were opposed to him. The trustees tried to apply pressure by using their legal status with regard to Wesley’s house at City Road, claiming the right to charge rent for preachers using the house and the book room. The argument resulted in legal action in the Chancery Court. (Stevenson, City Road Chapel and its Associations (1872), 131ff.)] Spiritual matters are further discussed.
Dear Lady Mary [Fitzgerald] is very troubled – the daughter of her late unhappy son [George Robert Fitzgerald – hanged in 1786 for shooting a servant] has died of a fever. She was within a few days of being of age and close to marriage to Lord Frederick Hervey, son of the Earl of Bristol.
Betty Swain has asked Ritchie to inform Fletcher that she is considering an offer of Mrs Harrison to pay her travel expenses to Yorkshire in return for her acting as Harrison’s ‘attendant’ – Harrison is blind.
Notes
- Philothea Perronet Thompson (1753-1823) was a daughter of the lay Methodist William Briggs and his wife Elizabeth and was baptised at the Anglican Church of St Leonard’s in Shoreditch, London. Her grandfather was the evangelical Anglican and close friend of the Wesleys Vincent Perronet. Philothea was married in August 1781 to the lay-Methodist and local preacher Thomas Thompson of Hull. Her husband was a wealthy banker and close friend and associate of the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1807 until 1818, was a member of the Methodist Committee of Privileges and was closely involved in the formation of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society. Philothea was a member of the Methodist society for over fifty years. She died after a short illness in February 1823 while on a visit to Penzance. Her son Thomas Perronet Thompson (1783-1869) was a noted soldier and politician who served as the first crown governor of the colony of Sierra Leone. Source: Dictionary of National Biography (entry for Thomas Perronet Thompson), Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, edited by Donald Lewis (1995) (entry for Thomas Thompson), International Genealogical Index and Methodist Magazine 1823, 204.
- John Gambold (1711-71) was born at Puncheston in Pembrokeshire, the son of an Anglican clergyman. He was educated at Christ Church Oxford where he was a member of the Holy Club. In 1733 Gambold was ordained into the Anglican ministry and became vicar of the parish of Stanton Harcourt. In 1742 he joined the Moravians and resigned his living. After an unsuccessful spell as a teacher at Moravian schools in Essex and Wales, he became resident minister at the Fetter Lane congregation in London. Gambold became the chief publicist of the Moravians in England, translating a number of books and working with James Hutton to defend the Church against attacks. In November 1754 he was consecrated the first English Moravian Bishop. After his health failed in 1768 he moved to Haverfordwest where he died. Source: Encyclopedia of World Methodism (1974) and Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, edited by Donald Lewis (1995)
- Alexander Mather (1733-1800) was born in Brechin, Scotland. As a boy, he was involved with the 1745 Jacobite uprising and fought for the Young Pretender at Culloden. Mather moved to London at the age of nineteen and was converted by the preaching of John Wesley. Mather joined the itinerancy in 1757 the first married preacher to be accepted. He was one of Wesley's closest confidants during the last years of the evangelist's life and in 1788 he became the first itinerant to be ordained for work in England. Such was his status within the Connexion that it was widely expected after Wesley's death, that Mather would jointly with Thomas Coke, exercise some kind of episcopal oversight over the Methodist Church. Mather served as President of Conference in 1792 and was a member of all Conference committees until 1797. Source: Encyclopedia of World Methodism (1974) and Dictionary of Evangelical Biography 1739-1860, edited by Donald M. Lewis (1995)