British Methodist Politics after John Wesley

ABSTRACT This article surveys (primarily) British Methodist political engagement in the era after the death of John Wesley. It challenges a number of orthodoxies, including the neat categorization of Wesleyan Methodists as politically conservative, while more radical activism is ascribed to the ‘minor Methodists’. While there is some truth to this, a more mixed political economy is argued here. British Methodist conservatism is set against the aftermath of the French Revolution and is illustrated partly through Thomas Coke’s advocacy for a group of persecuted Methodists on the island of Jersey in 1798. While Wesleyans took a conservative stance on the labour and industry disputes that emerged in the early nineteenth century, there were also those of a more progressive political caste, so a distinction needs to be made between official pronouncements and the views of individual Wesleyans. The conviction that the Christian social conscience needs to be applied to the circumstances in which people live and work has been (and remains) a basic conviction of Methodists across the political spectrum.