The Welsh Methodist Society , livre ebook

The Welsh Methodist Society
The Welsh Methodist Society
The Early Societies in South-west Wales 1737–1750
Eryn M. White
© Eryn M. White, 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to The University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78683-579-6
e-ISBN 978-1-78683-581-9
The right of Eryn M. White to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Cover artwork and design by Clifford Hayes
Contents
List of illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1: ‘No part of the Nation more inclin’d to be Religious’? The Religious Context
Chapter 2: ‘The Young Striplings’: Leaders and Exhorters
Chapter 3: ‘The Lord’s Peculiar Dwelling Place’: The Location of the Societies
Chapter 4: ‘The Great Shepherd’s Little Flock’: The Membership of the Societies
Chapter 5: ‘Iron Sharpens Iron’: The Appeal of the Societies
Chapter 6: ‘The World, the Flesh and the Devil’: Order and Discipline
Chapter 7: ‘This Furnace of Affliction’: Trials and Tribulations
Conclusion
Appendix: List of societies
Bibliography
List of illustrations
1 A sketch drawn by Howel Harris to illustrate his ‘Rounds’, 13 April 1745 (The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; Trevecca College/1 3189).
2 William John’s report to the Association, 7 January 1747 (The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; Trevecca College/1 3037).
3 William Richard’s report to the Association, May-August 1748 (The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; Trevecca College/1 3055).
4 William Williams’s report to the Association, 14 October 1747 (The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; Trevecca College/1 3046).
 

South-west Wales
Introduction
The year 1737 saw the founding of the first permanent Methodist seiat in Wales, an institution which became intrinsically important in Welsh history and culture. Seiat was a word derived from the English ‘society’, but developed in Welsh exclusively in a religious context and very specifically for the Methodist fellowship meeting, sometimes referred to as seiat brofiad , an experience meeting. Although the Welsh word for ‘society’, cymdeithas , was used on some occasions, it was the word seiat which came to be adopted within the movement and beyond as the specific term for this particular type of meeting. The seiat developed as an institution in order to meet the needs of its members and could easily be adapted as circumstances demanded. Since it required no consecrated building and was not fixed to any precise spot, it could be held in whatever venue was available and could move as suited its members. All that was needed to begin with was two or three converts who chose to meet regularly. The flexible nature of the society meant that it was ideally suited to cater for the scattered rural communities of south-west Wales. By 1750, over 400 had been established throughout Wales, a substantial proportion of them within the three counties of the south-west, an area which was home to several of the early leaders of Methodism, and in convenient proximity to Howel Harris’s base in Breconshire. One of the reasons for focusing specifically on this region is that it was identified at the time as the main centre of the revival, referred to by Harris as ‘the Lord’s Peculiar Dwelling Place’. 1
A good proportion of this ‘Peculiar Dwelling Place’ in the three counties of south-west Wales – Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire – comprises coastal lowland. As David J. V. Jones has pointed out, ‘contrary to first impressions’, much of the land is under 1,000 feet, 2 although the Pumlumon mountains in north Cardiganshire and the Black Mountain to the east form natural barriers. The rivers Teifi and Tywi, as well as the Cleddau in Pembrokeshire, fed fertile valleys and led to coastal ports. Several of these ports were centres for imports and exports, including the busy herring trade in south Cardiganshire, with Cardigan, Aberporth and Penbryn exporting herring mainly to Ireland. 3 A number of farmers along the coast became involved in some way with the sea trade, including owning shares in vessels, yet agriculture was the main source of livelihood for most of the inhabitants of the area, with many tenant farmers working small holdings of land. 4 Cardiganshire was jokingly referred to as ‘the devil’s grandmother’s jointure’ in the early modern period because of its poverty, but areas of Carmarthenshire were more agriculturally fertile and wealthy. 5 Despite economic hardship and crises of mortality in the first decades of the century, the area seems to have witnessed a steady growth in population from around the mid-1740s onwards, coinciding to some degree with the early impact of Methodism. 6 Population figures prior to the first census in 1801 are based on estimates which may not be wholly accurate, but suggest that at the start of the eighteenth century Cardiganshire had a population of around 27,000, Carmarthenshire 42,000 and Pembrokeshire 29,000. 7 The evangelical revival emerged in a Wales which had not yet experienced large-scale industrialisation. The south-west would escape many of the direct effects of that industrialisation when it developed, but that is not to say that the area was utterly without trace of industry in the mid-eighteenth century, since pockets of lead, copper and coal mining were to be found. Despite this, it was an overwhelmingly agricultural society, which fits the pattern of Methodist growth in a rural area with dispersed population where the traditional parishes of the Church of England increasingly strained to cope with a growing population. 8
This is the area which would become known as ‘Rebecca’s Country’, centre of resistance to state and church during the Rebecca Riots in the mid-nineteenth century. It was a region much of which was not always the most productive agricultural land, which mostly did not develop large-scale industry and was largely not well served by communication networks. The south-west was overwhelmingly Welsh-speaking in the mid-eighteenth century, save for a greater degree of anglicisation in the market towns and the long-established Englishry of south Pembrokeshire, where the landsker cut a stark boundary between Welsh- and English-speaking communities. 9 Travellers from outside the area were not always greatly impressed with a landscape that mainly lacked the rugged mountains which increasingly attracted admirers of the sublime but at the same time had all the frustrations of travel over poorly maintained roads. However, the region did benefit from a rustic rural charm which could be seen as natural and unspoilt. 10 Despite the disadvantages, the south-western counties contained within the sprawling diocese of St Davids proved to be of crucial importance for some of the key educational and religious developments of the eighteenth century.
One of those developments was the evangelical revival, the history of which in Wales is closely associated with the three main early leaders: Daniel Rowland, Howel Harris and William Williams. Their contribution has traditionally been compartmentalised, with Rowland regarded as the inspired preacher, Harris as the capable organiser and Williams as the gifted hymnwriter. Although there is considerable truth in this depiction of their predominant talents, they each made a broader contribution to the development of the movement. These three are hailed as the founding fathers of Calvinistic Methodism in Wales, but others such as Howel Davies and Peter Williams also played important supporting roles, especially in the south-west. There was thus a group of leaders who discussed the progress of the movement and also consulted with those of like mind across the border. In the initial heady days of revival, there seemed to be an eagerness to share experiences and pool resources, which later cooled as doctrinal differences overcame the urge to cooperate. One of the major differences in outcome of the Welsh and English revivals was the relative strength of Arminian and Calvinistic Methodism, with the Arminian Methodism associated with the Wesleys proving slow to gain ground in Wales. Since Calvinism was quickly adopted as the theological stance in Wales, it was George Whitefield who was the main ally in England. He was appointed official moderator of the Welsh Association and Harris helped maintain his Tabernacle in London while he was away in America. There was a close degree of cooperation, therefore, as there was with the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion, also a Calvinistic branch of Methodism. Harris was the major contact with those other evangelical groups, maintaining links with the Wesleys and the Moravians as well as with the Calvinist wing of English-speaking Methodism. However, Welsh Methodism was not an offshoot of the English movement, but one of several streams of the evangelical revival which had emerged around the same time. One principle that united all of the Methodist groups in Wales and England was the commitment to remai