A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 



savings 88 * to endow a lecture on the doctrine and discipline of the church, 

 especially on ' the duty of the people to attend to the instruction of the 

 minister whom the bishop of the diocese should set over them.' SM If there 

 had only been a few more men like him in England there would have been 

 no need of any Methodist revival. 



The first rallying-place of the Methodists in this county was in the 

 neighbourhood of Donington Park, where different members of the 

 Hastings family had set an example of piety and beneficence ever since the 

 Restoration. The Lady Elizabeth Hastings, who died in 1739, 'a genuine 

 daughter of the Church of England,' 28e and her sisters, Lady Ann and Lady 

 Margaret, were celebrated for their charity and devotion far beyond the circle 

 in which they were brought up ; their brother the earl of Huntingdon was 

 a sincere churchman of the old school, and there was a time when his 

 countess was apparently quite in sympathy with the devotional system in 

 which she had been trained. 287 She became acquainted with John Wesley, 

 however, while she was still living for the most part at Donington, and as 

 early as 1741 wrote to him that his doctrine on Christian perfection was 

 ' the thing she hoped to live and die by.' 888 The death of her sons in 1743, 

 and of her husband three years later, leaving her a widow still in the prime of 

 life, turned her thoughts more exclusively to religion ; and she was no doubt 

 a woman who needed more scope than the Church of her day could provide. 



Her subsequent career is so well known that there is no need to speak 

 of it here. It is only necessary to say that one of the earliest essays in open- 

 air preaching was made in this neighbourhood by David Taylor, a servant of 

 hers. 28 ' Wesley himself was not at Leicester until 1753, where he found the 

 people serious and attentive, 890 but did not gather a large following : his 

 system does not seem to have been very popular in the county till the end of 

 the century. Thomas Robinson, who came to be curate of St. Martin's, 

 Leicester, in 1774, and was known as a 'Methodist,' was rather what we 

 should now call a churchman of the evangelical school. In his time the 

 name of Methodist was still given to any of the more earnest among the 

 clergy who, though not desiring any separation from the Church, yet in- 

 stituted in their parishes prayer-meetings and extempore preachings, after the 

 manner of those followers of Wesley and Whitfield who had now become in 

 the strict sense dissenters. Robinson served St. Martin's and St. Mary's till 

 1813, and was a good, hard-working parish priest, a friend of Venn and 

 Romaine and all the leaders of his school ; he did a great deal of much- 

 needed philanthropic work, organizing charitable societies, visiting schools, 

 infirmaries, and prisons. He became a very popular preacher in his later 

 years, and drew large congregations. 891 



154 Out of 30 a year, of which 12 to i 8 was paid for board and lodging, he saved enough to 

 bequeath 100 to his own kindred, 100 to the farmer in whose house he had lived, in special gratitude for 

 kindness shown to the infirmities of old age, and 40 to the parish ; though he had latterly had to pay an 

 assistant priest to help him with his work. 



186 For the whole account see Nichols, Leic. iv, 975-6. 



" See Nichols, Leic. ; Trollope, Ch. Plate of Leic. i, 7. A silver flagon and alms dish were given in 

 memory of her to the church of Ashby de la Zouch by Lady Ann. 



87 In !73 2 she presented a silver chalice, paten, and flagon to her parish church at Castle Donington, 

 and similar gifts to Osgathorpe. Trollope, Ch. Plate of Leic. i, 15, 22. 



* Tyerman, Life of Wesley, i, 341. Ibid. Ibid, ii, 170. 



m See E. T. Vaughan, Some Account of Thomas Robinson ; Diet. Nat. Biog. 



394 



