A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



At Bolton Wesley was in a different constituency. When he first 

 preached at the Cross in that town in August, 1748, he tells us that many of 

 the people were utterly wild. 



As soon as I began speaking they began thrusting to and fro, endeavouring to throw me 

 down from the steps on which I stood. They did so once or twice, but I went up again 

 and continued my discourse. Then they began to throw stones; at the same time some 

 got upon the cross behind me to push me down. 



But Bolton made amends, for in spite of the secession under Bennet in 1751, 

 which rent the society in twain, the town became a stronghold and centre of 

 Lancashire Methodism. In April, 1761, Wesley preached to a serious con- 

 gregation there and notes in his diary, ' I find few places like this. All 

 disputes are forgot and the Christians do indeed love one another. When I 

 visited the classes on Wednesday I did not find a disorderly walker among 

 them.' Three years later, as the room could not contain his hearers, he 

 preached in the street to a calm congregation composed of awakened and 

 unawakened Churchmen, Dissenters, and what not. In the evening the multi- 

 tude again constrained him to preach in the street, although it was raining. 



Such brief and disjointed extracts from Wesley's diary serve to convey 

 an imperfect idea of the character of one or two of the Lancashire towns 

 during the fatal transition period, when the industrial revolution was com- 

 mencing its baneful influence in hardening and brutalizing the working classes. 

 But they convey no conception whatever either of the progress of Methodism 

 in the country villages or of the process of the building up of the system or 

 polity of Methodism. The former indeed is impalpable. It is writ large 

 in the history of the movement throughout England and has less special 

 reference to Lancashire. But in the latter the county Palatine has played a 

 most decisive part at the various periods of crisis in the Connexion. It must 

 be remembered that this is a matter of locality rather than of personality. 

 During his life Wesleyanism was Wesley, so dominating were his authority 

 and influence, but after his death the rigorous application of the itinerating 

 system, which limits the stay of a minister in any circuit to three years at the 

 outside, prevented the permanent identification of any individual minister 

 with any particular locality. The history therefore of the movement as a 

 whole in the county reduces itself to an outline of the formation of the 

 various societies and the ever fresh creation and subdivison of circuits. The 

 broader movements which agitated the Connexion are of special interest to 

 Lancashire only in so far as they either arose or came to a head there. 



At the twenty-second conference, which was held at Manchester, in 1766, 

 Lancashire appears on the minutes as one out of the twenty-five circuits in 

 England, and in this circuit there were four appointed ministers. The number 

 of members was then about 1,700. Three years later the Lancashire circuit 

 was divided into north and south, each portion being supplied with still only 

 two ministers. In 1784 a rearrangement was made in the circuits. Three 

 circuits were constituted, the heads of them being fixed at Liverpool, Man- 

 chester, and Bolton. The later process of growth is too tedious to be followed 

 in narrative. 



But besides furnishing this remarkable growth Lancashire has played 



lr'Tl%c^T. '"n'^^ ^"'^'"^^ ^''^""'y °^ the Connexion. During 

 \\ esley s life his mfluence had been great enough to restrain the grow- 



