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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Methodists
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Members of the Christian church which derives from the 18C evangelical movement led by John and Charles *Wesley. Wesleyan preachers were most influential in deprived industrial areas; the great centres of Methodism became the Welsh mining valleys (where singing in the chapel has been a strong tradition) and the factory towns of the Midlands (Methodism features prominently in the novels of Arnold *Bennett). During the 19C the Methodists split into several mutually disaffected groups, but the most important of these (including the Primitive Methodists and the Wesleyan Methodists) united again in 1932 to form the present Methodist Church in Great Britain.
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Its governing body is the Conference, meeting annually and dating back to the occasion in 1744 when John Wesley first summoned his itinerant preachers to come together and confer. The founders of the movement took Methodism to the USA in the 18C; and the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, founded in Britain in 1813, spread the message further afield. There are now believed to be about 54 million Methodists worldwide, with slightly fewer than half a million in Britain (for the numbers attending church in England see *Christians).
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