Methodist Union - Methodist Union - The Various Methodist Denominations

The Various Methodist Denominations

The largest was the parent body, the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion, from which a number of offshoots had sprung.

The Primitive Methodists were the second largest of these, having arisen in the first decade of the nineteenth century following the conversion of Hugh Bourne and a number of others in Staffordshire to the north of Stoke on Trent. They had sought to recover the early faith and practice of John Wesley at a time when the Wesleyans were hoping to become more respectable. Their return to Wesley's field preaching, notably in the form of Camp Meetings, did not suit the Wesleyans at that time, and Bourne was put out of membership along with several of his companions. Continuing their evangelism, they began the new group, a Connexion in Methodist terminology, in 1811, taking the name Primitive Methodists in 1812.

The United Methodists were the other group involved in the 1932 union. They were the result of a union in 1907 of a number of three smaller groups. These were the Methodist New Connexion (founded in 1797), the Bible Christians, and the United Methodist Free Churches.