Samuel Wesley (poet) - Family and Early Life

Family and Early Life

The father of Samuel Wesley was the Rev. John Westley, rector of Winterborne Whitechurch, Dorset. His mother was the daughter of John White, rector of Trinity Church, Dorchester, the so-called "Patriarch of Dorchester".

Following some grammar school education in Dorchester, Wesley was sent away from home to prepare for ministerial training under Theophilus Gale. Gale's death in 1678 forestalled this plan; instead, he attended another grammar school and then studied at Dissenting academies under Edward Veel (or Veal) in Stepney and then Charles Morton in Newington Green, where Gale had lived. Daniel Defoe also attended Morton's school, situated "probably on the site of the current Unitarian church", contemporaneously with Wesley.

Samuel resigned his place and his annual scholarship among the Dissenters and walked all the way to Oxford, where he enrolled at Exeter College as a "poor scholar." He functioned as a "servitor", which means he sustained himself financially by waiting upon wealthy students. He also published a small book of poems, entitled Maggots: or Poems on Several Subjects never before Handled in 1685. The unusual title is explained in a few lines from the first page of the work:

Wesley married Susanna Wesley in 1688. He fathered Samuel Wesley (the Younger), John Wesley and Charles Wesley. He had 19 children, nine of whom died in infancy. Three boys and seven girls survived.

In 1697 he was appointed to the living at Epworth through the benevolence of Queen Mary. He may have come to the queen's attention because of his heroic poem, "The Life of Christ" (1693) which he dedicated to her. Samuel Wesley's high-church liturgies, academic proclivities, and loyalist Tory politics were a complete mismatch for those of his illiterate parishioners. He was not warmly received, and his ministry was not widely appreciated. Wesley was soon deep in dept and much of his life would be spent trying to make financial ends meet. In 1709 his parsonage was destroyed by fire and son John was barely rescued from the flames.