Oxford

Oxford can arguably claim to be the birthplace of Methodism. It was here that brothers Charles and then John Wesley and a small group of their fellow students met for Bible study and prayer, attended church together regularly and visited the prisons and workhouse. Their ‘methodical’ approach to Christianity soon got them nick-named the ‘Holy Club’, but also the title ‘Methodists’.

John and later Charles were both undergraduates at Oxford’s largest college, Christ Church. Their grandfather had been educated at New Inn Hall and their father at Exeter College. John was training to follow in his father’s footsteps as an Anglican clergyman, and was ordained Deacon in Christ Church Cathedral in 1725. He was elected as a Fellow of Lincoln College six months later in 1726. John was ordained Priest in 1728. Charles was also ordained into the Anglican ministry in Christ Church Cathedral.

John preached regularly in and around Oxford until his University Sermon on ‘Scriptural Christianity’ led to his exclusion from the University pulpit in 1744. By then the brothers had each had a spiritual experience that changed them forever (1738), confirming their assurance of their salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and propelling them into lives of itinerant preaching, ministry and writing based on their new, heart-felt Christian belief.

The first Methodist meetinghouse in Oxford was established in reted premises in New Inn Hall Street in 1783. The Methodists acquired their own site in the same street some 30 years later, opening a purpose-built chapel in 1818. This plain, classical building was replaced by the Gothic- style Wesley Memorial Church, on the same site, in 1878.