Gareth Lloyd

These essays about British Methodists in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, explore the process of collective remembering. Three distinct aspects are probed in this volume: how telling life stories shaped identity for the Methodist movement; how remembering lives was both contrived and contested; how historians' techniques have exposed the process of memorialising and remembering in Methodism.

An important new study of the life and ministry of the Anglican minister and Evangelical leader Charles Wesley (1707-88) which examines the often-neglected contribution made by John Wesley's younger brother to the early history of the Methodist movement. Charles Wesley's importance as the author of classic hymns like `Love Divine' and `O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing' is well known, but his wider contribution to Methodism, the Church of England and the Evangelical Revival has been overlooked. Gareth Lloyd presents a new appraisal of Charles Wesley based on his own papers and those of his friends and enemies. The picture of the Revival that results from a fresh examination of one of Methodism's most significant leaders offers a new perspective on the formative years of a denomination that today has an estimated 80 million members worldwide.