Page:A History of Horncastle from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.djvu/83



HERE are in Horncastle five Nonconformist religious communities, the Wesleyan, Congregational, Primitive Methodist, Baptist, and New Church or Swedenborgian, each now having substantially built chapels, resident ministers, with Sunday, and, in one case, Day Schools. Through the courtesy of the Rev. John Percy, late Head Minister of the Wesleyan Society, we are enabled to give a fairly full account of its origin and growth, down to the present 20th century. As this is the most important religious body in the town, next to the Church of England, although it is not the oldest, we take the Wesleyans first. As will be seen in the following account, this Society arose from a very small beginning, but at the present time, with perhaps the exception of the Baptists, it is the most numerous and influential body among Nonconformists. Although, locally, rather fewer in numbers in recent years, than formerly, it is generally growing, and in the year 1904, as published statistics show, it acquired in the United Kingdom an addition of 10,705 full members, with 11,874 members on trial, and junior members 4,367; a total increase of 26,946.

The founder of this Society was, as its name implies, John Wesley, probably of the same stock as the great Duke of Wellington, whose family name was variously written Wellesley, or Wesley. We take the immediately following particulars mainly from the History of England, by Henry Walter, B.D. and F.R.S., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, Professor in the