primitive methodists

Primitive methodists broke away from the main Wesleyan body and formed their own connexion in 1811, led by Hugh Bourne, a carpenter, and William Clowes, a potter, who had been expelled for holding American-style camp-meetings at Mow Cop (Staffs.). Condemned by the middle-class churches as ranters, the primitive methodists provided a form of evangelism attuned to the needs of labouring people. The ‘prims’ were noted for their open-air, hell-fire style of preaching, their revivalist, tented camp-meetings, their acceptance of women preachers, and their teetotalism. By the 1850s the primitive methodists had over 100, 000 members. In 1932 they joined the United Methodist Church.