Hugh Bourne

BOURNE, Hugh. b. Stoke-on-Trent, 3 April 1772; d. Bemersley, Staffordshire, 11 October 1852. Born at Fordhays Farm, his family moved to Bemersley, near Tunstall, Staffordshire, in 1788. He worked for his father, a farmer and wheelwright, and for his uncle, a millwright and engineer. He became a Methodist in 1799, and built a chapel at Harriseahead in 1802. Fired with enthusiasm, he enlisted the help of his brother James and his friend William Clowes (1780-1851) to hold a ‘camp meeting’ (on the pattern of American evangelical meetings) at Mow Cop, a hill near Stoke, on 31 May 1807. In the following year, mindful of possible criticism, the Wesleyan Methodist Conference forbade such meetings,...