John Wesley

WESLEY, John. b. Epworth, Lincolnshire, 17 June 1703; d. London, 2 March 1791. He was the son of Samuel Wesley (I)*, rector of Epworth, the younger brother of Samuel Wesley (II)* and the older brother of Charles Wesley*. As a child of five John was saved from a dangerous fire at the rectory, ‘a brand plucked from the burning’. He was educated at home under his remarkable mother, Susanna, ‘the mother of Methodism’, and then at Charterhouse School and Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1724, MA 1727). He took Holy Orders in 1725 and became a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1726, though spending some time as a curate to his father in Lincolnshire. On his return to Oxford in 1729 he assumed the...