Thomas Olivers

OLIVERS, Thomas. b. Tregynon, Montgomeryshire, 1725 (baptized 8 September); d. London, 7 March 1799. He became an orphan at four years old. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker, but became a wild young man, much given to what he himself later called ‘profane and impious behaviour’. He left Tregynon for Shrewsbury and Wrexham, where local Methodists saw some good in him and invited him to join their Society; he resisted them until he went to Bristol, where he heard George Whitefield* preach and was converted. He became a shoemaker in Bradford-on-Avon, but his abilities were perceived by John Wesley*, who made him one of his ‘preachers’ in 1753. He was quick-tempered and outspoken: John Wesley...

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