10 August 1766: John Wesley crowd-counts 20,000 at Daw Green, Dewsbury
John Wesley. 1827. The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. 3/4. London: J. Kershaw. Get it:
.Excerpt
About one I preached at Daw Green. I judged the congregation, closely wedged together, to extend forty yards one way, and about a hundred the other. Now, suppose five to stand in a yard square, they would amount to twenty thousand people. I began preaching at Leeds between five and six, to just such another congregation. This was the hardest day’s work I have had since I left London; being obliged to speak at each place from the beginning to the end, to the utmost: extent of my voice: but my strength was as my day.
To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:
- ER: East Riding
- GM: Greater Manchester
- NR: North Riding
- NY: North Yorkshire
- SY: South Yorkshire
- WR: West Riding
- WY: West Yorkshire
Comment
Comment
He had preached there several days before:
I preached at one in Great Gummersal; in the evening at Dewsbury. The congregation was as large as at Bradford, and as attentive. Although a few years since the people of Daw Green were as eminently savage and irreligious, as even the colliers of Kingswood.
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Original
About one I preached at Daw-Green. I judged the congregation, closely wedged together, to extend forty yards one way, and about a hundred the other. Now, suppose five to stand in a yard square, they would amount to twenty thousand people. I began preaching at Leeds between five and six, to just such another congregation. This was the hardest day’s work I have had since I left London; being obliged to speak at each place from the beginning to the end, to the utmost: extent of my voice: but my strength was as my day.
98 words.
Tags
Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.
- Crowd counting (1)
· - 📌Daw Green (1) ·
- 📌Dewsbury (21) ·
- Gomersal (3) ·
- Kingswood, South Gloucestershire (1) ·
- 📌Leeds (235) ·
- Wesley, John (1703-91) (21), cleric and leader of a evangelical revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism ·
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