Yorkshire Almanac Wesley finds children “restrained from open sin” at one of the first Sunday schools, at Bingley

18 July 1784: Wesley finds children “restrained from open sin” at one of the first Sunday schools, at Bingley

John Wesley. 1832. The Journal of the Reverend John Wesley, Sometime Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, Vol. 2. Ed. John Emory. New York: J. Emory and B. Waugh. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

Sun. 18. – I preached, morning and afternoon, in Bingley church, but it would not near contain the congregation. Before service I stepped into the Sunday School, which contains two hundred and forty children, taught every Sunday by several masters, and superintended by the curate. So, many children in one parish are restrained from open sin, and taught a little good manners, at least, as well as to read the Bible. I find these schools springing up wherever I go. Perhaps God may have a deeper end therein, than men are aware of. Who knows but some of these schools may become nurseries for Christians?

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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.

Comment

Wikipedia:

Sunday schools were first set up in the 18th century in England to provide education to working children. William King started a Sunday school in 1751 in Dursley, Gloucestershire, and suggested that Robert Raikes start a similar one in Gloucester. Raikes was editor of the Gloucester Journal. He wrote an article in his journal, and as a result many clergymen supported schools, which aimed to teach the youngsters reading, writing, cyphering (doing arithmetic) and a knowledge of the Bible. In 1785, 250,000 English children were attending Sunday school. There were 5,000 in Manchester alone (Wikipedia contributors 2022).

Leeds in 1784:

Similar institutions had been begun in Leeds, where Wesley was about to hold his conference. The town was already divided into seven divisions; and had twenty-six schools, containing above two thousand scholars, taught by forty-five masters. Each school commenced at one o’clock in the afternoon, the children being taught reading, writing, and religion. At three, they were taken to their respective churches; then conducted back to school, where a portion of some useful book was read, a psalm sung, and the whole concluded with a form of prayer, composed and printed for that purpose. Boys and girls were kept separate. There were four “inquisitors,” persons whose office it was to spend Sunday afternoon in visiting the twentysix schools, to ascertain who were absent, and then in seeking the absentees at their homes or in the public streets. The masters were mostly pious men, and were paid from one to two shillings a Sunday for their services, according to their respective qualifications. Each had a written list of his scholars’ names, which he was required to call over, every Sunday, at half-past one, and half-past five. Five clergymen visited the schools, and gave addresses; and the expenses of the first year, ending in July 1784, were about £234 (Tyerman 1876).

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Comment

Wikipedia:

Sunday schools were first set up in the 18th century in England to provide education to working children. William King started a Sunday school in 1751 in Dursley, Gloucestershire, and suggested that Robert Raikes start a similar one in Gloucester. Raikes was editor of the Gloucester Journal. He wrote an article in his journal, and as a result many clergymen supported schools, which aimed to teach the youngsters reading, writing, cyphering (doing arithmetic) and a knowledge of the Bible. In 1785, 250,000 English children were attending Sunday school. There were 5,000 in Manchester alone (Wikipedia contributors 2022).

Leeds in 1784:

Similar institutions had been begun in Leeds, where Wesley was about to hold his conference. The town was already divided into seven divisions; and had twenty-six schools, containing above two thousand scholars, taught by forty-five masters. Each school commenced at one o’clock in the afternoon, the children being taught reading, writing, and religion. At three, they were taken to their respective churches; then conducted back to school, where a portion of some useful book was read, a psalm sung, and the whole concluded with a form of prayer, composed and printed for that purpose. Boys and girls were kept separate. There were four “inquisitors,” persons whose office it was to spend Sunday afternoon in visiting the twentysix schools, to ascertain who were absent, and then in seeking the absentees at their homes or in the public streets. The masters were mostly pious men, and were paid from one to two shillings a Sunday for their services, according to their respective qualifications. Each had a written list of his scholars’ names, which he was required to call over, every Sunday, at half-past one, and half-past five. Five clergymen visited the schools, and gave addresses; and the expenses of the first year, ending in July 1784, were about £234 (Tyerman 1876).

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12 November 1819: The first, nocturnal vision of Prophet Wroe in one of his fields at Tong Street, Bradford following his near-fatal fever

17 May 1828: Joseph Pickles of Wilsden, a Methodist convert, dies, having partially recovered his sight, and helped produce 410 descendants

20 April 1835: A teetotallers’ tea-party at the first, great, Wilsden Temperance Festival

1 February 1829: Jonathan Martin’s attempt to burn down York Minster is frustrated by a frolicsome chorister

19 April 1747: The Methodist John Nelson is attacked by an affluent mob while preaching at Heworth Moor and Acomb (York) on Easter Sunday

28 April 1747: John Wesley visits “the new house of the Germans” (the Moravians) at Pudsey, which is financed by overseas donations

27 May 1776: Samuel Hick, apprentice blacksmith, overcomes his pacifist leanings to rescue the Wesleyan Richard Burdsall from an Anglican assailant at York

24 July 1766: Hats off for Jesus at Pateley Bridge

6 May 1744: John Nelson, one of the first Methodist preachers, finds the welcome from gaoler James Barber at Leeds Gaol superior to the accommodation

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Comment

James Wardell gives the date and the name of the gaoler, the latter apparently on the authority of Nelson, though I can’t find it; no idea where he got the date, but 6 May 1744 was a Sunday:

The old prison of the Borough, (originally situate in that part of Briggate, lately called “Cross Parish,”) was removed to the south side of Kirkgate in 1655; it was a most wretched place, and contained five or six dark and miserable apartments, without even a sewer or a fire place, in addition to which, the windows thereof were not even glazed. It was remarked by the philanthropic Howard in reference to this building, that an hour was too long to remain in such a place. Yet it was here, that John Nelson, one of the first Methodist preachers, was confined on the 6th May, 1744, when passing through the town, after having been illegally impressed for a soldier: the name of the gaoler, who, (according to Nelson’s Journal,) kindly permitted above one hundred of his friends to visit him the same night in the gaol, was “James Barber,” late “an Innholder in this Burrough.” Opposite the prison was the common bakehouse which had existed from an early period, but the privileges with which it was invested, have, together with the building, long ago ceased to exist (Wardell 1846).

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