1829 to 2005

THE HISTORY OF METHODISM IN TADCASTER

Page 1: Origins and Development 1759-1828

We know from John Wesley’s diaries that he preached in Tadcaster on at least eleven occasions between 20th April 1759 and 4th May 1786 and he may even have made an earlier visit to Tadcaster in the middle of July 1757 during a few days in York. An entry in his diary dated 3rd July 1776 reads, “A glorious work is dawning here against which nothing can prevail.”

This small market town of Tadcaster, for centuries noted as a meeting place with good inns and ales, was no stranger to Dissent, several non-conforming religious groups having been active before Wesley’s birth. Some one hundred years before Wesley first visited the town the government was experiencing severe opposition to attempts to restrict organised worship to the Church of England so Charles II issued a Declaration of Indulgence, which allowed the licensing of religious meeting houses. The first of these in Tadcaster was for Dissenters’ meetings in the house known as Morley Hall and now as The Ark.

It was in this climate that Methodism was born in Tadcaster. Other non-conformist groups in the town did not appear to flourish as well as Wesley’s followers. The Vicar, Mr Noble, reported in 1764 that the town had about “340 families, 23 Dissenters (15 Methodists, 6 Papists, 2 Quakers) and 2 licensed Meeting Houses.”
John Wesley himself commented “Wednesday, 23rd July 1766. I went on to Tadcaster. Here, Mr Ingham had once a far larger society than ours, but it is now shrunk into nothing. Ours, meantime, is continually increasing.”

Gradually Methodism was becoming well established with new groups constantly forming in the town and surrounding villages. Wesley travelled thousands of miles each year, visiting his societies and preaching in public; in fact he partly attributed his strength and longevity to this. He managed to preach in Tadcaster about once in every two years, the last known occasion being Thursday 4th May 1786, when he was eighty-three years old!

When John Wesley established “the Conference of the people called Methodists,” his own definition of his followers, what had once been used as a derisory term against them was now a welcomed distinguishing feature, although it was still some years before the final separation from the Church of England.

Over the next few decades the circuits were formalised and the organisation became much more efficient. Finances improved, the building of chapels began.

The increase in numbers and recognition of Methodism as a separate sect eventually obliged the Tadcaster faithful to apply for a Dissenters Meeting House Licence in 1796.