Home Incoming correspondence
This series comprises nineteenth century correspondence, principally written in Great Britain and Ireland, and sent to the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society and its officials. Letters are written predominately by missionaries & ministers (occasionally their spouses), officers of the WMMS, me...
| Date(s) of creation: |
1802-1896 |
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| Level: |
Sub-series |
| Format: | Archive |
| Summary: |
This series comprises nineteenth century correspondence, principally written in Great Britain and Ireland, and sent to the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society and its officials. Letters are written predominately by missionaries & ministers (occasionally their spouses), officers of the WMMS, members of the General Committee of Management, supporters of the Society, representatives of other Christian organisations, representatives of Government and, on occasion, letters from critics of the Society and its work. A small number of letters come from overseas organisations and, very infrequently, mission staff or supporters overseas.
The correspondence itself mainly reflects work in Great Britain and Ireland to support the work of the overseas mission. The range of subject matter is quite extensive but includes legacies; advice of counsel; preparations of missionaries; fundraising; policy formation and disagreements; promoting missionary work in the UK; availability of candidates and missionaries (including the status of their health); furloughs; social reform; finance; liaising and inter-acting with other Christian organisations (mainly in Great Britain). Some printed material (mostly circular letters, pamphlets, etc) is included. There is also a small amount of correspondence relating to the early nineteenth century missions in Wales and more correspondence for a longer period relating to missionary work in Ireland.
Correspondence dating to before the WMMS was formed has generally been sent to members of the Missionary Committee of Finance and Advice usually at New Chapel (now Wesley's Chapel) City Road, London, but sometimes to one of the London chapels of the ministers on the said committee. Some correspondence (mainly subscriptions) for this period has been sent to Joseph Butterworth (bookseller, Methodist and brother-in-law of Dr Adam Clarke) in Fleet Street, London. A significant amount of the letters for the first ten years of correspondence was written by the Rev Dr Thomas Coke, General Superintendent of the Missions, or was for his consideration. From 1818 correspondence (where addresses are extant) has been mostly sent to the Mission House at 77 Hatton Gardens, London, and then from 1841 to the Centenary Hall and Mission House at Bishopsgate, London.
The amount of correspondence varies from year to year but from the 1840s to the mid-1860s it peaks at 300 to 500 letters per annum. There are, however, some noticeable gaps in the correspondence as well as some suspiciously lean periods, particularly between the 1870s and 1890s. Furthermore, letters written up to the start of the 1840s were at one time bound into ledgers and then seemingly disbound without great care. As a result some letters have been damaged by this and information has been lost. Similarly, for much of the 1840s many postage stamps have been removed from letters causing damage and sometimes the loss of information. |
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| Extent: |
21 boxes |
| Access status: |
Open |
| Access conditions: |
Only to be viewed on microfiche |
| Copyright: | Copyright mainly held by Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes |
| User restrictions: | For permission to publish, please contact Archives & Special Collections, SOAS Library in the first instance |
| Language: | English French |
| Finding aids: |
A handlist recording the name, place of writing and date of each letter by file is available in the Special Collections Reading Room. Brief biographical information on a number of the correspondents who were Methodists can be found within the Dictionary of Methodism (http://wesleyhistoricalsociety.org.uk/dmbi/) and on the John Rylands University Library website (http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/searchresources/guidetospecialcollections/methodist/using/biographicalindex/). |
| Related material: | Letters written by missionaries whilst serving overseas will be found, when extant, amongst the relevant regional correspondence. |
| Publications: |
All of the letters written here by Rev Dr Thomas Coke should appear as transcriptions in 'The letters of Dr. Thomas Coke' edited by John A. Vickers (2013). |
| Format: | Archive |