Peter S. Forsaith – författare

Essays illuminating the broader issues of church and gender in the context of England’s Industrial Revolution, through the study of a single Shropshire parish.Questions have been raised in recent decades about the place of women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in church and society during a time of vast industrial change. These topics are broad, but can be seen in microcosm in one small area of the English Midlands: the parish of Madeley, Shropshire, in which Coalbrookdale became synonymous with the industrial age. Here, the evangelical Methodist clergyman John Fletcher (1729-1785) ministered between 1760 and 1785, among a population including Roman Catholics and Quakers, as well as people indifferent to religion. For nearly sixty years after his death, two women, Fletcher’s widow and later her protégé, had virtual charge of the parish, which became one of the last examples of Methodism within the Church of England.Through examining this specific locality, with its potential for religious tension and great social significance, this multidisciplinary collection of essays engages with developing areas of research. In addition to furthering knowledge of Madeley parish and its relation to larger themes of religion, gender and industry in eighteenth-century Britain, the impact of the Fletchers in nineteenth-century American Methodism is examined.

The face of John Wesley (1703–91), the Methodist leader, became one of the most familiar images in the English-speaking and transatlantic worlds through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After the dozen or so painted portraits made during his lifetime came numbers of posthumous portraits and moralising ‘scene paintings’, and hundreds of variations of prints. It was calculated that six million copies were produced of one print alone – an 1827 portrait by John Jackson R.A. as frontispiece for a hymn book.Illustrated by nearly one hundred images, many in colour, with a comprehensive appendix listing known Wesley images, this book offers a much-needed comprehensive and critical survey of one of the most influential religious and public figures of eighteenth-century Britain. Besides chapters on portraits from the life and after, scene paintings and prints, it explores aspects of Wesley’s (and Methodism’s) attitudes to art, and the personality cult which gathered around Wesley as Methodism expanded globally. It will be of interest to art historians as a treatment of an individual sitter and subject, as well as to scholars engaged in Wesley and Methodist studies. It is also significant for the field of material studies, given the spread and use of the image, on artefacts as well as on paper.

The face of John Wesley (1703–91), the Methodist leader, became one of the most familiar images in the English-speaking and transatlantic worlds through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After the dozen or so painted portraits made during his lifetime came numbers of posthumous portraits and moralising ‘scene paintings’, and hundreds of variations of prints. It was calculated that six million copies were produced of one print alone – an 1827 portrait by John Jackson R.A. as frontispiece for a hymn book.Illustrated by nearly one hundred images, many in colour, with a comprehensive appendix listing known Wesley images, this book offers a much-needed comprehensive and critical survey of one of the most influential religious and public figures of eighteenth-century Britain. Besides chapters on portraits from the life and after, scene paintings and prints, it explores aspects of Wesley’s (and Methodism’s) attitudes to art, and the personality cult which gathered around Wesley as Methodism expanded globally. It will be of interest to art historians as a treatment of an individual sitter and subject, as well as to scholars engaged in Wesley and Methodist studies. It is also significant for the field of material studies, given the spread and use of the image, on artefacts as well as on paper.