Methodist leader’s fall from grace

He may have been a man of God, but that did not mean that John Wesley was immune to members of the fair sex. Indeed, he found himself at the centre of a love triangle involving a Derbyshire lay preacher. Vivienne Smith reports.

THE founder of Methodism, John Wesley, was a supremely dedicated man of God. Yet, this did not mean he was immune to affairs of the heart.

And like many men, before and since, he found the path to true love far from smooth. He first realised the strength of his feeling for the attractive young widow Grace Murray in the summer of 1748. She was to become the love of his life.

But Wesley soon discovered he had a rival for her affections in the form of John Bennet, a Derbyshire man who was one of his finest lay preachers. The younger son of farmer William Bennet and his wife Ann, John was born at Lee End Farm, near Chinley, on March 1, 1715.

His parents wanted him to follow a profession, so they sent him to a school in nearby Chapel-en-le-Frith to become proficient in Latin and Greek. At 17, Bennet attended the Findern academy for a short time, before becoming a legal clerk in Sheffield.

Just five years later, the young man horrified his parents by setting up in business as a carrier, hauling goods by packhorse across the Peak between Sheffield and Macclesfield.

But, in January 1742, a dramatic religious conversion at Hayfield changed his life. Bennet decided to be a preacher instead. He established a network of religious groups across the county and into Cheshire and south-east Lancashire which became known as John Bennet’s Round.

As the first teacher of Methodism in Derbyshire, Bennet was warmly welcomed by John Wesley into his flock. In June 1744, the Methodist leader even came to Chinley in person to preach. He enjoyed “a pinch of tea” during his visit and also stayed the night, most probably at Bennet’s home.

The next day, the two men set off together on horseback for London to attend the first ever Methodist Conference. At this historic meeting, John Bennet had responsibility for taking the minutes. He soon became a major figure in the movement.

Then, in early 1746, while in Newcastle upon Tyne, the Chinley man met Mrs Grace Murray. The 30-year-old widow was housekeeper of Wesley’s northern headquarters known as the Orphan House. Her duties included running the dispensary and, when Bennet fell seriously ill with a fever, she nursed him.

Thanks to her loving care and attention, he eventually recovered and the experience convinced him they should wed one day. Grace herself was a Geordie lass of humble birth. Born in 1716, she had gone into service before marrying sailor Alexander Murray.

Her conversion to Methodism came at the age of 23. Grace later wrote of the first time she heard John Wesley preach: “I fixt my eyes upon him, and felt an inexpressible conviction that he was sent of God.”

Her husband strongly objected to this obsession with the new religious movement and he even threatened to put her in a lunatic asylum. A few years later, he drowned at sea. The young widow soon began to take a more active part in Methodism. Recognised by John Wesley as a capable and dedicated worker, she was put in charge of his northern headquarters in Newcastle.

There was no hint of romance between them at this stage, for he was still wrestling with the idea of remaining celibate. However, during the Methodist Conference of June 1748, the 45-year-old clergyman became convinced by his colleagues that “a Believer might marry without suffering loss in his soul”.

While travelling in north-east England a couple of months later, Wesley was taken ill. Just like Bennet, he was nursed by Grace and suddenly saw her in a different light. As Wesley recorded in his diary: “I observ’d her more narrowly than ever before, both as to her temper, sense and behaviour. I esteem’d and loved her more and more.

“And when I was a little recover’d, I told her, sliding into it I know not how, ‘If I ever marry, I think you will be the person’.” Grace was dumbfounded by his words.

He promised she could join him on a preaching tour of Ireland the following spring. But she wanted to travel with him there and then. So, together they set off on horseback to spread the Gospel around Yorkshire and Derbyshire.

By the end of August, the pair were in Chinley, having met up with John Bennet en route. With pressing business to attend to in London, Wesley soon had to leave but he asked his colleague “to take good care of Mrs Murray”.

Bennet needed no encouragement. Unbeknown to their leader, he and Grace had been writing to each other ever since his recovery from fever two years earlier. Grace stayed on at Bennet’s house for a further week, before embarking on a preaching trip with him around the Peak. During their travels, he begged her to become his wife.

According to Grace’s own account, she replied: “If Mr Wesley will give his consent, I will yield.” So they both wrote letters to him. Wesley was stunned to hear of their intentions, but did not withhold his permission. However, no date was fixed for the wedding and, in the spring of 1759, Grace still accompanied Wesley on the trip to Ireland as planned.

They got on well together. It is even said the couple became betrothed in Dublin that July. Once back home, Wesley carefully weighed up the pros and cons of the match. On the plus side, he knew that Grace was a good housekeeper and an excellent nurse.

She was happy to go on the road with him to do God’s work and, as his wife, she would save him from being molested by other women. He listed just three objections which he swiftly dismissed.

For a start, Grace’s poor background was not an issue to him. And the fact that she had been his servant simply meant he had got to know her well before they married. Their travels together might cause some people to say she had been his mistress, but such gossip did not bother him.

The Methodist minister became convinced Grace was indeed the one for him, but the lady herself was still having doubts. On a trip to Bristol, she heard false rumours of his affection for another woman. In a fit of jealousy, she wrote a love letter to John Bennet.

Matters came to a head that August when all three of them met at Wesley’s home at Epworth, in Lincolnshire. After a long conversation with Bennet, John Wesley agreed to relinquish his claim.

But according to one account, a tearful Grace then told him: “I love you a thousand times better than I ever loved John Bennet in my life. But I am afraid if I don’t marry him, he’ll run mad.” His marriage to the young widow seemed back on the cards. Yet, when the trio went their separate ways, the matter was still unresolved.

Then Charles Wesley stepped into the fray. John’s younger brother was extremely concerned to hear him talk of marriage to a woman already promised to another. Neither was he happy about Grace’s lowly birth or her status as a servant.

Unlike John, he believed the match would bring disgrace to the Methodist movement. His solution was to force a reconciliation between Grace and John Bennet behind his brother’s back. And, on October 3, 1749, in the presence of Charles Wesley, the couple were married at Newcastle upon Tyne.

Wesley was devastated by the news. As he later wrote in his journal: “I was in great heaviness, my heart was sinking in me like a stone.” An emotional reunion between the two Johns soon followed.

Less than 18 months later, Wesley tied the knot himself. But his marriage to 41-year-old widow Mrs Mary Vazeille proved a disaster and the couple eventually split. The friendship between Bennet and Wesley was never the same again. The final split came in 1752 when the Chinley man left the Methodists to become pastor at a Calvinist chapel near Warrington.

John Bennet died at Chinley seven years later on May 24, 1759, and was interred at Chinley Chapel. He was just 44. As for Grace and John Wesley, apart from a short conversation after her wedding, they did not meet again for another 40 years.

Following the death of her husband, she rejoined the Methodists and settled in Chapel-en-le-Frith with her five boys, one of whom became an Independent minister in London. In 1788, she travelled to the capital to hear her son preach.

At her request, Wesley agreed to see her. Although he was now 85, and she 72, a heart-rending reunion was anticipated. Yet, according to a record of this brief encounter: “The meeting was affecting, but Mr Wesley preserved more than his usual self-possession.”

The one-time sweethearts never met again. Three years later, the founder of Methodism was dead. Grace herself passed away on February 23, 1803, aged 87, and was buried alongside her husband.

The High Peak thus became the final resting place of John Wesley’s one true love.

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