Vol 2, pages 1-100 - My Primitive Methodist Ancestors
Vol 2, pages 1-100 - My Primitive Methodist Ancestors
Vol 2, pages 1-100 - My Primitive Methodist Ancestors
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THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE AND ENTERPRISE. 19<br />
offices of friends the best medical aid was procured, and the governor of the jail acted<br />
in a most humane manner. It is clear that political animus had more to do with<br />
this travesty of justice than ought else. The magistrates had lost their heads. They<br />
saw signs of possible riot and disturbance everywhere. The bias of the chairman of the<br />
Quarter Sessions was revealed by the observations he dropped during the course of<br />
the trial ; and, if what is alleged be true, that the chairman was the vicar of Eochdale,<br />
who had been "military leader" on the black day of Peterloo, much is explained.<br />
"The day after Mr. Waller's discharge, Wednesday, October 17th, 1821, a meeting<br />
was held at Chancery Lane, when it<br />
appeared this imprisonment had been the means<br />
of stirring up many to hear the Word, and on the whole that it had served greatly<br />
to advance the Redeemer's kingdom."* No doubt at this significant service there<br />
would be sung some of those special hymns " On the Releasement of S. Waller from<br />
Prison," we find in the Magazine for 1822.. We do not catch, in these hymns, the<br />
triumphant note that strikes us in those called forth by John Wedgwood's Grantham<br />
experiences. In these the pervading sentiment is one of chastened thankfulness, as<br />
is seen in the chorus of one of them :<br />
" Releas'd from bondage, grief, and pain,<br />
"We meet with this our friend again."<br />
One of the best of these hymns was written by Walton Carter, already referred to.<br />
He too encountered the " backsliding <strong>Methodist</strong> constable," who pulled him down at<br />
Ashton Cross and tore his clothe?. But though Carter was brought before the<br />
magistrates at Oldham, he and his companion were dismissed. Of Walton Carter's<br />
antecedents we can glean nothing ;<br />
but he became a noted missioner in Manchester<br />
and its<br />
neighbourhood, and was our Connexional pioneer in several towns which are<br />
now the head of important stations. In fact he seems to have fulfilled the duties<br />
of a travelling preacher in the Manchester Circuit during the years 1821-2, although<br />
his name does not appear on the official stations ;<br />
so that, although Manchester Circuit<br />
in 1821 has only John Verity down for it, with the words "for six months"<br />
appended, we need not suppose that Manchester was left without a preacher for half<br />
the year. Walton Carter was on the ground. His well-written Journals appear side<br />
by side with those of Verity in the Magazine, and when Verity has left, Carter is still<br />
actively engaged in the circuit, and as late as May, 1822, sends an account to the<br />
Magazine of the first Oldham camp meeting. In 1823 his name appears on the stations<br />
for the first and last time, in connection with Halifax. He retired from the ministry,<br />
and subsequently became the proprietor of a day and boarding school at Bucklow Hill,<br />
near Knutsford. The breach with the past was not complete. He still kept in touch<br />
with Manchester for ; amongst his boarders were several youths belonging to <strong>Primitive</strong><br />
<strong>Methodist</strong> families resident in the city in which he had once rendered good service.<br />
There is reason to fear, however, that his last days were not the brightest and<br />
the<br />
best.<br />
Before the close of 1821, there were, as the books show,<br />
in Manchester alone<br />
* There is a full account of the trial of S. Waller in the Magazine for 1822, pp. 259, 281.<br />
See also S. Smith's " The Introduction," etc., already cited, p. 98.<br />
B 2