Vol 2, pages 1-100 - My Primitive Methodist Ancestors

48 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHUItCH.
STOCKPORT :
WOODLEY.
Stockport and the places thereabout for some years formed part of the Manchester
Circuit. One of the early workers tells how he and his fellow " locals " used regularly
to walk from four to twelve miles on a Sunday morning, preach indoors and out-ofdoors,
pray with penitents, and then tramp back again. When they went southward to
Stockport or beyond, they would meet in the evening on the Lancashire Bridge and
journey home. The first word said by one to another would be, "How many souls
to-day, lad " ? and often they rejoiced together over the spoil they had taken.
To some appreciable extent Primitive Methodism had been influenced by Stockport
" Revivalism." The Revivalists (amongst whom probably were Ebenezer Pulcifer and
PRESENT CHAPEL, WELLINGTON ROAD, STOCKPOHT.
James Selby of Droylesden) had carried the fire to Congleton, at which Hugh Bourne's
zeal was kindled afresh. They set causes to work which turned James Steele into
a Revivalist, and resulted in the conversion of William Clowes and others of the
fathers. So that when Primitive Methodism entered Stockport to stay, Stockport was
only getting its own with usury. From this time onward, Stockport is a good deal to
the fore. It has frequent incidental mention in the records of the time, as though it
were a place which lay right in the track of the Church's movements. Our founders
not unfrequently came this way, and passed through or tarried here. Thus William
Clowes tells us that just after the District Meeting of 1828, he came to assist in the