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

52 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MISSIONING OF YORK AND LEEDS.
IT is time we returned to Hull to see what that Circuit was doing for the
extension of the Connexion. An authentic document of the time ready
to our hand may help us here. It is a letter sent to Hugh Bourne by
Richard Jackson, the energetic steward of Hull Circuit. The letter, dated
March 20th, 1822, reads like a dispatch from the seat of war as indeed it was. We
shall have to refer to this important letter again when we come to speak of Hull's
mission to Craven and to Northumberland ;
that part of the letter which more
immediately concerns us here is this statement : " It is two years and nine months
since Hull was made a circuit town .... and we have since made seven circuits
from Hull, viz. :
Pocklington, Brotherton, Hutton Rudby, Malton, Leeds, Ripon and
York Circuits." The formation of the first three circuits named in this list has already
been described, and what this and the next chapters have to show is the direction and
degree of the geographical extension made as registered by the formation in 1822 of
the York, Leeds, Malton and Ripon Circuits. What we have now to watch and discern
the meaning of is the establishment of strategic centres in the wide county of York, and
the organised endeavour to occupy for the Connexion a tract of country which now forms
a considerable part of the Leeds and York, and Bradford and Halifax districts.
YORK.
The continuous and commanding part the ancient city of York has played
in the civil
and ecclesiastical history of England has very largely been the outcome of its unique
geographical position. Lying as it does at the entratice to the vale of York, the city
has held the key to the Great North road along which armies and travellers and merchants
and merchandise were bound to pass. It is no accident that the mediaeval city
has renewed its
youth as a great railway centre. York has always had to be reckoned
with, and even Primitive Methodist missionaries had very early to reckon with it.
They could not have given it the go-by without making both a physical and moral
detour which would have meant bad strategy and personal dishonour. To evangelise
Yorkshire and omit York would indeed have been to play Hamlet, and to leave Hamlet
himself out.
Hence, within six months of Clowes' entry into Hull, we find him con-
As though he himself were fully aware of the
fronted with the task of entering York.
significance of the event, he not only gives its exact date, but a graphic description of
his feelings at the time, and of the circumstances of his entry which were not without
a certain dignity and picturesqueness. The account must be given in Clowes' own
words ;
nor will the reader fail to notice his feeling of the inevitability of the duty that
lay before him as evidenced by the narrative. As Christ " must needs go through