Yr Hen Iaith part 63: the beginning of a new period – the Methodist Revival

Jerry Hunter

We begin series three of Yr Hen Iaith by discussing the Welsh Methodist Revival.

In addition to heralding the start of a new period in the nation’s religious history, the rise of Methodism would also transform Welsh society, culture – and, yes, literature – in many ways.

Nonconformism had already taken root in a few parts of Wales;  the first Independent church in Wales was founded at Llanfaches in the 1630s by a group of religious radicals (including Morgan Llwyd, who featured heavily in series 2 of Yr Hen Iaith), and the first Baptist congregation in the country was founded in Ilston, near Swansea, the following decade.

However, the Methodist Revival which began during the second half of the 1730s would spread across all of Wales during the eighteenth century and ensure that Nonconformism would become – and remain – a hegemonic force in Wales until the religious decline of the twentieth century.

It is also important to stress that Anglicanism and its conservative cultural manifestations remained vigorous in Wales in many ways. Indeed, the fact that parts of the Welsh literary landscape were the sites of heated ideological battles is one of the things that makes eighteenth-century Welsh-language literature so interesting.

Slavery

Also interesting is the fact that Methodism sent down its first roots in Wales at the very time when it was becoming a transatlantic movement, as one of the first English Methodist leaders, George Whitfield, would become known as ‘America’s Spiritual Founding Father’. (Although the present writer has always viewed Whitfield’s legacy with disgust, given the fact that he played a large part in the extension of slavery in the British American colonies).

A few facts about the early Welsh Methodists help explain the energy and passion characterizing their evangelical efforts.

When they experienced conversion in 1735, Howell Harris was 21 and Daniel Rowlands was 22 years old. William Williams, Pantycelyn, was around 20 years when he experienced his conversion in 1737.

To a great extent, then, the movement was first spread in Wales by individuals fired by the vigour of youth and the passion of recent conversion. However, Griffith Jones, Anglican rector of Llanddowror, was much older, and his early support for Methodism was a key factor as well.

All of the early Welsh Methodist leaders were well educated and the schools founded by Griffith Jones would go some way towards democratizing education in Wales.

This helps us understand the fact that Welsh Methodism had an extremely literate aspect from the very beginning.

Howell Harris wrote obsessively, and nearly 300 of his diaries and many personal letters have survived. He was also a poet and composed several hymns, although it was Williams Pantycelyn who would become the Welsh Methodist hymnist par excellence.

Reform movement

Methodism was a reform movement initially; purifying the Anglican Church from within, not breaking with it, was the initial goal. However, conservative Anglicans – including important literary figures such as Theophilus Evans (whom we met in the last episode of series 2) and the Morris brothers of Anglesey (whom we will discuss later in this series) – viewed them as ‘the mad Methodists’ and a danger to the established order.

Avoiding the set Anglican services centring on the Book of Common Prayer, the Methodist reformers had to preach in non-traditional spaces – houses, barns and open-air venues.

We can see the energetic evangelical outdoor preaching of early Methodists as a way of radicalizing and taking possession of public spheres which had been the sites of other cultural pursuits (as we’ll discuss in a future episode). And the ways in which the Welsh Methodists organized their affairs, establishing a local seiat or religious society meeting and then a sasiwn convocation also had significance beyond their essential religious purpose. We are concerned first and foremost with Welsh literature here, and the creation of a Welsh Methodist network can also be seen as the creation of a network of Welsh readers.

Further Reading:

Geraint H. Jenkins, Hanes Cymru yn y Cyfnod Modern Cynnar 1530-1760.

Geraint H. Jenkins, The Foundations of Modern Wales 1642-1780.

Derec Llwyd Morgan, Y Diwygiad Mawr.

Derec Llwyd Morgan, The Great Awakening in Wales.

If you’re interested in Jerry Hunter’s views on George Whitfield’s legacy, see the novel Safana – remembering that this is an ahistorical fictional exploration!