2003 marks the Tercentenary of the birth of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism

To commemorate this event Stockport Libraries are making available on this web site a facsimile of A REGISTER FOR PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS [1793-1838].

Not only is the register a tribute to his contribution to Christianity, and the history of the Methodist movement that he founded, but it will be of permanent value for those researching their Methodist family history ancestry.

For more introductory information please click here.

A REGISTER FOR THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS, STOCKPORT IN THE COUNTY OF CHESTER, JANY. 1ST, 1794 (Title Page)

[The volume starts with an entry dated Novm.16th 1793, and includes entries up to the year 1838].

Click here to view register

John Wesley made many visits to Stockport and district, and between 1759 and 1790 he visited Stockport no fewer than seventeen times. However, his earliest connection with the area dated back to 1744 when he, and his brother Charles, visited the evangelical preacher John Bennett, of Chinley. The year after, in 1745, John Wesley visited Mellor, preached to a large congregation at "…. A lone house on the side of a high, steep mountain wither abundance of people were got before us."

His congregations and the local people were not always receptive, and in 1788 he described Bullock Smithy [Hazel Grove] as "…. One of the most famous villages in the country for all manner of wickedness!" What he meant was anti-social behaviour, disorder, a lack of security for travellers, cock fighting and drunkenness. Apparently only Denton was worse! On another occasion Wesley's journal records: "Tuesday, 5 April 1744, "…. And in the evening [I preached] at poor dull, dead Stockport, not without hopes that God would raise the dead…"

For more information please click here.