The ‘accepted position’ for most Methodist people is that the Methodist Church was historically anti-slavery and abolitionist. The reality was far more complex.
This belief is based largely on the publication by one of the leading founders of Methodism, John Wesley, of Thoughts on Slavery in 1774, and the fact that his last known letter, written from his deathbed, was to encourage William Wilberforce, a campaigner against the slave trade.
However, research has exposed the truth of both the silence on, and the complicity in benefitting from, enslavement by the early leaders of Methodism.
Current research by economic historian, Dr Clive Murray Norris, explores connections between the early Methodist movement/Church during the 'long century' of c. 1740-1840.
He proposes that the Church has placed too much store by Thoughts, given it was published in the middle of a period during which the movement was by no means seeking vigorously to disentangle from the slave trade, but was rather receiving financial support from it. Dr Norris describes the Church’s corporate stance on enslavement in that period as, at best, “equivocal”.
Dr Norris’s full research is expected to be published in the autumn of 2026, supported by an independent literature review. In the meantime, the 2026 Methodist Conference will be offered ‘vignettes’ (illustrations or ‘out-takes’) from the research to demonstrate the ways in which benefit was derived from, for example:
- direct donations to John Wesley for the movement from wealthy philanthropists who were enslavers.
- indirect income to Methodist meetings from the offerings of tradespeople and sailors involved in allied trades, and trafficking in ports such as Bristol.
- Methodist missionaries colluding with enslavers to gain access to preach to the enslaved people.
- Methodist missionaries becoming ‘accidental’ enslavers themselves, when, for example, they were bequeathed enslaved people or received them as dowry.
About Dr Clive Murray Norris
Dr Norris is an historian of Methodism, and General Secretary and Librarian of the Wesley Historical Society. Trained as an accountant, he specialises in the financial and administrative history of British Methodism.
His books include The Financing of John Wesley’s Methodism c.1740-1800 (Oxford University Press, 2017); A History of Methodist Insurance in Britain (Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, 2022); and (as joint editor) The Routledge Companion to John Wesley (Routledge, 2024).
His study into Methodism’s history with enslavement has explored and analysed a wide range of primary and secondary sources. These include the Church’s historic archives at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester; the records of the Methodist Missionary Society held at the SOAS Library, University of London; legal records in the National Archives; and various local archives, for example in Bristol and Liverpool.
Digitised archival sources in the Caribbean have also been reviewed, and a Jamaican researcher was employed to undertake archival research in Jamaica. The project also draws on published Connexional material such as the Minutes of Conference and the Connexional magazine.
Other printed primary sources quoted include John Wesley’s journals, diaries and correspondence; contemporary newspapers; ministerial and other memoirs; and multiple eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pamphlets and reports.
There is a voluminous secondary literature on enslavement which the author has also utilised extensively. Finally, the study uses evidence from key online sources such as the UCL Legacies of British Slavery Database; the Slave Voyages Database; and the Wesley Historical Society’s Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland.
Local History Project
One of the follow-up pieces of work to be launched between the Methodist Conferences of 2026 and 2027 will be a local history project, encouraging individuals, churches or circuits to think about their local links to the slave trade and benefits their own churches and wider communities may have received.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Sign-up here to get more information when the project launches in autumn 2026