The Centre is delighted to announce the publication of Methodism and External Controversies in Britain, 1800-1900: A Provisional Biography by Clive D. Field. Like most new religious movements, Methodism encountered opposition and found itself embroiled in literary controversies with its critics from the outset. The hundreds of anti-Methodist publications issued during the eighteenth century, and Methodist responses thereto, have already been extensively investigated by scholars. Less well-known, however, are the external controversies in which British and Irish Methodism was en ..read more

After months of journeying down the Rhine and waiting in makeshift camps around London, thousands of ‘Poor Palatines’ were finally settled on the estates of Protestant landowners amongst the rolling hills of Ireland, County Limerick in the years 1709 and 1710. Upon arrival, a wet, boggy and rocky landscape unfolded before their eyes, only vaguely reminiscent of the famously lush viticultural lands they reluctantly left behind in the midst of war-induced devastation and poverty in southwest Germany. Although the Palatines were originally part of Lutheran and Calvinist denominations in Germany ..read more

The Centre is delighted to announce the publication of Heterodoxy & Antiquity: joseph Bingham (1668-1723) by L. W. Barnard. In the early eighteenth century Joseph Bingham (1668-1723) was a significant figure. Ejected from Oxford in 1695 for heterodox views on the Trinity, he was appointed to Church livings in Hampshire. With use of the Winchester Cathedral library, he wrote his Origines Ecclesiasticae which appeared from 1708. His son, Richard, went on to published his father’s collected works in ten volumes which were still in print in the nineteenth century. Bingham’s works en ..read more

For Black History Month, we’re delving into the Centre’s archives to learn more about Oxford Brookes University’s black heritage. During a recent digitisation project, we made freely-accessible online a photograph album from the Westminster Training College archives dating from 1893 to 1912.1 This belongs to a series that commences in the 1850s and mainly features formal group shots of students, staff, and sports teams arranged chronologically. It is the most important visual record of the college’s earliest history. What’s remarkable about one Westminster College photograph for 1904-5 is tha ..read more

The Centre is delighted to announce the publication of Our Justice Journeys: Three Centuries of Striving for a Better World edited by Thomas Dobson. Methodist commitment to social justice predates the Church itself, and is often what draws members to the Connexion. Our Justice Journeys brings together papers from the 2022 Methodist Heritage conference celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of Hugh Bourne, alongside other essays touching on Methodist collections, histories, and work in the present day. Between them, they explore many different aspects and narratives of M ..read more

The Centre has published its Annual Report for 2022-23 – an acknowledgement and celebration of our achievements over the past twelve months. OCMCH Director, Professor William Gibson, had the following to say about the Centre’s work over the last year, The academic year 2022/23 has been a highly productive one for the Centre. Staff have participated in over fifty events and the recovery from COVID has meant that we have recorded over a hundred in-person uses of our collections. Three specific examples of our work deserve special mention as they have potential to really enhance our activities ..read more

On Thursday 27 April, Professor Bill Gibson (OCMCH Director) and Tom Dobson (Collections, Digitisation & Research Officer), joined delegates in Bristol at Transforming Lives, a conference jointly organised by Methodist Schools (UK) and the International Association of Methodist Schools, Colleges and Universities (IAMSCU). The Centre, along with 1100 other organisations, is an institutional member of IAMSCU, and all six continents had representatives at the conference. In all, the event lasted over a week, visiting our sister College, Southlands, in London; before heading to Bristol and Bat ..read more

The Centre is delighted to announce the publication of History of the Local Ministry Pathway in the Diocese of Oxford by Phillip Tovey. This book looks at the history of theological education for laity and ministry in the Diocese of Oxford. While there are a few histories of colleges, there is almost nothing on Reader training and on Local Ministry. This book tells the story from the inside and includes voices of the participants. Phillip Tovey worked for twenty four years in theological and ministerial education for the Diocese of Oxford, eventually becoming the Principal of the Local M ..read more

The Centre is delighted to announce the publication of Methodism in Great Britain and Ireland: A Select Bibliography of Published Local Histories by Clive D. Field. This volume is a joint production with the Wesley Historical Society. Methodism has been a dominant force in the religious landscape of Great Britain and Ireland since its emergence in the eighteenth century. Its development has been richly documented in terms of the careers and achievements of the Wesleys and other connexional leaders. Yet it was at the local level that the ‘lived experience’ (social as well as spi ..read more

The Centre is delighted to announce the publication of A History of Methodist Insurance in Britain by Clive Norris. The production of this book coincides with the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Methodist Insurance Company, and it tells the story of how Methodists acted, from the earliest days, to protect their chapels and other buildings from fire and other risks. After several failed attempts in the first half of the nineteenth century, the various strands of British Methodism, including the Primitive Methodists (1866) and the Wesleyans (1872), established prop ..read more