Benjamin Ingham

According to ODNB Benjamin Ingham (1712–1772) was an evangelist and preacher. He was born on 11 June 1712, probably at 7–9 Town End, Ossett, Yorkshire, third son of William Ingham, a farmer and hatter, and his wife, Susannah (d 1755). Ingham was good-natured and is said to have been extremely good-looking - ‘too handsome for a man’. He was educated at Batley grammar school and at Queen's College, Oxford (1730–34). After meeting the Wesleys 1733 he became an ‘Oxford Methodist’ and after graduating held religious meetings in his mother's home. Ordained deacon by Bishop Potter June 1735 he sailed to Georgia that October (after a brief curacy in Matching, Essex) with the Wesleys, Charles Delamotte and some Moravians, who so attracted him that in May 1736 he (unsuccessfully) sought to join their church. He left Georgia February 1737, visiting Moravians in Pennsylvania on his way home. He preached in churches around Ossett, and by April 1738 had societies in neighbouring villages. In June he crossed to the continent with John Wesley, visiting Moravian congregations in Marienborn (where he met Zinzendorf and was admitted to communion) and Herrnhut, and returning in October. His December visit to his schoolfriend Jacob Rogers kindled a revival in Bedford. In February 1739 he began a remarkable evangelistic ministry in Yorkshire. Banned from the churches in June, he preached in houses, barns, yards and fields, and soon led some 40 societies. Having vainly attempted to reunite the Fetter Lane Society behind the Wesleys in 1740, in 1741 he sided with the Moravians, barring Wesleyan John Nelson from preaching for him. On 12 November 1741 he married the Earl of Huntingdon's sister Lady Margaret Hastings (1700–1768). They resided at Aberford Hall, near Tadcaster, Yorkshire.

In July 1742 the Moravians told Ingham they would only work with his societies if he handed them over completely, which he did - without joining them. He attended their 1743 general synod in Germany and in 1744 purchased and leased them the site for their Yorkshire settlement, Fulneck, but soon felt that he had been made to surrender his societies under duress. He complained about the Moravians' authoritarianism, abuse of the lot, debts, extravagance with wealthy supporters' money and separation from the Church of England, also finding their developing spirituality difficult.

In the later 1740s he gradually developed his own preaching circuit, concentrating on the Craven area of Yorkshire, Lancashire and (from 1749) Westmorland, but also visiting Cheshire, Derbyshire, and even Lincolnshire. He first visited Craven May 1742, at the invitation of the family of William Delamotte's Cambridge contemporary Lawrence Batty. Invited to Colne, Lancashire, February 1743, he met William Grimshaw, Vicar of Haworth, on the way; they later often preached for and with each other. (He also toured with Whitefield 1749, 1750, 1756.) In July 1748 the vicar of Colne, George White, roused a mob to break up one of Ingham's meetings; the following week Ingham had a number of places registered under the Toleration Act, and settled his first society in Craven. His Collection of Hymns also appeared in 1748.

Ingham had attended the Moravians' 1747 general synod in Germany, and in 1748 placed his son Ignatius (1746–1815) in their boarding-school. Secretly received into Moravian membership in July 1749, in 1750–52 he occasionally led worship and preached at Fulneck. Tensions resurfaced 1751, however. In April 1752 (having expended in total more than £2300 on Fulneck and borrowed £1000 more on the Moravians' behalf), Ingham expressed himself ‘desirous to be at peace and to part in mutual love’ . In February 1753 he withdrew Ignatius from the school and publicly distanced himself from the Moravians. Ingham's friendly visits to Fulneck (which the Moravians eventually purchased) continued, however; in 1761 the Moravians noted that his preachers tried to prevent him from meeting them, because ‘it takes him 14 days until he is himself again’. From 1752 his circuit gradually became a connexion. The first chapel having been built in 1750, others followed in 1752, 1754 (3) and 1757 (2). He sought union with the Wesleys, but in May 1753 their conference decided that it could only unite with him ‘when he returns to the old Methodist doctrine’. Wesley rejected a further approach in May 1755, allowing him to attend the Leeds conference as an observer, but not his preachers. Meanwhile one of the societies had declared its separation from the Church of England. Ingham was forced to organise his connexion as a separate denomination. In June 1756 a preachers' conference chose him as general overseer, and William Batty and James Allen as his assistants; he ordained them in September. He made one final approach to the Wesleys; Charles was favourable, but John not.

In 1759 he read the writings of Scots congregationalist John Glas (1695–1773) and his son-in-law Robert Sandeman (1718–1771). In June 1761 Batty and Allen were commissioned to visit the Glasites in Scotland. ‘That horrid blast from the North’, as Romaine described Glasite influence, fragmented the connexion. Objecting to Ingham's authority, use of the lot and delays in introducing a fully Glasite church order, Allen seceded in November 1761. Some followed him, but many more joined other groups. Ingham gave the 10 or 11 remaining societies a quasi-Glasite church order 1762, and in 1763 defended Sandemanian teaching in A Discourse of the Faith and Hope of the Gospel. According to Seymour the disruption of Ingham's connexion affected his mental stability, leaving him ‘liable to sudden transitions from the highest flow of spirits to the utmost depression’. Lady Margaret died 30 April 1768 and Ingham 2 December 1772 at Aberford Hall. He was buried at Ledsham parish church, Yorkshire, 10 December.