Other Holy Clubbers

The lives of the Wesleys and Whitefield are well known and we have endeavoured to say something about Ingham, Gambold, Broughton, Hervey and Clayton. As for the others mentioned we know little about

Charles Kinchin (1711-1742), except that he was born at Woodmancote, Hampshire. Educated from 1725 at Corpus Christi, he was elected fellow 1731, dean 1736. He led the Holy Club after the Wesleys left. He was ordained and appointed Rector of Dummer, Hampshire, 1735, being assisted by a succession of evangelical curates including Whitefield and Hervey. In his later years he was drawn towards the Moravians. He died in London of smallpox, January 1742.

Robert Kirkham (c 1708-1767), a student at Merton College, who was the son of Rev Lionel Kirkham, rector of Stanton, Gloucestershire, whom he succeeded as rector, 1739-1766.

William Morgan (c 1712-1732) was born in Dublin, the son of Richard Morgan sen. He entered Christ Church 1728. His poor physical and mental health and early death were by some attributed to his adherence to the strict rules of the Holy Club, a charge rebutted by Wesley in a letter to Richard Morgan sen. 19 October, 1732.

William Smith (c 1707-1765) of Leicester, was a student and fellow of Lincoln College. He proceeded BA 1729, MA 1732.

The ODNB has articles on Westley Hall and John Simpson.

Westley Hall (1711–1776), a dissenter, was born Salisbury 17 March 1711. His father, Thomas, was a clothier and his mother, Margaret, daughter of Thomas Westley, rector of Imber, near Warminster. Her brother, Robert, became Lord Mayor of London and was knighted 1744. The Halls were in comfortable circumstances. Westley inherited Hornington Manor from his father and a house at Fisherton, near Salisbury, from his mother. He received his early education from his mother's brother, Thomas, Rector of Berkeley, near Frome, and matriculated as a gentleman commoner at Lincoln College, Oxford, 26 January 1731. At his entry he presented the college with two silver sauce boats and at his departure he gave rector, Euseby Isham, ‘who was always kind to me’, a copy of Raphael's cartoons.

He became a pupil of Wesley, who recalled later that he had been ‘holy and unblamable in all manner of conversation’ and was an assiduous Holy Club member, making so favourable an impression on Wesley that he was invited to his home at Epworth. He became secretly engaged to Wesley's elder sister, Martha, whom he had met when she was staying with her uncle, Matthew, in London. A few months later, however, he proposed to younger sister, Keziah, and gained the family's consent. When Martha revealed her engagement, he abandoned Keziah and married Martha, 1735. His action was strongly condemned by Charles and Samuel Wesley, who described him as a ‘smooth-tongued hypocrite’. More immediately John reconciled himself to the marriage, which was highly praised in verses in the Gentleman's Magazine September 1735. For a time Keziah resided with the Halls, later becoming a pupil teacher at Lincoln and dying young - her death hastened, according to John, by Hall's treatment.

Hall, who left Oxford 1734 without a degree, was made deacon and priest by the Bishop of London with a view to his becoming chaplain at Savannah in the newly established colony of Georgia in succession to Samuel Quincy. He joined the Wesleys and other members of the intended expedition at Gravesend 1735 but (in spite of having spent £100 on clothing and furniture), partly because of objections from his family, he opted out, informing Governor Oglethorpe that he had been offered a living by an uncle. He became a curate at Wootton Rivers, Wiltshire, moving to his mother's Fisherton house, 1735. There he was joined by Wesley's widowed mother, Susanna. She then described him as a ‘man of extraordinary piety and love to souls’. In 1739 the household moved to London, where he became actively engaged in promoting the youthful Methodist society, preaching against the Moravian doctrine of ‘stillness’ and urging expulsion of 2 members of the society for failing to adhere to the principles of the Church of England. Within a year he had himself adopted Moravian tenets, converting Susanna to the ‘witness of the Spirit’ and strongly criticising John's management of the society as well as his religious teaching.

In 1743 ‘poor Moravianized Mr Hall’ (Charles Wesley) returned to Salisbury, where he set up a religious society which he urged John and Charles to join, but his views were to become increasingly extreme, moving from Moravianism to deism, repudiating the sacraments, denying the resurrection and preaching and practising polygamy. His wife, whom he treated with little consideration, remained loyal to the C of E. ‘You are’, Wesley wrote to him, 18 August 1743, ‘a weak, injudicious, fickle, irresolute man, deeply enthusiastic and highly opinionated. You need a tutor now more than when you first came to Oxford’. In a strongly worded letter, 22 December 1747, Wesley remonstrated with Hall for his heterodox religious teaching and immoral manner of life, listing some of his many affairs.

Hall was, however, to persist in his eccentric opinions, seeking to disturb Charles prayer meetings at Bristol, 1750-51, for which Charles was to criticise him in his Funeral Hymns (no 11). Shortly afterwards, accompanied by his mistress, he moved to the West Indies, visiting Essequibo in Guiana and Barbados, where in 1758 his mistress apparently saved his life when some black people entered his house and tried to slit his throat by hurling a pewter tankard at the miscreant's head!

On his return to England he took clerical duty and became reconciled to his wife; John commented to brother Charles, ‘Is it right that my sister, Patty, should suffer Mr Hall to live with her? I almost scruple giving her the sacrament, seeing he does not pretend to renounce Betty Rogers [the seamstress whom Hall had seduced]’. Nevertheless John and Charles took over the responsibility for the maintenance and education of the Halls' eldest son, Westley, but the boy died from smallpox at 14, much mourned by Charles in his Funeral Hymns (no 10): ‘unspotted from the world, and pure and saved and sanctified by grace’. His father, with characteristic ineptitude, had addressed a tract to the boy entitled The Art of Happiness, or, The Right Use of Reason, in which he strongly criticised orthodox religious teaching. In all Hall had apparently 12 sons and daughters, of whom at least 2 were illegitimate, of whom only 3 were still living 1774. After suffering much ill health, Hall died at Bristol 3 January 1776. John was too late to visit him but helped at his burial service, commenting in his journal: ‘God had given him deep repentance. Such another monument of divine mercy, considering how low he had fallen, and from what height of holiness, I have not seen, no, not in 70 years’. Hall was a plausible and charismatic figure, especially where women were concerned, but of a very unstable character. His wife, Martha, survived him, dying 12 July 1791. She was buried in the ground attached to the New Chapel in the City Road, London.

John Simpson (1709/10 - c 1766), evangelist and preacher, was the son of Thomas Sympson. Brought up in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire it was possibly under the influence of Wesley, in nearby Epworth, that he entered Lincoln College, Oxford, aged 18 as a servitor, 1728. There he became Wesley's pupil and a Holy Club member. He graduated 1731, and after ordination obtained a valuable Leicestershire living.

During the 1730s he kept in touch with Wesley, and when the evangelical revival began, he was drawn in. By November 1739 he was in London, the revival centre. He preached in Ingham's Yorkshire societies, and, January 1740, visited Ingham's Nottingham followers. Wesley seems to have left him in charge of his fledgling Foundery Society, established for his London followers because he disapproved of the doctrine of ‘stillness’ that was taking hold of the Fetter Lane Society. But by April Simpson had himself espoused ‘stillness’, rejecting the sacraments, and led opposition to Charles Wesley in both societies. The dispute resulted in the Wesleys' withdrawal from Fetter Lane that July.

In November 1740 Simpson, who had by now resigned his living, moved to Ockbrook, Derbyshire, and became leader of the societies established by Ingham's followers there and in Nottingham. In 1741 his ‘stillness’ teaching annoyed the Countess of Huntingdon - though she believed he was ‘a good man and means well’ - and she asked Fetter Lane to recall him. They replied that they had not sent him but asked him to return, but he declined.

By now the Moravians had taken over Fetter Lane. When Simpson visited, August 1741, they judged him ‘honest but peculiar’. They remonstrated with him for going to Ockbrook, acting unilaterally and fostering error. In April 1742 Moravian opposition to his planned marriage to an unconverted woman prompted him to repudiate them. Meetings with Lady Huntingdon and the Wesleys ensued, but he stood by his teachings and, though initially thought to have made common cause with the Wesleys, remained independent.

His support in Ockbrook grew (2 houses were built for him), and he visited Nottingham quarterly, but in 1743 several members of his society withdrew after the Moravians, who thought he acted ‘like a madman’, publicly disowned him for refusing to obey directions. By May just 10 remained; 30 of his former followers requested Moravian supervision, January 1744.

Wesley's journal entries recording meetings with Simpson display continued affection: ‘Whatever he does is in the uprightness of his heart. But he is led into a thousand mistakes by one wrong principle … the making inward impressions his rule of action, and not the written word’; ‘the oddest, honestest enthusiast, surely, that ever was upon earth’; this ‘original enthusiast … spoke many good things, in a manner peculiar to himself … what pity it is this well-meaning man should ever speak without an interpreter!’. In November 1747 he aroused Wesley's sympathy when drawn to London by the offer of a living, but was then asked to stop preaching outside church - a condition to which he could not agree.

Still living and preaching in Ockbrook, 1748–9, his repeated drunkenness and the content of his conversations to and about women gave offence. He railed against the Moravians, seeming ‘crazy if not fuddled’ when doing so in a Bedford inn. He was in Derby gaol by January 1751, and still there October 1753. By 1757 he was out of prison, still living in Ockbrook and preaching to 5 or 6 every Sunday. He is last recorded living in Ockbrook 1766; details of his date and place of death are unknown.