The time now approaches when the two, Hugh Bourne and William
Clowes began the great work of their life. At the beginning of the 19th century Bourne, being much employed at Harriseahead, near Bemersley, was shocked at the general lack of the means of grace, and he endeavoured in 1800 and 1801 to promote a revivalist movement. Daniel Shubotham, a boxer, poacher, and ringleader in wickedness, was brought, through Bourne’s influence, to the Saviour, on Christmas day 1800, and with his natural energy of character took up the cause. Matthias Bailey, another of Bourne’s old associates was also won over, and cottage prayer meetings were begun among the colliers. A meeting upon Mow Cop was proposed for a day given to prayer. At this time Lorenzo Dow, an American Wesleyan visited the Black Country, as the coal district of Staffordshire was called. He spoke of the American camp meetings, himself preaching at Congleton, when Hugh Bourne, with his brother James, was present; William Clowes being also a hearer. They bought books of Lorenzo Dow, which had a marked effect on the future. On May 31st, 1807, a camp meeting was held on Mow Cop, a hill in the neighbourhood, Bourne and Clowes being present. Stands were erected and addresses given from four points. Bourne organized two companies, who continued by turns praying all the day; others giving accounts of their spiritual experiences, among whom Clowes was prominent, and his words are “The glory that filled my soul on that day exceeds my powers of description.” Persons were present on this occasion from Kilham in Yorkshire and other distant places, one, Dr. Paul Johnson, a friend of Lorenzo Dow, coming from Ireland.
The movement had now taken definite form and substance. Another camp meeting followed at the same place on July 19, lasting three days; a third on August 16th, at Brown Edge; a fourth on August 23rd, at Norton-in-the-Moors. At this time was held the Annual Wesleyan Conference, at which handbills were issued denouncing this separate movement. For a brief moment Bourne, Clowes and Shubotham hesitated; but the question was seriously considered at a meeting at the house of a friend, Joseph Pointon, when it was “revealed” to Bourne that the camp meetings “should not die, but live;” and from that moment he “believed himself to be called of God” for the new work; and shortly his brother James, James Nixon, Thomas Cotton, and others, gave themselves to the cause.
For some years the labours of these men and their associates were chiefly devoted to the pottery and colliery districts of Staffordshire, where a remarkable change was brought about in the moral condition of the hitherto almost brutalized people. The area of work was then gradually enlarged, extending throughout the whole country, and even, as we shall presently see, beyond it. The following are a few personal details of Hugh Bourne’s subsequent career.
In 1808, on his way to Bemersley from Delamere Forest, an impression forced itself upon him that he would shortly be expelled from the Wesleyan connexion; on reaching home he found that a rumour to this effect was being circulated, and in June of that year the formal sentence of expulsion was carried out. He continued to devote himself to the work of evangelization, urging however all others to join whatever denomination they were themselves most inclined for.
He preached his first sermon at Tunstall, on Nov. 12, 1810, in a kitchen which had been licensed for preaching three years before. It was not plastered or ceiled, so that if not required at any future time, it might be converted into a cottage, which took place in 1821, when a chapel was erected. At the Conference held at Newcastle-on-Tyne, in 1842, he was most regretfully placed
on the retired list, on account of his impaired health, a yearly pension of £25 being assigned to him. He was still, however, to be at liberty to visit different parts of the connection; and during the next ten years of his superannuation he kept up a very wide correspondence on religious matters, and made a missionary visit to America. The last conference which he attended was at Yarmouth, in 1851. For several years he had felt a premonition that the year 1852 would be his last. The last sermon which he preached was at Norton Green, on Feb. 22, 1852; and on Oct. 11, in that year, he surrendered his happy spirit into the hands of God, who gave it, when “the weary wheels of life stood still.” His chief residence would appear to have been at Bemersley, where it was long felt that they had lost in him “a man of great faith and mighty prayer.”
We now pass over a period of several years. Clowes received a call to Hull. He had crowded the work of a life-time into some 17 years, and his health was now far from good. At a meeting in December, 1827, he exhibited such weakness as showed that he had done his best work. However, he continued to reside in Hull and visited other places from there, as his strength allowed. It is certain that he visited Horncastle, for an old lady, Mrs. Baildham, who died in May, 1900, having been a member of the connection more than 70 years, frequently asserted that she had heard both Clowes and his wife preach in, presumably, the second chapel in Mill Lane.
At the Conference in 1842, 35 years after the first camp meeting on Mow Cop, both Clowes and Bourne were present; but the assembly was saddened to see the original founders, of what was now a thoroughly established and wide-spread community, both shattered in health and broken by toil. Nine years later Clowes said to a friend “I feel myself failing fast, I am fully prepared.” He spoke of the glories of heaven, and said “I shall possess it all through the merits of Christ.” His speech began to fail, but he got downstairs, and once more led his class. On the Saturday he attended a committee meeting; on Sunday he was too weak to go to chapel; on Monday there was further weakness; early on Tuesday slight paralysis; and on March 2, 1851, he quietly passed to his rest, aged 71. The people of Hull were greatly moved, and many thousands lined the streets as the funeral procession passed to the grave, at which the Rev. William Harland briefly recited the story of the good man’s work.
Of the general progress of the connexion, we may say, that down, to 1870 it was simply a Home and Colonial body, but, in that year, the Norwich branch sent out the missioners, Burnett and Roe, to the island of Fernando Po, on the west coast of Africa. This was in response to an appeal from the Fernandians, who had been converted by a member of the connexion, Ship Carpenter Hands, of the ship Elgiva, who, with his godly Captain, Robinson, had in the course of trade visited that country. The same year also saw a mission established at Aliwal North, in the eastern province of Cape Colony.