Chapter 6: At Conference
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The Life-Story of Sir Robert W. Perks, Baronet, by Denis Crane.
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Chapter VI: At Conference
At the Wesleyan Conference for the last thirty years no layman has occupied a more prominent and honoured position than the subject of this book. For the last thirty years, — because prior to 1878 the laity were not admitted to the august assembly, but sat only in minor councils chiefly concerned with finance. When, in that year, after much discussion and amid the woful forebodings of some of the more conservative leaders, the momentous change was made, Sir Robert was among the representatives sent by the First London District, having been elected at the top of the poll.[1] He boasts that with but one or two exceptions, when business engagements abroad prevented him, he has attended every Conference since.[2] This diligence has been
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dictated at once by a deep personal interest in the government of his Church, and by a desire to justify the confidence reposed in him by his fellow Methodists.
One of the first questions to engage his attention as a member of this supreme court was the order of the two sessions, the Pastoral and the Representative, into which the Conference was now divided; and, arising out of it, the election of the President. This, though at first sight a mere matter of procedure, involved the deeper and more delicate question of the relations of the ministry and the laity; and as a public-spirited, democratic member of the latter. Sir Robert felt called upon to play his part in the controversy.
At first the Representative Session met at the close of the Pastoral Session, when much of the business had already been discussed. The laity soon found that this arrangement did not leave them the freedom to which they felt themselves entitled, for although the business in question was not finally decided, it had been given a certain shape, from which it was difficult to recast it. A movement was therefore started to secure the reversal of the order. To its other advantages, it was hoped
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that this change would add that of giving the laymen a voice in the election of the President. The contending parties fought with some warmth. Dr. Rigg, who took a leading part in the controversy, ultimately achieved what was called the ‘Sandwich Compromise,’ an arrangement by which the Representative Session was sandwiched between the two sittings of an interrupted Pastoral Session.[3]
This arrangement, however, was by no means satisfactory; it kept ministers who were not members of the Representative Session waiting about until the Pastoral Session was resumed, and it still deprived the laymen of a share in the election of the President. Sir Robert crossed swords with Dr. Rigg, strongly resenting the claim of the ministers to the exclusive right of discharging this function. He as strongly advocated the abolition of the compromise, on the twofold ground that it wasted time, and that the initiative on questions of Methodist public policy ought to be taken by an assembly of both ministers and laymen, rather than by a purely clerical Conference. In the end a compromise of another kind was effected. The original order was inverted by the Repre-
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sentative Session meeting first, but the Pastoral Session retained its control of the election of the President by his being nominated a year in advance.[4]
It should, perhaps, be added that in advocating the rights of the laity. Sir Robert in no way shared the old jealousy of the rights of the ministers which was so marked a feature of certain agitations of the past. He holds that the minister, being divinely called to his office, is not a servant of the layman, and that he cannot be too highly esteemed for his noble and disinterested life and work.
The year that marked the admission of the laity to the Conference, marked also the inauguration of a Thanksgiving Fund, to commemorate the notable fact that so fundamental a change in the constitution of the Church had been effected without the loss of so much as one minister or member. The fund was completed in 1883, and towards its total amount of £297,500 (three hundred thousand guineas was the sum aimed at) Sir Robert subscribed, ‘in memory of his revered father,’ the sum of five hundred pounds, besides promoting its successful issue in many other ways. This generous gift, made after
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he had been started in business for himself little more than two years[5], has since been followed, as all the world knows, by others, whose aggregate amount must total many thousands of pounds. Yet, although one of the most liberal men in Methodism, it is not his monetary contributions which have been most valued or most fruitful. He has figured more largely in the Connexional eye as a man fertile in ideas and fearless in their exposition. Of this, crowning proof will be given in the next chapter. For the present we may resume our survey of the principal movements which have had the advantage of his advocacy.
Wesleyan Methodist readers will not need to be told of the important services rendered to their Church by the Committee of Privileges, a body of which Sir Robert has been a valued member for over thirty years.[6] The Committee was first appointed at the Conference of 1803, in connexion with the inquiry then made, ‘How may we guard our religious privileges in these critical times?’ In the previous year, when England was threatened with invasion, an Act was passed empowering the King to call out the military and militia to practise the martial exercises on the Lord’s Day.
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Through Methodist influence a clause was introduced into the Act exempting from duty those persons who conscientiously regarded such exercises on that day as a violation of the law of God. It was to discharge, with full official sanction, such functions as this, that the Committee aforesaid was formed; nor has it since, as the vigilant guardian of Methodist rights and privileges, long lacked employment. Sir Robert’s extensive Parliamentary practice, as well as his shrewd estimate of men and measures, often enabled him to render the Committee unique service; and his brethren marked their sense of his value by appointing him in 1879 Lay Secretary of the Committee of Exigency (a sub-committee of the larger body), and in 1882 Lay Secretary of the Committee of Privileges itself — a position which he held without interruption for ten years.[7]
Seeing that he early fell under the spell of London, it is not surprising that Sir Robert has for many years been officially identified with the Metropolitan Chapel Building Fund, the London Mission, the London Mission-Band Union, and indeed with almost every movement which has tended to the extension and con-
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solidation of London Methodism. There is probably not a circuit in the metropolis which he has not assisted with his wonted generosity. But he has taken equal interest in provincial missions, both those located in the great towns and industrial centres and those that minister to scattered rural populations.
His relation to Foreign Missions has some features of special interest. A subscriber to the Wesleyan Missionary Society from his youth, and for some time a member of its committee, he watched with keen interest the succession of crises through which, prior to 1906, the Society passed. In 1888, for example, its finances were in a somewhat critical condition, there being a debt of nearly £17,000. There was a good deal of wild speaking; withdrawal and retrenchment were talked of, and the whole condition of the Society was described as one of ‘breakdown.’ Sir Robert repudiated such pessimistic counsels and welcomed criticism as likely to lead to nothing more serious than a wholesome revision of methods. Two years later affairs were more critical still, attention now being centred upon matters of policy. Foreign Missions in general and Indian Missions in particular were faced
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by accusations of a grave personal nature, the agents of the Society being charged with living luxuriously and with overbearance towards the natives.[8] On this occasion he moved for a searching inquiry, which happily resulted in the vindication of the missionaries and a more careful organization of the Society’s personnel.[9]
But at the Nottingham Conference of 1906, when the Society was once more under a heavy incubus of debt, he did a thing at which the ears of every one that heard it tingled, not with dismay, but with surprise and joy. At a critical moment he rose and confessed that for the past sixteen years his attention had been devoted almost exclusively to home affairs, that after some heart-searching he had come to the conclusion that his annual subscription of only ten pounds to the Society was quite unworthy of him, and that, by way of amendment, he would in future give five hundred pounds. He then resumed his seat, covered his face with his hands, and remained bowed and alone.
This quiet self-accusation, by one not given to needless penitence, had a profound effect upon the Conference. It was the signal for what will henceforth be known in Methodism
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as the great Missionary Revival. Touched by the confession and animated by a like spirit, men sprang to their feet in all parts of the house. In a few hours the entire deficiency was wiped out, and a sum of four thousand pounds in additional annual subscriptions was promised. The Press blazed the news abroad, and everywhere, outside Methodism as well as within it, a new zeal for Missions burned. To commemorate the event, a great Thanksgiving Meeting was held on his suggestion, in the Royal Albert Hall in the spring of the following year, Sir Robert, as was fitting, being one of the speakers. Needless to say, when he rose, the gratitude of the assembled thousands found suitable expression in round after round of cheers.[10]
Methodist Union he advocated as early as 1877, in his first Methodist public speech. Let it at once be said, however, that although a convinced believer in the ultimate reunion of the various Methodist bodies, and an enthusiastic supporter of the federation of the Churches for defensive and aggressive purposes. Sir Robert is too hard-headed to be sanguine as to the achievement, within measurable distance at any rate, of that organic reunion
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of Christendom, about which there was such weak and wasted sentiment at the time of the Grindelwald Conferences. Here he ran counter to some of the clerical leaders of his own denomination, who contended that Methodism was not unprepared to accept an episcopal form of government, provided that the reordination of her ministers was not made imperative.[11] He had little difficulty, however, in showing that such a notion was entirely opposed to the deepest convictions of the Methodist rank and file.
In regard to Methodist Union pure and simple, he has advocated a more active policy on the part of the parent body than some of his ministerial brethren have altogether favoured. At the Camborne Conference of 1903 a committee was appointed to confer with the three minor Methodist bodies — namely, the Methodist New Connexion, the United Methodist Free Church, and the Bible Christians then negotiating with a view to union, as to the possibility of all three uniting with the Wesleyans. With the report of this committee, presented to the Conference of 1904, Sir Robert, in common with many other Methodists, was much disappointed. He felt
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that its mere re-affirmation of the general principle of Methodist Union did not satisfy the feeling of the rank and file of his fellow Wesleyans. He therefore moved a resolution which, albeit for obvious reasons it provoked a good deal of dissent, was rightly described at the time as ‘the first really practical step ever taken by the Wesleyan Conference towards Methodist Union.’
This resolution, which was ultimately carried by 311 votes to 91, was warmly opposed, on the ground that it invited — so it was alleged — one of the Churches already negotiating among themselves for union, to break away from its friends and enter into similar negotiations with the parent body. This, however, was more than Sir Robert intended. He was under the impression — and the facts advanced at the time would certainly seem to support such a notion — that the New Connexion would hail with satisfaction any advance made by the Wesleyan Conference in the direction of union. Although there can now be little doubt that Sir Robert had been misled as to the true state of New Connexion feeling, a good deal of the opposition to his resolution unquestionably arose from a reluctance on the part of
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the more conservative Wesleyans to make any concession in constitutional matters, and also from a modicum of that pride which, to use the phrase of one distinguished speaker, restrained ‘a great body like theirs’ from approaching ‘a little body like that!’
The resolution in its final form was modified by the addition of two qualifications, which invited the New Connexion Church to confer with the parent body only in the event of its proving during the ensuing year to be free and wishful to do so; and which insisted that in the terms of union the separate functions of the Pastoral Session, as then existing in the Wesleyan Church, should be preserved. On this latter point Sir Robert was as inflexible as any of his ministerial brethren. In fact, on one occasion he said: ‘No greater blow could be given to the rights and powers of the Wesleyan laity than to constitute one session of the Conference. The Pastoral Session is not only a necessity; it is, in my opinion, the surest guarantee of the supremacy of the power of the Representative Session.’
The reply of the New Connexion Conference to these overtures was singularly dignified. After the usual expressions of fraternal feeling,
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it declared its inability to separate from friends with whom it had been in negotiation for close upon three years and explained that it could not unconditionally accept the Pastoral Session of Conference, such session being opposed to a constitutional principle from which it had never swerved. When this reply was read to the Wesleyan Conference, in 1905, Sir Robert moved a resolution wishing the three uniting Churches God-speed, and expressing a hope that in framing the constitution of the new United Methodist Church, no steps would be taken which would interfere with or retard union in the future with the mother Church and with the Primitive Methodists.[12] This resolution was also carried.
In Wesleyan Methodism for many years some dissatisfaction has been felt with the rigidity of the statutory term of ministerial appointments to circuits. According to Wesley’s Deed Poll, no minister can have the use and enjoyment of Wesleyan property at one time for more than three years. Whatever advantages this limitation may possess, it is obvious that circumstances must sometimes arise in which it is beset with serious drawbacks. Consequently, there have long been those who
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advocate an application to Parliament for such a variation of the Deed Poll as would obviate the difficulty. The present subterfuge, declared by counsel to be legally defensible, by which the rule is suspended in exceptional cases, is far from satisfactory to many minds, by whom, indeed, it is regarded as a piece of ecclesiastical casuistry. The question has therefore been more or less prominently before the Connexion for the last sixteen years.
As a member of various committees appointed to deal with it. Sir Robert has taken no inconspicuous part in its discussion. He has also, on more than one occasion, placed his professional experience at the service of the Church. Of those who favoured an alteration of the existing system, some advocated the abolition of all definite limit to the term of appointment, suggesting that the Conference should be left with a ‘free hand’; others pressed for a definite extension of the term. In either case, it was clear, an appeal would have to be made to Parliament, and in 1896 Sir Robert was asked to state what should be the method and what would be the cost, of such an appeal. Seeing that in 1876
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his partner and he had been empowered to obtain the Methodist Conference Act of that year[13] — a measure which enabled the Conference to grant home rule to Colonial Methodism — the matter was one which he was well qualified to handle. He therefore discussed it with the counsel to the Lord Chairman of Committees, in the House of Lords, and with the Speaker’s Counsel, the Chairmen of Committees, and the head of the Public Bill Office, in the House of Commons; and advised that the application would have to be by a private Bill, complying with all Standing Orders applicable to such Bills, and that the cost ought not to exceed three thousand pounds, and might be considerably less.
But the question, it seemed, was not to be thus summarily settled. Sir Robert himself strongly favoured an extension of the term, chiefly on the ground that it would increase the ministers’ influence in large country circuits, where under existing conditions they could visit some of their chapels only twice or thrice a year; that they would thereby be able to take a more influential part in public affairs, a point on which they were at a disadvantage with other Free Church ministers;
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that their influence would tell more powerfully upon the young people of their congregations; and lastly, that the existing three years’ system encouraged the lazy preacher to serve up in each of his circuits the pabulum of bygone days.
But he was as strongly averse, on the other hand, to the complete abolition of a time-limit. The proposal to give Conference a ‘free hand,’ he contended, meant that the whole ecclesiastical patronage of the Church would be handed over to the Pastoral Session, and that the statutory safeguards which the Quarterly Meetings and trustees at present possessed in the Deed Poll would be swept away. In this contention he was supported by a large and influential body of laymen. Consequently in 1896, in the hope of solving the problem, he suggested a middle course, which he hoped would at once meet all requirements and avoid prolonged and profitless controversy. His proposal was to apply to Parliament to amend the clause in the Deed Poll which dealt with the term of appointment, by substituting the word ‘six’ for the word ‘three’; the circuits to retain identically the same right to invite their ministers for terms
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not exceeding six years, as they previously had for periods not exceeding three.
Objections, of course, were not hard to find even to this proposal. It was urged that six years would unquestionably become a limit to be aimed at in every case, whatever might be the fitness or otherwise of the minister concerned. And it was contended that this longer term would, after all, only exchange one strait-waistcoat for another. But behind all the objections on either side lay a greater difficulty — namely, that of obtaining anything like substantial unity in the Connexion at large on so vexed a question; for it was clear that without substantial unity Parliament would not be induced to pass a Bill of any nature whatever. At the Conference of 1897, therefore, it was decided to proceed no further in the matter, and for the time being it dropped. Although it has been raised in succeeding Conferences the same difficulties have presented themselves, so the matter is still in abeyance.
Though in early life a regular attendant at the weekly class-meetings. Sir Robert has come to feel that precious as the institution is on account of the unique opportunities it affords for devotion and fellowship it is not in
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itself an inadequate test of Church membership. He has therefore been in sympathy with the movement in recent years for the broadening of the basis of membership. In the Conference of 1907, in particular, when the question was before the Connexion in an acute form, he pleaded with great passion for a wider Methodism, a Methodism that should make it possible for his own children and the children of thousands of other families all over the country, to enter conscientiously and freely into membership. Against many of these young people, naturally affected by the prevalent modernism, Methodism, he declared, by making the class-meeting co-extensive with the Church, at present barred the door.
This protest against too rigid an adhesion to the methods of the past he has often raised, affirming that the ‘glorious irregularities’ of Methodism have been the secret of its success. Some of its most treasured institutions, he points out, originated in unofficial quarters and on unauthorized lines, two notable cases being the National Children’s Home and Orphanage and the London Mission-Band Union. The former, as the reader knows, originated with that honoured friend of little
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children, Dr. T. B. Stephenson, whose Christ-like philanthropy could not wait for, nor be arbitrarily confined by, official sanction; while the latter, viewed at first with grave suspicion, was the outcome of a spontaneous desire of the young people of Methodism to encourage and extend mission work in the metropolis. At its first meeting, which was officially unrecognized. Sir Robert presided, and he has acted ever since as its Treasurer[14]. How great would have been the loss to Methodism, in the latter instance, and even to the world, in the former, had either of these movements been frowned out of existence, it is not easy to compute.
I have reserved to the close of this chapter a brief account of Sir Robert’s keenest and perhaps most characteristic fight. It arose out of an attempt made some years ago to establish in Methodism a system of ‘Separated Chairmen,’ or, as he preferred to put it, ‘to impose an episcopate upon the Connexion.’ This battle was as short as it was sharp, the whole manoeuvres covering little more than twelve months, and the actual fight considerably less.
The question really sprang out of the need for some rearrangement of the five-and-thirty
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Districts into which Wesleyan Methodism in England, Scotland, and Wales is for administrative purposes divided. At the Cardiff Conference of 1893, Dr. Rigg moved for the appointment of a committee to deliberate and report to the following Conference ‘as to the possibility — by some rearrangement of the Districts and by any other means that may be found advisable — of providing for the greater efficiency and consistency of district administration.’ So far, everyone was agreed. The dynamic forces that now began to work first disclosed themselves at a meeting of the committee, held in the following December. A scheme was submitted by Dr. Rigg which at once threw the Connexion into a state of considerable agitation.
The chief feature of this scheme, so far as its details were formulated, was the grouping of the thirty-five Districts for certain purposes into thirteen larger ones, over which ‘Separated Chairmen,’ or ministers of outstanding ability and experience, set free from circuit work, were to be appointed. The ordinary Chairmen of districts were to retain their title and some of their powers, but their more important functions, including that of presiding at the two
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half-yearly Synods, were to be transferred to the ‘Separated Chairmen.’
Inoffensive as these proposals may at first sight appear, it was strenuously held that beneath them lay principles totally at variance with the fundamentals of Methodism, and subversive of the rights of both ministers and laymen. Doughty champions led the hosts on either side. Dr. Rigg was ably supported by the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes and Dr. T. B. Stephenson; but opposing them were men of equal intelligence and repute — the Revs. C. H. Kelly and Charles Garrett, both Ex-Presidents and men holding high official positions, the Rev. J. Ernest Clapham, chief of the Home Mission department, and the Rev. Thomas Champness, founder of the important evangelistic movement which now has its centre at Cliff College; while at the head of the lay opponents strode Sir Robert Perks.
The latter fought with voice and pen, for the controversy found its way not only into the denominational papers but also into the general Press. His principal and most effective literary weapon, however, was the famous pamphlet, ‘No Methodist Bishops’, which appeared in the early days of January 1894.[15]
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This document, though it exposed him to the accusation of imputing motives, is in all other respects an admirable example of his skill in dialectics. Even after the lapse of fifteen years its life and vigour, its incisive logic and biting humour, amply reward one for its perusal. The charge of imputing motives rested chiefly upon his remarks on the composition of Dr. Rigg’s committee and the manner of its appointment. In these he claimed to find evidence of a carefully preconcerted design to foist the ‘hideous and objectionable’ scheme upon the Connexion by stealth and strategy. He had no difficulty in making out a strong case. Especially did he see in Dr. Rigg’s phrase, ‘by any other means that may be found advisable,’ a veiled reference to a proposal which as yet it was considered ill-advised openly to declare ; while in the nomination of the committee from the Conference platform, instead of its election by the Districts or by the Conference itself, and in the fact that the nominees comprised seventeen ministers holding official positions, as against only nine circuit-travelling ministers, he thought he perceived a design to ‘pack’ it with men likely to favour the proposed changes.
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Briefly, the grounds upon which he opposed the scheme were: that there was no popular demand for such an episcopal system, which was indeed repugnant to the rank and file of Methodism; that it was subversive of the rights of ministers and laymen; that the withdrawal of thirteen ‘picked men’ from circuit work would be a drain the circuits could not reasonably bear ; that the new order would come seriously into conflict with their existing Chairmen, Superintendents, and Quarterly Meetings; that the thirteen ‘Separated Chairmen’ would be under no effective control, and no guarantees could be provided for the proper discharge of their duties ; that they would be the nominees of the Conference; that the scheme would cost more than Methodism could afford ; and lastly, but not the least important, that the creation of a bench of Wesleyan bishops would alienate the Wesleyan Church from Nonconformity and render Methodist Union impossible. In view of these facts, he inquired of the promoters of the scheme. Why agitate Methodism?
The whole matter, of course, duly came before the Conference of 1894, when the report of the committee was presented. An interest-
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ing episode occurred early in the session. One of the members called attention to the fact that a copy of ‘No Methodist Bishops’ had been enclosed in the parcel of private papers sent according to custom to each representative a few days before the Conference; and contended that this was very ‘irregular.’ Sir Robert’s opponents warmly resented what they naturally regarded as an exhibition of misguided zeal; but their grievance vanished, if their indignation was not assuaged, when he explained that the mistake occurred through a publisher’s error, and that he himself knew nothing of the matter until, to his great astonishment, he too received a copy in his own parcel.
A spirited debate took place. The supporters of the scheme fought hard and well, denying that the proposals would involve any new organization or the creation of a new order; but Sir Robert’s amendment, rejecting the whole project, seconded by the Rev. Charles Garrett, who confessed himself alarmed at the ‘passion for change’ which the movement revealed, was carried by a large majority.[16] A suggestion, prior to the voting, that both motion and amendment should be withdrawn.
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and the entire question referred to an enlarged committee, was adroitly met by Sir Robert firmly refusing to withdraw.
A curious fact may here be mentioned as illustrating how inseparably Sir Robert’s name was associated with this famous fight. A ‘very godly and upright Methodist society steward,’ who resided in a remote part of the country, and whose knowledge of men if not of measures needed some revision, wrote to the Ex-President deploring the proposals of the committee and suggesting that ‘The very best thing that could be done at this crisis would be to unite universally to elect Rev. R. W. Perks to the Presidential chair.’ He concluded by affirming: ‘ Perks’s election will inspire confidence and save the Connexion.’
End Notes to Chapter Six
[1] The First London District sent a total of twelve locally-elected representatives to the Conference. The elections for the various District representatives were held in May 1878. That was shortly after Perks had married and moved from Highbury in the First London District to Chislehurst in the Second London District. See Owen E. Covick, “The Lay Representatives at the 1878 Wesleyan Conference and R.W. Perks”, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, Volume 63, Part 5 (Summer 2022), pp. 208-222.
[2] In his 1906 article “My Methodist Life”, Perks stated: “I was chosen in 1878 to attend the first Representative Conference at Bradford and, with one exception have attended every Conference since.” (op. cit., p. 97). In 1907 Perks appears to have scheduled his two visits to Canada with some care as as not to interfere with his attendance at the W.M. Conference during the gap between the two (see note 21 to Chapter Four).
[3] The “Sandwich Compromise” went into operation at the W.M. Conference of 1891.
[4] This change went into operation at the W.M. Conference of 1901.
[5] Perks announced his commitment to donate £500 to the Thanksgiving Fund at the inauguration meetings held in London on 3 December 1878 to formally launch the Fund. At that stage he had been “in business” in the legal firm of Corser, Fowler and Perks for three and a half years (see note 17 to Chapter Three). An indicator of the degree of generosity of Perks’s gift is available from the statistical work carried out by David Jeremy. Of the total number of donors to the Thanksgiving Fund (57,381) the number donating £200 or greater was 171. (David J. Jeremy, “Who were the Benefactors of Wesleyan Methodism in the Nineteenth Century?”, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, Volume 61, Part 5 (May 2018), pp. 186-200.) Perks’s legal partner Henry Hartley Fowler donated £200.
[6] Perks was appointed a member of the Committee of Privileges at the W.M. Conference of 1878.
[7] The W.M. Conference of 1892 appointed Percy W. Bunting (1836-1911) to succeed Perks as Lay Secretary of the Committee of Privileges. The Conference Minutes recorded that Perks had “retired necessarily” after he had been elected to be an M.P.
[8] The “accusations” Crane refers to here were made in four articles signed “A Friend of Missions” which were published in The Methodist Times during April 1889 (The Methodist Times, 4 April 1889, pp. 313-314; 11 April 1889, pp. 337-338; 18 April 1889, pp. 361-362; and 25 April 1889, p. 387). The writer was Henry Simpson Lunn (1859-1939) who had recently returned from India.
[9] Crane somewhat simplifies things here. Conciliatory resolutions passed at the 1889 W.M. Conference was followed by protests from the missions in India, leading to the President of the Conference establishing a special committee to investigate the issues raised in the controversy. Perks’s legal partner H.H. Fowler was one of the four lay members of that special committee, which was chaired by the President of the Conference himself (The Christian World, 8 May 1890, p. 381). The report of that special committee was, as Crane states, a vindication of the missionaries. But when the matter came before the W.M. Conference of 1890: “Mr Perks complained that the Indian missionaries had taken too much notice of the supposed reflections on their status and pointed out that the results of work in India were not satisfactory. The missionaries were better paid than their brethren at home, and there was a general want of confidence, in which he participated.” (Birmingham Daily Mail, 6 August 1890, p. 3). Perks moved that the Conference’s Missionary Committee should be required to bring forward a report to the 1891 Conference in “the financial and general policy of the Missionary Society in connection with its Indian missions.” After a long debate, H.H. Fowler persuaded Perks to withdraw his motion “in the interests of peace”. By that stage Perks probably believed he had made his point.
[10] The meeting at the Albert Hall which Crane refers to here was held on 29 April 1907. (See The Morning Post, 30 April 1907, p. 5).
[11] The Grindelwald Conferences were held during four successive summers, 1892 to 1895. They were the brain-child of Henry Simpson Lunn (1859-1939), referred to in note 8 above. Two leading Wesleyans participated prominently in these conferences: Hugh Price Hughes (1847-1902) and Percy W. Bunting (1836-1911). It is probably Hughes that Crane is alluding to here. See Christopher Oldstone-Moore, “The Forgotten Origins of the Ecumenical Movement in England: The Grindelwald Conference, 1892-95”, Church History, Vol. 70, No. 1 (March 2001), pp. 73-97.
[12] It might be worth noting here that Denis Crane (or Walter Thomas Cranfield, to be more ‘formal’) had been a Primitive Methodist minister from 1897 to 1905. He resigned from the ministry in May 1905, citing medical advice as his grounds for doing so.
[13] The Methodist Conference Act obtained Royal Assent on 27 June 1876. For information on the background to the passage of this Act see The Nonconformist, 5 July 1876, p. 664. This states that “the solicitors who subsequently took charge of the Bill and carried it through Parliament” had been commissioned in early September 1875.
[14] The London Mission-Band Union was formed in either March or early April 1888 (The Methodist Times, 5 April 1888, p. 232).
[15] The pamphlet was sub-titled: “An Appeal to the Ministers and Laymen of the Wesleyan Methodist Church to reject the proposals of the Conference Committee to impose an episcopate upon the connexion.” It is signed by Perks: “6 January 1894, Chislehurst” (at p. 31, the final page). A copy of this pamphlet is held in the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester.
[16] The “spirited debate” which Crane refers to here was reported in The Methodist Times, 26 July 1894, pp. 494-501. The voting on a last-minute attempt to block Perks’s amendment to reject the project was 216-146 against. According to The Methodist Times, Perks’s amendment was then passed by a majority of approximately the same.