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On This Day in Church History

A real event from the story of the church on each calendar day, told with its setting and what came of it, and quoted word for word from sources published before 1931.

On this day · October 20

Wesley and the Wednesbury Mob

October 20, 1743 · Wednesbury and Walsall, England

The setting

John Wesley, the Anglican clergyman who led the Methodist revival, preached in the open air to working people. In the Black Country around Wednesbury, Methodists had been attacked by mobs for months.

The story

On Thursday, October 20, 1743, Wesley was writing at a friend's house in Wednesbury when a mob surrounded it. The believers prayed, and the crowd broke up. Before five it came back, larger than before, shouting for the minister. Wesley asked for its leader to be brought inside, and after a few words, he wrote, the lion had become a lamb.

Wesley walked out among them and agreed to go with them to a magistrate. Two magistrates sent them home. Then a second mob from Walsall overpowered the first, and Wesley was dragged through the streets by his hair. Some shouted to kill him. He kept speaking, asking what wrong he had done, and when his voice failed, he prayed aloud.

At that moment the man who had led the mob turned and promised to protect him. A shopkeeper and a butcher joined in, the crowd parted, and a few men brought him through.

“After a few sentences interchanged between us, the lion was become a lamb.”

Journal, October 20, 1743

“a little before ten, God brought me safe to Wednesbury; having lost only one flap of my waistcoat, and a little skin from one of my hands.”

Journal, October 20, 1743

What happened next

Wesley kept returning to the region. In March 1761 he preached at Wednesbury to a crowd he estimated at eight or ten thousand. The Methodist movement grew into a worldwide family of churches. Its Holiness offshoot later became one of several Protestant streams, alongside Baptist, Reformed and others, that fed the Pentecostal revival.

Why it matters: A calm word and a prayer can turn a mob's leader into a protector.

Source: The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, vol. 1 (Wesleyan Conference Office, London, 1903), October 20, 1743, pp. 410–412. Public domain.

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