page_title: Christianity in Cornwall
section_title: 1714–1800
hierarchical_section_title: Christianity in Cornwall / Religious history from the Reformation to the early 21st century / 1714–1800
caption_attribution_description: . . Meeting House.
context_page_description: Christianity in Cornwall began in the 4th or 5th century AD when Western Christianity was introduced into Cornwall along with the rest of Roman Britain. Over time it became the official religion, superseding previous Celtic and Roman practices. Early Christianity in Cornwall was spread largely by the saints, including Saint Piran, the patron of the county. Cornwall, like other parts of Britain, is sometimes associated with the distinct collection of practices known as Celtic Christianity but was always in communion with the wider Catholic Church. The Cornish saints are commemorated in legends, churches and placenames.
  In contrast to Wales, which produced Bible translations into Welsh, the churches of Cornwall never produced a translation of the Bible in the Cornish language, which may have contributed to that language's demise. During the English Reformation, churches in Cornwall officially became affiliated with the Church of England. In 1549, the Prayer Book Rebellion caused the deaths of thousands of people from Devon and Cornwall. The Methodism of John Wesley proved to be very popular with the working classes in Cornwall in the 19th century.
context_section_description: The few Roman Catholics, Baptists and Quakers were now largely free of persecution. During the remainder of the 18th century, Cornish Anglicanism was very much in the same state as Anglicanism in most of England. Wesleyan Methodist missions began during John Wesley's lifetime and had great success over a long period during which Methodism itself divided into a number of sects and established a definite separation from the Church of England.
  After the death of Queen Anne there was some support in Cornwall for the Jacobite cause, e.g. at St Columb. In the first half of the 18th century some more substantial parsonage houses were built in Cornwall, e.g. at Linkinhorne and St Gennys. Two charitable funds were established at this time, one to help clergymen's widows and orphans, the other to help necessitous clergymen. Books and pamphlets published by the newly founded S.P.G. and S.P.C.K. were distributed in some parishes by the clergy, e.g. at St Gluvias. An ascendancy of Whig and Latitudinarian principles came in with the Georgian era. The times were characterized by controversies with the Deists and the official church adopted a position more consonant with appeals to reason and the natural order. However, an official church preoccupied with great minds and leading families was ill-equipped to retain the loyalty of illiterate miners and labourers such as formed most of the population of Cornwall. Local law and administration were in the hands of the vestry and churchwardens; but the clergy's interests were remote from the cares of the lowly. In this period there was an expansion of mining which often resulted in shifts of population away from the old parish churches. Beginning in 1744 there was a series of questionnaires sent by the bishops in advance of their visitations; the replies to these show that two services were commonly celebrated on Sundays and in some churches there were also services on some weekdays. In the towns holy communion was celebrated monthly but in country parishes perhaps only three or four times a year. The replies indicate a downward trend in church attendance between 1744 and 1821; e.g. at Padstow church attendance was normally 100, but in 1779 only 80, and in 1821 fewer still at 60–70. The replies for 1744 also show that many incumbents were non-resident: 110 were resident but 36 were not. The replies for 1779 show that non-residence had increased: 89 were now resident and 57 were non-resident. For example at Tintagel three successive vicars from 1726 to 1770 were non-resident.
  In 1743 Charles and John Wesley came to Cornwall as evangelists (Charles arrived three weeks earlier than John); they aimed their mission at the population of the newly industrialised areas. Their meetings were held at times different from the usual church services which their hearers were encouraged to attend also. Their converts were formed into local societies led by class leaders and exhorters recruited locally. The timing of the mission was unfortunate as it coincided with an expectation of invasion by the French; the formation of the Methodist societies was understood by some as a preparation for the invasion of the country. John Wesley's Journal for 1743, 1744 and 1745 records several incidents of mob violence directed at Methodist meeting places and in 1745 John Wesley was himself threatened by a mob at Falmouth.
  By 1747 the threat of an invasion in support of the Young Pretender was over and there was no more opposition to Methodist preaching. In the second half of the 18th century the expansion of mining was added by steam power; Methodism attracted many adherents among the miners, particularly in the period after 1780. However the growth of Methodism was not steady; there was a pattern of revivals at intervals of about 16 years; these were in 1764, 1782. 1799 and 1814 (known as the "great revival". The earliest Methodist meeting houses were not licensed as meeting places of Dissenters as Methodists still maintained their membership of the Church of England though this policy was changed in 1785. Samuel Walker o
caption: The Friends' Meeting House, Come-to-Good
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