ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Thomas Wride’s adult experiences of women and family life. It looks first at an encounter between Wride and two other members of the London Methodist society, Josiah Dornford and Lake Houlton, with four prostitutes in 1762. It then offers Wride’s perspective on the roles played by women in eighteenth-century Methodism, in which they outnumbered men. These ranged from ancillary work in chapels and preachers’ houses to leadership positions in local societies, prophesy, and financial patronage. Wride also had a medical practice and treated women. The leadership’s attitude to women was ambivalent, reflecting concerns about potential sexual impropriety, the distractions of family life, and the financial implications if preachers married and had children. Wride himself delayed marriage, fearing that it would undermine his mission but in his forties struck a love-match with Jenny Woodcock, after obtaining John Wesley’s permission. Though the marriage was long and happy, Jenny proved as unpopular amongst local Methodists as her husband and, like him, suffered prolonged ill-health. Wride’s papers portray a supportive but isolated couple, struggling to meet the emotional and physical demands of the itinerant preacher’s life in Wesley’s Connexion. After Jenny’s death, loneliness characterised Wride’s last years.
