ABSTRACT
William Boyce, after service in South Africa, went on to be the first President of the Australasian Conference and then for eighteen years (185876) an influential Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS). In 1833 Bunting began a second term as WMMS Secretary and soon combined that role with the Presidency of the new Theological Institution. In 1839 Bunting was instrumental in raising a Centenary Fund marking the centenary not of the Wesley brothers' heart-warming but of the first Methodist society, in Bristol and in determining its allocation. One of the purposes of the 1839 Centenary Fund, which raised 222,589, was to acquire a Centenary Hall for the WMMS. In 1852, the year of French autonomy, the WMMS at last felt able to embark on a new venture. Over the fifty years to 1863 the 17,000 Methodists overseas became almost 200,000 two-thirds of them in the care of the Affiliated Conferences.
