ABSTRACT
The Methodist leaders of the mid-nineteenth century decided that the Jubilee of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) should be marked in 1863. The charter of the East India Company, which exercised control over British merchants and other British subjects in India, had to be renewed by Parliament every twenty years. The Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) and London Missionary Society (LMS) had been energetic participants in the campaign to lift the East India Company's restrictions and they were keen to take swift advantage of the opportunity. When a Wesleyan Missionary Society eventually came into being, it was a quite different body from the BMS, LMS or Church Missionary Society (CMS). India had long figured in Thomas Coke's dreams and ambitions. In 1805 he was discussing how to circumvent the restrictions of the East India Company. A memorial tablet was placed in the City Road Chapel where Coke had begun his Methodist ministry.
