Closing Statement, July 2024

On 31 July 2024, the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History will close.

A portion of the Centre’s collections, particularly the reference library materials of the Wesley Historical Society, will be made available at a new reading room at Wesley Memorial Church in Oxford later this year. The other materials will go into storage – for inquiries about access to the collections from 31 July please contact Dr Clive Norris at cnorris@brookes.ac.uk.

The scholarly output of the Centre remains evident in numerous books and publications, including dozens of books and articles, in Wesley and Methodist Studies, the Journal of Religious History, Literature & Culture and in events such as the John Wesley Lecture, Methodist Studies Seminars, and the annual Ecclesiastical History Colloquium. We hope that some of these will continue under other auspices. Together with visiting fellows and bursary holders the output of the Centre has been prodigious and we are grateful to have worked with scholars, artists, and researchers of such quality.

We are very grateful to the Wesley Historical Society, The Methodist Church, Oxford Brookes University, the Westminster College Oxford Trust and an array of other partner organisations for supporting our work.

Bill Gibson
Peter Forsaith
Daniel Reed
Tom Dobson