Rediscovering Evelyn Dunbar: A Life In Art
2024
Evelyn Dunbar (1906-60) remains something of an enigma. Where she is known, it is for her role as the only female artist ‘salaried’ by Sir Kenneth Clark’s War Artists Advisory Committee, which aimed to record wartime scenes for posterity and occasional propagandist purposes. Dunbar particularly excelled in depicting the role of women during wartime; on farms, in nursing, or keeping the home fires burning. A recurrent focus was on women working the land, which keyed into her deep affinity with gardening, the outdoors, and landscape. In response to a growing interest in Evelyn Dunbar, this volume brings together four papers from a day conference at the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History in April 2023 that illuminate various aspects of her life and artistic practice.
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Methodism and External Controversies in Britain, 1800-1900: A Provisional Bibliography
Clive D. Field
2024
Like most new religious movements, Methodism encountered opposition and found itself embroiled in literary controversies with its critics from the outset. The hundreds of anti-Methodist publications issued during the eighteenth century, and Methodist response thereto, have already been extensively investigated by scholars. Less well-known, however, are the external controversies in which British and Irish Methodism was engaged during the nineteenth century, especially in its first half, and the publications to which they gave rise. In this work, Clive D. Field offers the first modern bibliography of that literature, comprising 862 books, book chapters, and pamphlets for 1800-1900 in which Methodists either responded to literary attacks from Anglicans, Catholics, Nonconformists, and Freethinkers, or initiated attacks on them, for reasons of doctrine, polity, or on other grounds.
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Heterodoxy & Antiquity: Joseph Bingham (1668-1723)
L. W. Barnard
2023
In the early eighteenth century Joseph Bingham (1668-1723) was a significant figure. Ejected from Oxford in 1695 for heterodox views on the Trinity, he was appointed to Church livings in Hampshire. With use of the Winchester Cathedral library, he wrote his Origines Ecclesiasticae which appeared from 1708. His son, Richard, went on to published his father’s collected works in ten volumes which were still in print in the nineteenth century. Bingham’s works engaged with numerous contemporary debates, including lay baptism, anti-Catholicism, the Union with Scotland, and European Protestantism. This is the first full-length study of Bingham and his works.
With an introduction by William Gibson.
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Our Justice Journeys: Three Centuries of Striving for a Better World
Thomas Dobson (ed.)
2023
Methodist commitment to social justice predates the Church itself, and is often what draws members to the Connexion. Our Justice Journeys brings together papers from the 2022 Methodist Heritage conference celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of Hugh Bourne, alongside other essays touching on Methodist collections, histories, and work in the present day. Between them, they explore many different aspects and narratives of Methodist engagement with social justice, encompassing nearly three centuries of striving for a better world.
Contributors: Jonathan Hustler, Rachel Lampard, David Leese, Tim Macquiban, Elizabeth Morris, Mike Norman, Kate Rogers, Ruth Slatter, Allison Waterhouse, and Hannah Worthen.
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History of the Local Ministry Pathway in the Diocese of Oxford
Phillip Tovey
2023
This book looks at the history of theological education for laity and ministry in the Diocese of Oxford. While there are a few histories of colleges, there is almost nothing on Reader training and on Local Ministry. This book tells the story from the inside and includes voices of the participants.
Phillip Tovey worked for twenty four years in theological and ministerial education for the Diocese of Oxford, eventually becoming the Principal of the Local Ministry Pathway and Warden of Licensed Lay Minister. He has published many books and articles in the areas of history, theology, and liturgy.
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Methodism in Great Britain and Ireland: A Select Bibliography of Published Local Histories
Clive D. Field
2022
Methodism has been a dominant force in the religious landscape of Great Britain and Ireland since its emergence in the eighteenth century. Its development has been richly documented in terms of the careers and achievements of the Wesleys and other connexional leaders. Yet it was at the local level that the ‘lived experience’ (social as well as spiritual) of Methodism was most evidenced, through the members and adherents of individual societies and chapels and in Methodist schools and colleges. This volume offers the first systematic bibliography of local histories of Methodism. They are arranged topographically, according to current civil administrative units, and with a cumulative index of place names.
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A History of Methodist Insurance in Britain
Clive Murray Norris
2022
After several failed attempts in the first half of the nineteenth century, the various strands of British Methodism established property insurance concerns, financed by leading lay members and managed jointly by businesspeople and clergy. These protected an expanding nationwide network of chapels and schools, and provided crucial underpinning for the movement’s mission of spreading the gospel and delivering educational, welfare and social services. The narrative encompasses an era of wrenching social change, two World Wars, and a technological revolution, but the purpose, ethos and daily operation of today’s Methodist Insurance Company would look familiar to the pioneers of one hundred and fifty years ago.
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Methodism and its Impact
Papers from a day conference at the University of Essex on 18 September 2021
Ryan Clarke and Michael Sewell (eds.)
2022
Methodism and its Impact presents select papers from a day conference at the University of Essex, and reflects on how Methodism has impacted military, political, social, and cultural institutions locally, nationally, and internationally from the eighteenth century to the present day. These include reflections on Samuel Wesley’s attitudes to the martyr cult of Charles I, the legacy of Westminster Training College, the Church of the Nazarene, and the role of Methodists during the Zimbabwean Liberation War.
Contributors: Trevor Cartwright, Ryan Clarke, Thomas Dobson, and William Gibson.
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Methodism & Monasticism
Papers from the Methodist Studies Seminar on 5 December 2020
Daniel Reed (ed.)
2021
Methodism & Monasticism presents papers delivered at the Methodist Studies Seminar organised by the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History on 5 December 2020. They reflect on points of intersection between the seemingly divergent Christian traditions of Methodism and Monasticism. Despite the passage of two hundred years between the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England and Ireland and the origins of Methodism in the eighteenth century, the influence of medieval eremitic orders on the later movement is discernible in its writings and approaches to spiritual life.
Contributors: Jenny Carpenter, Kenneth Carveley, William Gibson, Colin Haydon, Nick Mayhew-Smith, and Linda A. Ryan.
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Women, Preachers, Methodists
Papers from two conferences held in 2019, the 350th anniversary of Susanna Wesley’s birth
John Lenton, Clive Murray Norris, Linda A. Ryan (eds.)
2020
In 2019 the Methodist Church in Great Britain celebrated the 350th anniversary of Susanna Wesley’s birth. Women, Preachers, Methodists incorporates papers from two commemorative conferences: ʻThe Bright Succession: Susanna Wesley, gender, heritage and faithʼ, and: ʻ“An Extraordinary Call”: Methodist women preachers in Britain 1740 to the presentʼ. Completing the volume are reflections on their ‘Call to Preach’ from three women preachers active within Methodism today.
Contributors: Charles Wallace, William Gibson, Linda Ryan, John Lenton, Eryn White, Tim Macquiban, Colin Short, David Bundy, Tim Woolley, Jill Barber, Christina Le Moignan, Judith Maizel-Long, and Michaela Youngson.
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OCMCH Reprints draws primarily on the historical collections of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History to provide high quality reproductions of out-of-copyright books that are scarce, inaccessible, or otherwise unavailable in digital formats elsewhere. The series specialises in works of Methodist and Church history in Britain from the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. All efforts are taken to present the text in a clean and readable format, and any imperfections that remain reflect the condition of the original book when digitised.
Available Titles
Arthur A. R. Gill, The Dean and Chapter of York / The Archdeacons of the Diocese of York (1915)
The Journal of the Housekeeper of Archbishop Secker, 1744-45 (1876)
Routledge Methodist Studies Series – the most significant contribution to Methodist historical and theological research in the UK. Prof William Gibson is series editor.
The Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture – publishing interdisciplinary research on religious history.
Wesley and Methodist Studies – a joint venture between the OCMCH and Manchester Wesley Research Centre, it is the foremost journal in the field.
Westminster Oxford Research Network team members are active in publishing and research:
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