The size, form and shape of circuits

While John Wesley did have views on the size of a circuit in terms of

‘riding miles’, there appears to have been no regulation established in the eighteenth or nineteenth century for what constituted an appropriate size of a circuit. One indication of what might have been deemed the wrong size comes from the Minutes of 1820 in which the conference expressed its strong disapproval of the recently developing practice of forming a circuit in which only one travelling preacher was stationed. ²⁶ The reason for such practice may well have been that in a very rural situation, local people felt the need to link societies together in a circuit, even though numbers of members only warranted the labours and cost of one travelling preacher. The reason for conference disapproval is not stated in the Minutes but one clue is the requirement that the preacher exchange periodically with a preacher of a neighbouring circuit. It may be that the aversion to a one-person circuit was to avoid a slip into a ‘congregational’ model of ministry, and exchanging preachers maintained a sense of itinerancy.

Concern about smallness (and congregationalism) continued into the twentieth century. In 1909 Sir Percy Bunting pondered on an appropriate size for a circuit. He commented that in [his] recent times

‘the plan has been tried of endeavouring to fix responsibility by creating small circuits, especially in towns, comprising only one, two or three congregations, or even single stations’, but it was not a successful experiment. ‘Methodism is not going to become Congregational’²⁷.

It can be argued that the determining factor in the size of a circuit was a matter of whether or not the circuit was manageable. There would come a point at which either travelling distances, the number of members or number of societies per travelling preacher became excessive and unworkable. The June-November 1826 preaching plan

26“Minutes of Conference 1820”, Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, vol.5 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Book-Room, 1820), 145.

27 Percy Bunting, “Methodism Today – Development and Reunion” in W.J. Townsend,

H.B. Workman, George Eayrs, A New History of Methodism (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909), vol.2, 495.

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for the Leeds Circuit shows 43 preaching places plus two ‘in the open air’. This must have been the highest level of tolerance because by the following December-May Quarter (1826/7), Leeds had been split into two circuits, East and West.²⁸ Alternatively, it might be that a circuit was too small to be viable. Windsor, head of a single-minister circuit established in 1815, spent a year being part of a Hammersmith and Windsor Circuit in 1818, its viability being in doubt. But by 1820, prospects and membership numbers (153) had improved and the Windsor Circuit was cut loose again.²⁹

A typical circuit was composed of a society in a larger centre of habitation (often a town) together with a number of other societies in surrounding villages. Obelkevich described the circuit towns of this period as the ‘capitals’ of Methodist circuits, and the hub of the circuit activity.³⁰ This was still the case in 1910. A notice on the October 1910 – January 1911 Newark Wesleyan Plan headed ‘Market Day’ referred to the superintendent being available every Wednesday at a location in Newark, the circuit town, ‘to transact business with office bearers and others from the villages’. There were 26 chapels and preaching places in the circuit outside Newark and the superintendent was obviously making the best use of his time and theirs by arranging meetings when they were in town for the market.³¹ Greaves claimed that the significance of the ‘market town’ to circuit organisation was waning by the end of the nineteenth century. This plan shows that at least in Newark it lasted longer.

The ‘town plus villages’ pattern has been of interest to geographers. It has been compared to the model established for the Poor Law Unions in the mid-nineteenth century and Pryce, while acknowledging the different origins, saw a similar intended pattern for efficiency and

28 Early preaching plans of the Leeds Circuit, OCMCH.

29 Norman P. Nickless, The Evolution of the Windsor Circuit 1815 – 1933, undated [?

1965], OCMCH.

30 James Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society in South Lindsey 1825-1875

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 5- 6.

31 Newark Circuit Preaching Plan October 1910-January 1911, in author’s possession.

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effectiveness in both.³² Pryce concluded that ‘…the circuit areas resulted from cost minimization along the same lines as the ‘economic arguments advanced by Christaller for defining urban centrality’.³³ He based his conclusion on Greaves’ (1968) study of Wesleyan circuits in East Yorkshire.³⁴ Pryce described the study as revealing that ‘The preaching circuits had been designed so that, on theoretical grounds, minimum energy input would achieve the maximum effectiveness in the promotion of the Christian religion, with greatest savings and efficiencies’.

Pryce was mistaken however, in concluding that the circuit pattern of

‘town plus villages’ was intentionally set up with ‘cost minimization’ in mind, since the history suggests otherwise. ³⁵ The pattern of the ‘circuit town plus villages’ originally simply emerged, however fortuitously, from the need for a base from which the travelling preacher might visit the societies and form new ones. The origins of Methodism lay in the pattern of the outward and circulating movement of the early travelling preachers around their circuits/rounds, and not in the pattern of believers being expected to travel into a town to a single church (as might be the case with the Roman Catholic community). Nevertheless, the pattern proved to be useful in many cases, such as in the Newark example. It would also be true that travelling distances and pastoral access became one important consideration when large circuits came to be divided. (See para.3.2.6 below).

Greaves discussed the ideal shape of a circuit and using geographer’s methods, concluded that the best shape was hexagonal. He wrote ‘…It is justifiable to claim therefore that a hexagonal tessellation was latent in the Methodist circuit system during the nineteenth century though the

32 W. T. R. Pryce, ed., From Family History to Community History (Cambridge

University Press, 1994), 133, 134.

33 Pryce, Family History, 134.

34Greaves, “Methodism in Yorkshire”, cited in Pryce, Family History, 133-134.

35 There was sometimes a subtle distinction made between town and village implying,

rightly or wrongly, that the ‘town’ members were more capable and more sophisticated.

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tessellation was not necessarily visible…’ ³⁶ He also looked in detail at the link between the area of the Poor Law Unions and the circuits and demonstrated a number of similarities; indeed identical boundaries in many rural areas of Yorkshire in his study period. ³⁷ However, while such shapes and similarities existed, and the hexagonal shape was one which supported maximum efficiency and reduced travelling distances, it is doubtful if those planning either the expansion or division of circuits gave thought to the specific matters of hexagonal shape or correspondence with Poor Law areas. Much can be attributed to coincidence. Another difficulty with both Greaves’ and Pryce’s conclusions is that there is no reference to factors such as membership numbers and pastoral considerations. Further, as Greaves did note, topography sometimes dictated circuit size and shape (such as in the Pennine Dales), creating circuits which were long and thin. In these cases the efficiency argument is less convincing.

Again, as cities grew, these were divided into several circuits, each of which was wedge-shaped, with a portion of suburbs and countryside.³⁸ Greaves quoted the example of the Leeds East and West circuits in 1831, which also corresponded to ‘…wedge – shaped divisions of the urban field of the city denoted by the Poor Law boundaries.’³⁹

There was a negative aspect of the ‘town plus surrounding villages’

model, of which modern geographers had no reason to be aware: one which emerged in the nineteenth century. That was the sense of neglect felt by members in the smaller villages, because the pastoral and preaching resource of the itinerants had come to be focused in the town and larger villages. The ‘town plus villages’ model of a circuit encouraged the practice of housing ministers in the towns. In this scenario, they barely had time to attend to the rising town populations, simply rushing out at the last minute to a village for a week-night service, before hastening back. As early as 1819, William Myles was

36Greaves, “Methodism in Yorkshire”, 285.

37 Ibid, 266.

38 Smith, History of Wesleyan Methodism, vol.3, 2^nd edn. revised, 491.

39Greaves, “Methodism in Yorkshire”, 267and his fig.50.

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attributing the success of the Ranters (Primitive Methodists) to ‘The [Wesleyan] present Plan of Preachers living in the great towns…and only just preaching in the country’.⁴⁰ The concept of the itinerant on his round being the routinely regular, if necessarily infrequent, pastor, encourager, adviser and teacher to each of the societies in turn, be they large or small, had vanished. Rural discontent suggests that something of what was seen as essentially Wesleyan Methodist was lost in the change.

Looking for a solution, one author proposed in 1873 that ‘…both for the villages themselves and for the relief of towns, not infrequently hampered by the claims of numerous village places…village circuits’

should be established. ⁴¹ In proposing this he felt the need to counter an argument that such a circuit would be seen as demotion for a minister by pointing out the recuperative benefits of the pace of country life. What this author had not taken into account was the element of

‘the strong supporting the weak’: a significant expression of connexionalism in the individual circuit. The town church often provided the resources of finance and members with professional skills to support the village chapels.