Important Dates in Susanna Wesley's Life xiii
Important Dates in Susanna Wesley's Life Birth, London (probably at Annesley home, Spital
20 January 1669 Yard, Bishopsgate).!
"Conversion" from Nonconformity to the Church of England.
Marriage to Samuel Wesley, St. Marylebone Parish c. 1681
12 November 1688 Church, London.
Samuel curate at St. Botolph, Aldersgate, London
(about one year)."
Samuel chaplain on a man-o'-war (about 6 months); ended November 1689.
10 February 1690 First child, Samuel Jr., born, in Annesley home, London.®* Samuel curate at Newington Butts, Surrey, for nearly a
year.
Samuel rector of South Ormsby, Lincolnshire.
Samuel resident as rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire.
Summer 1691 May/June 1697 Birth of John, later founder of Methodism.
Samuel Wesley jailed in Lincoln Castle, ostensibly for 17 June 1703
debt, exacerbated by a political grudge.
Fire destroys Epworth rectory; family saved, but all pos9 February 1708/9 sessions (including Susanna's earlier writings and her father's literary remains) lost.
Susanna holds controversial Sunday evening services in February 1711/12 the rebuilt rectory while Samuel attends convocation in London.
Poltergeist incident in the Epworth rectory.
Nearby parish of Wroot given to Samuel Sr.; family occasionally lives there.* December 1716—January 1717 c. 1724
xiv Important Dates in Susanna Wesley's Life 28 April 1735 Death of Samuel Wesley Sr. forces Susanna to vacate rectory.
By November 1735 Moves to nearby Gainsborough with daughter Emilia.° September 1736 Moves to Tiverton, Devon, with Samuel Jr.° c. July 1737 Moves to Wooton, Wiltshire, near Marlborough, and afterward to Fisherton, near Salisbury, with the Halls
(daughter Martha and son-in-law Westley).'
April 1739 Moves with Halls to London.® Late 1739 Moves to the Foundery, son John's newly acquired
Methodist headquarters.
30 July 1742 Death at the Foundery, London.
1 August 1742 Burial, Bunhill Fields, City Road, London.
Notes 1. Frank Baker, "Investigating Wesley Family Traditions," Methodist History 26.3 (April 1988):
162. I have drawn on this authoritative source for all references to Wesley family births, marriages, and deaths.
2. Details on the couple's early married life, until 1698, have been gleaned from the recent investigations of H. A. Beecham, "Samuel Wesley Senior: New Biographical Evidence," in Renaissance and Modern Studies 7 (1963): 78-109. See also Frank Baker, "Salute to Susanna," Methodist
History 7.3 (April 1969): 3-12.
3. The first of 18 or 19, 10 of whom (7 girls and 3 boys) survived infancy. See Baker,
"Investigating Traditions," p. 162, for names and dates.
4. Susanna Wesley to John Wesley, 19 August 1724. Samuel Sr. to Lord Chancellor York,
14 January 1733. Adam Clarke, Memoirs of the Wesley Family; Collected Principally from Original Documents
(New York: N. Bangs and T. Mason for the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1824), 174.
5. Susanna Wesley to John Wesley, 27 November 1735.
6. Samuel Jr. to Charles Wesley, 21 September 1736; Clarke, Wesley Family, p. 315.
7. Samuel Jr. to Charles, 21 September 1736; Clarke, Wesley Family, p. 316. Susanna Wesley to Mrs. Alice Peard, 5 August 1737. Eliza Clarke, Susanna Wesley (London: W. H. Allen, 1886), p. 183, identifies Wooton incorrectly as a parish in Gloucestershire. The move to Fisherton had taken place by early 1738. See W. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater, eds., The Works of John Wesley, vol. 19, Journals and Diaries, II (1738-42) (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), p. 227.
8. See letter to Samuel Jr., 8 March 1738/39.