We’ve all heard the names John and Charles Wesley, but there are a lot of other important names in the history of Methodism you may not know. The Unsung Heroes of Methodism series tells the stories of lesser-known figures whose lives and witness still impact The United Methodist Church today, even if their names aren’t familiar to us.
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Mary Bosanquet Fletcher lived an extraordinary life. She was a preacher, an author, a theologian and a philanthropist. She was a child of wealth and privilege who gave it all up to preach the Gospel and serve the poor. She wrote letters to John Wesley, urging him to recognize the calling of women to preach the Gospel. She inspired future generations of female leaders to embrace their callings.
Mary Bosanquet was in Essex in 1739 to a very well-to-do family of French descent. She was first introduced to Methodism at the age of seven when one of her family servants tried to share her Methodist beliefs with Mary and her two sisters. Back then Methodism was largely a movement among the working classes of England. Mary’s parents didn’t like this and sent the servant away, but Mary never forgot the experience.[1]
When she was a teenager Bosanquet was reintroduced to Methodism through her sister and became involved in the Foundery, one of the most prominent Methodist societies in London. Bosanquet renounced her wealth and became close friends with other women within the movement when she joined a class led by a woman named Sarah Crosby who become the first official woman to preach within the Methodist movement.[2]
Bosanquet converted one of her family’s properties in Leytonstone into a children’s orphanage and school which she ran together with other Methodist women called The Cedars. The Cedars also provided free health care and carried out its own prayer meetings and Bible studies on site, led by Crosby and Bosanquet. Eventually they moved their operations to the Yorkshire and built a new school called Cross Hill.[3]
While Crosby was the first official woman to preach within the Methodist movement, Bosanquet immediately began following in her footsteps. When her and Crosby’s preaching began attracting opposition, she wrote to John Wesley defending their practices. Mary’s letter to Wesley would survive and be reprinted in Wesley’s Arminian Magazine, giving us a unique insight into Bosanquet’s knowledge of scripture and brilliant theological mind.[4]
“I do not believe every woman is called to speak publicly, no more than every man to be a Methodist preacher, yet some have an extraordinary call to it, and woe be to them if they obey it not.”[5]
Bosanquet’s arguments in favor of her and other women’s “extraordinary call” seemed to have convinced Wesley who gave his full blessing to their ministry in 1771. Bosanquet’s gifts as a preacher were evident as hundreds and sometimes thousands came to hear her speak.[6]
In 1781 Bosanquet married Anglican priest John Fletcher, one of the most senior leaders of the Methodist movement and the man Wesley intended to be his successor. They lived in John’s parsonage at Madeley in Shropshire where they would more-or-less serve as co-pastors of the Methodist community. Along with preaching to Gospel, Bosanquet continued to serve as a nurse and school teacher to the community in Madeley.[7]
The Fletchers would live very happily together until John’s death in 1785. Though Wesley would suggest she leave Madeley to help lead ministries in London, she felt bound to her late husband’s parish and continued her work, preaching in chapels across the county. She would serve as a mentor and inspiration to many young female preachers. After Wesley’s death in 1791, his successors stopped supporting women preaching. Bosanquet largely ignored these new prohibitions and continued to preach and lead class meetings in Madeley until her death in 1814.[8]
Mary Bosanquet Fletcher would leave behind a number of letters and preaching pamphlets, along with an unpublished autobiography, that would be published in 1819 by British Methodist Henry Moore. She also left behind an incredible legacy as a bold preacher, servant to the poor, and inspiration to future clergywomen everywhere.
This content was produced by UMC.org on February 13, 2024. Philip J. Brooks is a writer and content developer at United Methodist Communications. Contact him by email.
[1] Fletcher, Mary. The Life of Mrs. Mary Fletcher. Moore, Henry (ed.). London: J. Kershaw, 1824.
[2] Idem.
[3] Chilcote, Paul Wesley. She offered them Christ: the legacy of women preachers in early Methodism. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993.
[4] Idem.
[5] "A Mary Bosanquet Letter to John Wesley, June 1771.” Quoted in Chilcote, Paul. John Wesley and the Women Preachers of Early Methodism. Philadelphia: Scarecrow Press, 1991.
[6] Chilcote, Paul Wesley. She offered them Christ: the legacy of women preachers in early Methodism. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993.
[7] Chilcote, Paul Wesley. John Wesley and the Women Preachers of Early Methodism. Philadelphia: Scarecrow Press, 1991.
[8] Idem.
