Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC (1867-1947) was a British Conservative politician who served on three occasions as Prime Minister of the UK. (1923-4; 1924-9; 1935-7). During his latter period in office he oversaw the abdication of King Edward VIII.

His mother, Louisa MacDonald, was the grand-daughter of James MacDonald who was called into the ministry in Ireland by John Wesley in 1784. Her father was George B MacDonald who entered  the itinerancy in 1825 and her brother was Frederic W MacDonald who served as President of the British Wesleyan Conference in 1899. There were also Methodists on the Baldwin side of the family descended from Rev Jacob Stanley, Sen.

Through his mother’s family, Stanley Baldwin was also a first cousin of the writer and poet Rudyard Kipling.

At the request of a small society formed by a soldier in 1745, John Cennick who had been one of Wesley’s preachers but was now a Moravian, came to Dublin in June 1746 and began to preach in a chapel in Skinner’s Alley hired from the Baptists.

Charles Wesley explained how the ‘Swaddler’ title originated (in his diary entry for 10th September 1747).

“One I observed crying, ‘Swaddler,swaddler!’ (our usual title here). ……. We dined with a gentleman, who explained our name to us. It seems we are beholden to Mr Cennick for it, who abounds in such like expressions as ‘I curse and blaspheme all the gods in heaven, but the babe that lay in the manger, the babe that lay in Mary’s lap, the babe that lay in swaddling clouts [clothes], etc’. Hence they nicknamed him ‘Swaddler, or Swaddling John’. And the word sticks to us all, not excepting the clergy.”

More interesting facts from Irish Methodist Genealogy ……..

“In 1824 a House of Commons committee recommended a townland survey of Ireland, with maps at a scale of 6 inches, to facilitate a uniform valuation for local taxation. The Duke of Wellington, then prime minister, authorised this, the first Ordnance Survey of Ireland. The survey was directed by Colonel Thomas Colby, who commanded officers of the Royal Engineers and three companies of sappers and miners.” (Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland)

The Methodist Church at Athlone bears the British Government arrow survey mark where the Ordnance Surveyors started mapping Ireland – it was regarded as the centre point of Ireland.

Those of us who pursue an interest in Irish Methodist genealogy look to John Wesley as having been the instigator of the eighteenth century religious revival in Ireland.

He arrived for the first time at St. George’s Quay in Dublin on Sunday, 9th August 1747 and bade farewell in the same city on Sunday, 12th July 1789. In the intervening forty-two  years, about five and a half were spent in Ireland, during the course of twenty-one visits. The County of Kerry appears to have been the only one he failed to reach as he travelled through the length and breadth of the land.  When English Methodists questioned his allocation of so much time he responded, “Have patience, and Ireland will repay you”. 

History has proved his words to have been prophetic and Irish Methodists have carried their faith with them as they have become widely dispersed throughout the world.

George J Coalter, a village schoolmaster and evangelist, penned a brief account of a country service on the Ballinamallard circuit in his native Fermanagh. The preacher on that occasion (probably in the late 1880’s when Coalter was still a teenager) was Rev R Ker.

“The kitchen and room were full of people some of whom had come a considerable distance. The meeting began in the usual way” [hearty singing, much prayer and pointed preaching] “and after Mr Ker had preached for a short time, he stopped suddenly. Then he personally and audibly spoke to each one about his or her spiritual condition. In those days people were not offended by such an approach, although I believe some felt embarrassed.

Religion was in the very air of these Gospel services. I remember hearing the people sing on their homeward way from such a gathering……. Charles Wesley’s lines would describe the ‘meek…

A fascinating letter written by a young Quaker, Susanna Pim, in late summer 1748, has provided historians with a first-hand account of the preachers’ early activities in Cork.

“The Methodists are here these some weeks. There is a great reformation wrought amongst the people. They preach twice a day, at five in the morning and seven in the evening. It is thought there were ten thousand yesterday. They go every day to the jails to preach to the prisoners. They are now gathering money to release the poor debtors. Yesterday, after they had done preaching, they desired that the people might contribute to it, and lest it should be imagined that it was for themselves, they appointed men to stand one on each side of the [Hammond’s] Marsh where they preached to collect the money. They collected yesterday evening upwards of twenty pounds, which was the first time of gathering.”