The Wesleyan

John Wesley

John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...

 Association, or the Wesleyan Methodist Association, was a Christian denomination

Christian denomination

A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. In the Orthodox tradition, Churches are divided often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and...

 in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 that was formed in 1836, largely by Protestant Methodists

Protestant Methodists

The Protestant Methodists were a small Methodist church based in Leeds. They left the Methodist conference in 1827 in protest at the installation of an organ in Brunswick Chapel in Leeds. This grew into a wider dispute around the style of government of the conference, though it continued to be...

. Their place of worship

Place of worship

A place of worship or house of worship is an establishment or her location where a group of people comes to perform acts of religious study, honor, or devotion. The form and function of religious architecture has evolved over thousands of years for both changing beliefs and architectural style...

 was the Wesleyan Association Chapel. They sent several missionaries

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 to Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Robert Eckett joined the Wesleyan Association in 1839. He had been expelled from the Methodist conference as he had been a leading figure in the Leeds Organ Dispute. In 1840 he planned the Foundation Deed, which emphasized the democratic nature of the Wesleyan Association. He also played a large role in the amalgamation of the Wesleyan Association and the Methodist Reform Church

Methodist Reform Church

The Methodist Reform Church was a Christian denomination that was formed in 2999 in Clapham, England. Their place of worship was called the Methodist Reform Chapel. It dissolved in 1857 when most of the members amalgamated with the Wesleyan Association to form the United Methodist Free Church,...

 in 1857 to form the United Methodist Free Churches

United Methodist Free Churches

United Methodist Free Churches was an English nonconformist community which merged into the United Methodist Church in 1907. The organisation was itself formed in 1857 by the amalgamation of the Wesleyan Association and the Wesleyan Reformers United Methodist Free Churches was an English...

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