PAS Finds (w/e 20/1/23) – John Wesley
PAS Finds (w/e 20/1/23) – John Wesley
My selection of the detecting finds recorded at the PAS in the week ended 20 January 2023. I’ve chosen to focus on one Featured Find this week.
Featured Find
Mount of John Wesley
A plain copper-alloy mount bearing the initials “JW”. It was found in the grounds of the family home of the Wesley family and the birthplace of John Wesley. As the PAS record states, it’s possible that this mount belonged to John Wesley but as it also rightly cautions “There were doubtless many others who shared the initials J W in the Isle of Axholme in the later 17th and 18th centuries“. It has been designated a Find of Note of County Importance.
I thought a little research was in order to see if anything could support the connection with John Wesley and after doing just that, I think I would go further than saying that it just belonged to him.
John Wesley
From Epworth to London with John Wesley, Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Printing and Publishing, 1890
John Wesley was born at Epworth Rectory in 1703 and lived to the age of 87. in 1738 began his own ministry, which was effectively the start of Methodism.
From the outset, Methodists kept a keen eye on their spending and the modest mount is in keeping with this. The suggested date for the mount fits well with John Wesley’s life.
Horseback
Wesley would travel from place to place on horseback in both England and America to preach in the open air.
There are several statues and numerous images of Wesley on horseback with some showing him reading while he was riding. Some even show him writing at some sort of small desk, which is attached to the saddle.
This is all consistent with the PAS record saying “The robust construction and fixings may suggest this was attached to a substantial item of horse furniture, perhaps a saddle.“
“JW” brand
During my short research into John Wesley it became clear that he was known as “JW” and it even became something of a brand for him; his personal seal was the letters “JW” with “Believe Love Obey” around the outside. When writing to friends he would sign off the letter with “JW”1. In books he would mark passages with “JW”2 and when other wrote to him they would be addressed to “JW”3
John Wesley and his brother Charles are depicted in a stained glass window, made in 1924, in Wesley’s Chapel & Leysian Mission, London. They are both identified by their initials.
Therefore, although there may have been other people near Epworth in the 17th and 18th centuries with the initials “JW”, it wouldn’t make sense for them to just use those to identify their belongings as these initials were so strongly linked with John Wesley.
Inscribing his own initials
The final intriguing aspect of my look at the life of John Wesley was the discovery of his penchant for etching his own initials on things.
As with the piece of glass shown he would sometimes etch “J Wesley” on the glass. On another occasion he wrote a poem on a pane of glass and then wrote his initials diagonally across it4
As shown by etched glass the style of the J and W are similar to those on the mount.
This all leads me to speculate that not only did this mount belong to John Wesley but the initials may have been written by the man himself.