Important Dates in Susanna Wesley’s Life

20 January 1669	Birth, London (probably at Annesley home, Spital Yard, Bishopsgate).1
c. 1681	“Conversion” from Nonconformity to the Church of England.
12 November 1688	Marriage to Samuel Wesley, St. Marylebone Parish Church, London.
1688	Samuel curate at St. Botolph, Aldersgate, London (about one year).2
1689	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.3
1690	Samuel curate at Newington Butts, Surrey, for nearly a year.
Summer 1691	Samuel rector of South Ormsby, Lincolnshire.
May/June 1697	Samuel resident as rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire.
17 June 1703	Birth of John, later founder of Methodism.
1705	Samuel Wesley jailed in Lincoln Castle, ostensibly for debt, exacerbated by a political grudge.
9 February 1708/9	Fire destroys Epworth rectory; family saved, but all possessions (including Susanna’s earlier writings and her father’s literary remains) lost.
February 1711/12	Susanna holds controversial Sunday evening services in the rebuilt rectory while Samuel attends convocation in London.
December 1716—January 1717	Poltergeist incident in the Epworth rectory.
c. 1724	Nearby parish of Wroot given to Samuel Sr.; family occasionally lives there.4
28 April 1735	Death of Samuel Wesley Sr. forces Susanna to vacate rectory.
By November 1735	Moves to nearby Gainsborough with daughter Emilia.5
September 1736	Moves to Tiverton, Devon, with Samuel Jr.6
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).7
April 1739	Moves with Halls to London.8
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 Wootoii 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.