Listing the preaching appointments of Harry Major to raise money for the 'Missionary Cause'. Major's itinerary was confined to Cornwall and he was to be accompanied by either Catherine or William O'Bryan.
On the reverse of the Broadsheet is a letter from William O'Bryan at Millpleasant near Plymouth, to [his sixteen year old daughter] Mary O'Bryan, care of Joseph Mitchell, White-smith of Mile Street, Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Isles. O'Bryan wrote last week but has yet to receive a reply from Mary. He is wondering if he wrote to the island of Jersey by mistake especially as he wrote at the same time to [Mary Ann] Werry. If Mary has not yet received the letter, it is likely to be in the post office in Jersey. She should enquire there as soon as she can. He wrote that Werry wished to go to Scotland, that she could get a free passage and that Mary might take her place.
Captain Ledstone has been detained here, as one of the passengers was found to have smuggled foodstuffs on board. Peter has been here and has promised to let them know when the vessel is to sail. They have received no further news. O'Bryan trusts that Mary will reply to this letter immediately.
Mary can see from the broadsheet on which this letter is written that her mother [Catherine] intends to visit the west of Cornwall next week with Harry Major to hold missionary meetings. O'Bryan himself intends to join Major in the Scilly Isles.
Today he received a letter from James Thorne, who has been [in Scilly] for some time in order to 'regulate matters'. He says that they have twelve places for preaching and `that many more are open to them - that they may take 20 if they can supply them'. At Newport house rents are very dear as they get large numbers of visitors from London, and they [the Bible Christians] have had great difficulty in finding anywhere.
A young man [whose name has been crudely erased - see note below] from Whitestone, was at Kingland last Thursday. They had a `favoured time, there were three set at liberty'. All the family are in good health and send their love.
In a postscript he mentions that the November [Bible Christian] magazine has come back from the printers, and that he has received the first sheet of the December issue. They are busy trying to get them out before O'Bryan leaves for the west of Cornwall.
18 Oct. 1823.
An unidentified hand [?Mary O'Bryan] has annotated the letter with information about the young man from whitestone - `A sad end came to him - he kept wine and spirit stores for many years after leaving the ministry - and died insane but always retained affectionate remembrance'.
Notes .
- Harry Major (1795-1839) was born in North Devon, and was converted as a young man by the preaching of the Wesleyan minister Mr Cloak. He joined the Methodist Society in 1812 and served as a local preacher. In 1816 he left the Wesleyan Connexion for the Bible Christians and entered the ministry shortly after. Major served circuits in the south-west as well as mission in Kent, the Channel Isles and Wales. Source: Bible Christian Magazine 1839, pp.11,33,57,85 and 105
- Mary Ann Werry (b.?1802) was one of the earliest female itinerants of the Bible Christian Connexion. Nothing is known about her before her appointment to Jersey in the Channel Isles in 1823, although she may have been a native of the island. She was apparently of a highly mystical nature and felt compelled by a vivid dream to offer herself for work in Scotland and the North Country. She reached Northumberland in 1824 and wrote back to the Connexion, describing the opportunities for mission work. Thereafter she disappears from the record except for a brief reference to her preaching in the Edinburgh Observer of 4 May 1825. Source: R. D. Moore, Methodism in the Channel Isles (1952), pp.87-88
- Joseph Mitchell is recorded as being a Bible Christian minister in Guernsey in 1824, after which he disappears from the record. Source: Beckerlegge