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     The Coming of Methodism to Middleton.

   John Nelson was a Yorkshireman from Birstall, a stonemason by trade,  travelling around the country  looking for work.  He had heard John Wesley speak in London in 1739 and being inspired was  converted. 

In 1742 he travelled from his home town, in Yorkshire, no doubt using the ancient York /West Chester highway  to Manchester  the old road  that runs through Middleton. 

Did he stop and talk to the folks of Middleton, the silk weavers, the colliers, we will never know.  His destination was the growing town of Manchester where he preached at the market cross. Most of the crowd that gathered were well behaved. However, someone threw a stone at him in the middle of his sermon and cut his head.  That, he wrote in his journal, made the people give him greater attention, especially when they saw blood running down his face. So all was quiet until he was done and was singing a hymn. 

It is not until a few years later, in 1760, that we have records of Methodism starting to make an impact on our town. From the records of the Manchester Round it is noted that in June of that year a certain John Fitton paid to the quarterly meeting on behalf of the Middleton Society  5/6,  (Five shillings and six pence) in December of  the same year the amount was 10/6 (ten shillings and 6 pence) and by 1766 it had risen to 14/-  (Fourteen shillings)  a quarter. There was an unbroken record of payments from 1760 until September 1791 when Middleton joined the Oldham Circuit.

Quoting an entry in John Wesley's Journal for:   Monday 14th, May 1766.  " I preached at Middleton, six  miles from Manchester.  A sharp shower of hail began in the middle of the sermon but scarce any went away empty"

The first chapel to be erected in Middleton was on Boarshaw Lane this was opened in 1790. As the membership increased this was replaced in 1805 with the Wood Street Chapel which was built at the bottom of Wood Street nearer to the centre of the developing town.  The cost of this new venture was £1,550, on of the most influencial Methodists connected with this new Chapel was Mr John Burton.  In 1867 a school building was added to the rear of the Chapel which vastly improved the teaching facilities for the ever increasing number of young people who, upto that time, had been taught in the cellar under the Chapel. By 1890 larger premises were needed.  To Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first chapel a procession was held around the town in which about 1400 persons took part. Afterwards tea was laid-on, in the Co-operative Hall, for between 800 and  900, followed by a meeting to inaugerate a building fund for the development of new premises. A few years later work on the Edgar Wood designed  Long Street Wesleyan Church began.    

Two Banners from Wesleyan Chapels

Middleton Junction (left) & Rhodes (right) Both now closed.