John Wesley

John Wesley (1703–1791) was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford, and became a fellow of Lincoln College. With his brother Charles he led the Oxford “Holy Club”. After a mission to Georgia (1735–38), where he learned German from the Moravians and began to translate their hymns, and his evangelical conversion in May 1738, he became the organiser of the Methodist movement.

In this archive he appears as the editor and translator of hymns. Osborn’s edition (G. Osborn (ed.), The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, 13 vols (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1868–72), from Internet Archive scans (OCR)) reprints the Collection of Psalms and Hymns that John Wesley published in 1741, of which only the pieces Osborn could not trace to other authors are given here, and records his translations from the German and Spanish. German pieces whose original author Osborn names stand under that author’s name.