The Significance of Methodism for Cornish Immigrants to America and the Meaning of Intolerance to Me

Before they left the shores of England, John Albert Berriman Wills (J.A.B. Wills) and Annie Reed were married in Truro, Cornwall, England. The date was  August 14th, 1866 and the church was St. George’s Anglican.  John Albert was 23 years old, Annie was probably 30 years old.  Although both John and Annie came from strong Methodist families, marriages were often required to be performed with Anglican rites and Methodists were required by law to support the Anglican church.

Witnesses were:

Amy Wills, a younger sister of J.A.B. Wills

Emma Jane Reed, a younger sister of Annie Reed

William Marben, a possible friend of J.A.B. Wills

 

Maxwell Adams, writing in 2005 described Lelant Methodists as reactionary –  opposed to social reform and to Roman Catholicism.  We know John Albert Berriman Wills (J.A.B. Wills) from Lelant and Annie Reed from Gwennap were raised as staunch Methodists.  Like their founder John Wesley, Methodists were suspicious of Catholicism viewing it as a threat to their choice and sovereignty.  The roots go back to the Tudor and Stuart reigns and the 1534 English Act of Supremacy declaring the monarch to be the head of the English church.  Allegiance to the Roman pope was heresy and a sure path to hell.  The Gordon Riots of 1780 in London were violent anti-Catholic reactions to 1778 laws giving Catholics some limited rights .  Cornwall’s working class, miners and boatmen,  were swept up in the greater current of anti-Catholicism prevalent in England from the late 18th century through the 19th century.  The anti-Catholic sentiment that ran through England was also present in 18th and 19th century America.  Though root causes may have differed, both were manifested in violent riots, often against Irish Catholics.  I am not certain how this social trend played out in Cornwall but there was a definite bias against Catholics that J.A.B. Wills carried in his soul across the Atlantic and into his new life in North America where he found many likeminded Americans.  It was only America’s Civil War that temporarily suppressed the Anti-Catholic movement in the United States.  It easily resurfaced afterwards.

The anti-Catholic prejudice J.A.B. Wills (1843-1919) brought with him would ultimately destroy his son John Albert Wills (1873-1937) and their father-son relationship.  It also impacted the oldest son, William Henry Wills (1869-1931) and his family.  The brothers, raised as Methodists, fell in love and married Franco-American women who were Roman Catholics.  For this, John Albert Berriman Wills became estranged from both sons eventually wrote them out of his last will and testament.  He removed his sons and their Catholic families out of his life.   In many ways, writing this story is filling that void and re-establishing the relationships his descendants could have had with him had  he been able to leave his religious prejudices behind in the Cornwall he left.

Tolerance was not an accepted behavior in 1900.  Disinheriting your children was.

The greater lesson for his descendants is that we living today, would be so much more richer and our lives fuller if we left our prejudices behind whether they are religious, cultural, ethnic, social or racial.  Cultivating tolerance isn’t an easy thing to do.  We are born into a family and quickly grow into the society that surrounds us with all its inherent institutional biases.  Loving our family but learning to allow members to flow across its boundaries and continue to be accepted will aid our own growth and the growth of America.

That is why I appreciate the illustration below with Uncle Sam is trying to bring two men together. In this case, the issue of school funding for Catholic schools was the divide.

America’s history is not something I tend to brag about – the dark side of the American past is always present and should never be forgotten.  However, this illustration gives hope that Americans will eventually come together with tolerance and acceptance making us a better people and a better nation.