William HORTON

HORTON, WILLIAM (b. Louth, Lincolnshire, England, 6 Aug 1800; d. London, England, 18 June 1867). Wesleyan missionary.

Both of Horton's parents were class leaders at Louth. William Horton joined the local Methodist Society aged eighteen, and, shortly after, 'found peace with God'. Samuel Leigh (q.v.) stayed at the Horton's household in 1820 during his tour to raise support for the New Zealand mission, and young William was persuaded to offer for the South Seas mission. Events then moved quickly: William was married in Nov to Mary Sheardown, and, on 11 Jan 1821, ordained to mission work in the NSW station. Soon after, he was voyaging south with Leigh. They stopped en route at Hobart, where Cpl Waddy of the 48th Regiment, and a ticket-of-leave convict, Benjamin Nokes, had recently begun a class meeting. As Benjamin Carvosso (q.v.) who was officially appointed to VDL was detained in Sydney, Leigh persuaded Horton, with Lt-Gov Sorell's encouragement, to remain in Hobart. Horton agreed, and the London Mission Committee eventually ratified this change. Horton spent two busy and productive years in Hobart, ministering to convicts, consolidating and expanding the work of Waddy and Nokes, establishing a strong Sabbath school, obtaining a grant of land for a Wesleyan chapel, and more-or-less conciliating the unwelcoming Anglican chaplain, Robert Knopwood. Horton then moved to Sydney. When Sydney Wesleyan missionaries formed a District Meeting in 1826, Horton became treasurer.

About this time a serious dispute emerged between the missionaries and the Mission Committee in London over bills drawn by local missionaries on their own initiative. London saw some bills as quite extravagant and declined to honour them. Horton, as local treasurer, was squarely in the middle of the conflict. He soon enlarged the rift by a forthright 1827 printed 'letter' to the Mission Committee. His main rationale for the bills was an ambitious forward policy. 'We may', he wrote, 'look upon our present settlements as the rudiments of a great and might empire, obviously destined, by a wise and merciful Providence ... to diffuse amongst the numerous surrounding nations and tribes the arts of civilisation and the blessings of Christianity'.

The local Committee agreed Horton should go to England to plead their case. London was not pleased to see him: Horton was reminded he left his station without Mission Committee approval, and told his printed letter was 'mischievous'. At the 1829 Wesleyan Conference he was rebuked from the chair, expelled pro tem, and sent into the circuits on two-years probation. He complied; and then and thereafter ministered in British circuits to Conference's satisfaction. He retired from fulltime work in 1852. In 1849 he produced a pamphlet — Methodism and Liberty—explaining the excellence of Wesleyan governance and discipline.

Wesleyan Methodist Magazine Sept 1867; W Horton, A Letter Addressed to the General Secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society (Sydney, 1827); R D Pretyman, A Chronicle of Methodism in Van Diemen's Land (Melbourne, 1970); J Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism (Sydney, 1902)

RICHARD ELY