Elizabeth Mitford

Elizabeth Mitford spent some time among the Particular Baptists in London before moving into one of Whitefield’s Societies. She then became a Methodist preacher at the age of twenty-one. By the mid-1760s, Sarah Crosby (1729-1804) and Mary Bosanquet-Fletcher (1739-1815) had gained John Wesley’s approval to preach before men as well as women; many others, like Mitford, followed their example, but their exact numbers are not known. Beginning in the early part of the nineteenth century, however, the Methodist Conference began to restrict women preachers to audiences of their own sex. Jane Attwater had a private meeting with Mitford in the house where she was staying in Westbury, Wiltshire. Attwater, writing to Mary Steele on 31 October 1774, described Mitford as being ‘humble’ and unashamed ‘of ye lawfulness of womans speaking &c however my curiosity would have led me to hear her was I perfectly assured of her deserving a good character. Some bad things have been reported of her. I know not whether they are authentic or not if they are she must be bad indeed but as we must make some allowances for scandal prejudice envy &c I know not wt to say only those reports have kept me fm accepting Mr & Miss Guestfords invitation to come & hear her. They say she has an Excellent gift in prayer.’  See Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), 3.259-60.