John Warner

John Warner (1736-1800) was a classical scholar and graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he received a D.D. in 1773.  For many years he preached in his own chapel in Long Acre Street, London.  He was also rector at Hockcliffe and Chalgrave, Bedfordshire, as well as Stourton, Wiltshire.  He went to Paris in 1790 as chaplain to the English ambassador and became sympathetic to the ideas of the French Revolution.  In 1797 Alexander Kilham (1762-98) and several other Methodist preachers separated from the larger Methodist movement (the “Old Connexion”) and formed the Methodist New Connexion.  About 5000 joined the first year, all from the north of England, comprising some 66 societies, with Kilham appointed the first secretary. Warner joined the Kilhamites, for his political sympathies at that time were closely linked with Kilham’s. Flower was sympathetic to Kilham’s ecclesiastical politics, which were similar to those of traditional Dissenters, noting in his obituary for Kilham that he was “an active person in opposition to the old arbitrary system” (Cambridge Intelligencer 29 December 1798). For more on Flower’s appreciation of Kilham, see Cambridge Intelligencer 30 September 1797, 14 October 1797, 4 August 1798.