Susanna Wesley

Susanna  Wesley (1669-1742) was a theological writer and educator. She was the daughter of Samuel Annesley, nonconformist minister in London. She links Puritanism, Anglicanism, and Methodism. Her father was one of the ejected ministers in 1662, and he formed a Presbyterian congregation in Spitalfields, the same congregation Daniel Defoe attended. At the age of 12 she decided that the Church of England was the proper place for her to worship, not her father’s church, and she did, surprisingly with his blessing. She later married in 1688 Samuel Wesley (1662-1735), who had also moved from nonconformity to Anglicanism, living for a time in her father’s home in London. She wrote several pieces, some polemical. Two of her daughters became noteworthy, besides her two sons: the poet Mehetabel Wright (1697–1750), whose marriage brought scandal to the rectory and was dramatized in A. T. Quiller-Couch's 1903 historical novel Hetty Wesley, and Martha Hall (1706–1791), who moved to London as a widow and became a member of Dr Johnson's circle. See Susanna Wesley: the complete writings, ed. C. Wallace (1997).