When John Wesley
visited the town in 1747, the local curate, Mr Innes,
stirred up the people to mob him, but failed to stop Wesley preaching. The mob was more
demonstrative a year later when
Charles Wesley paid a visit. Innes and
his ruffians played a water pump on the meeting. Violence followed in which
a Wesleyan was maimed. Although Wesley escaped along the Bath road, two
dogs were set upon him and he was 'torn badly'. Afterwards Charles
wrote: 'such fierceness and diabolical malice I have not seen in human
faces'.
Thankfully, relations between the churches in Devizes today are rather
better. St John's is, like
St Andrew's Methodist/URC church, an active
member of the Devizes Partnership of Churches.
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