Essays originally presented at a conference held June 16-18, 2009 at the Telford (Priorslee) campus of the University of Wolverhampton with some sessions at Madeley and Ironbridge.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Front cover; Contents; Foreword; Introduction; The Themes and Contexts; The Conference; The Papers; Acknowledgments; 1. Religion, Gender, and Industry in the Eighteenth Century; 2. John Fletcher's Parishioners; 3. John Fletcher's Silent Bishop; 4. Church and Chapel; Introduction; Church Services; Church Extension: Defining the Problem; Church Extension 1760-1785; Expanded Church Services; Madeley Religious Societies and the "Chapels"; Implications of Fletcher's Ministry for Church Extension 1785-1815; Conclusion; 5. John Fletcher's Links with Mystical Methodists and Swedenborgians.

When and How Fletcher Read SwedenborgWhy Did Fletcher Read Swedenborg?; Fletcher as the Mystical Methodist; Fletcher's Millennialism and Doctrine of Perfect Love; The Search for Theosophy; How Significant Was This Reading?; Mary Bosanquet and Spiritual Religion; Conclusion; 6. ""Adoring the Holy Trinity in Unity""; Introduction: Fletcher as Priest-Theologian; Fletcher's Doxological Trinitarianism: A Critical Reading; Fletcher and Two Alternatives: English Unitarianismand English Rational Theology; Following Fletcher: The Promise of Doxological Trinitarianism.

7. Women, Work, and Worship in the Trefeca Family 1752-17738. Mothers in Christ; 9. Support Groups for Methodist Women Preachers 1803-1851; The Madeley Group; Mary and Zechariah Taft; The East Anglian Group; Conclusions; Networking; Gendered Relationships; 10. "Oh That the Mantle May Rest on Me!"; 11. Holding Tightly to the "Promise of the Father"; "The Promise of the Father"; "Baptism with the Holy Ghost"; Faith for a Victorian Church; Conclusion; 12. John Fletcher as the Theologian of Early American Methodism; Fletcher's Checks as a Doctrinal Standard; Mary Bosanquet Fletcher's Diaries.

Bishop Asbury's Indebtedness to FletcherBishop Asbury and His Preachers Affirmed PentecostalPerfection; The Prevalence of the Fletchers' Pentecostal Nomenclature in Early American Methodism; Conclusion; 13. The Long Fletcher Incumbency; Contributors; Back cover.

A collection of essays that aim to consider broad questions of the role of religion in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain by studying a single geographical area. Coalbrookdale in the parish of Madeley, Shropshire is seen as the ""birthplace of the industrial revolution"" while remaining one of the last examples of a Methodist parish in England. These works engage with a variety of areas of study: Methodism's roots and growth in relation to the Church of England, religion and gender in eighteenth century Britain, and religion and the emergence of an industrial society, and do.

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