Mary Bosanquet Fletcher

Zachariah Taft and women evangelists. Five women to encourage and inspire.

Part 6: by Catherine Coffey.

The affection that both the Tafts felt for Mary Bosanquet Fletcher is evident in the tone of Taft’s introduction to his sketch of her life and ministry. “I have the honour of a personal acquaintance and intimate friendship with this eminent and holy woman’ he wrote, and the life he so admired was one of energy and ambition. Writing directly to the Tafts in 1803, the sixty-five year old Mary explained that ‘now my breath is very short, … many complaints render me unable to travel’. Nevertheless, her work rate remained impressive. She continued, ‘I am, through mercy, at present carried through six or seven meetings in a week’.

Born in 1739 to a father who was one of the chief merchants in London, Mary was described a personal faith developing as a seven or eight year old, but increasingly came to see her privileged life, of fine clothes and holidays in Scarborough and Bath, as incompatible with a life of faith. A meeting with Sarah Crosby encouraged her conversion to Methodism to the horror of her family. Things came to a head when ‘requested by her Father to go to the Play, she begged him to be left at home’ leading to an estrangement that ended with Mary being ‘put out of my father’s family’ aged 21.

Initially, she lived in Leytonstone in Essex, and began holding ‘public meetings, and a society was formed, a way being made for preachers’. Joined by Sarah Ryan, Sarah Crosby and Ryan’s niece, Sally Lawrence, the women spent the next five years developing an orphanage/school to minister to the poor of London and teach the children literacy and skills for later life. Bosanquet’s role went far beyond simply teaching- she was in charge of the finances, led worship, preached and nursed the sick.

The school relocated to Yorkshire in 1768 and she continued this ministry for the next fourteen years. Mary’s preaching style and reputation drew attention from some who questioned the propriety of her preaching, but others like Wesley and his assistant John Fletcher came to acknowledge her ‘extraordinary call’ - a distinction they made from their belief that ordinarily women should not preach. Mary wrote to Wesley in 1771 addressing the various objections she had encountered in detail and he replied confirming her ‘extraordinary call’ as in the same category as the call of all the lay (ie non-ordained) preachers, male and female.

John Fletcher’s interest in Mary Bosanquet went beyond theological dispute. He wrote to her expressing his long held admiration for her. Mary had rejected all previous proposals, but this time she was persuaded- they were married in 1781. As a couple, the Fletchers’ ministry extended beyond the parish at Madeley where John was the vicar. Taft records their visit to Ireland in 1783 where they spoke to crowds of up to a thousand people, and Mary spoke for an hour. Whilst not itinerant preachers, Mary and John did preach in the surrounding area and, after John’s death in 1785, Mary continued to preach in the church and sustain the ministry they had built up.

Even as a seventy-one year old, Mary preached five times a week, although had given up the children’s meeting as a concession to old age when the Tafts went to stay with her. Her assistant Miss Tooth described her final sermons. ‘She was able to speak to a listening crowd of attentive hearers, some of whom had come many miles,’ wrote Tooth, ‘but did not think much of the pains they took because of the Spiritual good they derived from the opportunity’. It was one of Mary’s last sermons and she died on 9th December 1815.

Taft concluded his sketch quoting an assessment of Mary Fletcher as ‘an extraordinary person, endowed with a strong understanding, great decision of character and simplicity of mind, heroic zeal and unbounded benevolence; in the Apostolic age, she would have been a Priscilla…she had all the spirit of a Martyr’.

Taft’s purpose in writing was to overturn the ban on women evangelists- he was unsuccessful and it would be many generations before official support was extended to women speakers. However, Taft was also clear that his sketches were there to ‘offer a little encouragement’ as well.

‘Many a pious female’, Taft wrote, ‘whom God has called to active labour in his Church, will read her own experience in the convictions, deliverances and success of some character here recorded’. He went on, ‘And in this record of the heart and [lives]… the labours and success of those that have gone before them from tribulation to heaven, through the cross to the crown, [many] will find a powerful support in trial and a stimulus to duty’.