Wesleyan Methodist minister, born on 26 February 1820 at Osmotherly and trained at Didsbury College. His active ministry ended after 19 years because of ill health, but he devoted 25 years to Methodist history and wrote a number of standard works, including lives of Samuel Wesley senior (1866), John Wesley (1871), John Fletcher ('Wesley's designated successor') (1882) and George Whitefield (1876-7) and The Oxford Methodists (1873). He died in London on 20 March 1889.
His second wife was the sister of Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge (prosperous draper of Newcastle upon Tyne and local preacher, staunch pillar of Wesleyan Methodism).