Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon
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Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (August 24, 1707 – June 17, 1791) was an English religious leader who played a prominent part in the religious revival of the eighteenth century and the Methodist movement in England and Wales.
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[edit] Early life
Selena Hastings was born as Lady Selina Shirley, the second daughter of Washington Shirley, 2nd Earl Ferrers and Lady Mary Levinge, at Staunton Harold, a mansion near Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire.
She married Theophilus Hastings, 9th Earl of Huntingdon, the only son of Theophilus Hastings, 7th Earl of Huntingdon and Lady Mary Frances Fowler, on June 3, 1728. The couple had two children:
- Francis Hastings, 10th Earl of Huntingdon (1729-1789), died unmarried and without issue.
- Elizabeth Hastings, Baroness Hastings (1731-1808), married John Rawdon, 1st Earl of Moira.
[edit] Religious Revival
In 1739 she joined the first Methodist society in Fetter Lane, London. After the death of her husband (in 1746 or 1747), Lady Huntingdon threw in her lot with Wesley and George Whitefield in the work of the great revival. Whitefield became her personal chaplain, and, with his assistance, following problems put in her path by the Anglican clergy from whom she had preferred not to separate, she founded the "Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion". This was a Calvinistic movement within the Methodist church, as were Whitefield's chapels.
In the earlier part of her life Isaac Watts, Lady Mary Abney, Philip Doddridge, and Augustus Montague Toplady were among her friends, as much later, after their death, was Lady Ann Agnes Erskine (eldest daughter of the Earl of Buchan, and known as Lady Ann to her friends rather than Lady Erskine), who for many years of the latter part of the Countess's life was her closest friend and companion.
[edit] Chapel Building
In 1748 the Countess gave Whitefield a scarf as her chaplain, and in that capacity he frequently preached in one of her London houses, in Park Street, Westminster, to audiences that included Chesterfield, Walpole and Bolingbroke.
Moved to further the religious revival in a calvinistic manner compatible with Whitfield's work, she was responsible for the founding of sixty-four chapels. Amongst these were buildings at Brighton (1761), Bath (1765), Worcester (circa 1766), Tunbridge Wells (1769), several in Wales, and a small number in London including one adjacent to her London home at Spa Fields, Clerkenwell/Finsbury. She appointed ministers to officiate in them, under the impression that as a peeress she had a right to employ as many chaplains as she pleased. In her chapel at Bath there was a curtained recess dubbed Nicodemus' corner where some of the bishops sat incognito to hear him. She also founded the ministers' training college at Trefeca near Brecon, which later moved to Hertfordshire being renamed Cheshunt College, and is now part of Cambridge University. In 1768 she converted the old mansion of Trefeca, near Talgarth, in South Wales, into a theological seminary for young ministers for the connexion. It is said that Lady Huntingdon expended £100,000 in the cause of religion.
A slave owner herself, having inherited overseas estates, the Countess promoted the writings and independence of African slaves such as authors Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano. During the mid-1760s, she met and befriended Mohegan preacher Samson Occom, then on a tour of England to raise funds for Indian missions.
Up to 1779 Lady Huntingdon and her chaplains were members of the Church of England, but in that year the prohibition of her chaplains by the consistorial court from preaching in the Pantheon, a large building in London rented for the purpose by the countess, compelled her, in order to evade the injunction, to take shelter under the Toleration Act. This step, which placed her legally among dissenters, had the effect of severing from the connexion several eminent and useful members, among them William Romaine and Henry Venn.
[edit] Arrangements after her Death
Up until her death in London, Lady Huntingdon continued to exercise an active, and even autocratic, superintendence over her chapels and chaplains. She successfully petitioned George III about the gaiety of Archbishop Cornwallis' establishment, and made a vigorous protest against the anti-Calvinistic minutes of the Wesleyan Conference of 1770, and against relaxing the terms of subscription of 1772.
On the Countess's death in 1791, her sixty-four chapels and the college were bequeathed to four trustees. Amongst these was Dr. Ford, and Lady Ann. Lady Ann was requested to occupy and constantly reside in Lady Huntingdon's house, adjoining Spa Fields Chapel, and to carry on all needful correspondence, which was immense. She carried this on dutifully until her own death in 1804, and burial at Bunhill Fields.
One of the earliest changes under the new trustees was to complete plans to relocate the college. In 1792 it was removed to Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. Here it remained, under the name Cheshunt College, until 1905, when its functions were transferred to Cambridge University. The college was noted for the number of men it sent into the foreign mission field.
In 1795, shortly after her death, her London chapel, Spa Fields Chapel, was used by the founders of the non-denominational Missionary Society, which became the London Missionary Society, for preachers contributing to this, its founding meeting. Following her death, much of her movement merged with the Congregationalist Church, who also came to predominate in the London Missionary Society, although there are still today twenty-five Connexion congregations functioning in England, with others in Sierra Leone.
In her will, she requested that no biography should be written of her, so none was attempted until almost ninety years after her death. However obituaries and later tributes were frequently written: Horace Walpole described her as the patriarchess of the Methodists, whilst the Roman Catholic, John Henry Newman, commented She devoted herself, her means, her time, her thoughts, to the cause of Christ. She did not spend her money on herself; she did not allow the homage paid to her rank to remain with herself. She was clearly a pivotal figure in the Evangelical Revival.
[edit] External links
- Kirby, Gilbert W. The Elect Lady
- Cook, Faith, Selina, Countess of Huntingdon – article in Evangelical Times, October 2001
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- Cook, Faith, 2002. Selina: Countess of Huntingdon. Banner of Truth Trust, ISBN 0-85151-812-5
- Kirby, Gilbert, 2002. The Elect Lady. Trustees of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connecxion
