Two manuscript letters containing reports on the Wesleyan Missionary Society in Tasmania, 1843.

Two entire letters sent from Hobart Town to London, both written in a neat secretarial hand on 3 sides of one folded folio sheet, addressed to ‘The General Secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, Centenary Hall, Bishopsgate Street within, London’, stamped in red and dated 1843; the address panels are annotated by the sender ‘VDL Minutes No. 3 (original)’ and ‘VDL Minutes No. 4 (original)’, respectively; one of the letters is signed by ‘Nathaniel Turner, Chairman’, and ‘William Simpson, Secretary’; both letters are complete, clean and legible, with original folds.

Two important manuscript documents relating to the early history of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Tasmania. One of the letters includes manuscript accounts of the expenditure, income and general returns for the Wesleyan Missionary Society’s meetings in Hobart Town, New Norfolk, Ross, Launceston and Port Arthur. Both letters also include a series of questions and answers concerning the upholding of correct practices by the Wesleyan missions in Tasmania.

These letters attest to the strong Methodist presence that had emerged in Tasmania by the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The first Methodist sermon in Tasmania was preached in Hobart in 1820, by Benjamin Carvosso. From 1825-1830 Carvosso served as the first minister of the Wesleyan Church in Hobart Town. A Wesleyan ‘Society’ was formed in Launceston in 1826, and by 1840 there were 14 chapels around the two towns and the midlands, as recorded in these letters.