Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (24 August 1707 – 17 June 1791) was an English religious leader who played a prominent part in the religious revival of the 18th century and the Methodist movement in England and Wales, and has left a Christian denomination (Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion) in England and Sierra Leone.

Early life

Selina Hastings was born as Lady Selina Shirley, the second daughter of Washington Shirley, 2nd Earl Ferrers and 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 Frances Fowler, on 3 June 1728. The couple had six children, three of whom died in childhood, and one (a daughter, also Selina) at the age of 26. The other two were:

• Francis, Lord Hastings (1729–1789), later 10th Earl of Huntingdon, died unmarried and without issue.
• Lady Elizabeth Hastings (1731–1808), the only child to survive her mother, married John Rawdon, 1st Earl of Moira.

Religious revival

In 1739 she joined the first Methodist society in Fetter Lane, London. Some time after the death of her husband in 1746, Lady Huntingdon threw in her lot with John 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, Mary, Lady Abney, Philip Doddridge, and Augustus Montague Toplady were among her friends, as much later, after their death, was Lady Anne Erskine (eldest daughter of the 10th Earl of Buchan), who for many years of the latter part of Lady Huntingdon's life was her closest friend and companion.

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. She also held large dinner parties at which Whitefield would preach to the gathered dignitaries after they had eaten.

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 and contributed to the funding of others, insisting that they should all subscribe to the doctrines of the Church of England and use only the Book of Common Prayer. Amongst these were buildings at Brighton (1761), Bath (1765), Worcester (c. 1766), Tunbridge Wells (1769), several in Wales, and a small number in London including founding one adjacent to her London home at Spa Fields, Clerkenwell/Finsbury (which resulted in a case being brought before the ecclesiatical courts by the vicar of the parish church of St James) and partly funding the independent Surrey Chapel of Rowland Hill. 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. Following the expulsion of six Methodist students from St Edmund Hall, Oxford. in 1768 she founded a ministers' training college at Trefeca near Talgarth, in Mid Wales, not far from Brecon. George Whitefield preached at the opening ceremony. The college moved to Hertfordshire in 1792, being renamed Cheshunt College. It moved to Cambridge in 1906.^[1] It merged with Westminster College, part of Cambridge University and the training college of the Presbyterian Church of England (and subsequently after 1972 of the United Reformed Church), in 1967.^[2] The Presbyterian Church of Wales college at Trevecca^[3] is approximately 400m south of the Countess's college (which is now a farmhouse) and derives from the work of Howell Harris. 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 formerly enslaved Africans who promoted religious views compatible with her own. This included 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.

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.

The Principal Trustee was the Reverend Thomas Haweis, who continued to preside at the Convocation of the Connexion, comprising at that time about 120 chapels, even though he continued as a Church of England priest (Rector of All Saints, Aldwincle, from 1764 until his death in 1820). He made every effort to ensure the Connexion kept as close to the Church of England as was possible. Many of these chapels became part of the Free Church of England in 1863. ^[4]

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, and more joined the Free Church of England in 1863, 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.

Huntingdon College, located in Montgomery, Alabama, is a coeducation liberal arts college that was named after the Countess of Huntingdon to honour her contributions to Methodism.

References

1. ^ The city of Cambridge – Theological colleges | A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 3 (pp. 139–141). British-history.ac.uk (22 June 2003). Retrieved on 27 August 2011.
2. ^ History of the College. Westminster.cam.ac.uk (19 January 2011). Retrieved on 27 August 2011.
3. ^ Coleg Trefeca | Indecs. Trefeca.org.uk (27 January 2009). Retrieved on 27 August 2011.
4. ^ The Reverend Dr John Fenwick, "The Free Church of England", T & T Clark, London, 2004.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• 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

External links

• Kirby, Gilbert W. The Elect Lady
• Cook, Faith, Selina, Countess of Huntingdon – article in Evangelical Times, October 2001
• Archival material relating to Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon listed at the UK National Register of Archives
•  "Huntingdon, Selina Hastings". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. 

Persondata
Name	Huntingdon, Selina, Countess Of
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	24 August 1707
Place of birth
Date of death	17 June 1791
Place of death