The Life of Sir William Hartley

While he was a loyal member of his own Church he entertained very friendly feelings towards other Churches, was a warm friend of interdenominational enterprises and looked eagerly towards reunion. As was natural, Methodist Union was nearest to his heart. Quite early in his career he favoured it and advocated it in public utterances. The prominence he gave to the improvement of ministerial education and the reduction of debt on Church property was partly due to his desire that the Primitive Methodists should be prepared to take their place in a Church comprising all sections of the Methodist people. He supported the movement for the union of the Primitive Methodists with the Bible Christians. This denomination had come into existence a little later than his own and much in the same way. There was accordingly a natural sympathy between them. As they were strongest in Devon and Cornwall, where Primitive Methodism was relatively weak, the Union would have seemed on the surface to be a very simple matter. It is one of the peculiarities of Primitive Methodism that in its Conference and its District Synods the proportion of laymen to ministers is two to one. The promoters of the Union recognized that it was desirable to move towards a constitution which would be accepted by other Methodist Churches. As it was quite clear that the "two to one principle, " as it was called, would have no chance of acceptance in a larger union the scheme was drafted embodying the principle that the membership of the Conference and the Synods should be equally divided between ministers and laymen. But the hostility aroused in Primitive Methodism by this proposal was so great that the whole project was decisively defeated. It is an interesting fact that in the negotiations now in progress for Methodist Union no serious difficulty has been raised by the Primitive Methodists on this point. What no doubt weighs heavily in this matter is the consideration that the scale on which Union is now proposed is so great and the object to be attained so worthy that an objection of this kind ought not to be pressed.

The next movement for Union did not embrace Primitive Methodism. This was the Union, effected in 1907, of the Methodist New Connexion, the Bible Christians and the United Methodist Free Church. It must have been a surprise to many that in negotiations of this kind the Primitive Methodists were not included. Mr. Hartley was very much interested in the matter and invited a number of Primitive Methodist ministers to meet three prominent officials of the United Methodist Free Church who were members of the Joint Union Committee. This was towards the end of September, 1904. He gave an account of the gathering to the Rev. J. G. Bowran in a letter dated September 26, 1904. There was a long and very frank conversation, the conclusion of which was that the three Churches should continue their negotiations and when they had reached a conclusion should report it to the General Committee. There was a unanimous feeling that in the future the Primitive Methodists would be bound to come into a Methodist Union of some kind or other or they would be discredited in the eyes of the nation; but the officials were not ready. The letter continues: "The three brethren of the Methodist Free Church were much pleased to hear at first hand the view of thirteen of our ministers, and the idea was that the three Churches now negotiating should proceed with their work and make their constitution as wide and liberal as it was possible for them to agree to in the hope that when they had finished it and submitted it to their quarterly meetings again, (it was expected to take three years for final consummation including an Act of Parliament), our Church might then, or at some future time in the near future thereafter, be willing to accept their constitution as settled by them without any alteration whatever."