Person:John Bakewell (1)

John Bakewell was one of John Wesley's 'Preachers', who went round under John Wesley's supervision, spreading the Evangelical Revival in the 18th Century. He wrote the well-known hymn 'hail, thou once despised Jesus', which you will find in the Methodist hymn book and others, but not in Ancient and Modern, I think. He lived to the age of 98 and is buried near to John Wesley behind City Road Chapel, London, the central church of Methodism, built by John Wesley.

Source: Letter from Harold Moulton to Andrewjmm July 1974

At age 18, Bake­well read Bos­ton’s Four­fold State, which turned his heart to God. He be­came an ar­dent evan­gel­ist, and in 1744 (the year of the first Meth­od­ist Con­fer­ence) he be­gan to preach. He moved to Lon­don short­ly af­ter, where he met the Wes­leys, Au­gus­tus Top­la­dy, J. Fletch­er, and other no­ta­bles of the time. Af­ter con­duct­ing the Green­wich Roy­al Park Acad­e­my for some years, he re­signed in fa­vor of his son-in-law, James Egan, and be­gan spend­ing much of his time preach­ing for the Wes­ley­ans.

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