| AdminHistory | Mary Barritt (1772-1851) was born in Hay, Lancashire, and at an early age she began preaching around the north of England. In 1802 she married the minister Zechariah Taft (1772-1848), himself the brother of Reverend Henry Taft, M.D. (d. 1824), second minister in the Birmingham Circuit in 1822-1823, with the pastorate of Cherry Street Chapel.
Mary Taft was famous as a female preacher and her husband was a staunch supporter of her right to preach. She was instrumental in the conversion of Robert Newton, Thomas Jackson and William Dawson, and in 1827 published an account of her work.
Mary Taft's brother John Barritt was one of Wesley's preachers, and her niece married another preacher, Robert Melson, who entered the ministry in 1802. Their son, Dr John Barritt Melson, became the most famous man in the history of Cherry Street Chapel. He joined the Society in 1825 and had an almost unbroken association with the Chapel for 61 years, and delivered the closing sermon.
Source: Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, edited by Donald Lewis (1995) and Encyclopedia of World Methodism (1974); W.C.Sheldon: Early Methodism in Birmingham, 1903, repr. 2003 LP 18.3SHE. |