The Cornish spread Methodism across the world together with their mining expertiseModelled by Enoch Wood, this bust of John Wesley was extremely popular as a mantelpiece adornment in Cornwall and around the world. It was made in Staffordshire where potters were supplied with China Clay from Cornwall. Wesley visited Cornwall so many times that he became a local institution and the Methodist ethos of direct communication with God (rather than via a local overfed vicar) chimed with hard-working but devout miners. Cornish emigration from the 1840s ensured that Wesley's message of Protestant church reform reached a much wider global audience. Not only can Falmouths, Truros, Cambornes and other Cornish namesake towns be found across the world, but many feature Methodist chapels and engine houses which would be equally at home here in Cornwall.
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