Samuel Warren

Samuel Warren (1781–1862) was a Wesleyan Methodist minister, who formed a breakaway group of "Warrenites", and in later life was an Anglican priest. Early life He was the son of Samuel Warren, a sea captain of Great Yarmouth. He was an apprentice on his father's ship at the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars, when it was captured in 1794 by the French. They spent 18 months in captivity. Back in England, Warren went to study with a teacher of mathematics and navigation in Liverpool. There, in 1800, he became a convert to Wesleyan Methodism, and after two years a minister. Schismatic Methodist The 1830s were a time of schism for the British Wesleyan Methodists, with "low Methodists" active in defence of traditional governance, against increasing centralised institutions. The breakaway group led out by Warren in 1835—the "Warrenites"—following the secession around Joseph Rayner Stephens the previous year, was the most significant disruption of the decade. It did not much affect the growth of the Wesleyans. At the 1834 annual Wesleyan conference, Warren contested the establishment of a Wesleyan Theological Institution, without success, and the growing influence of Jabez Bunting. Bunting had much more positive support for the conference motion that Warren's opposition group, but there were also a large number of ministers who remained neutral.