FLETCHER or DE LA FLECHERE, JOHN WILLIAM (1729–1785), vicar of Madeley, was born in 1729 at Nyon in Switzerland. His father was an officer in the army. His schooldays were spent at Nyon, whence he proceeded to the university of Geneva. Both at school and at college he was distinguished for his attainments, especially in classical literature. He was intended by his friends for the sacred ministry, but he himself determined to be a soldier. With this intention he went, without his parents' consent, to Lisbon, accepted a captain's commission, and engaged to serve the king of Portugal on board a man-of-war which was about to sail to Brazil. Being prevented by an accident from carrying out his resolution, he returned to Switzerland. His uncle, who was a colonel in the Dutch service, procured a commission for him, and he set out for Flanders; but his uncle having died before the arrangement was completed, he gave up all thoughts of being a soldier, and went on a visit to England. During this visit he was recommended as a tutor to the two sons of Thomas Hill, esq., of Tern Hall in Shropshire, and in 1752 entered Mr. Hill's family in that capacity. He was soon afterwards deeply impressed with the preaching of the methodists, and determined to seek holy orders. In 1757 he was ordained deacon and priest on two successive Sundays by the Bishop of Bangor (John Egerton), at the Chapel Royal, St. James's. His first ministerial work was to help Wesley at the West Street Chapel, and to preach in various places to the French refugees in their native tongue. He was urged to return to Switzerland, but preferred to remain in the land of his adoption, and again made Tern Hall his home. He was accustomed to help the vicar of Madeley, a large parish ten miles distant, and he ‘contracted such an affection for the people of Madeley as nothing could hinder from increasing more and more until the day of his death’ (Benson). His intimacy with the brothers Wesley, especially Charles, with whom he kept up a constant correspondence, increased, but, unlike them, he preferred parochial to itinerant work, and in 1760 he accepted the living of Madeley, of which Mr. Hill was the patron, in preference to one which was double its value. Madeley is said to have been a rough parish, ‘remarkable for little else than the ignorance and profaneness of its inhabitants, among whom respect to men was as rarely to be observed as piety towards God’ (ib.) It therefore offered abundant scope for the untiring and self-denying efforts of its new vicar, who continued, amid much opposition, to labour there for a quarter of a century. Mr. Gilpin, a gentleman who lived in the neighbourhood, and was well acquainted with Madeley, writes in the most rapturous terms of his ministerial work, and Wesley says that ‘from the beginning of his settling there he was a laborious workman in the Lord's vineyard, endeavouring to spread the truth of the gospel, and to suppress vice in every possible way. Those sinners who endeavoured to hide themselves from him he pursued to every corner of his parish, by all sorts of means, public and private, early and late, in season and out of season, entreating and warning them to flee from the wrath to come. Some made it an excuse for not attending the church service on a Sunday morning that they could not awake early enough to get their families ready. He provided for this also. Taking a bell in his hand, he set out every Sunday for some months at five in the morning, and went round the most distant parts of the parish, inviting all the inhabitants to the house of God.’ He established ‘societies,’ after the Wesley pattern, at Madeley Wood and Coalbrook Dale, two outlying hamlets, and was so lavish in his liberality that he injured his own health by his abstinence in order that he might give his money to the poor. Mr. Ireland, a rich and pious gentleman of Bristol, whose name frequently appears in connection with the evangelical revival, helped him with his purse, and persuaded him to make a tour with him in Italy and Switzerland. ‘As they approached the Appian Way, Fletcher directed the driver to stop before he entered upon it. He then ordered the chaise door to be opened, assuring his fellow-traveller that his heart would not suffer him to ride over that ground upon which the apostle Paul had formerly walked, chained to a soldier, on account of preaching the everlasting gospel. As soon as he had set his foot upon this old Roman road, he took off his hat, and walking on, with his eyes lifted up to heaven, returned thanks to God, in a most fervent manner, for that light, those truths, and that influence of the Holy Spirit which were continued to the present day.’ In 1768 Selina, countess of Huntingdon, invited him to take the superintendence of her college at Trevecca in Wales, founded for the education of ‘pious young men of whatever denomination for the ministry.’ He was not to reside at Trevecca, but was to visit the college as frequently as he could. He made there, as he did everywhere, an extraordinary impression. Benson, his principal biographer, was head-master at the time, and thus writes of him: ‘Mr. Fletcher visited them [the students] fre-
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/318
