London England

Focus on Bunhill Fields Burial Ground:  This is what everyone knows about Susanna Wesley (much of which is commemorated on her headstone below): (1) She is called the mother of Methodism because of her two sons, John and Charles. (2) She was the 25th of 25 children of Rev. Samuel Annesley and his wife Mary. (3) With her husband, Rev. Samuel Wesley, she had 19 children of her own, the 15th of whom was John Wesley, Methodist patriarch. Nonconformist, evangelical Christianity ran in the family. Her father, husband, and two sons were all prominent preachers who operated on the periphery of Anglican Christianity. Right across the street from Bunhill Fields is Wesley's Chapel, and she has a monument there, too. When she was buried in Bunhill Fields, however, the chapel did not exist. Otherwise, she would probably have been buried in the churchyard. [2015]