Photograph of the Primitive Methodist Centenary Camp at Mow Cop, 1910

SRO D3623/4
©Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Archive Service

Mow Cop on the north - west border of the county will always be associated with the birth of Primitive Methodism, which was an offshoot of the main Methodist movement.

Primitive Methodism had its roots in the working classes. In 1807 a large open air camp meeting was held at Mow Cop by Hugh Bourne, a carpenter, and William Clowes, a potter. As a result of this meeting and another like it at Norton in the Moors, Bourne and Clowes were expelled by the Methodist Conference, Methodism’s ruling body, who disapproved of the fervour shown at such meetings. Bourne and his followers were undeterred and it was from this beginning at Mow Cop that Primitive Methodism developed. The name Primitive Methodism was adopted in 1811.