HUNTINGDON'S CONNEXION, THE COUNTESS OF. The followers of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (1707-1791). The countess was the wife of Theophilus Hastings, ninth earl of Huntingdon. Her husband's sister, Lady Margaret Hastings, married Benjamin Ing ham (1712-1772), who at Oxford was one of the members of the " methodist " society of Charles Wesley (1707-1788). John Wesley (1703-1791) was leader of his brother's society. Through her brother-in-law the Countess of Huntingdon made the acquaintance of the Wesleys. In 1738 John Wesley, and Peter Boehler, who bad been ordained by Zinzendorf, founded a religious " society " in Fetter Lane, London, of which the Countess became a member. In 1739 Wesley opened a methodist chapel in London, and in 1740 he withdrew from the Fetter-lane Society. In the same year (1740) he abandoned Cal vinism. George Whitefield (1714-1770) then became leader of the Calvinistic methodists, and an opponent or a rival of John Wesley. The Countess of Huntingdon supported Whitefield, and in 1748 made him one of her domestic chaplains. He was an attractive preacher, and even Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Chesterfield, and Horace Walpole were glad to listen to him. In 1761 the Countess
opened a chapel at Brighton, and in 1765 another at Bath. In 1768 she opened a College, Trevecca College, at Tal garth, near Brecon, that her " chaplains " might be suit ably trained. Other chapels were opened at Tunbridge Wells (1769), Worcester (1773), and Spa Fields, London (1779). At length the bishops refused to ordain he-r candi dates for Orders. Domestic chaplains were not supposed to officiate in public chapels. The result was a secession from the Church of England in 1783, and an independent " ordination " (the first) in the chapel at Spa Fields. In 1789 a chapel was opened at Swansea. In 1790 the Countess made a will, and drew up a " plan of associa tion " for perpetuating the Connexion. In the following year she died. In 1792 a college was opened at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, and in 1797 another chapel at Canter bury. The Cheshunt College was removed to Cambridge in 1906. In 1910 it was decided to sell the site of the Spa Fields Church, and remove the Church to Golders Green, Hampstead. See J. H. Blunt; the D.N.B.; and the Annual Reports of " The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion."