Christopher Hopper | |
Office: | President of the Methodist Conference |
Term Start: | 1780 |
Term End: | 1780 |
Predecessor: | John Wesley |
Birth Date: | 25 December 1722 |
Birth Place: | Ryton, Durham |
Death Place: | Bolton |
Known For: | President of the Methodist Conference in Wesley's absence |
Christopher Hopper (1722 - 1802) was the President of the Methodist Conference in John Wesley's absence, at the Bristol conference in 1780.[1]
Hopper was born in 1722 at Ryton, Durham in the north of England.[1] He entered the Wesleyan itinerancy in 1748.[1]
Hopper became a member of the society at Low Spen, near Newcastle, after Wesley's visit there in July 1743.[1] He had been a schoolmaster before becoming an itinerant.[1] Hopper was Wesley's travelling companion in England, Wales and Scotland (being the first Methodist itinerant venturing north of the border).[1] Hopper was an itinerant for forty-seven years and regularly corresponded with Wesley.[1] Wesley appointed him 'Lord President of the North' in 1768 giving him jurisdiction over the Methodist Societies from Cumberland to Lincolnshire.[1]
Hopper wrote "The plain man's epistle to every child of Adam" in 1766.[2]
Hopper was one of the veteran preachers named in Wesley's Deed of Declaration.[1]
Hopper retired to Bolton in 1792, where he built a house next to the chapel, continuing to preach there.[1] Hopper died at Bolton on 5 March 1802.[1]