Bardsley, Samuel

Bardsley, Samuel, an English Wesleyan minister, was received on trial in 1768, and for half a century labored with zeal and success. On his way from the. Conference of 1818 to his circuit, Manchester, he died suddenly (Aug. 19) at an inn in Delph (between Manchester and Leeds), leaning upon his travelling companion, Rev. Francis Wrigley. "He was much be loved, not because of his pulpit talents, for they were of no very brilliant order, but for his transparent simplicity of character and purpose, his unassuming manners, and genuine Christian feeling" — (R. A. West). Bardsley had been for some time the oldest preacher in the connection. See Minutes of the Brit. Conference, 1819; West, Sketches of Wesleyan Preachers, p. 193-197; Smith, Hist. of Methodism, 3, 43; Stevens, id. 3, 255; Wesleyan Takings, vol. i.