Warrener, William

Warrener, William an English Wesleyan minister, was received into the work by Wesley in 1779. After laboring in Great Britain for seven years, he went as a missionary to the West Indies, "being the first of our preachers," say the Minutes, "who was regularly appointed to that work." He, with Clarke and Hammet, went over with Dr. Coke, in 1786, on that celebrated voyage intended to terminate in Nova Scotia, but which ended really eighteen hundred miles south, at the island of Antigua. Warrener was stationed on that island, where a most flourishing cause was inaugurated, the society having been, in fact, already formed by Nathaniel Gilbert and John Baxter. In 1797, after a successful career, he returned to his own country and Was appointed to a circuit. In 1818 he retired; and on November 27, 1825, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, he passed away, "triumphing gloriously over death." He was the first Methodist missionary who addressed the great annual gatherings of the Wesley in Missionary Society, doing so at the memorable meeting at Leeds. See Smith, Hist. of Wes. Methodism, 3:101 sq.; also 1:544; 2:232, 546; Stevens, Hist. of Methodism, 2:353; 3:488; Minutes of the Conference, 1826; Newcomb, Cyclopaedia of Missions (revised ed. 1854), page 763.