Selina Hastings countess of Huntingdon

Selina Hastings Huntingdon, countess of 1707-91, English religious leader, patron of the Calvinistic Methodists. She was closely associated with the Wesleys and George Whitefield . When they split, she took the side of Whitefield, whom she made one of her chaplains. Largely responsible for introducing Methodism to the upper classes, she established chapels in Bath and other centers of fashion and appointed chaplains to take charge of them. In 1768 she founded a seminary for the training of ministers at Trevecca House in Wales. Later it was removed to Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. Those associated with her establishments and under her moral control were known as "Lady Huntingdon's Connexion." Huntingdon College, Montgomery, Ala., is named for her.

Bibliography: See S. Tytler, The Countess of Huntingdon and Her Circle (1907).

Huntingdon, Selina Hastings, countess of (1707–91), founder of the group of Calvinistic Methodists known as ‘Lady Huntingdon's Connection’.

Huntingdon, Selina, Countess of (1707–91), Selina Hastings, foundress of the body of Calvinistic Methodists known as ‘the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion’. She joined the Wesleys' Methodist society in 1739. She supported Methodist ministers by constituting them her chaplains, but her contention that she could, as a peeress, appoint to the rank of chaplain as many priests of the C of E as she wished, and employ them publicly, was disallowed by the consistory court of London in 1779. She then registered her chapels as dissenting places of worship under the Toleration Act; she formed them into an association in 1790. Many of her followers were absorbed into Congregationalism and by 1998 there were only 800 adult members.