INGRAM
,
JAMES
(d.
1788
),
Methodist exhorter, and afterwards Independent minister
;
the date of his birth is unknown, but his home was
Cwm Brith
in
Cefnllys parish, Rads.
(
Cylch. Cymd. Hanes M.C.
, xxxv, 47). As a lad, he came under
Howel
Harris
's influence, and in
Nov. 1742
(ibid, 24), at
Erwood
, it was arranged that he should be
Harris
's
amanuensis
and
travelling-companion
; it was he who,
after 1743
,
took the minutes of the Associations
, and much of his work as
copyist
of
Harris
's letters appears among the
Trevecka
records. He was also an
exhorter
, and indeed is remembered chiefly because he was
‘pressed’ for the army
in
1744
(
Tadau Meth.
, i, 222-3) — a common device for persecuting
Methodist exhorters
, but illegal when applied to
Ingram
, who was under-sized; strenuous exertions by
Harris
, by
Marmaduke
Gwynne
(see under
Gwynne
of
Garth
), and by
the
countess of Huntingdon
, procured his release and he resumed
exhorting
. The
Trevecka letters
include some forty letters by
Ingram
or to him, between
Jan. 1743 and July 1750
. He parted company with
Harris
at the ‘disruption’ (
1750
); indeed, their correspondence becomes thin from
1747
onwards. A
Moravian
record at
Haverfordwest
(
Cymm.
, xlv, 34) tells us that
Ingram
became an
Independent
, and that he d. as
Independent pastor
at
Ludlow
. This note, however, leaves a blank of fully twenty years in his career, for the
pastor
of
Corve Street church
at
Ludlow
in
1750
was a
Jenkyn
or
Jenkins
(he was a
Welshman
), and according to the ‘Diary’ of
Leominster Moravian congregation
(
Traf. Cymd. Hanes Bed.
,
1935
, 16)
Jenkyn
did not d. till
1770
; then (
Eliot
,
Congregationalism in Shropshire
, 102), ‘
the next pastor was Mr. Ingram of
Maesgronnin
,
Brecon
’ —
Maesyronnen, Rads.
, in fact — ‘this pastor d. in
1788
, and was buried in the chapel yard.
’ But
Ingram
can hardly have been
pastor
of
Maesyronnen
, for the roll of pastors there is fairly continuous from
1748 to 1775
(
H. Egl. Ann.
, ii, 528), and does not include his name. Possibly
Ingram
was a member of that
(quasi-Methodist) congregation
, and acted as
lay-preacher
there and in the surrounding countryside.
Author:
Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, C.B.E., D.Litt., Ll.D.,
F.S.A., (1881-1969), Bangor
