In London, on 26 August 1743, a young Englishman could be seen escorting a friend into 11 Downing Street. His friend was a young Welshman who had recently arrived on a visit to the capital from his native Breconshire. The purpose of the visit was not to introduce the Welshman to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, since 11 Downing Street had not yet become the Chancellor's official residence. Rather, it was for him to meet for the first time ‘a Lady of quality’, as the Welshman would describe her in his journal. What bound the three together was that they had all experienced evangelical conversion a few years previously and were all becoming increasingly prominent as leaders of the Methodist Revival – part of an evangelical awakening which had begun more or less simultaneously in Wales, England, Scotland, New England and continental Europe around the 1730s, and which has been described as ‘an international movement of such significant proportions that the history of Western civilization is still permeated by its ramifications’.

Who, then, were the three that met in Downing Street on that day in August 1743? The Welshman was Howel Harris, the dynamic young Methodist leader from Trefeca near Talgarth in Breconshire. His English companion was Charles Wesley, the great Methodist hymn-writer. And the ‘Lady of quality’?