Samuel Wesley

Samuel Wesley Sheet Music

  • Born: 24th February 1766
  • Died: 11th October 1837
  • Birthplace: England

Samuel Wesley was an English organist and composer in the late Georgian period. Wesley was a contemporary of Mozart (1756–1791) and was called by some "the English Mozart." Born in Bristol, he was the son of noted Methodist and hymn-writer Charles Wesley, the grandson of Samuel Wesley(a poet of the late Stuart period) and the nephew of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church. Samuel informed his mother, Sarah Wesley, of his philosophical conviction that his marriage had been constituted by sexual intercourse, precluding any civil or religious ceremony, but after a scandalous delay he married Charlotte Louise Martin in 1793, and they had three children. A book published in 2001 provides a fascinating account of how Samuel Wesley's marriage to Charlotte finally broke up with her discovery of Samuel's affair with the teenage domestic servant Sarah Suter. Samuel and Sarah never married but had four children together, among them Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810–1876) who was a cathedral organist and notable composer.

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