The study traces the efforts of English Nonconformists to provide chaplains for their adherents in the British Army. Unrecognised by the War Office, and opposed by the Church of England, the Wesleyan Methodists persisted in providing an unpaid civilian ministry until, by stages, they secured partial recognition in 1862 and 1881. The respect earned by volunteer Wesleyan civilian chaplains, who accompanied the troops on most colonial and imperial expeditions in the last quarter of the century, culminating in the Boer War, prompted the War Office in 1903 to offer them a number of commissioned chaplaincies. The Wesleyans declined the offer. Although they had earlier, and after anguished debate, accepted State payment of chaplains, they were not prepared to accept military control of them. In the Great War, Wesleyan chaplains were nevertheless obliged to accept temporary commissions. Congregationalists, Baptists, Primitive and United Methodists, through a United Board, provided another stream of chaplains. With the political help of Lloyd George, both sets of Nonconformists secured equitable treatment at the hands of the Church of England and, through an Interdenominational Committee, gained positions of considerable influence over chaplaincy policy. In the field, remarkably for the age, they joined with Presbyterians and Roman Catholics in a single chain of command. By 1918, over 500 Wesleyan and United Board commissioned chaplains were engaged. After the war, as the price of retaining their newly won standing and influence, both the Wesleyans and the United Board denominations accepted permanent commissions for their chaplains and their absorption within a unified Chaplains Department. Acceptability was secured through willingness to compromise on voluntaryism and conformity to the State.

For Anglicans and Presbyterians, the Revolutionary War had proven the "faithless" character of the American nation. The American Methodist focus on individualism, exciting and loud worship, lack of educated clergy, enthusiasm, and perceived adherence to the Republican ideas dominant in the culture of the United States were viewed as antithetical to the more British focus on social responsibility, sober teaching, and adherence to the British king and constitution. With the 1812 declaration of war, the churches with stronger transatlantic connections were presented with powerful proof that their suspicions were based in reality and that the need to expel the faithless national foe of America from British soil coincided with the clerical need to expel the faithless doctrines of the Methodists as well. Whether critiquing the United States or the frontier religion that was deemed too similar in its teachings and practice, the Anglicans, Presbyterians and- to a lesser extent-Wesleyan Methodists were constructing a ignore British version of British North American culture in order to combat what they perceived to be the growing threat of faithless, American values. These arguments found their impetus in the mixed composition of colonial inhabitants, the dubious loyalties of the American-born farmers in Upper Canada, and the events of the War of 1812. In order to unite such disparate peoples, the clergy defined and celebrated England's Christian character to demonstrate to that fragmented and diverse collection of inhabitants the benefits of being loyal subjects of God's empire rather than foolish citizens of a faithless nation. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)