Niagara Falls, Ontario
*The British Methodist Episcopal Church (BMEC) was organized on September 26, 1856. (BMEC) is a Methodist denomination based in Canada.
The American Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) was formed in 1816 when several Black congregations joined under Richard Allen's leadership. By the mid-1850s, it had seven conferences in the United States. AMEC preachers began to work in Upper Canada in 1834, and a conference was formed in 1840.
In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in the United States, causing some ex-slave AMEC preachers in the United Canadas to fear attending conferences in America. Reverend Benjamin Stewart of Chatham, Ontario, proposed that the AME churches in the United Canadas separate from the U.S. and form their own church. At an AME conference, the new church was named the British Methodist Episcopal Church.
Stewart's proposal was adopted in Philadelphia in 1856, and the new church association was founded. Reverend Augustus R. Green, later BME Bishop Green, publisher and editor of the True Royalist and Weekly Intelligencer, was also a part of this movement. Its first bishop was Reverend Willis Nazrey of Virginia. When Nazrey died in 1875, Richard Randolph Disney was his successor. His administrative areas were Ontario, Nova Scotia, Bermuda, the West Indies, and British Guyana.
By 1880, the BMEC had "grown from 250 to 2,684 members, and boasted 77 ministers, 37 Sabbath schools, 1,727 scholars, 156 officers and teachers, ten church buildings, and over 25,000 attendees in the Caribbean." However, the mission work outside Canada stretched the church's funds, setting into motion a union between the AMEC and the BMEC, ratified at a BMEC convention held at Hamilton in June 1881. With the merger with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC), many British Methodist Episcopal congregations in Ontario and elsewhere chose to continue the British Methodist Episcopal Church, which remains active today.
Many Ontario churches and preachers, led by the Reverend Walter Hawkins of Chatham, sought to re-establish the BMEC. This group feared the loss of their distinctive identity and may have been concerned that the opinions of Ontario members had been overwhelmed by those of the Caribbean groups. In 1886, this group held an ecclesiastical council at Chatham, where it was claimed that Disney had defected to the AMEC. At a subsequent general conference that year, the BMEC was reconstituted.
The conference deposed Disney, agreeing to "erase his name and ignore his authority, and cancel his official relationship as bishop." The reconstituted BMEC elected Hawkins as its general superintendent, avoiding the title of bishop for several years. Disney continued with what was left of his AMEC district until 1888 when he was transferred to Arkansas and Mississippi. By 1898, the BMEC had 27 preaching points and 25 preachers, and the AMEC had 130 churches in Canada. The two denominations continue their separate work to this day.
As of 2018, ten British Methodist Episcopal churches remain in operation, with churches operating.
