Whitefield, GEORGE, one of the founders of Methodism, was born in the Bell Inn, Gloucester, 16th December 1714. He was the youngest of a family of six sons and a daughter, and he was but two when his father died. He had his schooling at St Mary de Crypt, Gloucester, next served about eighteen months as a drawer in his mother's public-house, and at eighteen entered as a servitor Pembroke College, Oxford. About three years earlier John and Charles Wesley had laid, in the university of Oxford, the foundations of Methodism (q.v.), and Whitefield ere long became conspicuous even amongst the young enthusiasts for zeal, for the austerity of his asceticism, and for labour too great for his strength among the sick and the prisoners in the gaol. His health gave way, but his native air soon restored him. His devotion and piety attracted the notice of Dr Benson, the bishop of the diocese, who gave him deacon's orders in June 1736. He preached his first sermon in Gloucester Cathedral with striking effect, next took his B.A. degree at Oxford, and preached in Bath, Bristol, London, and elsewhere.
Meanwhile Wesley had been in America establishing missions among the colonists, and in the beginning of 1738 Whitefield joined him in Georgia for a few months, returning to be admitted to priest's orders, and to collect funds for the establishment of an orphanage in Georgia. The religious level of the age was low, and the clergy were themselves supine, slothful, and worldly, hence Whitefield found amongst his brethren the most active opposition. But when the parish pulpits were denied him he preached in the open air, the first time with marvellous effect, on Kingswood Hill near Bristol, where the colliers heard him in thousands, the tears streaming down their grimy cheeks. From this time onwards he spent his life in constant travel and incessant preaching, everywhere moving audiences at his will by his irresistible earnestness and eloquence. Nor was it only the unlettered he could move, but critics so cold as Chesterfield, Bolingbroke, Hume, and Franklin.
About 1741 doctrinal differences on the question of predestination led to his separation from John Wesley—both of them being by this time disowned by the Established Church. Wesley took the Arminian view in the controversy; Whitefield adhered to a rigid Calvinism. After a short alienation the two friends were reconciled, and thenceforward their friendship was unbroken, although their ways led apart. Whitefield's supporters now built him a large shed at Moorfields—near Wesley's chapel—which being temporary was known as the Tabernacle; and his preaching gathered immense audiences around him. But he had no talent for organisation, and as soon as he went away on his frequent and protracted journeys his supporters began to disperse. Indeed he founded no distinct sect, his converts and adherents after his death either following the lead of the Countess of Huntingdon (q.v.) or joining other denominations, many in Wales becoming amalgamated through the guidance of Howell Harris into the body now known as the Calvinistic Methodists. The Countess of Huntingdon appointed Whitefield her chaplain, and built and endowed many chapels to maintain his Calvinistic doctrines.
Whitefield made no fewer than seven evangelistic visits to America, and the rest of his life was spent in preaching tours through England, Scotland, and Wales. In these he preached more than 18,000 sermons to ten millions of people. One of the most famous of these missionary journeys was that which he made to Scotland in 1741. He went thither on the invitation of Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine; but his notions were too catholic for his friends, who were disgusted when they found him as ready to preach in a parish church as to a seceding congregation, and more ready still to preach in the open air. At Cambuslang, in Lanarkshire, his preaching produced one of the most remarkable revivals of modern times; many thousands were stricken with concern about their souls, and found expression for their excitement in violent physical manifestations. It was on his return from this visit that Whitefield met and married a Welsh widow, Mrs James (November 1741). Southey asserts his marriage was not a happy one, but offers no proof; Cornelius Winter, who knew her more than a year before her death, says 'Whitefield was not happy in his wife . . . Her death set his mind much at liberty.' Whitefield set out for America for the last time in 1769. He was ailing at the beginning of the voyage, he was ill at the end of it, and he died somewhat suddenly not long after his arrival in America at Newburyport, near Boston, 30th September 1770.
Whitefield was above the middle size, and of well-proportioned figure. His eyes were dark blue, but were disfigured by a slight squint. His gestures were natural and effective, but his greatest gift was his marvellous voice, clear, full, and musical—capable of reaching 20,000 men on a hillside. His writings by no means correspond with his fame—indeed nothing he has left behind is more than commonplace. The explanation of his unexampled power over his hearers must be sought in the burning earnestness and reality of his faith, the fluency and strength of his language, and that vehemence and impetuosity of nature characteristic of the orator, as well as in the spiritual deadness of the time and the inherent fitness of his subject to the needs of the human heart.
His collected works—about 75 sermons, journals, and letters—together with the Memoirs by Dr Gillies, fill 7 vols. (1771-72). There are also Lives by Robert Philip (1838), Andrews (1864), Harsha (1866), Gledstone (1871 and 1900), but especially the Rev. L. Tyerman (2 vols. 1876). See also the Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon (2 vols. 1840), and Stevens, History of the Religious Movement of the 18th Century called Methodism (New York, 1859-62).