Historic Charles Wesley Code Cracked by Hope Professor

The manuscript is the personal Journal of the co-founder of Methodism and author of such classic hymns as ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing', Charles Wesley. Some of this journal was written in a shorthand code and has never before been published.  Liverpool Hope University's Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Academic Development, The Revd Professor Kenneth GC Newport, worked to transcribe the ‘hidden' material which turns out to hold some fascinating insights into the life and work of younger brother of the much better known John Wesley.

Professor Newport worked for nine years to transcribe the near one thousand handwritten pages of Charles' manuscript journal, which are held by the John Rylands University Library at The University of Manchester.

This mammoth task came with an added difficulty, as long passages of the journal were written in Wesley's personal shorthand script, a cipher that has eluded other Wesley scholars who have worked on this manuscript. 

Professor Newport gained expertise in working with Charles' secret code when working on other Wesley manuscripts, particularly Charles' letters and sermons.  Centrally important to surmounting the difficulty of the cipher script was the fact that Charles had transcribed the gospels into the same shorthand, which meant that it was possible to see how the cipher worked in practice. 

Professor Newport, an Anglican priest, said: "Charles Wesley has always inspired me and when I started to study his manuscripts I kept coming across materials written in what looked like a code of some sort.  I was determined to unlock it. Charles was a great man with insights that remain important for us today and I am delighted to have had a part in bringing the full range of his thoughts and views to light."

Wesley's journal opens with a description of his arrival in America in 1736 and ends in 1756. It is almost certain that he did continue to keep a journal after that but if so almost nothing from 1756 to his death in 1788 appears to have survived.

Charles used his shorthand code to write about sensitive matters, such as his dispute with his brother John over the future of direction of Methodism, in particular the relationship of the Methodist Societies with the Church of England.  Wesley also commented on personal matters, including his sharp disapproval of John Wesley's proposed marriage to Grace Murray.

The journals have uncovered that Charles and his brother John agreed that neither would marry without the other's approval. Charles wrote: "My brother and I having promised each other that we would neither of us marry, or take any step towards it, without the other's knowledge and consent." Yet Charles later wrote of his frustration when John secretly planned to wed Grace Murray, he stated: "He (John) is insensible of both his own folly and danger, and of the divine goodness in so miraculously saving him."

Charles also expressed his concerns on the affect John and his dispute was having on his own new wife. He penned that Sally (his wife) had suffered a miscarriage and questioned whether stress and anxiety had been the cause. "Sally is slowly recovering her strength after her miscarriage last week. How far it was occasioned by our late affliction I cannot say, but my brother has cast poison into the cup of temporal blessings, and destroyed as far in him lay all future usefulness to the church."

Earlier editions of Wesley's journals had omitted numerous sections of the manuscript, and all of the encrypted material, making Professor Newport's two volumes the first complete transcription of this central text.

In addition to keeping his journal, Charles Wesley also found time to compose over 9,000 poetical compositions and many thousands of letters, which Professor Newport will also publish.  Professor Newport has also transcribed and published the full collection of Charles Wesley's surviving sermons.