Samuel Wesley (17 December 1662 – 25 April 1735) was a clergyman of the Church of England, a poet, and a controversial writer. He fathered John Wesley and Charles Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Family and early life Samuel Wesley was the second son of Rev. John Westley or Wesley, rector of Winterborne Whitechurch, Dorset. His mother was the daughter of John White, the so-called "Patriarch of Dorchester" and rector of Trinity Church, Dorchester. Following some grammar school education in Dorchester, Wesley was sent away from home to prepare for ministerial training under Theophilus Gale. Gale's death in 1678 forestalled this plan; instead, he attended another grammar school and then studied at dissenting academies under Edward Veel in Stepney and then Charles Morton in Newington Green, where Gale had lived. Daniel Defoe also attended Morton's school, situated "probably on the site of the current Unitarian church", contemporaneously with Wesley. Samuel resigned his place and his annual scholarship among the Dissenters and walked all the way to Oxford, where he enrolled at Exeter College as a "poor scholar". He functioned as a "servitor", which means he sustained himself financially by waiting upon wealthy students. He also published a small book of poems, entitled Maggots: or Poems on Several Subjects never before Handled in 1685. The unusual title is explained in a few lines from the first page of the work: Wesley married Susanna Annesley in 1688. He fathered among others Samuel (the younger), Mehetabel, John and Charles Wesley. He had 19 children, nine of whom died in infancy. Three boys and seven girls survived. In 1697 he was appointed to the living at Epworth through the benevolence of Queen Mary. He may have come to the queen's attention because of his heroic poem, "The Life of Christ" (1693) which he dedicated to her. Wesley's high-church liturgies, academic proclivities, and loyalist Tory politics were a complete mismatch for those of his illiterate parishioners. He was not warmly received, and his ministry was not widely appreciated. Wesley was soon deep in debt and much of his life would be spent trying to make financial ends meet. In 1709 his parsonage was destroyed by fire and son John was barely rescued from the flames. Career His poetic career began in 1685 with the publication of Maggots, a collection of juvenile verses on trivial subjects, the preface to which apologizes to the reader because the