Author: MURLIN, John
Biography:
MURLIN, John (1722-99: ODNB)
His parents, Elizabeth Rogers and Richard Murlin (or Morlyn) had married at St. Stephen in Brannel, Cornwall, on 29 Dec. 1716. John was their second son and was baptised on 26 Aug. 1722. His father, a farmer, died in Jan. 1733. Murlin was apprenticed to a carpenter for seven years and worked at the trade before converting to Methodism in 1749. He was an itinerant preacher in England and Ireland; his autobiography is mainly an account of his frequent travels. On 11 Feb. 1762 at St. Luke’s, Old Street, London, he married Elizabeth (Walker) Berrisford, the widow of John Berrisford of the Bank of England who had died in 1758. Berrisford’s will had left his substantial property to his wife. The couple lived for a time in Norwich where Murlin, who had not been ordained, began to administer the sacrament against the wishes of Charles Wesley (q.v.). Elizabeth Murlin was some years older than her husband and suffered increasingly poor health during the last years of her life. She died at Bristol, Gloucestershire, on 18 Jan. 1786; her will, proved on 14 Mar. 1786, left her property to Murlin who published a brief account of her life in the Methodist Arminian Magazine. He moved to High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, where he married Elizabeth Timms (or Tims) on 1 Jan. 1787. He died of a stroke on 7 July 1799 and was buried at the Wesley chapel in London in the vault containing the body of John Wesley (q.v.) and other Methodist preachers. His will left his real property and assets to members of his family and to his second wife; he also left funds to be used for the Methodist chapel in High Wycombe after his wife’s death. DNB attributes to him Elegy on Mrs. Fletcher and other Poems (1788) but no trace of this book has been found. (ODNB 11 Feb. 2025; ancestry.co.uk 11 Feb. 2025; findmypast.co.uk 11 Feb. 2025; John Murlin, A Short Account of the Life of John Murlin [1780]; “An Account of the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Murlin,” Arminian Magazine 9 [1786], 422-28; National Archives UK PROB 11-840-490) SR