Author: Perronet, Edward
Biography:
PERRONET, Edward (1721-92: ODNB)
He was born in Sundridge, Kent; his mother was Charity (Goodhew) Perronet and his father Vincent Perronet was Vicar of Shoreham in Kent, a good friend of Charles and John Wesley and an early supporter of Methodism. Edward Perronet attended Cambridge but did not graduate, instead joining the Wesleys as a preacher in 1746. In 1748 he married Duriah Clarke; they had no children. Rifts began to emerge between him and the Wesleys: he refused to preach where he was bidden to, and in defiance of their leaders' wishes, both he and his brother Charles took to administering the sacrament. His verse attack on the Church of England,The Mitre (1756), made matters worse. After breaking with Wesleyan Methodism, Perronet preached for a time with the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion but then broke away definitively as an Independent. He settled in Canterbury, where he died; he is buried in Canterbury Cathedral. (ODNB 20 June 2020)