George Whitefield

George Whitefield was born in 1714 in Gloucester, England, where his mother kept the Bell Inn. He entered Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1732 as a servitor, a poor student who worked for wealthier ones. There he joined the 'Holy Club' led by John and Charles Wesley, and after a long spiritual struggle he experienced a conversion. Ordained in the Church of England, he soon drew enormous crowds with his dramatic and powerful preaching. When many churches closed their pulpits to him, he began preaching in the open air, first to coal miners near Bristol in 1739. He made seven journeys to the American colonies, preaching from Georgia to New England and helping to spark the revival known as the Great Awakening; Benjamin Franklin, who printed his sermons, became his friend and once estimated that he could be heard by thirty thousand people outdoors. Unlike the Wesleys, Whitefield held Calvinist views, and he led the Calvinistic Methodists. He founded an orphanage in Georgia. He died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1770.

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Faith: Anglican evangelist who presided at the first conference of the Calvinistic Methodists. Source: Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900) (via Wikisource)