One outcome of the Wesleyan spirit was seen about the year 1820, when James Carpenter, George Pearce, William Whitehouse, and other leading inhabitants made a determined effort to put down some of the coarser sports by which the annual Wake was celebrated. Through their instrumentality many of the ringleaders in the brutal sports were summoned and brought to justice. The reformers dared to go even further—they lodged a complaint with the bishop of the diocese against “Parson Moreton” for encouraging these barbarous pastimes among the people. The bishop, however, professed that he was powerless to deal with the delinquent, owing to the exceptional manner in which he was appointed to the living. But the parson on his part was very wroth, and from his pulpit he solemnly forbade any one of the name of Carpenter, Pearce, or Whitehouse ever to enter the portals of Willenhall Church. It cannot be said the injunction was enforced; but it is a fact that from that time many church-goers were driven into the Methodist fold. The romantic side of the evangelisation of the Black Country has been idealised by Mr. J. C. Tildesley in his “Sketches of Early Methodism,” a series of short stories founded on fact, and giving most graphic pictures of the moral and social condition of the neighbourhood at that time. This little volume may be regarded almost as one of the classics of the Wesleyan Book Room. A short history of local Methodism, it may be mentioned, was deposited in the memorial stones of Wednesfield Chapel in 1885. The existing Wesleyan Chapels, now under the direction of the Rev. A. Hann and the Rev. Walter Fytche, are five in number, namely, Union Street, Walsall Road, Monmer Lane, Short Heath, and High Street, Portobello. Though the denomination may be as strong as ever numerically, it can scarcely hope to rival its old-time membership in verve and vigour. In England fighting days never fail to produce fighting men. Primitive Methodism first established itself at Monmer Lane, and then removed to Little London, but did not meet with much success at the outset, though it has now four flourishing chapels in the township. They are all at present under the direction of the Rev. C. L. Tack, and situated respectively at New Invention, Spring Bank, Lane Head, and Russell Street. Nonconformity was first brought into Willenhall from Coseley, the brethren of the famous Darkhouse Chapel establishing a colony at Little London, where eventually they erected a pioneer Baptist Chapel. Of this chapel the Rev. A. Tettmar is now in charge; a second chapel in Upper Lichfield Street, at which the Rev. D. L. Lawrence ministers, and a third Baptist Chapel in New Road testify to the growth of the denomination in Willenhall. At one time the Baptists had day schools in the town.