Huntingdon, Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (1707–1791)

English Methodist. She was converted to Methodism by her sister-in-law, Lady Margaret Hastings, and henceforth devoted most of her time and energy to religion and religious work. Huntingdon was a member of the first Methodist society founded in Fetter Lane in London, England, in 1739. She erected a chapel in Brighton in 1761, and afterwards at such other fashionable English resorts as Bath and Tunbridge Wells, in the hopes of attracting to her ‘connexion’ (religious group) members of the upper classes.

She knew the leading English Methodists, George Whitefield and, later, Charles and John Wesley. In 1767 she rented Trevecca House in North Wales as a training institute for members of her sect, and subsequently extended her operations to the USA. After her death most of her followers joined the Congregationalists (see Congregationalism).