Born 1747 Died May 1814 -- "Bishop" ordained by John Wesley for American Colonies - Methodist Revival

Thomas Coke (b. September 9, 1747 - d. May 2, 1814) -- from web page at Boston University, Boston, Mass. -- Coke was rightly called Father of the Methodist Mis­sions. His pamphlet An Address to the Pious and Benevolent Proposing an Annual Subscription for the Support of Missionaries (1786) was the first Methodist missionary tract. He in­tended to establish missionaries in Nova Scotia in 1786, but a gale forced his landing in Antigua, West Indies, in­stead. Thrilled with the opportunities there, mission in the British West Indies and other British colonies became his dominant passion for the remainder of his life. At the last conference attended by John Wesley at Bristol in 1790, Coke was named to head the first Methodist missionary committee (he later was made its president, upon the or­ganization’s revision in 1804). “I beg from door to door,” he told his friends without embarrassment, and he do­nated his family’s wealth to the missionary effort. Begin­ning in 1792, he led in sending pioneer missionaries to most islands in the West Indies, as well as to new missions in Sierra Leone, Nova Scotia, Ireland, and France. During the Napoleonic Wars he organized work among the 70,000 French prisoners of war held in England. He died in 1814 on board a ship en route to India, leading a missionary band of preachers for India and South Africa. Wesleyan Methodist missions advanced spectacularly following Coke’s death, building on the visionary foundations he had laid. http://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/c-d/coke-thomas-1747-1814/