Voysey Society : Voysey's Wesley roots

Charles Francis Annesley Voysey was descended directly from Samuel and Susanna Wesley. He ascribed "what little moral courage & independent spirit he happily inherits" to his connection with the Wesleys. (See his autobiographical notes.)

Susanna was described as "the mother of Methodism". Her father was Dr Samuel Annesley, nephew of Arthur Annesley (1614-1686), the first Earl of Anglesey and an Anglo-Irish royalist statesman.

Samuel Wesley was a clergyman of the Church of England, a poet and a writer of controversial prose. (Another branch of the Wesley, or Wellesley, family features the 1st Duke of Wellington.)

Samuel and Susanna had nineteen children, of whom ten survived infancy, including sons John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the Methodist Church.

Amongst their daughters was another Susanna, who married Richard Ellison.

Samuel Wesley (1662-1735)
   married Susanna Annesley (1669-1742)
      ↓
Susanna Wesley (1695-1764)
   married Richard Ellison (1690-1760)
      ↓
Richard Annesley Ellison (1727-1754)
   married Judith Sturley
      ↓
Anna Maria Ellison (d.1836)
   married Henry Voysey (1753-1829)
      ↓
Annesley Voysey (1794-1839)
   married Mary Green (1785-1871)
      ↓
Charles Voysey (1828-1912)
   married Frances Maria Edlin (b.1830)
      ↓
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941)

Principal sources: George Stevenson, Memorials of the Wesley family (Partridge & Co., 1876), Frederick Maser, The story of John Wesley's sisters (Academy Books, 1988), and Robin Quine (private communication, 2017)

Susanna Wesley

Photograph of a painting of Susanna Wesley (née Annesley) by an unknown artist from the original held at Epworth Old Rectory, childhood home of the Wesley children.

Rev. Charles Voysey

Photograph of Charles Voysey (1828-1912) by Henry Joseph Whitlock (albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s) reproduced under this Creative Commons licence by permission of the National Portrait Gallery, reference NPG Ax18260.

Descended from the Wesleys