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Coke, Thomas (1747-1814)

British clergyman, missionary for the Methodist church, and first superintendent of Methodism in America. Born in Brecon in Wales, Coke graduated from the University of Oxford in 1768 and was ordained a minister in the Church of England in 1772. He met John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in 1776 and formally joined the Methodists a year later. He presided over the first Irish Conference of Methodists in 1782, and early in 1784 Wesley appointed him superintendent of Methodist missions in America. Late in 1784, after a conference of American Methodists in Baltimore, Maryland, Coke ordained Francis Asbury to be another superintendent. Asbury, a British-born minister who had gone to America in 1771, became primarily responsible for the direction of the newly formed Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, because Coke was frequently absent from the country. Both were soon styled "bishop" by the American conference, a change that was not approved by Wesley or ever adopted in England. In all, Coke made nine trips to the United States, the last in 1803. A devoted missionary, Coke worked in the West Indies, established a mission in Africa, and was on a missionary trip to India at the time of his death.