Coke Thomas

Coke, Thomas (1747-1814), Methodist bishop and missionary, was educated at Oxford, where he proceeded to the degree of D.C.L. in 1775. Ordained to a curacy in Somersetshire, he was dismissed by his rector for open-air preaching, and joined the Methodists. In 1784 Wesley made him superintendent of the American societies, and he made many voyages to America, and caused much hostility by his opposition to the slave trade. In 1797 and 1805 he was President of the London Conference, and it was on a missionary voyage to Ceylon that he died. Among his published works are extracts from his American Journals, a History of the West Indies, and - in collaboration with Henry Moore - a Life of Wesley.