Robert Carr Brackenbury 

Robert Carr Brackenbury (1752-1818) and his wife were ardent supporters of John Wesley. They built a chapel at Raithby for Methodist worship, opened by Wesley himself on 5 June 1779. Brackenbury would become a significant Methodist preacher, evangelist, and founder of chapels. Raithby Chapel is now the oldest Methodist chapel still in use in Lincolnshire.  Wesley mentions the chapel in his diary, referring to it on one visit in 1788 as ‘an earthly paradise’. A number of letters between Brackenbury and Wesley can be found in the correspondence of John Wesley. Brackenbury married the former Sarah Holland (1771-1847) in 1795. See Abel Stevens, The History of the Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century, called Methodism, vol. 3 (London, Wesleyan Conference Office, 1878), 192-96.