Laurence Coughlan

Who was Laurence Coughlan?

Laurence Coughlan was an Irish-born itinerant preacher who was active in Newfoundland during the period 1766–1773. Though born a Roman Catholic, ordained and employed as an Anglican, and at one point even ordained by a Greek Orthodox bishop, his true religious affiliation was Methodism, to which he converted in the 1750s. Coughlan is regarded as a founder of the Methodist Church in Newfoundland.

In the years after his conversion, Coughlan served as a lay preacher in England and Ireland, and for a time was a close associate of Methodist founder John Wesley. However, Coughlan's subjective, enthusiastic, emotional, and feeling-based approach to his faith and ministry later led Wesley to distance himself from him. This was exacerbated by Coughlan's ordination in 1764, along with several other Methodists, by a certain Erasmus, said to be a Greek Orthodox bishop.

In the 1760s a group in the Harbour Grace, Newfoundland area were attempting to procure a minister. In 1766, through the mediation of a local merchant with connections in England, a request was made to the Bishop of London to ordain Coughlan and provide for him to travel to Newfoundland.