<sod>Historians group Methodists together with other Protestant groups as "Nonconformists" or "Dissenters" standing in opposition to the  established Church of England. In the 19th century the Dissenters who went to chapel comprised half the people who actually attended services on Sunday.  The "Nonconformist Conscience"  was their moral sensibility which they tried to implement in British politics.<ref>D.W. Bebbington, ''The Nonconformist Conscience. Chapel and Politics, 1870–1914'' (1982).</ref>  The two categories of Dissenters, or Nonconformists, were in addition to the evangelicals or "Low Church" element in the Church of England. "Old Dissenters," dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, included Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Unitarians, and Presbyterians outside Scotland. "New Dissenters" emerged in the 18th century and were mainly Methodists, especially the Wesleyan Methodists. The "Nonconformist conscience" of the Old group emphasized religious freedom and equality, pursuit of justice, and opposition to discrimination, compulsion, and coercion. The New Dissenters (and also the Anglican evangelicals) stressed personal morality issues, including sexuality, temperance, family values, and Sabbath-keeping. Both factions were politically active, but until mid-19th century the Old group supported mostly Whigs and Liberals in politics, while the New --like most Anglicans -- generally supported Conservatives. In the late 19th the New Dissenters mostly switched to the Liberal Party. The result was a merging of the two groups, strengthening their great weight as a political pressure group. The joined together on new issues especially regarding schools and temperance, with the latter of special interest to Methodists.<ref> Timothy Larsen, "A Nonconformist Conscience? Free Churchmen in Parliament in Nineteenth‐Century England." ''Parliamentary History'' 24#1 (2005): 107-119.</ref><ref> Richard Helmstadter, "The Nonconformist Conscience" in Peter Marsh, ed., ''The Conscience of the Victorian State'' (1979) pp 135-72.</ref>  By 1914 the linkage was weakening and by the 1920s it was virtually dead.<ref>John F. Glaser, "English Nonconformity and the Decline of Liberalism." ''American Historical Review'' 63.2 (1958): 352-363. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/1849549 in JSTOR]</ref><eod>
<sod>Historians group Methodists together with other Protestant groups as "Nonconformists" or [[Dissenter]]s, standing in opposition to the established Church of England. In the 19th century the Dissenters who went to chapel comprised half the people who actually attended services on Sunday. The "Nonconformist Conscience"  was their moral sensibility which they tried to implement in British politics.<ref>D.W. Bebbington, ''The Nonconformist Conscience. Chapel and Politics, 1870–1914'' (1982).</ref>  The two categories of Dissenters, or Nonconformists, were in addition to the evangelicals or "[[Low Church]]" element in the Church of England. "Old Dissenters," dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, included [[Baptists]], [[Congregationalists]], [[Quakers]], [[General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches|Unitarians]], and [[Presbyterians]] outside Scotland. "New Dissenters" emerged in the 18th century and were mainly Methodists, especially the Wesleyan Methodists.<eod>