Ryan, Sarah (1724–1768)

Sarah (maiden name unknown), was spiritually awakened under Whitefield's preaching at age seventeen. She married about 1745, but was soon deserted by her husband (name unknown). Around 1748 she married a sailor named [ John?] Ryan (whom she seems to suggest was abusive during his times home from the sea). Through the influence of the wife of the sailor's captain, who was a Methodist, Ryan began attending JW's Foundery in London. She participated in a class meeting and established a lasting friendship with Sarah Crosby. In 1754 she experienced a strong spiritual renewal. Over the next year, partly in conversation with JW, she decided not to follow her husband, who had moved to New England. In 1757 JW appointed Ryan housekeeper at the New Room in Bristol. Ryan became at that point one of JW's most spiritually intimate correspondents, provoking the jealousy of his wife Mary. Mary Bosanquet recorded an incident at a meeting of Methodist preachers in Bristol in late 1757, when Mary Wesley pointed to Ryan and said, 'See that whore who is serving you! She hath three husbands now alive!' Within a couple of years this pressure led Ryan to leave Bristol. Her final years were spent working closely with Mary Bosanquet in ministering to orphans. She died on Aug. 17, 1768. See her autobiographical letter dated March 19, 1760 in AM 2 (1779): 296–310; DEB, 962; and Vickers, Dictionary, 304.