Description:
<jats:p> Proto-Pentecostalist ideas in Britain owe a debt to the activities of the Gold Coast businessman Thomas Brem Wilson (1865–1929), who settled in London in 1901. His recently discovered diaries and personal papers detail his commercial interests and activities in West Africa and his relationships with a number of fellow Africans living in London. The diaries also record Brem Wilson's transatlantic involvement with J. A. Dowie's faith healing Catholic Apostolic Church in London and Zion City, Illinois, which he visited in 1904; evangelistic work among his African friends in London and in the Gold Coast; and his personal and financial relations with Alexander Boddy. In 1908 Brem Wilson helped found the first black-led Pentecostal church in Britain, where he was a pastor for the rest of his life. </jats:p>