HUNTINGDON, SELENA HASTINGS, COUNTESS OF: English religious leader and founder of the Calvinistic Methodists known as the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion; b. at Stanton Harold, an estate near Ashby-de-larZouch, Leicestershire, Aug. 24, 1707; d. in London June 17, 1791. She was the daughter of Washington Shirley, second Earl Ferrers. In 1728 she married Theophilus Hastings, ninth earl of Huntingdon, and took up her residence with him at Donington Park, Leicestershire. Converted through the influence of her sister-in-law, Lady Margaret Hastings, who afterward married Benjamin Ingham, she allied herself with the Methodists, attended constantly the meetings held by the Wesleys in Fetter Lane, and joined the first Methodist society formed there in 1739. After the death of two of her sons in 1743 and of her husband in 1746 she devoted herself uninterruptedly to the advancement of Methodism. Her social position enabled her to be the chief means of introducing the new movement into aristocratic circles. In 1747 she made George Whitefield one of her chaplains and threw open her London house for religious services. Here Whitefield frequently preached to audiences that included such men as Chesterfield, Walpole, and Bolingbroke. Lady Huntingdon built, or acquired, numerous chapels in various parts of England and filled them with her domestic chaplains. In 1768 she founded at Trevecca, South Wales, a special seminary for the training of her chaplains. To reach upper classes she chose as her strongholds such places as Bath, Tunbridge, and London. She had been under the impression that as a peeress she had a right to employ as many chaplains as she pleased; but in 1779 an adverse decision of the consistorial court of London compelled her to take shelter under the Toleration Act. She and her ministers were thus placed in the position of dissenters, and her chapels were registered as dissenting places of worship. At this time several of her chaplains, including William Romaine, Henry Venn, and John Berridge, withdrew from the Connexion. When the breach occurred between Wesley and Whitefield, Lady Huntingdon sided with Whitefield, and at his death became sole trustee of his institutions in Georgia. To perpetuate her work after her death she organized her chapels into an association in 1790, and at her death bequeathed them, together with her seminary, to trustees. Her interests were not confined to her "connexion," and her influence was wider than the bounds of Methodism. See Methodists.

Bibliography: The Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, 2 vols., London, 1844; Mrs. H. C. Knight, Lady Huntingdon and her Friends, New York, 1853; A. H. New, The Coronet and the Cross, or Memorials of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, London, 1857; J. H. Newman, Essays Critical and Historical, A, 386-424, ib., 1873 (reviews the first book named above); Henrietta Keddie, The Countess of Huntingdon and her Circle, Cincinnati, 1907; DNB, xxv. 133-135, and the lives of George Whitefield, John and Charles Wesley, John William Fletcher, and Rowland Hill.