Bristol

United Kingdom

Bristol is a port city in southwest England, chartered in 1155 and by the later Middle Ages one of the largest towns in the country. John Cabot sailed from it to North America in 1497, and in the eighteenth century its merchants were heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade. It became a cathedral city in 1542 and was an early stronghold of the Methodist revival. John Wesley began open-air preaching there in 1739 and built the New Room, the oldest purpose-built Methodist chapel, while George Whitefield preached outdoors at nearby Kingswood. The physicist Paul Dirac was born in Bristol and studied at its university.