British Methodist churchman who founded the Bible Christian Church (1815), a dissident group of Wesleyan Methodists desiring effective biblical education, a presbyterian form of church government, and the participation of women in the ministry. The group originated in Devonshire and spread to Canada (1831), the United States (1846), and Australia (1850), although O'Bryan left the society over administrative differences and began an itinerant evangelism in the United States (1831). The Bible Christians joined with other dissident Methodist groups in 1907 to form the United Methodist Church.