"On Friday last age 21 John Hackett, son of Mr John Hackett tape manufacturer of this town. In early youth he sought and found redemption through the blood of Christ the pardon for all his sins exemplified the genuineness of his conversion by a life of piety and devotedness to God and died with a well-founded hope of eternal glory"

The words of this obituary which is quite different in tone from other obituaries at the time were probably written by his father and provide a clear idea of John’s very serious and strict Christian attitude.

Studies of the cotton mill owners in th 19th century show that about a quarter of them were Methodists. Methodism was considered to be an excellent creed for the socially mobile, and the cotton mill owners who were Methodists were of markedly lower social origins with fewer of them having inherited their wealth and position from their parents. Its members held traditional aversions to gambling and drinking.

Wesleyan Methodism encouraged a set of attitudes outwardly favourable to economic success. Business was God-given but wealth was not pursued for its own sake. The correct stewardship of wealth was a religious imperative. David Whitehead, a Methodist, who set up business in 1817 as a Manchester cotton mill owner wrote "A good tradesman should never desire to be rich, a wise one never will be; but he should do all he can with his own capital to get all the money he can, and then to use it in the best way. A part must be devoted to religious purposes. How much? It must be decided by his own judgement. The whole of the rest should be used for charitable and useful purposes".

The Methodist Church at Tansley was built in the late 1820s replacing an earlier one which was built on the site of a cockpit. It was opened on Christmas Day 1829. A list of the original trustees and their occupations is headed by John Hackett the "owner of the Tape Mills down the Old Coach Road". He was clearly the main benefactor and probably paid for most of the materials. Such was the enthusiasm of the members, who numbered about 54, that most of the work was done voluntarily during the evenings (see Lovatt, A Brief history of Methodism in Tansley, 2001)

Some time later, probably in 1837, the graveyard was added (a step which is unusual for Methodist chapels). Seven members of the Hackett family are buried in the church yard, the other original trustees are buried at the Anglican Church at Crich 5 miles away. The fact that the Methodist authorities took the unusual step of setting up a family grave in front of the

The Tansley Methodist Graveyard photographed in 1986

church for three generations of the family of Hacketts is clear evidence that they were greatly respected as employers of labour. Unlike the cruel and oppressive employers at some of the Derbyshire mills, for example, Lytton Mill, a few miles away which was notorious.

John was not buried in the graveyard despite the fact that the bodies of other members of the Hackett family were brought back for burial from as far as Hyeres in France and Manchester. It was used as late as 1904 for the interment of members of the Hackett family. This was long after they had sold up and left the village.

For many years it was known by people of Tansley as the "Dissenters' Graveyard". This was probably because the fact that, shortly after the Church was built, John grew dissatisfied with the way in which the Methodists of Derby conducted themselves, particularly because of the way in which the rich and influential members were expelling what he considered to be the most active and zealous local preachers.

He accused the ministers and other leaders of being too luke-warm and half-hearted in their preaching; they were, he said, too self-promoting, more interested in gaining applause and earning a living from their ministries than gaining new converts. He was particularly disgusted by what he called "the fashionable spouters of unfelt gospel truths"

In order to regain the zeal and fervency shown by the early preachers he led a group of members in a breakaway movement which he called Arminian Methodism. The ideals and beliefs of this new group were explained in a lengthy pamphlet which he wrote in 1832. The response of local Methodists was to attack him in letters to the press, and to print and distribute pamphlets vilifying him.

Despite this response he established a number of places where he and others preached the new faith and was able to state in the second edition of his pamphlet that "in the course of about six months, not less than two hundred sinners have professed to be saved“. Copies of both editions are held in the Derby Local History Library.