Serendipity (2 of 3): Black Methodist Deaconesses in Canada

My second (2 of 3) recent serendipitous discovery was a reference to the training of deaconesses for Black Canadian Methodists (British Methodist Episcopal).
 
In my Women in Christian History course I spend time dealing with the functions of the Order of Deaconesses in the early church, noting how it slowly disappeared in the early medieval period due in large measure to the surging monastic movement (a movement quickly embraced by women).
 
In my current research project, I was looking for information on Methodist attitudes to the Great War. As I did so I stumbled across a reference to the training of deaconesses (see above image). I was surprised to see the position of deaconesses here in the Black Methodist movement in Canada, and I now have a number of questions:

1. How far back in Methodist history does the office of deaconesses go? All the way back to John Wesley?
2. Are deaconesses something unique to Canadian Black Methodism? Or were there deaconesses in other branches of Methodism?
3. How many women served as deaconesses?
4. Does this mean Canadian Black Methodist women could not preach or pastor?
5. Who taught the deaconesses? Were they trained in the same way and place as the men training for ministry? 
6. Were the women separated from the men into separate schools? 

Fortunately, the manual for doctrine and discipline provided a detailed order of service for the dedication of deaconesses (Methodists were methodical, after all). Here it is! (click on image to enlarge)

Images from Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/doctrineanddisci00brituoft/page/n3/mode/2up

A quick bit of research provides an example of one woman who was a deaconess, one who eventually became an ordained minister in the British Methodist Episcopal Church (BME). In 1951, the deaconesses Addie Aylestock became “the first ordained women minister of the BME and the first Black Canadian women minister in Canada.”[1]
 
That, by the way, is an example of the joy of serendipity. I had never before heard of Rev. Addie Aylestock, but a chance glance at a Methodist document led to a wonderful new discovery.


[1] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/addie-aylestock