Ann Lee has risen to prominence by urging other believers to preach more publicly concerning the imminent second coming, and to attack sin more boldly and unconventionally.
She speaks of visions and messages from God, claiming that she has received a vision from God the message that celibacy and confession of sin are the only true road to salvation and the only way in which the Kingdom of God can be established on the earth.
She is frequently imprisoned for breaking the Sabbath by dancing and shouting, and for blasphemy.
She claims to have had many miraculous escapes from death.
She tells of being examined by four clergymen of the Established Church, claiming that she spoke to them for four hours in seventy-two tongues.
While in prison in Manchester for fourteen days, she said she had had a revelation that "a complete cross against the lusts of generation, added to a full and explicit confession, before witnesses, of all the sins committed under its influence, was the only possible remedy and means of salvation."
After this, probably in 1770, she had been chosen by the Society as "Mother in spiritual things" and calls herself "Ann, the Word" and also "Mother Ann."
After being released from prison a second time, witnesses say Mother Ann performed a number of miracles, including healing the sick.
Lee eventually decides to leave England for America in order to escape the persecution (i.e., multiple arrests and stays in prison) she has experienced in Great Britain.
Ann Lee was born in Manchester, England, and baptized privately at Manchester Collegiate Church (now Manchester Cathedral) on June 1, 1742, at the age of six.
Her parents are members of a distinct branch of the Society of Friends, and too poor to afford their children even the rudiments of education.
Ann Lee's father, John Lees, is a blacksmith during the day, and a tailor at night.
It is probable that Ann Lee's original surname was Lees, but somewhere through time it changed to Lee.
Little is known about her mother other than she was a very religious woman.
When Ann was young she worked in a cotton factory, then she worked as a cutter of hatter's fur, and later as a cook in a Manchester infirmary.
In 1758 she had joined the Wardley's, an English sect founded by Jane and preacher James Wardley; this is the precursor to the Shaker sect.
Ann believes in and teaches her followers that it is possible to attain perfect holiness by giving up sexual relations.
Like her predecessors, the Wardleys, she teaches that the shaking and trembling are caused by sin being purged from the body by the power of the Holy Spirit, purifying the worshiper.
Beginning during her youth, Ann Lee was uncomfortable with sexuality, especially her own.
This repulsion towards sexual activity had continued and manifested itself most poignantly in her repeated attempts to avoid marriage and remain single.
Eventually her father forced her to marry Abraham Stanley.
They were married on January 5, 1761 at Manchester Collegiate Church.
She became pregnant four times, all of her children died during infancy.
Her difficult pregnancies and the loss of four children were traumatic experiences that contributed to Ann Lee's dislike of sexual relations.
Lee has developed radical religious convictions that advocate celibacy and the abandonment of marriage, as well as the importance of pursuing perfection in every facet of life.
She differs from the Quakers, who, though they support gender equality, do not believe in forbidding sexuality within marriage.
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