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The title Council of Bishops first appeared in the Discipline of 1940 ( p.30), when the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant Church united to form the Methodist Church. After the episcopal election of Enoch George and Robert R. Roberts in 1816, the Methodist Episcopal Church established a supervisory plan which included (1) the division of episcopal administration of the conferences among the bishops; (2) a change of administrative supervision annually; and, (3) assignment of administrative responsibility for a conference during the year of his presidency to the presiding bishop. This planted the seed for what apparently came to be called the Board of Bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Although there appears to be no official designation of such a Board, it served as a vehicle for cooperative episcopal supervision. The earliest reference to the title " the Board of Bishops" occurs in the Discipline of 1908, but it is possible that the Board of Bishops existed under that title since 1844. The Board of Bishops, deferred to the General Conference when questions of interpretation of law or discipline arose. The Board of Bishops remained in place until the Plan of Union in 1939.

With the division of episcopal Methodism in 1844, the Board of Bishops was replaced in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South by a College of Bishops. Unlike the bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the College of Bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South was invested by the General Conference with the duty of reviewing any General Conference action which, in the bishops' judgment, contravened the Constitution of the Church. The College of Bishops continued until union in 1940. The title College of Bishops still exists in the United Methodist Church as a jurisdictional affiliation of bishops.

In 1828, the Methodist Protestant Church (MPC) did away with episcopacy, and allowed each annual conference to choose a President. They did adhere to the administrative forms found in Methodist polity. The MPC elected a President to preside over its General Conference. Since the Conference only met once every four years the power of the president was limited. But in 1920 the MPC created a permanent office of President of the General Conference. The president, after 1920, was the chief connectional officer, chair of the Executive Council and a member of all the boards elected by the General Conference as well as the person who presided over the General Conference. In the 1939 union, the MPC accepted the return to episcopacy and a Council of Bishops as well as a College of Bishops.

The bishops of the Evangelical and the United Brethren Churches conducted their superintendency mostly as individuals, without any formal connection with each other. They met chiefly at Conference sessions. In 1865 the General Conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ adopted a recommendation from the committee on Superintendency that appears to have been the first step in establishing the bishops as a board. In this way, they moved beyond individual action, and began functioning as a unit of the Church. This allowed the bishops to hold annual meetings, at which they could take counsel upon the general interest of the church. Eventually, a similar provision appeared in the Discipline of the Evangelical Church allowing their bishops to act as a unit as well as individually.

As early as 1904, the minutes of the Board of Bishops of the former churches indicate that much time was given to deciding the questions of discipline in addition to coordinating and unifying the work of the church. The bishops of both the Evangelical and the United Brethren Churches were functioned as individual leaders and as a Board of Bishops before the union in 1946. The bishops were amenable to the General Conference, but did not make individual reports to it. The minutes of the Board of Bishops' meetings were examined by a committee of the General Conference, which then reported its findings and recommendations to the General Conference. With the merger the Board of Bishops became a part of the Council of the United Methodist Church.