Henry Grattan Guinness (11 August 1835 – 21 June 1910) was an Irish Nonconformist

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

preacher, evangelist and author. He was the great evangelist of the Third Evangelical awakening and preached during the Ulster Revival of 1859 which drew thousands to hear him. He was responsible for training and sending hundreds of " faith missionaries" all over the world.

Earlier life

Guinness was born in Montpelier House, Kingstown in Taney, Dublin, Ireland. He was homeschooled by his parents and later at Cheltenham and Exeter under Rev. Dr. Mills and Rev. C. Worthy. He was the grandson of Arthur Guinness and Olivia Whitmore. His father was John Grattan Guinness (1783–1850), Arthur's youngest son, who was an officer in the

Madras Army The Madras Army was the army of the Presidency of Madras, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations manda ...

of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

. His mother was Jane Lucretia D'Esterre, whose first husband Captain John Norcot D'Esterre had been killed in a duel in 1815 by

Daniel O'Connell Daniel(I) O’Connell (; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Irelan ...

, who remorsefully paid her an

annuity In investment, an annuity is a series of payments made at equal intervals based on a contract with a lump sum of money. Insurance companies are common annuity providers and are used by clients for things like retirement or death benefits. Examples ...

. In 1853 at 17 years old, and somewhat backslidden in his faith, Guinness went to sea. During that year he visited the West Indies, Mexico, Texas, and Caribbean Sea area. He returned to England in 1853. In 1854 he was "sick unto death" when starting for the East Indies. So returning home, he repented and resolved to serve the Master. In January 1856 Guinness entered New College in London under a tutor named Dr. Harris. Possessed of extraordinary talent; his gift was that he spoke the language of the people, not the scholar. He preached much while still a student and in 1857 he was ordained an evangelist and began preaching to large audiences, as well as in the open air. Visited many cities and towns in the British Isles. During this time it is claimed that he was persecuted by Roman Catholics. From 1858 to 1860 he was in Canada and had a part in A. B. Simpson's conversion. He married Fanny Emma Fitzgerald in October 1860. They had a son named Harry, who was born 2 October 1861, in Toronto, Canada. The Dublin ''

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'' wrote in 1858:

Later life

From 1860 to 1872 he was a travelling evangelist in France, America, the Near East and the British Isles. He was compared by some to George Whitefield. Fanny was a partner in the missionary work and she was not only responsible for the administration, but she would also preach to audiences of men and women. He offered to join the China Inland Mission founded by James Hudson Taylor in 1865, but took Taylor's advice to continue his work in London. In September 1866 while in

Keighley Keighley ( ) is a market town and a civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford. Keighley is north-west of Bradford, n ...

, Yorkshire, Guinness saw a notice advertising a series of lectures by the freethinker and communist Harriet Law. For a week he held a series of meetings at the same time to try to counteract her influence. He was appalled at the "scoffing unbelief" of such speakers. In 1868 he went to France, and helped the Evangelisation Populaire and the McCall Mission. He stayed there 18 months. In this same year Guinness and his wife published ''The Regions Beyond and Illustrated Missionary News'', which was edited by Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness. The magazine would give accounts of missions and missionaries including those in Africa and China. With the help of Professor

John Couch Adams John Couch Adams ( ; 5 June 1819 – 21 January 1892) was a British mathematician and astronomer. He was born in Laneast, near Launceston, Cornwall, and died in Cambridge. His most famous achievement was predicting the existence and position o ...

, some astronomical tables and examination of the scriptures, Guinness worked out the prophetic chronology of the bible in terms of a series of "solilunar cycles." This proved to him that he was living at the end of the sixth unsabbatic day of creation, 6,000 years from Adam, and that the "redemption Sabbath" would soon arrive. This revelation became the subject of many books that he wrote, and many sermons. In 1872 Henry, Fanny and their six children were living in the East End of London. They started the East London Missionary Training Institute (also called Harley College) at Harley House in Bromley-by-Bow, East End of London with just six students. The renowned Dr. Thomas Barnardo was co-director with Dr. Guinness and greatly influenced by him. The school trained 1330 missionaries for 30 societies of 30 denominations. Harley College became so successful it needed a larger home. In 1883, Elizabeth Hulme offered Guinness "Cliff House" near Calver, Derbyshire. Harley College was renamed Hulme Cliff College. Now known as Cliff College it still trains and equipping Christians for mission and evangelism. In 1873 Guinness founded the ''East London Institute for Home and Foreign Missions'', the root of the '' Regions Beyond Missionary Union''. In 1877 he founded the Livingstone Inland Mission, which worked in Congo, Argentina and Peru. His son Dr. Henry Grattan Guinness (1861–1915), known as Harry to distinguish him from his father, founded the Congo-Balolo Mission in 1888 and co-founded the

Congo Reform Association The Congo Reform Association (CRA) was a political and humanitarian activist group that sought to promote reform of the Congo Free State, a private territory in Central Africa under the absolute sovereignty of King Leopold II. Active from 19 ...

in 1904. He traveled to India, where he wrote critically that to the people there, "God is everything, and everything is God, and, therefore, everything may be adored. ... Her pan-deism is a pandemonium." His first wife having died in 1898, he married his second wife Grace Alexandra Hurditch in 1903.https://rylandscollections.com/2022/03/01/the-remarkable-life-of-grace-grattan-guinness-1877-1967/ From 1903 to 1907, they went on world missionary tours before he retired in 1908 to

Bath, Somerset Bath (Received Pronunciation, RP: , ) is a city in Somerset, England, known for and named after its Roman Baths (Bath), Roman-built baths. At the 2021 census, the population was 94,092. Bath is in the valley of the River Avon, Bristol, River A ...

, where he died.

Legacy

His daughter, and later author, Mary Geraldine Guinness married Frederick Howard Taylor, the son of China Inland Mission founder J. Hudson Taylor. She was one of seven children who entered Christian ministry. Dr. Gershom Whitfield Guinness was a medical missionary to China who escaped the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious F ...

and went on to found the first hospital in

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

south of the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

. A granddaughter, Ruth Eileen, married the famous geneticist and statistician

Ronald Fisher Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who a ...

, one of those responsible for

Neo-Darwinism Neo-Darwinism is generally used to describe any integration of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics. It mostly refers to evolutionary theory from either 1895 (for the combinations of D ...

. His daughter Lucy wrote ''Across India at the Dawn of the 20th Century'', about her hopes of converting the natives to Christianity. His great-grandson Os Guinness is an active author and speaker today.

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References

Citations

Sources

* Hudson Taylor & China's Open Century Volume Three: If I Had a Thousand Lives; Alfred James Broomhall; Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982 * Christ Alone – A Pictorial Presentation of Hudson Taylor's Life and Legacy; OMF International, 2005 * * *

External links