George Charles Smith of Penzance: From Nelson Sailor to Mission Pioneer

By Roald Kverndal

In the two previous books of his trilogy, Seamen’s Missions (1986) and The Way of the Sea (2008), the author researched how the seafarers’ mission movement began and expanded. This third volume traces the captivating human drama surrounding the origins. In fifteen fascinating chapters the book presents, for the first time ever, the embattled life of George Charles Smith—today recognized worldwide as the founder of the Maritime Mission Movement. Here, the reader can follow the turbulent career of this man of extremes: his humble origins; his harrowing years in a “floating hell” in Nelson’s navy; his relentless war with the “Sodom and Gomorrah” of London’s Sailortown; his dogged pursuit of a “Marine Jerusalem”; his survival of heartless debtors’ prisons; his feting throughout America; and his “last watch” in his home port, Penzance, in southwest England. Perhaps the most powerful affirmation of the lasting legacy of George Charles Smith is how also non-Western participants in today’s maritime mission readily discern in him the profile of a prophet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Carey Library
• Release date: Jun 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781645081975

Book preview

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

SEAMEN’S MISSIONS

THEIR ORIGIN AND EARLY GROWTH

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH MARITIME

(1986)

THE WAY OF THE SEA

THE CHANGING SHAPE OF MISSION

IN THE SEAFARING WORLD

(2008)

The Reverend George Charles Smith (1782–1863).

(Courtesy of The sailors’ Society)

Wisdom, it is said, is often best taught by experience. In the case of Boatswain Smith, he gained the wisdom to become the worldwide grandfather of Christian ministry among seafarers by himself coming up through the hawse pipe. The author has knitted together a fascinating series of vignettes from Smith’s own words into the inspirational life story of a man of extraordinary vision and faith.

MONSIGNOR JAMES E. DILLENBURG,

FORMERLY INTERNATIONAL SECRETARY OF THE APOSTLESHIP OF THE SEA AT THE VATICAN

This book is a tremendous treasure. Tracing the life of the founder and fearless advocate of ministry among People of the Sea, the book belongs to the practical theology of seafarers’ chaplains everywhere. It can also serve as a wonderful challenge to seafarers themselves to minister among their own. When I recently shared a glimpse of this Pioneer Pastor from Penzance with a seafaring friend of mine, he was just all ears and begged me for a copy one day.

REVEREND PETER IBRAHIM,

SUDAN-BORN PORT CHAPLAIN TO INTERNATIONAL SEAFARERS IN HAMBURG

Ever since George Charles Smith received his original call to seafarers’ mission in the early 1800s, he has been an icon and inspirer for others—across all denominational boundaries. I too have been greatly indebted to him—not least during my many years of service in the Norwegian Seamen’s Church in London, as a direct successor to Smith’s groundbreaking ministry in the Danish-Norwegian Temple there. Dr. Roald Kverndal deserves our thanks for researching the life story of this truly heroic pioneer.

REVEREND DAGFINN KVALE,

THIRTY-YEAR CHAPLAIN IN THE NORWEGIAN SEAMEN’S MISSION

George Charles Smith of Penzance: From Nelson Sailor to Mission Pioneer

Copyright © 2012 by Roald Kverndal

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except brief quotations used in connection with reviews in magazines or newspapers.

Published by William Carey Library

1605 E. Elizabeth Street

Pasadena, CA 91104 | www.missionbooks.org

Produced in affiliation with the International Association for the Study of Maritime Mission (IASMM)

Melissa Hicks, editor

David Shaver Sr., content editor

Kate Hegland, copyeditor

Josie Leung, graphic design

Rose Lee-Norman, indexer

Cover art courtesy of the National Maritime Museum of Greenwich, London (NMM Image PW 5874). Title: "The Agamemnon cuts out French vessels from Port Maurice, near Oneglia, 1 June 1796." This contemporary painting by Nicholas Pocock shows the sixty-four gun HMS Agamemnon in action, described by the National Maritime Museum, as Nelson’s favourite ship that he commanded as captain. It was on this vessel that George Charles Smith would come to serve from 1797 to 1802.

William Carey Library is a ministry of the

U.S. Center for World Mission

Pasadena, CA | www.uscwm.org

Printed in the United States of America

17 16 15 14 13 5 4 3 2 1 SFP

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kverndal, Roald.

George Charles Smith of Penzance: From Nelson Sailor to Mission Pioneer/ Roald Kverndal.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-87808-394-7

1. Smith, George Charles, 1782-1863. 2. Merchant mariners--Missions and charities--England--History--19th century. I. William Carey Library. II.

Title.

BV2678.S65K84 2011

266.0092--dc23

[B]

2011026894

IN HONOR OF ALL PEOPLE OF THE SEA

PAST—PRESENT—FUTURE

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABBREVIATIONS

TIMELINE

CHAPTER 1 Early Years (1782–1796)

CHAPTER 2 A Floating Hell (1797–1802)

CHAPTER 3 Bound for Damascus (1802–1803)

CHAPTER 4 New Sailing Orders (1803–1809)

CHAPTER 5 Casting Off! (1809–1814)

CHAPTER 6 Continental Crosswinds (1814–1816)

CHAPTER 7 Aquatic Preaching (1817)

CHAPTER 8 Launching the London Ark (1818)

CHAPTER 9 The Bethel Flag Goes Global (1819–1826)

CHAPTER 10 The Sailor’s Sodom and Gomorrah (1819–1826)

CHAPTER 11 Toward a Marine Jerusalem (1826–1829)

CHAPTER 12 Tumultuous Times (1829–1848)

CHAPTER 13 Back to Penzance (1848–1862)

CHAPTER 14 Last Watch Upon Deck (1862–1863)

CHAPTER 15 The Legacy of George Charles Smith: A Summary

ADDENDUM

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

SCRIPTURE INDEX

FOREWORD

I am thrilled by what I read in this book, about a man of God who troubled the church by always living on the edge. As Roald Kverndal observes in his preface, Smith was passionate in his rejection of discrimination relating to the most marginalized. At the same time, I am genuinely humbled as I realize that I am, in my present ministry, literally following in his footsteps.

There is much to learn from George Charles Smith and the work to which the Lord clearly called him. Readers will be especially impressed by the enduring importance this man placed on the souls of seafarers. Just over two hundred years since Smith’s memorable encounter in Penzance, with a couple of seafarers belonging to the revenue cutter Dolphin, those of us who in our day minister among mariners and their dependents may well be tempted to overlook their greatest peril. While it was widely affirmed that Smith was essentially a good man, we discover in these pages that, for his part, he would have rejected such an epitaph. George Charles Smith was first and foremost a gospel man.

The events which took place in the town of Reading on March 19, 1803—a time when Smith believed he was close to death—involved the gentle witness of a nurse, the effect of a sermon he overheard, and the personal attention of many pious men. All he would later do in the seafaring world would be shaped by what the Lord had done for his soul that day in Reading.

I have found this man so difficult to define, whether in relation to his pastoral ministry in Penzance or his maritime mission in the Port of London and elsewhere. But regardless of the context, his achievements in life became fundamentally impacted by what took place in Reading. Whatever else he was or was not, George Charles Smith was above all a preacher of the gospel. And the greater his love for the gospel, the more inventive he became in determining where and how he could gather people to hear it. As Smith wrestled with God for an open door for preaching the gospel to the poor, I make a guess that he was as surprised as many who would follow him to find this open door at the top of a gangway and not at the end of a garden path!

It was not until 1812, when Smith preached his first sermon to sailors at the Carter Lane Chapel, that opportunities for preaching to mariners as such were fully realized. Encouraged by posters and fliers sent to the ships, and guided by torch bearers in the streets, seafarers converged at this chapel, situated in the most notorious sector of London’s Sailor Town. Here he preached with such power and conviction that hundreds of sailors were in tears. Soon it was the iconic Bethel Flag that would invite sailors to share the gospel on board ships at anchor and enjoy fellowship with one another. Aware as he was of all the temptations abounding on either shore of the river, Smith readily joined them and said he counted it an honour to stand among them and mingle his prayers and praises with theirs.

The intricate details which Kverndal brings to his canvas give us as full a picture as is possible of George Charles Smith—a man of God as flawed as he was faithful and as vilified as he was victorious. He probably lacked all the necessary characteristics of what we would today call a team player and leaves me in no doubt that his individualism was as personally destructive as it was publically daring.

With me, you will read of the London Ark, of William Wilberforce, of the Port of London Society, of the collier brig Zephyr, of the Bethel Seamen’s Union, of The Sailor’s Magazine, and of globalization, prostitutes, and orphans. Kverndal peels back the layers of history as he shows the struggles between newly founded maritime mission societies, while revealing the heart of a man who was not wanted by many and yet welcomed by far more.

I like this man, a much-needed nuisance sadly missing from the maritime canvas of our own day. At the same time, I am troubled by this man, who was as much a prophet as he was a preacher, whose faith and focus still ask questions of us today. In order to accept him and prize his ministry as greatly as I do, it has become necessary to embrace him in full. If he is, as I agree, the founder of the Modern Maritime Mission Movement, then we need to reflect on what it was he founded and judge our proximity to his pattern.

I welcome this third publication by Kverndal and pray that it may be used by God, especially among those of us who have been blessed with a vision for seafarers. While there will never be another George Charles Smith, this does not mean that maritime mission will never need someone like him. Smith was the right man at the right time, but in this he was not alone. The history of the church is punctuated by the appearance of those God uses to stir us up. Such men and women are not always at once welcomed. It is usually through the labors of authors such as Roald Kverndal that we begin to warm up to them.

Time dedicated to the understanding of Bosun Smith will be viewed by many as time well spent. However, the ultimate success of this work will not be judged according to its acceptance by those of us who happen to be engaged in this specific mission. The final word must rest with those mariners who remain isolated and on the margins of society, many of them, now as then, alone and without hope until another—with the faith and compassion of George Charles Smith—climbs their gangway.

David Potterton

principal chaplain, The Sailors’ Society

Southampton, UK, 2011

PREFACE

A biography of George Charles Smith has been long overdue. This attempt to fill that need comes shortly after the two-hundredth anniversary of his calling to a seafarers’ ministry in 1809. For Smith, as a former seafarer himself, it was especially meaningful that when the call came, it came through fellow seafarers.

For my part, the first time I heard of Boatswain Smith, as his contemporaries called him, was in my childhood in the early 1930s. It was in the Norwegian Seamen’s Church, in the docklands of Rotherhithe, London, where my family belonged to the local Norwegian seafaring community. The seafarers’ pastor at the time, Reverend (later Bishop) Johannes Smidt, made sure we were all aware of the historic link between our church and that colorful character who became the founder of the worldwide Seafarers’ Mission Movement.

Little could I, or my pastor, have suspected that I would one day have the privilege of researching and writing the first documented history of the beginning of the movement, Seamen’s Missions: Their Origin and Early Growth, published in 1986. In the year 2007, I completed an updated summary of the whole movement entitled, The Way of the Sea: The Changing Shape of Mission in the Seafaring World. Since Boatswain Smith has remained the principal personality in both of these books, the present volume makes up what has become a natural maritime mission trilogy.

Throughout my research, it has continued to amaze me that no one has previously written the biography of a life so fascinating in itself and so far-reaching in its impact. Like many trailblazers before him, George Charles Smith had his full share of eccentricities and imperfections. However, there were also fundamental features of his character that require no apology. Smith was passionate in his rejection of discrimination related to the most marginalized. This, coupled with his ceaseless solidarity with them, was of course, in complete harmony with the Savior he sought to follow. It was doubtless this sense of social justice that made Boatswain Smith such an instant hero for me, as a young British-born Norwegian who would later become a seafarer himself and, like Smith, eventually a seafarers’ chaplain as well.

Among the more than eighty publications credited to Smith’s name, none can compare, as a biographical resource, with The Sailor’s Magazine. He would continue to edit and produce the magazine, under varying titles, from 1820 until a few days before he died—in January 1863. In his many retrospects in later issues, he would frequently express his wonder at the way the Lord had led him. At a particularly turbulent time, in the mid-1840s, he wrote, The chief thing that I see ought to be done is to write my life, with all the remarkable incidents connected with it (The New Sailor’s Magazine 1844, p. 554). This was not to be, since it would have required a protracted leave of absence. Smith’s many distracting cares would never have allowed for that.

In 1874, eleven years after Smith’s death, it looked as though such a biography might nonetheless appear. That year, George Charles Smith’s eldest son and coworker, Theophilus Smith, published an eighteen-page prospectus, entitled The Great Moral Reformation of Sailors . . . also a Sketch of the Life and Times of the Sailors’ Friend. With a comprehensive biography in mind, he had already collected a mass of manuscripts, correspondence, and printed works from nearly forty years of collaboration with his father. Unfortunately, Theophilus was never able to complete his plan. In 1879, he died as a result of a railway accident.

In trying to trace the tapestry of Boatswain Smith’s checkered life, I have set myself the goal of letting him speak for himself. The intention has been to attempt to produce a kind of autobiography based on Smith’s own authorship, often from his many books, but primarily from his lifelong work—his magazine. All quotations follow the original spelling and punctuation.

Inevitably, such sources are marked by Smith’s personal biases, including examples of the belligerence that characterized him throughout his life. They also reflect a choice of language typical of Smith’s day, usually far more ornate than today’s mode of expression. However, when used critically, these materials—especially those forty-three volumes of his own magazine—still constitute the greatest single treasure trove for any history of the early Maritime Mission Movement.

It is my hope and prayer that the result may be more than merely of historic and human interest. As the final chapter seeks to show, George Charles Smith’s pioneer contributions to maritime mission are increasingly and globally relevant in this third millennium. For this, I believe, Boatswain Smith—in company with countless fellow seafarers—is greatly rejoicing. It could hardly be otherwise, as our friend follows along from his new vantage point—in the great cloud of witnesses we are told about in Hebrews 12:1.

Roald Kverndal

Covenant Shores, Mercer Island, Seattle, Washington

Summer 2011

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My personal curiosity about the amazing life story of George Charles Smith was first engendered during my childhood. I have written about this in my preface. As to Smith’s adopted hometown of Penzance, I gratefully acknowledge the invaluable support I have received from many quarters.

These include especially the following: Leonard Martin Richards, a