<< Back to the A-Z Index
[ transcription of Obituary Notice in the Year Book of the Congregational Union of England & Wales for 1925, page 152, from a copy in Dr Williams's Library, London.]
JOWETT, John Henry, C.H., M.A., D.D.
Pre-eminent among the preachers of his period and one of the great gifts of Congregationalism to the Church Universal, Dr. J.H. Jowett was born at Halifax on August 25th, 1863 -- a year earlier than the date generally given in popular reference books. The son of godly parents and the child of a humble home, he was deeply influenced in childhood by a succession of devoted teachers in Square Congregational Sunday School, Halifax, and in young manhood by the inspirational preaching of Dr. Enoch Mellor. Reared in an evangelical atmosphere under a cultured and broad-spirited minister, Dr. Jowett's religious development was continuous and uninterrupted. He, too, grew in grace and beauty and, at an early age, having clearly the gift of public speech, he began to preach with acceptance. The gracious influence of a beloved Sunday School teacher led him into the Ministry after he had decided to become a lawyer. Though Airedale College was in a transition stage during his theological course, he acknowledged his personal life-long indebtedness to Professor Archibald Duff and in a lesser measure to Dr. A.M. Fairbairn. At Edinburgh University, where he took his M.A. degree, an abiding impression was made upon him by Professors Masson and Calderwood, by Henry Drummond and by Dr. Alexander Whyte.
After a short period at Mansfield College, Dr. Jowett settled at Newcastle-on-Tyne as pastor of St. James's Church, in October, 1889. Immediate success attended his ministry, and his reputation as a preacher was established throughout Great Britain during his six years at Newcastle. In October, 1895, he succeeded Dr. R.W. Dale as minister of Carr's Lane Church, Birmingham, and for nearly sixteen years sustained a remarkable ministry there, attaining world-wide fame as a preacher. He established the Digbeth Institute, at a cost of £25,000, raising the whole sum before the building was opened. During this period he was Chairman of the Congregational Union (1906-07) and President of the National Free Church Council (1910-11).
The Gospel of Grace was the core of his message. Endowed with a superlatively fine voice and a distinguished presence, and having acquired every art of pulpit oratory, with a positive genius for illustration, Dr. Jowett was beyond all question the most popular preacher in the country. In 1911, after renewed invitations which he had thrust aside, he went to America to be minister of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York -- a church offering "perhaps the greatest opportunity in the whole non-episcopal Protestant world." Seven years, nobly influential, were spent in the United States.
In 1918 he returned to England to minister at Westminster Church, where again, until ill-health fell upon him, the influence he exercised was almost unbounded. A new emphasis on social and international implications of the Gospel was a notable feature of his preaching after his American experiences. He stood out as a champion of unity of the Churches: and he was the first Nonconformist since 1662 to preach in an English Cathedral (Durham). He preached before the King and Queen at the Free Church Thanksgiving Service after the Armistice (November, 1918), and he wrote the prayer used in all the English Churches (Established and Free) on Peace Sunday in December 1922. Worn out by his strenuous Peace Campaign, he died (aged 60) after nearly a year's illness, at Belmont, Surrey, on December 17, 1923.
Dr Jowett was a great preacher but, to those who knew him with any intimacy, he was an even greater saint -- a man of God peculiarly sensitive to spiritual influences and radiating an atmosphere of natural and beautiful piety. An almost impenetrable shyness, combined with genuine humility and unaffected modesty, were among his characteristics. The secret of his powerful influence lay in his intuitive spiritual genius, his lifelong concentration upon sermonic preparation and his daily practice of the presence of God.
End of File. Return to Top . . .
<< Back to the Biographies A-Z Index
<< Back to the Obituaries A-Z Index
(The Rejoice & Sing Enchiridion:edited by David Goodall; last amended 20/12/03)