Methodist Minister and "a great Missionary Statesman"

by Rev. Alan Warrell.

 

WILLIAM Goudie was born in 1857 at Channerwick towards the southern tip of

Mainland Shetland. His was a godly family worshipping at the local Wesleyan

Methodist Church. His father, like so many other men, supported his family by

fishing. But this pattern of life was disrupted when William was eight years of

age. His mother died and his father struggling to care for his four children

moved into Lerwick and remarried. His plan was to emigrate to New Zealand. But

this did not work out.

However, he was offered the post of colporteur (a distributor of Christian

literature) for the Religious Tract and Book Society of Edinburgh and in 1874

the family moved to Consett in County Durham.

Here at Consett they attended the local Wesleyan Methodist Church and within a

fortnight William gave his life to God. It was during the visit of the Rev.

William Litle on Furlough from India that William Goudie responded to the call

to become a missionary. He was then seventeen. He spoke to his minister and

sought to enter the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. In 1879 he

entered Richmond College where he  proved to be an able student.

Two and a half years later he was appointed to India sailing in 1882 to Madras

where he took charge of the English Work at the Black Town Church.

He was just 24 years old. He was a gifted preacher and the word prospered but

his heart was burdened for the outcaste and depressed classes and he set himself

to become proficient in the Tamil tongue.

At this time he married Elizabeth Routledge also from Consett (1885) and as

Superintendent of the Madras North and Madras West Circuits began work at Ikkadu

where they lived in a "grass house"

 Hindu opposition to this development was considerable and resulted in his

being stoned. But he persisted with schemes to improve the lot of the pariah

people. At first the people did not understand his motives but gradually they

came to realise that what he did was for love of them, and they began to

respond. He initiated the building of a children's home, girls' and boys'

boarding schools, a hospital and dispensary and a lace hall to give employment.

He was a prodigious walker devoting himself to reaching every village and always

had time for the children.

In 1881 there was a spiritual awakening at Ikkadu to be followed by a cholera

epidemic. This brought out in William Goudie the very best. He tended the sick

when no one else would. He sat with them and, when they died, with his own

hands, he dug their graves when others refused. Such was the man and such was

his dedication to the missionary cause to be used so effectively in his later

ministry.

After 25 years of service in India he returned in 1906 to England for his

family's health sake. He was appointed to the Croydon (London Road) Circuit and

laboured there for three years. In 1907 he was elected to the Legal Hundred - at

that time the legislative body of the Church.

During his time at what was to prove to be his only Home Circuit he was in great demand as a missionary speaker and advocate. It was no great surprise, therefore, when in 1909 he was appointed to be the Secretary of the Missionary Centenary Movement to fashion its Centenary celebrations in 1913. He made it his concern to inform and enkindle the prayers and giving of the Church. He refused to badger people for money where their convictions did not rise to the level of their giving. Nevertheless £280,000, a colossal sum for that time, was raised as a thanksgiving to God to be used in future work. With the Rev Henry Haigh, who was then President of the Conference, he travelled the country
speaking and raising missionary
awareness. In one week in November he travelled 1200 miles and spoke at 17
meetings! Needless to say the celebrations were a success.
At the Leeds Conference in 1914
Goudie became one of the General Secretaries of the Missionary Society.
His brief was Africa and in 1914-15 he visited West Africa. Subsequently he undertook a difficult task in South Africa in 1919 and later visited Ceylon, India and Burma carrying out a very strenuous programme.
Besides his overseas visits to encourage local churches and to gain information which he communicated to the Church at home he was involved in what was to become the Ecumenical Movement of today. In his funeral address Dr J. H. Ritson said — "He was statesman enough to realise that the interests of the Kingdom of God demand co-operation". He took part in the Commissions that prepared the Edinburgh Conference of 1910 and later served on the Continuation Committee and subsequently the Emergency Committee. In 1921 he was nominated to a place on the International
Missionary Council and was a member of the Conference of Missionaries Societies of

Great Britain and Ireland, and of its Standing Committee.

William Goudie worked on a wide stage and colleagues not only told how highly he

was regarded in India and at home but also how he never spared himself in the

pursuit of his calling.

At the 1921 Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church he was elected to become

the President the following year. As President Designate he planned to use his

year of office to hold weekend Conferences of Younger Laymen. Busy as ever he

entered a nursing home "for only a slight operation" for the treatment of a

polypus. However the condition proved more serious than expected and pneumonia set in and on

Palm Sunday, 9th April 1922 he died.

His funeral service was held in Wesley's Chapel in City Road, London, after which he was buried in Marylebone Cemetery in Finchley.