World Evangelical Alliance tercentenary meeting, Queen's Hall, London (October, 1920)

The World Evangelical Alliance’s Mayflower celebration in 1920 took place at London’s Queen’s Hall (no longer extant). The World Evangelical Alliance marked the sailing of the Mayflower as “a new epoch in the progress of religious liberty, which was one of the foundation principles of the World’s Evangelical Alliance”. The event was presided over by Liberal politician Lord Charnwood. Much more than just a politician, Charnwood was also the author of a popular biography of Abraham Lincoln and was considered an authoritative voice in Anglo-American matters. He spoke on relations between the two countries, acknowledging that while superficial differences existed, there were much deeper similarities which mattered far more. Underlying Charnwood’s remarks was an anxiety about America’s seeming ambivalence to a League of Nations, an organisation widely supported in Britain. Charnwood confidently declared that Americans would never shirk their duty to civilisation.

The World’s Evangelical Alliance celebration was also a statement of a different kind of unity: that between the free churches and the Church of England. Guy Rogers, the Vicar of West Ham, praised the interdenominational constituency of the meeting while admitting that the Church of England of the past had been intolerant in a way that would be unheard of in the present day. Every group within the universal church – the Catholic Church, as he put it – had the right to worship in their own way. This kind of statement was relatively rare from Anglican leaders, but carried much weight. It is an interesting presentiment of efforts in the twenty-first century to deal with “difficult” pasts, though on a relatively parochial level. Nevertheless, it is interesting to think that Anglican churchmen were so keen to distance themselves from the actions of their predecessors, who were by 1920 seen as intolerant and persecutory.

Daily Telegraph, “Evangelical Alliance”, 6 October 1920.

Church Family News, “Mayflower celebration”, 8 October 1920.

H. Sumner, rev. M. Brodie, "Benson, Godfrey Rathbone (1864-1945)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.