Gipsy Smith

Rodney Smith, known to the world as Gipsy Smith, was born on March 31, 1860, in a tent in Epping Forest, near London, England. His parents were Romani people, and they lived the traveling life of their people. His father, Cornelius, was a maker of baskets and a horse trader, and his mother, Mary, died of smallpox when Rodney was a small child. The family was poor, and the children did not go to school. Rodney grew up unable to read or write. He traveled the roads of England with the family caravan and learned to play the violin.

His father was converted at a revival meeting and began to preach to the Romani people. Rodney followed him, and in 1876, at the age of sixteen, he was himself converted at a mission in Cambridge. He later said that he had known nothing about the Bible but that the message of God's love had gone to his heart. He taught himself to read, using the Bible as his textbook, and he sat by the roadside spelling out the words. He began to speak to others about his faith.

In 1877, he joined William Booth's Christian Mission, which was soon to be called the Salvation Army. He worked as an evangelist and was among the first of the Army's preachers. He spent about eight years in that work and became one of the best known of its speakers. In 1882, he left the Army on friendly terms to work independently. He held meetings across Britain and was invited to join in missions with the Free Church of England. He became a leader in the Evangelical Free Church movement.

He was a gifted speaker and singer. His speech was simple and warm, and he used humor and plain stories of his own life. He had a beautiful voice and sang as he preached, often with tears. People found him easy to listen to. He did not preach doctrine at great length. He spoke of the love of God and the need for a new heart. He had a rare ability to move the large crowds that came to hear him. In 1889, he made his first trip to the United States, and he returned many times in the following decades. In all, he crossed the Atlantic forty-five times.

He held campaigns in Britain, North America, South Africa and Australia. He worked with D. L. Moody and others, and he preached to presidents and to the poor. He is estimated to have led more than a million people to Christ over his career. He wrote an autobiography, Gipsy Smith: His Life and Work, which was widely read and sold well. He was a champion of the Romani people and spoke out against the prejudice that they faced. He was proud of his heritage and told of the way that Christ had changed his life.

He married Annie Pennock in 1897, and they had children. He was a devoted husband and father, though his many travels took him away from the family. He faced his own struggles with the prejudice of the church in some quarters, as many looked down on him because he was uneducated. He bore this with grace. He was also a man who tended to be touchy about his place in the ranks of evangelists, and he felt a certain sense of rivalry at times.

He died on August 4, 1947, at the age of eighty-seven, aboard the ship Queen Mary, on his way to America for one more campaign. He had asked to be buried in the land of his people. His body was brought back to England and was laid to rest in Epping. His life shows that God chooses the weak and the despised to confound the wise, and that a man who learned to read at sixteen could stir a generation.