Biography
Stanley Howard Frodsham was born on March 6, 1882, in England, in a family of the working class. He grew up in the north of England, in a devout Christian home. He was educated in the local schools. As a young man, he felt a call to the ministry. In 1904, he emigrated to the United States, where he lived in Chicago for a time. He was a young man of a keen mind and a gift for writing. In 1907, he heard of the Pentecostal revival, and he was baptized in the Holy Spirit. He took part in the early Pentecostal movement in the United States. He worked as a pastor and an evangelist.
In 1909, he moved to Springfield, Missouri, and became an editor. He took up the work of the Pentecostal movement as a writer. In 1914, when the Assemblies of God was formed, he was involved in its founding. In 1921, he was appointed the editor of the Pentecostal Evangel, the weekly paper of the denomination. He held the post for twenty-eight years, until 1949. Under his editorship, the paper reached a wide circle and became the voice of the Pentecostal movement. He wrote a large number of articles and gave the movement a voice. He also set up a program of mission support.
He was a man of a warm and gentle spirit, who took pains to encourage others. He wrote several books, which were widely read. His best-known work was With Signs Following, published in 1926, which was the first history of the Pentecostal movement. It told the story of the early years and the great outpouring of the Spirit in the United States and around the world. It was based on the personal recollections of many who were involved. It remains a primary source for the history of Pentecostalism. He also wrote a biography of the English evangelist Smith Wigglesworth, Smith Wigglesworth, Apostle of Faith, published in 1948, which was a classic of its kind. It helped to make Wigglesworth known to the world.
His other books include Miracles in My Life, The Accuser of the Brethren and Arrows from the Pentecostal Bow. He wrote with simplicity and with warm devotion. He was a man who loved to tell stories of the work of God. He had a special gift for explaining the Pentecostal experience to those who were outside the movement.
In his later years, he was drawn into the Latter Rain movement, which began in 1948 in Canada and which taught that there was a new outpouring of the Spirit, with new gifts such as the laying on of hands and prophecy. The Assemblies of God rejected the movement, and Frodsham was forced to resign from his position as editor. It was a painful end to his career. He moved to California, where he lived in retirement. He continued to write.
He died on January 24, 1969, in Springfield, Missouri, at the age of eighty-six. His life shows the effect of an editor who gave a voice to a movement and who recorded its history. His books remain a source of information about the early years of Pentecostalism.