Oswald Chambers died of illness on this day in 1917
Oswald Chambers was born in Aberdeen in 24 July 1874.
As an infant he moved from Aberdeen with his father Rev. Clarence Chambers, a Kent born baptist minister his mother Hannah (née Bullock) three brothers and three sisters to 15 Newcastle Road, Stoke on Trent in 1876 where the family still lived at the 1881 Census with the addition of a 15 year old live-in domestic servant 'Alice'.
The Chambers family then moved to London in 1889 - they were living in at 114 Grafton Road Camberwell at the time of the 1891 Census. Oswald was baptised when he was 16.
From 1893 he studied art at the National Art Training School now the Royal College of Arts; he was offered a scholarship to stay on but turned it down. Instead he went to Edinburgh where he continued his studies only to transfer his interests to theology which he studied at Dunoon College, Glasgow, developing his skills as an evangelist preacher.
In 1906 Oswald went to preach in Japan then the United States in 1907 returning to Britain in 1908. On returning from the US, he met his future wife Gertrude Hobbs, who was known to her friends as ‘Biddy’. They married at Eltham Park Baptist Church in 25 May 1910.
Oswald and Biddy lived at45 North Side, Clapham Common, a 16-room Bible Training Centre, with domestic servants. Their daughter, Kathleen, was born in May 1913.
With the outbreak of war, Oswald took on chaplaincy duties in 1915. In October 1916, he took a post as the YMCA chaplain in Egypt where he ran a popular bible studies course for Australian soldiers. He operated a policy, not popular with the YMCA authorities, of using an honesty box to take contributions rather than expecting soldiers to pay for their refreshments.
In October 1917, Oswald developed intense abdominal pain but resisted going to a hospital as he didn’t want to take up a bed needed by a gravely injured or ill soldier.
On 29 October, a surgeon performed an emergency appendectomy but a few weeks latter on 15 November 1917 Oswald suffered from a pulmonary haemorrhage and died at 7.00 am that morning.
After his death his wife Biddy transcribed Oswald’s sermons and teachings into pamphlets and some 30 books and it is these, most especially ‘My Utmost for his Highest’ a daily devotional, was translated into 39 languages and has never been out of print.
Revd Oswald Chambers, Young Men's Christian Association