Next to George Whitefield, the most famous Calvinistic Methodist minister in London was Rowland Hill, a preacher of remarkable eloquence and wit who was a well-known figure in the City for some fifty years. Educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, he was refused ordination because of his evangelical views but became a highly successful itinerant evangelist throughout England, Scotland and Wales. During the Gordon Riots in 1880 he preached to the huge crowds in St George’s Fields, Southwark, and at this time money was subscribed to build him a chapel for a settled ministry. This was the famous Surrey Chapel, a landmark on Blackfriars Road, Southwark, for a great many years (now gone).
Many stories of Rowland Hill’s wit were circulated during and after his day. Once, when preaching near the docks at Wapping, he began by saying, ‘I am come to preach to great, to notorious, yes, to Wapping sinners!’ On another occasion, when some passers-by had taken shelter in his chapel during a rain storm, he declared that he had heard of people making religion a cloak, but never an umbrella. One Sunday while reading prayer requests, he came across one that asked prayer for ‘the Rev. Rowland Hill, that he will not go riding about in his carriage on Sundays’. He looked up and said gravely, without any loss of composure, ‘If the writer of this piece of folly and impertinence is in the congregation, and will go into the vestry after the service, and let me put a saddle on his back, I will ride him home instead of going in my carriage!’
Surrey Chapel was famous for its congregational singing, accompanied by an organ. Hill himself composed hymns set to popular music, and is said to have remarked that he did not see why the devil should have all the good tunes. He took a great interest in the humanitarian possibilities of science through an acquaintance with Dr Jenner, and he published a pamphlet on the value of inoculation. A vaccine board was established at Surrey Chapel and some 10,000 or more children were vaccinated there. The first ¬Sunday school in London also was organized at Surrey Chapel and involved many hundreds of children. Hill raised large amounts of money for patriotic and charitable purposes on a number of occasions. He played a leading part in the founding of the Religious Tract Society, the London Missionary Society, and the British and Foreign Bible Society.