Donald
Soper,
the
son of a marine claims adjuster and a schoolmistress, was born in
Streatham on 31st January, 1903. His father, a devout Methodist,
was a Liberal and an active member of the
Temperance Society. Donald's mother
also held radical political ideas and was a supporter of the Women's
Social & Political Union. Donald was brought up in a home
that strongly disapproved of alcohol, gambling and blood sports and
he was to share these views all his life.
Educated at Haberdashers'
Aske's School,
Soper was a talented sportsman and was captain of the football, cricket
and boxing teams. He was an exceptionally good fast-bowler but his
desire to become a professional cricketer came to an end when during
a school match one of his deliveries hit the batsman above the heart
and killed him.
Soper studied history at Catherine's College, Cambridge,
and took his doctorate at the London School of
Economics. After a period as a Methodist
preacher in Derby, Soper became a probationer
minister in the South
London Mission. As the congregation was small, he began preaching
in the open air. In 1926 he started regular soap-box sessions on Sunday
at Hyde Park Corner and at Tower Hill on a Wednesday. Soper drew large
crowds and soon became one of the best-known churchmen in Britain.
The poverty that Soper witnessed in Derby
and London converted him to socialism.
He joined the Labour Party and the expression
of his political beliefs became an important aspect of his preaching.
Soper, a fine orator, practised what he called the "fellowship
of controversy" and fiercely attacked capitalism and the arms
trade. Other issues that concerned Donald Soper included blood sports,
child labour and inadequate state help for the poor. Soper was fond
of quoting G. K. Chesterton's words in his speeches: "Christianity
has not been tried and found wanting: its been thought too hard and
never tried."
In 1929 Soper moved to Islington and remained there until he became
superintendent of the West London Mission at Kingway Hall. Appointed
in 1936, for the next forty-two years he developed homes and hostels
in London for the homeless, unmarried mothers and alcoholics. Until
the early 1960s over 400 people would hear him preach
on Sunday morning at Kingway Hall and attendance at evening meetings
sometimes reached a 1,000.
Soper became a pacifist in his youth and in
1937 joined the Peace
Pledge Union.
Soper and fellow members such as Bertrand Russell,
Vera Brittain, George
Lansbury, Aldous Huxley and Siegfried
Sassoon argued the case for pacifism right up to and during the
Second World War. Soper was considered to be
such a persuasive preacher that during the war he was banned from
appearing on the BBC.
He remained active in politics throughout his life and for over twenty
years wrote a regular column for the socialist weekly, Tribune.
In the 1950s Soper became associated with Aneurin
Bevan and the left-wing of the party, however, eventually he became
seen as the chaplain of the whole movement. Soper was a member of
the Labour group on the London
County Council. However, he abolition of the council in 1963 brought
his local government career to an end.
In 1965 Soper accepted a life peerage and although he was opposed
to the existence of this undemocratic institution, he was willing
to use it as a forum for expressing his religious and political views.
Baron Soper, the first Methodist minister
to become a member of the House of Lords,
once remarked that the institution was "proof of the reality
of life after death".
When Soper
retired at 75 in 1978 it was decided to close the West London Mission
at Kingway Hall. Soper remained an active preacher and in the 1980s
Soper upset many Conservatives when
he argued that Thatcherism was incompatible with Christianity. He
also created controversy by criticizing the Royal Family for their
involvement in horse racing.
Soper wrote many books on Christianity, social questions, pacifism
and international issues. This included
Christianity
and its Critics
(1937), All
His Grace
(1957)
and Calling
for Action
(1984).
Although crippled by arthritis and confined to a wheelchair, Soper
continued to preach at Hyde Park Corner
until well into his nineties. Unfortunately, Soper spent his last
few months under a Labour Government that
appeared to reject everything that he had spent a life-time fighting
for. Donald
Soper
died on 22nd December 1998.
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