Richard Hobson of Liverpool

This is the inspiring autobiography of Richard Hobson whose ministry, under the blessing of God, transformed the working-class district of Windsor in Liverpool. It will be of immense encouragement, not only to ministers of the Word, but to all who desire to see the gospel producing such effects in our own time. Yet Hobson had no thought of claiming any credit for this success, humbly entitling his account, ‘What hath God wrought’.

On J.C. Ryle’s arrival in Liverpool as its first bishop in 1880, he found in Hobson a true friend, and came to regard him as a model pastor. Hobson’s parish of St. Nathaniel’s gave Ryle and his family their main spiritual home, and in 1900, when Ryle died, Hobson preached the bishop’s funeral sermon.

The story told here, against the back-drop of dirt and poverty in the largest port of the British Empire, is a wonderful example of the compelling power of love and prayer. Hobson taught his people to pray, as the one o’clock gun was fired daily, ‘O God, for Jesus Christ’s sake, send me thy Holy Spirit’, and the prayer was answered.

The change effected in the ‘sixteen acres of sin’ Hobson found on his arrival in Windsor is a striking illustration of the power of the gospel to change individual lives and transform whole communities.