Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Guinness, Henry Grattan
GUINNESS, HENRY GRATTAN (1835–1910), divine and author, born on 11 Aug. 1835 at Montpelier House, near Kingstown, Ireland, was eldest son in the family of one daughter and three sons of John Grattan Guinness (1783-1850), captain in the army, who saw service in India. His mother was Jane Lucretia, daughter of Wilham Cramer (an accomplished violinist and composer, who was son of Johann Baptist Cramer [q. v.]), musical composer, and was widow of Captain J. N. D'Esterre, who was killed by Daniel O'Connell [q. v.] in a duel in Feb. 1815. His grandfather, Arthur Guinness of Beaumont, co. Dublin, established the first Sunday school in Ireland in Dublin in 1786. During their father's lifetime the family lived variously at Dublin, Liverpool, Clifton, and Cheltenham. After education at private schools at Clevedon and Exeter, Guinness at the age of seventeen went to sea, and travelled through Mexico and the West Indies. On his return to England in March 1853 he experienced religious' conversion.' In Jan. 1856 he entered New College, St. John's Wood, London, was ordained as an undenominational evangelist in July 1857, and entered on evangelistic work, to which he thenceforth devoted his life at home and abroad. He met with great success as a preacher in London, rivalling Charles Haddon Spurgeon [q. v.] in popularity, and preaching often at the Moorficlds Tabernacle, the charge of which he was offered but declined. There followed preaching tours on the Continent in Jan. 1858, in Ireland in Feb. 1858 and in 1859, and in America from Nov. 1859 to May 1860. After his first marriage on 2 Oct. 1860 he and his wife spent twelve years in incessant travelling. He visited Canada in 1861 and Egypt and Palestine in 1862. He then held a short pastorate at Liverpool, and afterwards worked in Ireland. Towards the close of 1865 Guinness took a house at 31 Bagot Street, Dublin, with a view to forming a training home for evangelists and missionaries. In 1866 he also conducted in Dublin the Merrion Hall Mission, and there he helped to bring Thomas John Bamardo [q. v. Suppl. II] under religious influence. In 1867 he left Dublin for Bath. Work in France occupied much of his time from 1868 to 1872. Next year he founded in London, and directed till his death, the East London Institute for Home and Foreign Missions, for the training of young men and women for home and foreign missionary work. The Institute was first located at 29 Stepney Green, and subsequently at Harley House, Bow. Bamardo was a co-director. During the first year the students numbered 32. At the end of three years branches were formed in London, and one was installed at Hulme Cliff College, Curbar, Derbyshire. Accommodation was provided for 100 men and women; over 1100 men and women have since been trained.
With the opening up of the Congo and the publication of H. M. Stanley's letters at the end of 1877, Guinness and his wife resolved to concentrate on foreign missions. A monthly magazine, 'The Regions Beyond,' was started in 1878. The Livingstone Inland Mission was formed in the Congo in 1878, and in 1880 became a branch of the institute, with Guinness as director and Mrs. Guinness as secretary. It was transferred to the control of the American Baptist Missionary Union in 1884 (see Mrs. Guinnesss's The New World of Central Africa, 1890). A new mission to the interior of Africa, the Congo Balolo Mission, was founded in 1889,and others followed in South America — in Peru in 1897, and the Argentine in 1899. The organisations were combined in 1899 to form 'The Regions Beyond Missionary Union,' an unsectarian body whose activities were further extended to India by the formation of the Behar mission in the Bengal presidency in 1901.
Although Guinness did not himself visit the interior of Africa, he went in the interest of his societies to Algeria in 1879, to America in 1889 (where he inspired the creation in Boston and Minneapolis of training institutions similar to his own), to India and Burma in November 1896, and to China and Japan in 1897. A second visit to Egypt in 1900 bore good fruit among the Sudanese. In 1903 Guinness went with his second wife on a five years' missionary tour round the world, visiting Switzerland (1903), America and Canada (1904), Japan and China (1905), Australia and New Zealand (1906), and South Africa (1907). He received the degree of D.D. from Brown University, Providence, U.S.A., in 1889.
Guinness died after four months' illness on 21 June 1910 at Bath, where he spent his last two years, and was buried in the Abbey cemetery there. He was twice married. His first wife, Fanny (1831-1898), daughter of Edward Marlborough Fitzgerald (d. 1839), and grand-daughter of Maurice Fitzgerald of Dublin, whom he married at Bath on 20 Oct. 1860, was one of the first women evangelists. She joined in all her husband's work, was secretary of the East London Institute and of the Livingstone Inland Mission, was editor of 'The Regions Beyond' from 1878, and, besides collaborating with her husband, independently published 'The Life of Mrs. Henry Denning' (Bristol, 1872) and 'The New World of Central Africa' (1890). She died at Cliff House, Curbar, Derbyshire, on 3 Nov. 1898, and was buried in Baslow churchyard. She had six daughters, of whom two only survived childhood, and two sons. All the children engaged in their parents' missionary efforts. The eldest son. Dr. Harry Grattan Guinness (b. 1861), is a director of the mission at Harley House. The younger daughter, Lucy Evangeline (Mrs. Karl Kumm, 1865–1906), edited 'The Regions Beyond' for some nine years after her mother's death, published books on South America and India, and was a writer of verse. Her father published a memoir of her in 1907. Guinness married secondly, on 7 July 1903, Grace, daughter of Russell Hurditch, by whom he had two sons. In collaboration with his first wife Guinness published several works on prophecy. The most important, 'The Approaching End of the Age in the Light of History, Prophecy, and Science,' published in 1878 (8th edit. 1882), went through fourteen editions. Other joint publications were 'Light for the Last Days' (1886) and 'The Divine Programme of the World's History' (1888). Guinness published also in 1882 a translation of Brusciotto's grammar of the Congo language, and 'A Grammar of the Congo Language as spoken in the Cataract Region below Stanley Pool,' containing specimen translations from the Bible, which were printed separately as 'Mosaic History and Gospel Story.' His many other volumes included 'The City of the Seven Hills,' a poem (1891), and 'Creation centred in Christ' (2 vols. 1896).
[The Times, 22 June 1910; Men and Women of the Time, 1899; Thirteen Sermons, 1859 (with brief sketch of Guinness's life and portrait at age of 22); Harper's Weekly, 1860 (portrait); In Memoriam number of Regions Beyond, Jan.–Feb. 1911 (with portraits); Enter Thou, New Year's number of Regions Beyond, 1899, containing memoir of Mrs. Guinness with illustrations; J. S. Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress, 3 vols. 1906; Dwight, Tupper, and Bliss, Encyc. of Missions, 1904; James Marchant, Memoirs of Dr. Barnardo, 1907.]