Charles Spurgeon

Lived

1834–1892

Era

Modern

Where

London

Tradition

Particular Baptist

The largest congregation in the world, before amplification

A largely self-educated preacher who took a London pulpit at nineteen and was soon drawing crowds so large that he preached in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall and then in a purpose-built tabernacle seating five thousand, filled twice each Sunday for over thirty years.

Why it matters

His sermons were printed weekly and sold in the millions; the collected run is the largest body of work by any Protestant author. He founded a pastors' college, an orphanage and almshouses out of the proceeds. He suffered from gout and from long periods of severe depression, which he described from the pulpit rather than hiding — unusual then and much of why he is still read now. He broke with the Baptist Union at the end of his life over liberal theology.

All the figures, from the apostolic age to the present, or the timeline they stand in.