Goudie, William
(1857-1922)
A Veritable Apostle to India
Goudie said, ” I cannot possibly look on
the suffering and oppression that prevail around me, and either close the eyes
of my heart, or fold my hands in its presence.”
William Goudie was born at Channerwick, Shetland
Isles, Scotland on 6th May, 1857. Born to Christian parents, Goudie grew up in
the loving care of his God-fearing mother and his father was also a Local
Preacher. And not surprisingly, the Holy Bible was the most cherished book in this
Scottish Christian home. He learned his first prayer from his
mother, but tragedy struck soon, as little Goudie lost his mother to high fever
at the age of eight. Her deep wish was that Goudie should follow his father as
a preacher. The soul-stirring sermons of great preachers like D.L. Moody and
Sankey made a great impact on the young Goudie. And soon, William Goudie knew
what he wanted to do in life. He decided to carry the message of God’s love, to
remote corners of the world.
One evening, at a revival meeting, Goudie dedicated
his life to Jesus. And to pursue God’s calling, he joined the Richmond Bible
College in 1879. On 24 January 1881, William Goudie was ordained at Clapham
High Street Chapel, London. The call for missionary work in India came very
soon, and William Goudie accepted it gladly.
In March 1882, William Goudie reached
Chennai, to begin his ministry at George Town, Chennai and also served at the
English Wesley Church in St. Thomas Mount. During the early days of his
ministry, he ministered particularly among the people employed in the railways
at Perambur, Reniguntta, and Tirupathi. Goudie learnt to speak Tamil and Telugu
fluently and ministered to the locals in their own language.
In January 1883, Goudie began his missionary work
in Tiruvallur. William Goudie had great compassion for the poor and the
untouchables in rural India. He reached out to the downtrodden in many ways,
seeking to reflect God’s love through his work. In 1885, William Goudie married
Elizabeth Routledge and a child was born to them. When their first-born died,
the missionary couple was filled with grief. Nevertheless, they continued their
work and soon had a second child, a son.
Wherever Goudie served, he was concerned not just
about the spiritual welfare of the people, but also their economic and social
well-being. He took up the cause of the untouchables and bonded laborers with
the Madras Government and then to the British Parliament and paved the way for
the government to get involved in the affairs of the Panchamas. He was
genuinely concerned about the outcasts of society, long before such campaigning
became fashionable. Once, when the higher castes rallied against Goudie and
threw stones and spoilt rice at him, he responded in accordance with Jesus’
teaching to bless those who curse you. “You have rained stones on me,” he told
his aggressors, “but God will shower rice on you.”
A milestone in Goudie’s campaign for the poor was
when 16 Christian untouchables got back their land in 1886. When the
untouchables were barred by the upper caste to make use of the village well,
Goudie arranged for new wells to be dug up and ensured that all had access to
it – irrespective of caste or creed. Around the same time, Goudie built the
first high school in Tiruvallur, giving students the chance to move out of a
rental building. The Free Church of Scotland appreciated Goudie’s help and
transferred the school to his management. During the great famine and
deadly cholera epidemic between 1889 and 1891, Goudie strived for the poor and
did all he could to feed them. In 1889, William Goudie established the
Boys Home and in 1898 he opened the Burnham Girls Home and a Hospital in
Ikkadu. In order to make the women self-reliant, Goudie established a tailoring
institute and a lace Industry at Ikkadu with the support of the Women’s
Auxiliary in 1800. He also opened several schools, hospitals in and around
Tiruvallur. In an age when organized transport was not available, Goudie did
not hesitate to walk, ride on horseback, or in bullock cart, wherever his work
took him. Due to Goudie’s untiring efforts, the Wesley Church was built in
Ikkadu village (50 km from Chennai) in 1902.
After Goudie’s tireless work for twenty five years
in India, he travelled back to England in 1906 to be with his family, his
lovely wife Elizabeth and his five children (his two sons would die in World
War I).
Goudie was appointed Superintendent of the
Methodist Mission House at Madras in 1909 before he was elevated to several
other positions. Finally he was elected President designate for Wesleyan
Methodist Mission in 1921. In that post, he returned to India once again as
General Mission Secretary and visited the mission field that he loved so much.
He passed away suddenly, complicated by pneumonia, on Palm Sunday April 6, 1922
to the considerable shock of all who knew him. Goudie was buried in St
Marylebone Cemetery on Wednesday April 12th following a large funeral service
in Wesley’s Chapel in Shoreditch. The stained glass window on the southside of
the Adam Clarke Memorial Methodist Church in Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland,
memorializes Rev. William Goudie’s ministry, as does a church built in
Tiruvallur, South India.
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