John Taylor Smith

1860-1937. Bishop and chaplain- general. He was converted at the age of eleven, educated at Kendall Grammar School and St. John's Hall, Highbury, and after five years' curacy in Norwood, sailed in 1891 to Sierra Leone as canon missioner, becoming bishop in 1897. An honorary chaplain to Queen Victoria, he was appointed chaplain-general in time for World War I, retiring in 1925. “Everybody's Bishop” was jovial, rotund, and saintly, a constant helper of the Children's Special Service Mission and the Keswick Convention.* Early rising for prayer, reading, and physical exercise was his lifelong custom. Daily he passed on to his friends his celebrated “Best Thought,” gleaned in his morning devotions. He believed in, and relied upon, God's minute ordering of his life. He died aboard ship in the Mediterranean and was buried at sea.