Henry Moorhouse

Henry Moorhouse was born in Ardwick in Manchester in 1840. When he was very young he was sent to jail on more than one occasion. By the age of sixteen he was a gambler, a gang leader, and was wild and beyond control. He joined the army in order to try his life as a soldier, but had to be bought off by his father at a considerable cost. He was suicidal and carried a gun for the purpose of killing himself should he decide to do so.

One day he was passing the Alhambra Circus in Manchester where Richard Weaver was preaching. Hearing a noise and thinking a fight was going on he buttoned his coat and rushed in, ready to join in. As he entered, he was arrested by one word – "Jesus." The preaching of Weaver led to his conversion and he immediately entered into service for his new Master, preaching in open-airs, giving out tracts and speaking personally to individuals at every opportunity. He soon came into contact with some of the other evangelists of the day, including Reginald Radcliffe, John Hambleton, and Richard Weaver, and worked alongside them. He travelled extensively with these evangelists to race meetings, open airs, theatres, and public executions in order to preach the gospel.

In 1868 he went to D L Moody’s church in Philadelphia and preached for seven nights. Moody was not too keen on having him at first, but after listening to him preaching on John 3:16 night after night it had a profound effect on his own ministry and he testified that he preached a different gospel from that time onwards and that he had more power with both God and man, ever since. Moody went on to become the greatest evangelist of the 19th Century.

In the last few years of his life he worked tirelessly in preaching the Gospel and giving away tracts and selling Bibles and new Testaments. In two years he sold 150,000 Bibles and New Testaments, and gave away millions of books and tracts.

Never in good health, he died at the very young age of forty, and was buried close to Richard Weaver in Ardwick Cemetery in Manchester.