Introduction

Biography

Henry was the son of Cap­tain John Grat­tan Gui­ness and Jane Lu­cre­tia D’Es­terre, and hus­band of Fan­ny Em­ma Fitz­ger­ald (ma­rried Oc­to­ber 1860, Princ­es Meet­ing House, Bath).

He was an Ir­ish Pro­test­ant preach­er and au­thor, and the great evan­gel­ist of the Ev­an­ge­li­cal Awak­en­ing. He preached dur­ing the Ul­ster Revival of 1859, draw­ing thou­sands to hear him.

He of­fered to join the Chi­na In­land Mis­sion found­ed by James Hud­son Tay­lor in 1865, but took Tay­lor’s ad­vice and con­tin­ued his work in Lon­don.

In March 1873, Gui­ness and his wife Fan­ny start­ed the East Lon­don Mis­sion­ary Train­ing In­sti­tute (al­so called Har­ley Col­lege) at Har­ley House in Brom­ley-by-Bow, East End of Lon­don, with just six stu­dents. The school went on to train 1,330 mis­sion­ar­ies for 30 so­cie­ties of 30 de­no­mi­na­tions. It was so suc­cess­ful that it need­ed a larg­er home, and in 1883, Eli­za­beth Hulme of­fered Guin­ness Cliff House near Cur­bar, Der­by­shire.

Harley Col­lege was re­named Hulme Cliff Col­lege; now known as Cliff Col­lege, it con­tin­ues to this day, train­ing and equip­ping Chris­tians for mis­sions and ev­an­gel­ism.

Guinness found­ed the Liv­ing­stone In­land Mis­sion in 1877, the Con­go-Ba­olo Mis­sion in 1888, and in 1898 be­gan the Re­gions Be­yond Mis­sion­ary Un­ion.