In 1884, the editors of Contemporary Pulpit asked readers to send in lists of the "greatest living English-speaking Protestant preachers." Three hundred fifty ballots were returned, and the results were printed in Contemporary Pulpit and the October 4 issue of The Spectator. The ten preachers who received the most votes were
- Henry Parry Liddon (St. Paul's, London)
- C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle, London)>/a>
- Joseph Parker (City Temple, London)
- Alexander Maclaren (Union Chapel, Manchester)
- Frederic William Farrar (St. Margaret's Church, London)
- Henry Ward Beecher (the only American on the list)
- William Magee (Bishop of Peterborough)
- William J. Knox-Little (Liddon's successor at St. Paul's)
- William Boyd Carpenter (Canon of Windsor, later Bishop of Ripon)
- R. W. Dale (Carr's Lane church, Birmingham) ("A Plebiscite about Preachers" 1296).
Books and articles such as "Preachers of the Day," Edwin Dargan's A History of Preaching, and F.R. Webber's A History of Preaching in Britain and America identify many other prominent clergymen who did not appear in the Contemporary Pulpit's "Top Ten" list:
Preachers in the Established Church
Free Church or Dissenting Ministers
Preachers in the Established Church - Scotland
- Thomas Guthrie (Old Greyfriars and St. John's Church, Edinburgh)
- Norman Macleod (Barony Church, Glasgow)
- Andrew W. Williamson (North Leith and St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh)
Preachers in the Established Church - England
- Walter F. Hook (Dean of Chichester)
- Frederick Denison Maurice (Lincoln's Inn, London)
- William Connor Magee (Bishop of Peterborough, later Archbishop of York)
- Henry Melvill (St. Paul's, London)
- J.B. Mozley (Canon of Worcester)
- E. B. Pusey (Christ Church, Oxford)
- Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (Dean of Westminster)
Free Church or Dissenting Ministers - Scotland
- Thomas Chalmers (St. John's, Glasgow)
- Robert Gordon (Free High Church, Edinburgh)
- John Kennedy (Free church at Dingwall)
- George Adam Smith (West Free Church, Brechin and Queen's Cross Free Church, Aberdeen)
- Alexander Whyte (Free St. George's, Edinburgh)
Free Church or Dissenting Ministers - England
- Thomas Binney (King's Weigh House, London)
- Hugh S. Brown (Myrtle Street Baptist Church, Liverpool)
- John Cumming (National Scottish Church, Covent Garden)
- Samuel Martin (Highbury Chapel, Cheltonham and Metropolitan Chapel, Westminster)
- F. B. Meyer (Regents Park Chapel and Christ Church, London)
- James Parsons (Salem Chapel, York)
[Adapted from Chapter 1 of The Victorian Pulpit: Spoken and Written sermons in Nineteenth-Century Britain.]
Additional adaptations of the Victorian Pulpit available on the Victorian Web
- Theories of Preaching
- Methods of sermon Delivery
- Sermon Publishing and Reviewing
- The "Efficiency" of Victorian Preaching
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon
- John Henry Newman
- George MacDonald
- Bibliography
- Table of Contents of the Print Version
- Ordering Information
Last modified 1998
Last modified 11 April 2018