George Gilbert

He was born in 1741, left fatherless in infancy and, having been errand boy, farm labourer, and carpenter, he marched away at 18 to fight in Germany under General Eliott, who took the name of Heathfield as a peer.

As a cavalry man Gilbert endured much in the wars: his horse shot under him, exposure to snow without cover for many bitter nights, dysentery, fever, and small-pox, and then home, embittered and a scoffing infidel. Suddenly a blinding light and a Methodist service at Nottingham converted him into a servant of the religion he had mocked.

While still a soldier at large, expecting to be recalled to the ranks, he obtained work here on the estate of his old commander, who knew his fighting qualities and recognised a new morality in the hard bitten warrior. He purchased Gilbert's release, and, when the soldier began to preach and was hated by rich and poor alike, Lord Heathfield declared Gilbert to be a good soldier and a worthy fellow.

From quiet talks in his own cottage Gilbert became a travelling preacher. Added to passionate sincerity he had an inborn gift of eloquence, and when he preached at the Tabernacle in London his hearers said there had been none like him since George Whitefield. But his work lay here and round about. Forty parishes were one to him, and he wandered preaching in them all.

His ministry aroused fierce opposition. At Ticehurst he was pelted with mud and stones, while drums were beaten and the church bells rung to drown his voice. But Gilbert, erect and humbly valiant, stood his ground like a soldier under fire.

He was very poor, married, and the father of ten children whom he had to support by carpentry. He built his own house and made all his furniture; he doctored his family and never lost a child or a grandchild as long as he lived.

Eventually a guaranteed stipend of £28 a year and a tiny vegetable patch enabled him to devote himself to preaching and to save £200 - which he lost to a worthless borrower. His wife was in tears at the news, but "Look up, dame; bring me my pipe," was all he said.

For forty years he continued his beneficent labours, and the meeting-house at Alfriston commemorates one of his open-air services there. He died in 1827, aged 86, and was brought to rest in the chapel at Heathfield which his preaching had made too small.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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