Elizabeth Baxter

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Elizabeth Baxter
Born16 December 1837
Evesham
Died19 December 1926 (1926-12-20) (aged 89)
Hove
NationalityUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Baxter born Elizabeth (Lizzie) Foster (16 December 1837 – 19 December 1926) was a British evangelist.

Life[]

Baxter was born in Evesham in 1837. Her parents were Edith and Thomas Foster. They had a comfortable life as her father had a food processing business. She was taught by a governess until she went to school in Worcester.[1]

At the age of 21 she reported a spiritual event that lead her to become a religious leader. For a short time she helped Robert Aitken.[1]

She was invited to assist William Pennefather at his Mildmay Mission where Deaconesses were trained. Well-educated young women were educated in theory and practice for two years at Mildmay, before sending them to full-time careers in outlying missions. Whilst she was there she designed their bonnet and dress uniforms.[2] It was said that there were "About 200 deaconesses at any one time; [their] distinctive uniform allowed them to work in roughest areas unmolested."[3] She joined in 1866 and had then lead the institution for two years.[2]

She then married who she had met through the Mildmay Mission. Michael came from a religious family. His father had published his prophesies, but was he was embarrassed when his predictions failed to appear. Her husband was an ordained deacon and he had spent a time a Canada and was now known as "Prophet Baxter" as toured preaching about the imminent return of Christ. Two years before they married he had started the "Christian Herald".[2]

She and her husband were both of significant assistance to the American evangelists Ira D. Sankey and Dwight L. Moody when they came to the UK on revivalist preaching tours.[2] Elizabeth believed in the power of prayer to bring healing and she founded the Bethshan home in Islington with Charlotte Murray in 1882.[1] This was to be important to the founders of the Pentecostal church. Next door to the home in Islington she founded a training centre for missionaries and over 300 were trained before the end of the nineteenth century at that house.[2] The Bethshan (house of healing) was a quick success and buildings changed three times by 1884 when a hall was being used that could hold 600 people. That year Elizabeth became the editor of "Thy Healer" which was published giving the first hand accounts of those who were healed by their faith. In 1894 Elizabeth went on a "world tour" to speak about her work including a mission in India. Five years later she made a second trip to see the progress in India.[1]

Baxter died in Hove.[2]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Robinson, James (2011-04-13). Divine Healing: The Formative Years: 1830–1890: Theological Roots in the Transatlantic World. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 207–212. ISBN 978-1-62189-586-2.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f "Baxter [née Foster], Elizabeth [Lizzie] (1837–1926), evangelist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/47105. Retrieved 2020-10-22. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ A P Baggs, Diane K Bolton and Patricia E C Croot, 'Islington: Undenominational missions', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8, Islington and Stoke Newington Parishes, ed. T F T Baker and C R Elrington (London, 1985), pp. 115-117. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol8/pp115-117 [accessed 20 July 2018].
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