YMCA! YOUNG MAN
There’s a place for you to go
We all know
the parable very well! A man on a journey falls into the hands of bandits, he is
robbed, severely beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. Two members
of the establishment come along and on seeing the man, pass by on the other
side. A third traveller, an ordinary man and member of a somewhat despised
group, stops to help. So it has been down the years; ordinary men and women have
seen a need and have helped in whatever way they could. Florence Nightingale,
Elizabeth Fry, Henri Dunant, Chad Varah, Thomas Bowman Stephenson and Thomas
Barnado are just a few of the folk that were moved to solve some of the problems
suffered by the less fortunate in society. Many of them were Christian and we
thank God for them.
One such man was George Williams, born in Somerset two
hundred years ago on October 11th. He came from farming stock, but made a career
as a draper, arriving in London in 1841 to work for the firm of Hitchcock and
Rogers, where he eventually rose to the position of department manager. He
married Helen the owner’s daughter and became a partner and when George
Hitchcock died in 1863 he became sole owner of the firm. This was indeed a story
of rags to riches!
As a young man he had, by his own admission, been
a bit of what, in modern parlance, would have been described as a tearaway!
However, he had converted to Congregationalism and had been exposed to the
teachings of many of the great social reformist writers such as Dickens and
Charles Kingsley. He listened to the great religious orators of the day and he
himself visited the slums to recruit children for Sunday Schools. He and eleven
of his fellow drapers formed a prayer group to encourage young working men alone
in the City to attend church and the denomination was not important. His concern
was that there was nothing for these young men to occupy themselves away from
the obvious lure of taverns etc. The group took as its name, Young Men’s
Christian Association, and it is the oldest and largest youth charity in the
world. It’s aim was to develop healthy living in mind, body and spirit.
Founded in 1844 its growth was truly amazing! Initially
spreading across the UK, it went global and its first General Conference was
held in Paris in 1855 and by 1878 the International Committee of the World
Alliance was established in Geneva to oversee 8,000 separate associations world
wide and Geneva is still its headquarters today. Down the years it has catered
for the needs of ex servicemen from both world wars, youth work and work with
the homeless and it has provided safe accommodation cheaply for many young
travellers.
George was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1894. Now a
wealthy man he gave most of his wealth away and continued to maintain that his
Association belonged to God and by the time of his death in 1905 it was active
in 45 countries. He must have felt that his dream of providing a safe and
welcoming place for the young had indeed come true. By now the YMCA is truly
international and is still ensuring young people, in its own words, have the
opportunity to belong, contribute and thrive.
Barbara Hothersall