From Architect to Missions Pioneer

From Architect to Missions Pioneer

Missions Pioneer

The story of William Roome

by Tom Clarke

Many visitors to the Convention are instantly struck by the beauty of the main venue, Hamilton Road Presbyterian Church. Few however realise that the building’s architect had a lifelong passion for world mission. 

William JR Roome was born in Birmingham in April 1865, the son of a minister, and set up an architectural practice in 1893. By 1895, he was working in Belfast on a range of projects from private homes to industrial and commercial buildings. His strong Christian faith was apparent to all who had dealings with him and he became involved in many philanthropic projects such as Soldiers’ homes for Elsie Sandes which were attached to barracks in Ireland, England and India. 

The group of buildings on the western edge of Bangor known locally as the Cripples Institute was another of Roome’s schemes which was developed between 1897 and 1900. He also was engaged to work on a number of church upgrading and extension projects but it would appear that the only church building he was responsible for ‘from the ground up’ was Hamilton Road Presbyterian Church.

The minister there in 1897 was Rev Robert Montgomery and his brother Henry had previously provided Roome with his first important commission – the Shankill Road Mission building. It is assumed that Henry provided a strong recommendation regarding Roome’s work.

By the time he retired in 1929, aged 64, Roome had crossed the continent thirteen times and it is estimated that he travelled more than 100,000 miles. This is remarkable when you consider that 25 percent of that was travelled on foot or by pedal cycle. Despite often finding himself in places where he was the first white man to visit, Roome never carried a weapon and had only 2 or 3 local guides for company. Roome’s obituary refers to his “most daring and difficult feat” as being his ascent of Kilimanjaro – Africa’s highest peak - in 1928. He placed a Bible in a box near the summit to symbolise his belief that it should occupy the highest place in the life of the continent.During all his travels, Roome’s primary business, according to Willis, was “a systematic inquiry into language conditions as they affect the great work of Bible translation, and the arranging wherever possible of language conferences, where language experts from a wide area can meet and discuss common problems”. The value of this work to the BFBS was obvious. 

Roome wrote a number of books about his time in Africa including Can Africa Be Won? In this book, he sets out a strategy for winning the continent for Christ and concludes his Foreword with words which are equally relevant for today … “Ethiopia (Africa) is stretching out her hands unto God. While evangelical Christendom hesitates, halts, Islam is pressing the Koran into them … A grasping commercialism is grinding dividends out of them – Moscow is taking them to her own land and initiating them in her dread methods. If Africa is to be won, the King’s business requireth haste”. 

Roome had relocated to Swanage in Dorset for his retirement but even at that stage his appetite for work was undiminished and he became ill as a result. He travelled to Tangier for a period of recuperation but unfortunately he died there in March 1937 and his family have never been able to find his grave. 

There is surely something providential about the fact that in the year of Roome’s death, the Bangor Worldwide Missionary Convention was born. Further, that it should find its home in a building designed by this man who dedicated his life to missionary activity. The Convention, which continues to this day, seeks to inspire Christians to reach out to a lost world and we are sure that Roome would have been pleased to have become directly associated with an ongoing endeavour which was so close to his heart.

The building was designed to seat 1,000 despite the fact that the initial congregation comprised 50 families, and included a number of novel features such as its polygonal shape to provide seating close to the pulpit and steel cantilevers to reduce the need for columns thus allowing uninterrupted views. The foundation was laid in June 1898 and the building officially opened in September 1899. It was completed without the originally designed front and rear. When these were added in, respectively, the 1960s and the 1990s they were to a simplified design. 

As well as influencing his working life, Roome’s faith led him into other Christian endeavours. He joined the Home Council of the Egypt General Mission, founded in 1897 for the purpose of helping in the evangelisation of Egypt and the Sudan. In 1911, he made his first trip to Africa, to visit mission stations in Sudan.

In 1914, he gave up his architectural practice completely to devote himself to missionary work. In that year, he led the first party of missionaries connected with the Heart of Africa Mission into the Belgian Congo. In 1916, he joined the staff of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) and was based in Kampala. 

The Rt Rev J Willis, the Bishop of Uganda at the time wrote “Mr Roome came to Africa in middle life, at an age when most men look forward to a comfortable retirement. Since then he has travelled as no other man has travelled, not only in the amazing distances covered but in the extraordinary simplicity of his personal outfit”.

Sources 

Dictionary of Irish Architects / Article by Paul Lorimer, Perspective magazine - May / June 1997 

Belfast Newsletter Obituary, April 2 1937 / Can Africa Be Won? – WJW Roome, 1927 / What More Could I Ask For? – Philip Orr, 2019