- Source: Ramsden Balmforth
Ramsden Balmforth (13 January 1861 – 31 December 1941) was an English-born Unitarian minister and author who spent much of his life in South Africa.
Early life
Balmforth was born in Huddersfield, England, in 1861, the son of Nanny (née Moorhouse) and Watts Ramsforth. His father was a mechanic and a secularist.
As a young man, Balmforth joined the Fabian Society and became a friend of George Bernard Shaw. In 1886 he published a socialist-themed novel (his only work of fiction) under the pseudonym "Laon Ramsey".
In 1893, he married Agnes Ellam (1865–1945); the couple had two daughters and one son.
In 1894, he entered Manchester College, Oxford, where he studied theology and became a Unitarian minister. After serving as minister of the Huddersfield Unitarian church, he emigrated to South Africa in 1897.
South African career
Balmforth served as minister of Cape Town's Free Protestant (Unitarian) Church from 1897–1937. He published a number of books and articles on theology, politics, pacifism, and literature, and was one of the first clergymen to preach on South African radio.
He died in Cape Town on 31 December 1941.
Selected bibliography
Landon Deecroft: a socialistic novel (1886; published under the pseudonym Laon Ramsey)
The New Reformation and its relation to moral and social problems (1893)
The Evolution of Christianity (1898)
Some Social and Political Pioneers of the Nineteenth Century (1900)
The Bible from the Standpoint of the Higher Criticism: The Old Testament (1904)
The New Testament in the Light of the Higher Criticism (1905)
The Ethical and Religious Value of the Novel (1912)
Drama, Music-drama, and Religion as illustrated by Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" and "Parsifal" (1913)
The Theory of Evolution and Its Influences on Religious Thought (1921)
The Ethical and Religious Value of the Drama (1926)
The Problem-play and its Influence on Modern Thought and Life (1928)
Jesus the Man (1935)
References
External links
Biography at Huddersfield Exposed
Works by Ramsden Balmforth at Internet Archive