Donald Soper

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Donald Oliver Soper, Baron Soper (January 31, 1903 - December 22, 1998) was a prominent Methodist minister, socialist and pacifist. He was educated at Aske's School in south London, at St. Catharine's College in the University of Cambridge, and at the London School of Economics, where he took his PhD. He was an exceptional sportsman who captained his school at football, cricket, and boxing, but he withdrew from cricket after he accidentally killed an opposing batsman with a fast delivery when bowling.

Soper offered as a candidate for the Methodist ministry, and while still a probationary minister (in his first appointment), he sought larger congregations by taking to open air preaching in imitation of the founders of Methodism. From 1926 until well into his nineties, he preached at London's centres for free speech, Tower Hill and (from 1942) Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park; he was often referred to as "Dr Soapbox" in honour of the outdoor preacher's chief piece of apparatus. He was controversial and quick-thinking, and drew large crowds.

Early in his ministry, Soper was radicalised by the inner-city poverty that he witnessed. He became an active member of the Labour Party and much of his preaching was concerned with the political implications of the Christian gospel; late in life, he offended many conservatives by his fiercely expressed argument that the policies of Margaret Thatcher were inherently incompatible with Christianity. From 1936 until his retirement in 1978, he was the minister of Kingsway Hall, a "Central hall" within the Methodist church and the home of the West London Methodist Mission^[1] which exercised a ministry of practical care for marginalised groups such as the homeless, unmarried mothers and alcoholics. He served as President of the Methodist Conference in 1953-54.

Soper took up many unpopular causes. As well as being a socialist, he was a teetotaler, a vigorous opponent of blood sports and gambling (he criticised the British Royal Family's association with horse racing), and most notably, a pacifist. He joined the Peace Pledge Union in 1937 and preached pacifism throughout the Second World War, being deemed so effective that he was banned from broadcasting on the BBC. He was active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from its beginnings, and was president of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in England for many years until his death. For twenty years he wrote regularly for the socialist magazine Tribune, and 1958 was elected as an alderman (Labour) of the London County Council. After the abolition of the LCC, he became an alderman on the Greater London Council (1964-5) and accepted the offer of a life peerage from the Labour government of the day, and so became as Baron Soper, of Kingsway in the London Borough of Camden the first Methodist minister to sit in the House of Lords, an organisation he opposed (he referred to it as "proof of the reality of life after death") but which he was able to use as a platform for the expression of his views.

In 1959 when Soper was preaching in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, Ian Paisley threw a bible at Soper's head because Soper had questioned the literal truth of the bible. [2]

In his last years, Soper was crippled by arthritis and had to use a wheelchair, but he did not allow this to stop him preaching and making public appearances.

From 2005, his old school, now called Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College has a house dedicated to him - the only one to not be named after a headmaster or headmistress.