A Handful of Stars: Texts That Have Moved Great Minds

Frank William Boreham OBE (3 March 1871, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England - 18 May 1959, Melbourne, Victoria) was a Baptist preacher best known in New Zealand, Australia, and England.


Boreham's birth coincided with the end of the Franco-Prussian War. He could say in later life, "Salvoes of artillery and peals of bells echoed across Europe on the morning of my birth." He was one of 10 children.

Boreham heard the great American preacher Dwight L. Moody during his youth. On another occasion he was badly injured and spent considerable time in hospital recovering, nursed by a Roman Catholic woman who widened his insight of ecumenism.

Boreham became a Baptist preacher after conversion to Christianity while working in London. He was probably the last student interviewed by Charles Spurgeon for entry into his Pastor's College. After graduation, Boreham accepted a ministry at Mosgiel church, Dunedin, New Zealand, in March 1895 and there began his prolific writings, initially for the local newspaper.

He later was a pastor in Hobart, Tasmania, and then on mainland Australia in Melbourne at Armadale and Kew.

He notionally retired in 1928 at age 57, but continued to preach and write. During Billy Graham's evangelistic campaign in Australia in early 1959 Graham sought out Boreham for a discussion, due in great part to Boreham's widely read and respected writings. (wikipedia.org)