Who was Biddy (Mrs. Oswald) Chambers? Part I

Photo courtesy Wheaton College Special Collections

If you are a fan of the devotional My Utmost for His Highest, you have one person to thank: Biddy Chambers.

The wife of teacher and evangelist Oswald Chambers, Biddy was the person who put that famous devotional together.

But who was she to be able to organize a book that has not been out of print since 1927?

The widow of a great man.

The Lady Superintendant of a Bible College.

A YMCA worker in Egypt during World War I.

The mother of one child.

A woman who aspired to be secretary to the Prime Minister of England and thus became an extraordinary whiz at shorthand.

Perhaps most importantly, a woman who followed closely after her God–no matter where, and through what difficulties, he took her.

Early years

Born Gertrude Hobbs in 1884 England, “Truda” suffered annual bouts of bronchitis as a child, thus limiting her time in school. Determined to excel and one day be secretary to the Prime Minister of England, she studied shorthand in Pittman’s Correspondence School.

According to Oswald Chambers biographer David McCasland in Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God:

“Knowing that many young men and women could take shorthand, she decided to outdistance the field in speed and accuracy . . . [her mother and sister] took turns reading articles and book selections as Gertrude transcribed them into shorthand. Not to content to function like a machine, Gertrude listened for the sense and context of what was read. Along with speed and accuracy, she sought understanding as well.”

Her daughter Kathleen Chambers described Biddy as being “very clever,” and noted  she “was brilliant at shorthand.” Her speed was alleged to be 250 words per minute–which is faster than people speak.

She took her first job in Woolwich Arsenal, Ken, working for General Sir William Morris. Eventual she became a secretary to a barrister (attorney) in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She typed legal briefs without mistakes.

In 1908 her friend Marian invited Truda (some called her Gertie) to join her in working in the United States, they could live at the same New York boarding house.

Truda decided to go.

Meeting Oswald Chambers

Oswald and Biddy; photo courtesy Wheaton College Special Collections library

Truda met Oswald Chambers in 1905 when he spoke for a week at Eltham Park Baptist church near London.  While he struck up a friendship with the Hobbs family, Oswald was focused on traveling to the US and Japan with his friend Juji Nakada. His brother Arthur attended the church and when Truda decided to travel to the United States in May 1908,, her mother knew Oswald was on the same ship. She wrote and asked him to keep an eye on her daughter.

I’ve written about that trip in this blog post: Oswald Chambers Finds a Wife.

Oswald had a sister named Gertrude, and suggested the nickname (he liked to give people in his inner circle nicknames) Beloved Disciple, or B.D. for short. That quickly became Biddy.

Biddy was twenty-four years old, with soft brown hair, twinkling blue eyes and a friendly smile. She reached to Oswald’s chin and had “an infectious chuckle,” according to her daughter. An intelligent lover of animals and children, she was well read, played the piano and liked to walk. She rose early in the morning to pray, shorthanding all her prayers into and exercise book that she threw away when it was full.

“She was a person who was always very mindful of others’ creature comforts. It was very important to her to have a home,” Kathleen recalled.

(Kathleen’s reflections come from a video she made discussing her mother and in Searching for Mrs. Oswald Chambers: One Woman’s Quest to Uncover the Truth by Martha Christian)

They wrote and visited each other in the US and became engaged in late 1908. You can read about Oswald and Biddy Chambers’ Solemn Promise here.

They wed May 24, 1910.

The Bible Training College

The next year, Biddy became the Lady Superintendant of the Bible Training College when Oswald became the principal. It was here that she began to take notes of everything Oswald said in his lectures.

As McCasland explained:

“Biddy . . . took shorthand notes of Oswald’s lecture. If they used Biblical Psychology as a topic for the correspondence course, she could type explanatory pages and lesson outlines . . . It kept her stenographic skill sharp and helped focus her attention on what he said. Shorthand was her way of listening.”

At the Bible Training College, Biddy kept the ledger up to day, typed letters, oversaw the cooking, took care of visitors and sat over many tea pots. The Bible Training College was busy every day with lectures, praying and the coming and going of some 24 live-in students. With Oswald busy lecturing, grading correspondence courses or traveling, Biddy assumed a large responsibility for the smooth operation and peace of mind at the school.

Their only child, Kathleen Marian Chambers was born at the college on May 24, 1913.

At holidays, she joined her husband and friends in Scotland where they hiked the hills and worshiped God out of doors.

All of this was excellent preparation for what came next in their lives. You can read the next installment on Tuesday.

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