Mervyn Himbury: Principal and Preacher

Mervyn Himbury migrated to Melbourne, Australia, in 1959. Through the sheer force of his personality, he led the transformation of a small, impoverished Baptist seminary to the premier Baptist institution in Australia.
From the humble life of a Welsh mining village, Himbury proceeded to university studies in Cardiff and then Oxford. The story begins with the cultural and religious background of Himbury’s early life as a Welsh Baptist, exploring the distinctive ethos of the institutions where he studied during and just after the Second World War. Himbury’s lifelong passion for history is revealed through an examination of his Oxford thesis and subsequent publications about the puritan groups from which the Baptist movement arose.
In Melbourne, he quickly became known as a brilliant preacher and media presenter. As professor and principal of Whitley College, Himbury’s central concern was ministerial education that would serve the churches in a rapidly changing world. For Himbury, the central task of ministry was preaching, and it is with this dimension of his life that the biography begins and concludes, drawing upon sermon records to demonstrate his commitment as a servant of the word of God.

Frank D. Rees is a Baptist pastor and theological educator in Melbourne, Australia, where he currently serves as the chair of the Academic Board in the University of Divinity. He studied philosophy, theology, and education in Australia, and in Manchester, UK, where he earned his PhD. In 1991 he was appointed professor of systematic theology, and in 2006 the principal, of Whitley College. He is married and has three adult children.