Charles Waters was an evangelical Christian who founded the International Bible Reading Association (IBRA). In his professional life he worked as a bank manager for the

London and County Bank Westminster Bank was a British retail bank which operated in England and Wales from 1834 until its merger into the National Westminster Bank in 1970; it continued to exist as a dormant registered non-trading company until 4 July 2017 when it ...

. Waters was born in Loose, near Maidstone in Kent on 22 September 1839. He converted to Christianity at a young age and was baptised by Reverend David Cranbrook in Maidstone. He attended and started leading

Sunday school A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West. Su ...

lessons in Maidstone and preached at the Bethel Chapel in the town. After moving to London he was attracted by the charismatic sermons of the young Charles Spurgeon at his New Park Street Chapel in Southwark. Waters joined the evangelical campaigns of Spurgeon around south London, at services at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall and started teaching at the new Metropolitan Tabernacle. He extensively travelled with his work with the IBRA in Europe and the United States. He addressed the World Sunday School Convention in St. Louis in 1893 and visited the

1893 World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

and Niagara Falls on his trip. Waters visited Scandinavia in 1904 and presided over the in IBRA World Sunday School Convention in Rome in 1907. He visited Louisville in 1908 and Switzerland in 1909. The IBRA received more than 8,000 pieces of correspondence between December 1899 and January 1900. Waters wrote the IBRA's ''Hints on the Daily Readings'' and ''Circular Readings'' and issued the quarterly monthly magazine ''Silver Link'' which reported on the global activities of the IBRA. Water's

nom de plume A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

was "The Man Behind the Wheel" when writing in ''Silver Link''. Waters worked as the manager of the King's Cross branch of the

for 25 years. He lived at 26 Montrell Road in Streatham Hill before moving to

Angell Town Angell Town is an area in Brixton, in the London Borough of Lambeth, south London. The area is dominated by the Angell Town Estate, a housing estate known for its poverty, deprivation and gang subculture. The Angell Town Estate was originally bu ...

in Brixton. Waters died on 7 January 1910 following a medical operation. He was buried in

Camberwell Old Cemetery The two Camberwell cemeteries are close to one another in Honor Oak, south London, England. Both have noteworthy burials and architecture, and they are an important source of socioeconomic data in recording the historical growth and changing dem ...

Camberwell Camberwell () is a district of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross. Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles and a common of which Goose Green is a remnant. This e ...

in south-east London. His marble tomb was listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England in May 1992. His funeral was held at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Following his death the Sunday School Union published a monograph on Waters, ''Charles Waters: The founder of the International Bible Reading Association'', written by Robert Latimer Sloan. The preface was written by Sir Francis Flint Belsey, the chairman of the council of the Sunday School Union. Waters' friend, Charles Spurgeon, nicknamed him "Cold Waters". Waters married a Ms. Goodwin at Spurgeon's New Park Street Chapel and the couple had five children; three girls and two boys.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Waters, Charles 1839 births 1910 deaths English bankers English evangelicals People from Kent (before 1889)