In April 1903, Russell landed in England for a convention tour. He addressed a number of meetings, including one at Shoreditch Town Hall, London, with a peak attendance of some eight hundred. Conventions on the Continent were followed by visits to Scotland. The last time that Russell had visited Glasgow, in 1891, he had sought out six subscribers for Zion’s Watch Tower. This time attendances rose to a thousand to hear his address on the subject “Millennial Hopes and Prospects.” Other audiences numbering five to six hundred heard Russell in midland and northern towns before he departed for Dublin, where he had an undemonstrative but attentive audience.

On this trip Brother Russell spent time arranging for larger quarters in London. A likely building was located in north London, and so in the autumn of 1903 the branch office was moved from Forest Gate to 24 Eversholt Street, Euston.

On Monday, April 13, 1908, Charles Russell once again visited Britain with a view to making a grand tour with many large public meetings. In Belfast he encountered some opposition from hecklers, which he easily quelled. In Dublin opposition came during a requested question period, the opposition being led by a Y.M.C.A. secretary. Russell showed himself to be equally a master of debate as of exposition, for the encounter left both the secretary and his chief assistant thoroughly discomfited. Throughout Scotland and England halls were crammed, many people not getting in.

The president of the Watch Tower Society made repeated visits to Britain over the years. In May of 1910, he had another three-week itinerary in the British Isles. At Otley, Yorkshire, a town of eight thousand population, six Methodist ministers had caused quite a stir on his previous visit by embracing the truth, for which they were denounced in pulpit and press. On this occasion, one of these six acted as chairman for Brother Russell. This meeting was advertised by the town crier, a burly, pigtailed, costumed man who, ringing a handbell, roared, “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” before bawling out his announcement. On this tour the Y.M.C.A. secretary in Dublin prepared reinforcements of preachers to disrupt the meeting, but, according to an eyewitness, Russell ‘virtually plastered the group with scriptures’ and again left the opposers discomfited, to the delight of the audience.

The next year Brother Russell began another British and European tour. He gave an address in a hall packed beyond normal capacity with some two thousand persons in Cardiff, Wales. The Plymouth Brethren had put out a little leaflet that set forth ten points in which it was claimed that quotations from The Divine Plan of the Ages contradicted the Bible. The effect of this was that it helped to advertise the meeting, and at the close of his two-hour talk Russell spent half an hour answering the questions, as well as other questions put orally.

Back in Dublin again for a meeting, Russell was once again confronted by the Y.M.C.A. secretary, who tried to break up the meeting with the help of about a hundred young men of his association. On occasion they yelled and hooted. The questions raised were of the usual order, some being in the form of an attack on Russell. Russell answered them fully and to the apparent satisfaction of all the audience except the rowdies. By the close of this tour Brother Russell had addressed fifty-five meetings in twenty-four cities throughout Europe, with attendances aggregating some forty-four thousand persons. In the same period more than a million pamphlets and papers had been distributed free. Certainly the people of the British Isles, as well as the European continent, were getting to know about Jehovah’s organization.

By the end of 1911 more than three hundred newspapers in Britain were carrying Russell’s sermons. The syndicate handling this work was known as The Pastor Russell Lecture Bureau. It published a descriptive pamphlet about the world tour of which Russell’s visit to Britain in 1912 would form a part. This publication was about the size of Zion’s Watch Tower and outlined the activities of the Society as well as its teachings. It included facsimiles of newspaper cuttings, including many from British papers, giving accounts of Russell’s meetings. It proved to be an effective tool in the spread of Bible truth.

PHOTO-DRAMA OF CREATION

As the keenly anticipated year 1914 drew near, the preaching work did not slow down. A tour by Charles T. Russell in the late summer of 1913 embraced conventions in London and Glasgow. Speaking in London on August 4, 1913, he declared: “. . . the Gentile times will close with October, 1914​—not a great while in the distance.” He expressed the belief that the ‘burning up’ to which the Bible refers would be “not a literal burning, but a time of trouble​—that is the ‘fire’ spoken of by the apostles and prophets as being the feature which will close this present age, and the feature with which the new dispensation will be introduced.”

When the year 1914 broke, it found the Society intensely active and looking far forward. An entirely new project was launched. To drive home in a striking way truths the Bible Students had been proclaiming for forty years, “The Photo-Drama of Creation” entered the field. The first showing in Britain came in July 1914. The Society produced twenty complete outfits, each consisting of projectors, films, slides, screens, gramophones, records and scenarios. The complete program consisted of four two-hour exhibitions followed by a finale consisting of a lecture. Eighty shows could therefore run concurrently. The aim was to show the “Drama” in the best and largest theaters in the leading cities throughout the country. Advance superintendents made contracts with theater managers. A publicity superintendent followed up and made arrangements for an extensive advertising campaign. Then came the opening superintendent. His task was to check arrangements and make sure all operating details were satisfactory. Finally came the operators to carry out the meeting routine, arrange for the distribution of scenarios and free booklets and to plan for follow-up on all turning in their names as being interested.

The usual plan was for Part 1 of the “Drama” to be run for a full week in any given location. Then Part 2 was shown for the second week, and so on for the four. A fifth session was given over to a final lecture. Of course, the time available had much to do with how long each session of the “Photo-Drama” showing would be. Brother Russell was himself present for the start of the showings in London, where packed houses enjoyed the presentation very much. Then Russell and his party traveled to Glasgow and other Scottish cities to start this new work there also.