Benjamin Short 1833 - 1912: A Migrant With a Mission: Grandfather's Story by Wilsie Short

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book edges and corners. Dust jacket has light creasing at top. Interior is in fine condition.

Benjamin Short (1833-1912), insurance salesman and lay evangelist, was born on 19 April 1833 in London, son of William Short, spice merchant, and his wife Elizabeth, née Smith. Short arrived in Sydney in March 1860 as an insurance agent and soon persuaded the Australian Mutual Provident Society to appoint him as its first canvasser.

He applied his lay Christian evangelist's skills to collecting for charity and by the 1870s was public lecturing. He was popular, with an easy and unpretentious style and his topics included 'Courtship and Marriage', 'Happy Homes' and 'Total Abstinence', illustrating the advantages of life insurance. (Australian Dictionary of Biography)

Short continued to combine his career in the insurance industry with his religious and political interests throughout his life. This biography is told by his granddaughter.