In the first half of the twentieth century, Agnes Maude Royden (1876-1956) was one of the most famous women in the English-speaking world. Born to a prominent and well-to-do family in Liverpool, England, she became the first woman to hold a full-time preaching position in a London church and a few years later became the first woman to preach from Calvin’s pulpit in Geneva. A lifelong Anglican, Royden wore many hats, including suffragist, first-wave feminist, public speaker, pacifist, author, preacher, and regular feature on BBC radio. She was also a consistent advocate for science. For example, a chapter in her 1924 book, The Friendship of God, is “A Modern Prophet: Charles Darwin,” in 1926 she preached a sermon titled “The First Great English Scientist: Sir Francis Bacon,” and the following year wrote “What Religion Owes to the Scientist” for West Sussex Gazette, an English newspaper.
Royden came to lecture and preach in the US six times; her travels and speaking engagements were extensively covered, in both the domestic and international press. Although widely known and highly influential in her time, Royden is now largely forgotten in the US. Most famous as an orator, Royden had a discerning mind, quick wit, and a knack for pithy and memorable comments, as demonstrated in a response she gave, three years before Scopes.
As reported in The Christian Century, according to Royden, one of the goals during her 1922 US tour was “to understand how things looked to people over there [i.e., the USA], people of many races and all classes.” However, she noted that “Wherever I went Americans wanted to understand our [British] point of view. I had not set foot in New York, before my [ship’s] cabin was filled with a surging flood of reporters, all of whom wanted to know what I thought about prohibition, whether I thought that women ought to smoke, what I thought about dancing, and what I thought about flappers.” She also was repeatedly asked about pre- and post-millenarians. After Royden professed knowing nothing about either and asked “what is a millenarian, whether pre or post?” one American responded, “Well … to give you a rough idea. One of them moved a bill in the legislature of Kentucky against evolution.” Royden replied, “I always thought you Americans had a singularly touching belief in legislation. Did he think it would stop evolution?” (Maude Royden. “America Through an English Woman’s Eyes.” The Christian Century 39, no. 26 (June 1922): 814.)
