Journal: Emmaus Journal
Volume: EMJ 15:1 (Summer 2006)
Article: Inglis Fleming: Understudy To The “Chief Men”
Author: Kenneth C. Fleming

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EMJ 15:1 (Summer 2006) p. 109

Inglis Fleming: Understudy To The “Chief Men”

Kenneth C. Fleming

Ken Fleming is faculty emeritus at Emmaus Bible College. For twenty-five years he was a missionary in South Africa among the Zulu people. From 1977 to 2002 he was head of the Missions department at Emmaus. He continues his ministry through preaching and writing.

Great men of the Word dominated the early history of the Brethren movement. The book Chief Men among the Brethrenby Henry Pickering contains biographical sketches of prominent men God used in the initial stages. Near the end of that first generation of “chief men,” God raised up a young man by the name of Inglis Fleming, who was my grandfather. For the next seventy-five years Inglis ministered among assemblies on both sides of the Atlantic. Because of his very long life he was, by the 1950’s, perhaps, the last direct link with the “chief men,” among whom he grew up. These men had a profound influence on his life—men such as John Nelson Darby, William Kelly, Charles H. Mackintosh, George Wigram, Sir Edward Denny, J. G. Bellett, and Lord Adalbert Cecil.

Inglis Fleming was born January 14, 1859, in England and died May 13,1955, at Claremont, California. He was educated as an architect and quantity surveyor and subsequently was employed as an architect for several years in London. He had been saved early in life and soon came into contact with some of the early Exclusive Brethren who stimulated him to deep personal Bible study and the use of available Bible study reference books and commentaries. They then encouraged him with opportunities to serve God by taking him with them as an understudy in their own ministries among the exclusive assemblies of Great Britain. As he studied under their guidance, he grew in wisdom and understanding as well as spiritually. His wife, Mary Hogg, was born in 1860. Inglis and Mary married in 1890, a marriage that lasted fifty-seven years until her home call in 1947.

EMJ 15:1 (Summer 2006) p. 110

Children’s Ministry

The Wordless Book

Inglis Fleming soon gave up his profession as an architect in London to give himself wholly to the work of the Lord. Beginning in the 1880s, he was best known as a children’s speaker. He spent summers holding services for children at English beach holiday areas, first at Lowestoft, and then also at Waltham, Filey, and North Shields. He was a pioneer in this work at the same time and in the same place as Josiah Spiers, who began the CSSM (Children’s Special Service Mission) in Islington, London. CSSM and its partner, Scripture Union, grew to be a worldwide work, now called SU. It may be that these two men were acquainted.

In the late 1800s God raised up Inglis Fleming to beg...

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