Randy+Smith

Gipsy Smith was born in a gypsy tent six miles north of London. As a young man growing up he did not have any formal training, and his family sold baskets, tin ware, and clothes pins for a living. In Mr. Gypsy’s family there were four girls and two boys, and his mother died when he was a lad from smallpox. "Gipsy" Smith was a British evangelist who conducted evangelistic meetings and conferences in the United States and Great Britain. Gipsy Smith was a member of the early beginnings of the Salvation Army he also was a contemporary of Fanny Crosby and G. Morgan Campbell. Mr. Gipsy’s Salvation experience was a little unique because he had a witness from his father, he heard Ira Sankey sing, and he visited the home of John Bunyan. All of those events brought him to the point of Salvation and dependence upon God. As a young feeling the call of God on his life taught himself to read and write and began to practice preaching. He would sing hymns and preach as a young man and people in his community gave him the title of “the singing gypsy boy.” At a convention at the Christian Mission which later became the Salvation Army headquarters in London William Booth developed a desire for the gypsies and realized the potential in young Smith. On 25 June 1877 Smith accepted the invitation of Booth to be an evangelist with and for the Mission. For six years (1877–1882) he served on street corners and mission halls.