VOICE OF NONCONFORMITY
William Robertson Nicoll and the British Weekly
By Keith A. Ives. The Lutterworth Press. 323 pages. £23.00
ISBN 978 0 718 892 227
The name of William Robertson Nicoll (WRN) may not be well known today, but a century ago he was the highly influential editor of the widely-read British Weekly and friend of Lloyd George, James Barrie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, and all the leading theologians of the day.
At this time the number of nonconformists in Britain nearly equalled that of Anglicans, and politicians were obliged to take serious note of the ‘Nonconformist conscience’. The Nonconformist heyday was shortlived, however, and in the career of WRN there are indications of its fragility.
