A Tale of Two Brothers: David and John Hynd

History is littered with instances of siblings who took very different paths. Such happened with David and John Hutton Hynd. They were born in Perth, Scotland—David in 1895 and John in 1898. Their parents, Samuel and Margaret, also had daughters, Catherine and Grace.

David entered the University of Glasgow in 1913. His education was interrupted by World War I when he left college to serve in the armed forces. Eventually he earned four degrees at the university, including one in surgery.

He married Nema Sharpe in 1918. They prayerfully considered missionary service, and Nema earned her nursing degree. Later, David studied tropical diseases at the Royal College of Medicine in London.

They also prepared for pastoral ministry and were ordained by General Superintendent John Goodwin in 1924.1 Soon, they sailed to southern Africa. David’s mission was to build and equip a hospital in Bremersdorp, Swaziland (now Manzini, Eswatini) where they would practice medicine.

They became co-pastors of the Bremersdorp church. David’s first great project was hospital construction. Using manuals as guides, he acted as the construction site manager. The Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital opened in 1927.

A nurses’ training program began in 1928. David founded the Red Cross of Swaziland in 1932. New wards were added to the hospital until it encompassed 220 beds.

As these events unfolded, John Hynd embarked on a very different course. He entered the ministry as pastor of the Nazarene church in Morley, England, and also served as district secretary. Increasingly, though, John harbored doubts about Christian orthodoxy. In 1925, he informed the district assembly that he would withdraw from the church and its ministry.

District friends persuaded him to continue as pastor at Morley for another year while he reconsidered his position on the Articles of Faith. He agreed but then resigned a few weeks later.

Moving to London, he united with the South Place Ethical Culture Society. Felix Adler, a German immigrant, had launched Ethical Culture in the United States in 1877. A secular religion without creeds or rituals, it provided a congregational life for rationalists and free-thinkers. Its members largely rejected classical theism but leaned into the moral values and traditions of Western philosophy and religion, stressing clean living and a moral imperative to build the human community.

After several years in London, John moved to America where he led the St. Louis Ethical Culture Society for seventeen years (1933-50) and served as president of the American Humanist Association (1947-48).2 He was known for Sunday lectures that combined science, philosophy, and ethical principles.

Back in Swaziland, Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital emerged as a hub with medical outstations and mobile clinics. Nurse Elizabeth Cole, assigned to the hospital in 1935, developed a special interest in leprosy patients. David Hynd lobbied the government on her behalf, and the Mbuluzi Leper Hospital was established forty miles from Manzini. With David as her supervisor, Cole operated it until she retired.

David was active in many other affairs: President of the Swaziland Conference of Churches, President of the Holiness Association for Africa, charter member of the Swaziland Bible Society Board, and member of the national Board of Education.

King George VI toured Africa and bestowed on David the honor of Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1947, King George VI toured Africa and bestowed on David the honor of Commander of the Order of the British Empire as Princess Elizabeth—the future queen—looked on. Later, after Swaziland gained independence, it awarded him the Independence Medal (1968) and the Medal of Royal Order (1982). He was commemorated on Swazi postage stamps.

David and Nema’s love for the Swazi people was great. They chose to remain in Swaziland after they retired, living at the leprosy clinic for a few years, then moving to the capital, Mbabane.

Nema Hynd died in 1982. David died in 1990 at the age of 95. Their funeral services were conducted at Sharpe Memorial Church in Manzini, a church named after her father, George Sharpe.

John Hynd returned to London in his fifties and became secretary of the South Place Ethical Society. He and his wife later retired to Scotland where he died in 1970.

The Hynd brothers each pursued truth in their own way. John wanted to dispel religious myths and allow modern science to determine his philosophical agenda. David pursued truth through servant leadership by the faithful preaching of the gospel and by meeting the physical needs of ordinary Africans.

Dr. Stan Ingersol, Ph.D., is a church historian and former manager of the Nazarene Archives.

1 According to T. A. Noble, Nema Hynd was the third woman ordained to the ministry in Scotland. Her mother, Jane Sharpe, was the second. The first was the American Olive Winchester, who was ordained by George Sharpe while she was a seminary student at the University of Glasgow.

2 While his family called him John, and he signed his letters to them with that name, he was known publicly by the press and to readers of his books and essays as J. H. Hynd and J. Hutton Hynd.