The High Council of The Salvation Army elects a new general in the event of a vacancy or prior to the retirement of the existing office holder. It can also remove a general who can no longer fulfil their duties. The council is made up of the chief of the staff, active commissioners who are territorial commanders or who hold an international or national headquarters or territorial leadership appointment (except the spouse of the general), territorial commanders with the rank of colonel, and territorial leaders with the rank of colonel.[1] It is not a governing body of the Salvation Army, and is regarded as having no continuity of existence between meetings.
Sunbury Court is the historic meeting place of the High Council.
The High Council was established by William Booth in 1904. Its purpose was to remove and replace a General who could no longer fulfill the duties of office for reasons of either ill health or general 'unfitness'.[2] The Chief of the Staff could summon the Commissioners to vote on the issue, and if they found that the General was not capable of performing the role they would choose a successor. It was intended that in normal circumstances the choice of a successor would be made by the outgoing General. This happened only with the second General of The Salvation Army, Bramwell Booth, who succeeded William Booth upon his death in 1912.
In November 1928, Bramwell Booth was away from International Headquarters for several months due to illness. He was asked to resign, but refused. On 8 January 1929, the High Council met for the first time and voted 55 to 8 to remove the 73-year-old ill General.
General Booth took his case to court, and this lost him a great deal of respect. The Proceedings were delayed by the death of Lieut-Commissioner William J. Haines, Vice-President of the High Council, who collapsed during a High Council meeting and died 45 minutes later.
After over two months of deliberations, the court ruled in favour of the High Council. The High Council met on 13 February 1929, and elected General Booth's Chief of the Staff Edward Higgins as the new General of The Salvation Army.
The Salvation Army Act 1931 was passed, with the support of General Higgins. The effects of this were that the General lost the power to choose a successor, fixed an age limit of 70 for the retirement of the General, and created a trustee company to hold the properties and other capital assets of The Salvation Army instead of the sole trusteeship of the General.
The most complete history of this time period of The Salvation Army has now been compiled in "1929, A Crisis That Shaped The Salvation Army's Future" by retired General John Larsson.
High Councils to elect a new general have been held in 1934, 1939, 1946, 1954, 1963, 1969, 1974, 1977, 1981, 1986, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2002, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2018, and 2023.
British law requires that the High Council meets in the United Kingdom, although it does not specify where.[3]
Who can be a General?
The High Council established by William Booth in 1904 provided that ‘the person so to be elected may be either one of the members of the High Council or some other person’[4] Since 1980 nominees must be Salvation Army officers. To date, no General has ever been elected without being a member of the High Council.
A woman has been elected as General on three occasions.
Election of a general
Preliminaries
The High Council will first elect a president to preside over the council. After electing a president to guide its deliberations, the first task will be to establish the way it will work. The council will review the Orders of Procedure used by the previous High Councils, which distils in to some 70 numbered paragraphs the accrued experience of all past councils. After reviewing the document and making any amendments it feels necessary, the High Council will formally adopt the revised version as its own Orders of Procedure.
A High Council is an exercise of spiritual discernment, and time is therefore set aside for worship, reflection and prayer. The collective prayer of the members will be that at the end of the process they might be able to echo the words of the Council of Jerusalem: ‘It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…’ (Acts 15:28).
Time is also set aside for discussions about the challenges and opportunities that the Army faces around the world. Clarifying the issues the next General will have to grapple with helps to clarify the kind of leader the Army needs.
Nominees
The High Council then moves to the nomination stage. Every member has the privilege of nominating someone to be a candidate for general. The only criteria laid down are that the person nominated must be an Officer in The Salvation Army and be under 70 years old. The Salvation Army has about 17,000 officers, which means 17,000 persons are eligible to be nominated. But on past precedent the forthcoming High Council is likely to nominate persons from within its own membership. Only those who are nominated by three or more members are deemed to have been nominated. Those who accept nomination become candidates – and it is from this panel of candidates that the High Council will be called to elect the next General.
At this stage, the High Council adjourns for a full day to enable the candidates and their spouses to prepare written answers to the questions that the Council has prepared. Candidates also work on speeches to present.
Questions and speeches
When the Council begins its deliberations again, candidates and spouses of the candidates read out their answers to the questions. Through the process of questions and answers, the High Council seeks to get to know the candidates at greater depth and to learn more about their leadership style, their personalities and their views on subjects related to the Army and its ministry. Each candidate then gives a speech. No parameters regarding subject matter or length are laid down but speeches usually deal with the candidate’s vision for the Salvation Army if elected General.
Election
After the questions and speeches, the election itself begins. Each member in turn receives a voting paper from the President and in a secluded area places a tick/check against one of the names on the paper before putting it in a ballot box. The process is unhurried and can take up to an hour for each ballot. After the voting has been completed the tellers count the votes. The Salvation Army Act 1980 – by which the High Council is governed – stipulates
that in the first three ballots a candidate must get the vote of more than two-thirds of the members present to be elected
that from the fourth ballot onwards a candidate need only receive the votes of more than half the members present
that the candidate who gets the fewest votes in each ballot must drop out until only two candidates remain. The balloting continues until one of the candidates reaches the required number of votes.[5]
High Council of The Salvation Army, 2006
General John Larsson was due to retire at midnight on 1 April 2006. The Chief of the Staff issued summonses on 1 December 2005 to all who qualified as members on that date. The 2006 High Council was the second largest ever, with a membership of 100.
The High Council members met at Sunbury Court from 17 January until 19 January for a pre-High Council Conference led by the General. The Public Welcome to the High Council took place on Friday 20 January at the Methodist Central Hall in London. This gathering also incorporated a Farewell Salute to General John Larsson and Commissioner Freda Larsson.
On 28 January 2006, Shaw Clifton was elected. He took office on 2 April 2006.
High Council of The Salvation Army, 2011
General Shaw Clifton was due to retire at midnight on 1 April 2011. The Chief of the Staff issued summonses on 1 December 2010 to all who qualified as members on that date. The 2011 High Council was the largest ever, with a membership of 109.
The High Council members met at Sunbury Court from January 18, until 20 January for a pre-High Council Conference led by the General. The Public Welcome to the High Council took place on Saturday 22 January at the Lancaster London Hotel in London. This gathering also incorporated a Farewell Salute to General Shaw Clifton and Commissioner Helen Clifton.[6]
Monday, 31 January, it was announced Commissioner Linda Bond would be the next General of the Salvation Army. She assumed office on 2 April 2011.
High Council of The Salvation Army, 2013
Following the unexpected retirement of General Linda Bond the High Council met on 29 July 2013 for the purpose of electing the 20th General of The Salvation Army. The 2013 High Council (the 18th High Council of The Salvation Army) is the largest in the history of The Salvation Army. There are 118 members – 64 women and 54 men – with an average age of 59 years. Fifty-four are attending a High Council for the first time. Twenty-six have appointments in the Americas and Caribbean Zone and 24 in the Africa Zone. The South Pacific and East Asia Zone supplies 21 members, Europe 18 and South Asia 15. Fourteen International Headquarters commissioners complete the total of 118 members.[7]
The 2013 High Council was held at the gathering's third host venue – the Renaissance Hotel, Heathrow, to the west of London. The 1934 and 1939 High Councils were held at Clapton Congress Hall in east London, with all other High Councils since the first in 1929 taking place at Sunbury Court in west London, which was undergoing a major refurbishment at the time.[3]
On 29 July 2013, the first official day of the High Council's meeting, the members elected:
President of the 18th High Council - Commissioner William Roberts (National Commander of USA)
Vice-President of the 18th High Council - Commissioner Birgitte Brekke (International Secretary for Europe)
Chaplain of the 18th High Council - Commissioner James Condon (Territorial Commander, Australia Eastern) [8]
On 31 July 2013, on the third day of the High Council's meeting, the members nominated the following people for general:
The Salvation Army (TSA) is a Protestant Christian church and an international charitable organization headquartered in London, England. It is aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement. The organization reports a worldwide membership of over 1.7million, consisting of soldiers, officers, and adherents who are collectively known as salvationists. Its founders sought to bring salvation to the poor, destitute, and hungry by meeting both their "physical and spiritual needs". It is present in 133 countries, running charity shops, operating shelters for the homeless, and disaster relief and humanitarian aid to developing countries.
John Alfred Larsson was a Swedish Salvationist, writer and composer of Christian music and hymns, who was the 17th General of The Salvation Army.
General is the title of the international leader and chief executive officer of The Salvation Army, a Christian denomination with extensive charitable social services that gives quasi-military rank to its ministers. The general is elected by the High Council of The Salvation Army and serves a term of five years, which may be extended to seven years. According to the organization, the general is purported to be chosen by God, and the council identifies that person. Lyndon Buckingham is the current general, who assumed office on 3 August 2023 upon the retirement of Brian Peddle. The organization's founder, William Booth, was the first and longest-serving general. There have been 22 generals as of 2023.
The Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army is a Commissioner appointed by the General of The Salvation Army as the second in command internationally. The Chief of the Staff is stationed at International Headquarters in London.
William Bramwell Booth, CH was a Salvation Army officer, Christian and British charity worker who was the first Chief of Staff (1881–1912) and the second General of The Salvation Army (1912–1929), succeeding his father, William Booth.
Shaw Clifton was a Salvation Army Officer born to Salvation Army officer parents stationed in Northern Ireland, who served as the 18th General of the Salvation Army. He succeeded John Larsson on 2 April 2006.
John Gowans was a Scottish clergyman, who was the 16th General of The Salvation Army from 1999 to 2002, succeeding General Paul Rader. He is also notable for pairing with General John Larsson in the composition of many songs and musicals.
Bramwell Harold Tillsley was a Canadian salvationist and writer, who was the 14th General of The Salvation Army (1993–1994). General Tillsley died on Saturday, November 2, 2019, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Commissioner Barry C. Swanson is an American Salvation Army Officer who was commissioned as an Officer in The Salvation Army on June 11, 1978 and who was the 23rd Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army under Salvation Army Generals Shaw Clifton and Linda Bond. He was succeeded by Andre Cox in February 2013. Swanson was also a candidate for the 20th General of The Salvation Army in August 2013, but he was not elected.
The rank of Commissioner in The Salvation Army is the second highest rank attainable by Officers in the organisation, and many of the Army's Territorial Commanders and even the Chief of the Staff hold this rank. The rank of Commissioner has been an active rank since 1880, and is one of the original ranks created by General William Booth, the first appointed Commissioner being George Scott Railton.
Linda Bond is a former General of the Salvation Army; she was the 19th person to hold the position. She was born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada.
General André Cox is the former chief executive officer (CEO) and 20th General of The Salvation Army. He was commissioned as an Officer in The Salvation Army on 25 May 1979. He was elected to the position of General by the 18th High Council of The Salvation Army on 3 August 2013 and retired on 3 August 2018; he was succeeded by Brian Peddle.
General Brian Peddle was the 21st General of The Salvation Army from 3 August 2018 to 3 August 2023. He was formerly the 26th Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army from 1 November 2015 until 3 August 2018 under General André Cox.
Lyndon Vernon Wayne Buckingham is a Salvation Army officer and Christian minister from New Zealand, currently serving as the General of The Salvation Army since 3 August 2023. He is the first person from New Zealand to hold the office.
Sunbury court is a historic building located in Sunbury-on-Thames. Since the 1920s the court has been owned by The Salvation Army and has been the meeting place of the High Council of The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army Act 1980 is the legislation that governs the International Headquarters of The Salvation Army. The act limits and regulates the authority of the general of The Salvation Army, who serves as the organisation's chief executive officer (CEO). The legislation gained royal assent from Elizabeth II on 1 August 1980 and took immediate effect.
The Salvation Army Act 1931 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was passed in 1931. Until it was amended in 1963 and again in 1980, the legislation governed the International Headquarters of The Salvation Army. The act limited and regulated the authority of the general of The Salvation Army, who serves as the organisation's chief executive officer (CEO), and removed his ability to act as the sole owner of Salvation Army trusts. The legislation gained royal assent from George V on 31 July 1931 and took immediate effect.
Henry Mapp was a British minister and Salvation Army officer who served as the 4th Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army.
Charles Baugh was an English minister and Salvation Army officer who served as the 7th Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army from 1943 until 1946.
Earle Maxwell is an Australian minister and Salvation Army officer who served as the 19th Chief of the Staff of The Salvation Army from 1993 to 1999, as well as the acting General of the Salvation Army in 1994.
↑ General John Larsson. "How a High Council works – Part 1". Archived from the original on 26 February 2016. Retrieved 26 February 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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