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This is a sharply focused biographical history of the man who was arguably the founder of Pentecostalism in Britain. Alexander Boddy (1854-1930) was Anglican vicar for thirty-eight years in the industrial parish of Monkwearmouth, Sunderland. At his All Saints Church in September 1907 Pentecostal phenomena broke out during a visit by the Norwegian Methodist preacher and Pentecostal pioneer T. B. Barratt, whom Boddy had invited for a series of meetings. Boddy remained the acknowledged leader of the mainstream of British Pentecostalism at least until the end of the First World War. He presided over a succession of seven annual International Pentecostal Conventions at Sunderland until 1914. Boddy was also an international traveller, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and prolific writer. One of his lasting contributions to the history of Pentecostalism was his editorship of the Pentecostal periodical