When Schweitzer had recovered his health after World War One, and gained some funds from the sale of his books about Africa, he embarked on a tour of European countries, lecturing and playing the organ to raise enough money to go back to Lambarene. Wherever he went he set up committees to continue to fund the hospital.

In 1922 he came to Britain and visited Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham and London. In 1907 Britain had been the first country to recognise the importance of his radical new theological ideas, and both Oxford and Cambridge had been in a furor about them.

When he went back to Africa in 1925, the British Hospital Fund Committee started to publish regular bulletins about the progress of the hospital. These bulletins are available as research material from the British Hospital Fund, which is now based at Kenwood Cottage, Croydon, nr. Royston, Herts SH8 0DR, tel: 01223 207333.

At that time Schweitzer was seriously thinking of starting a second hospital at Nyasoso, in the British part of the Cameroons. The British government offered full support. A long fund-raising letter to The Times from the Schweitzer Hospital Fund Committee (which included four bishops!) describes it as "a feasible project.” The project fell through simply for lack of time, when it was realised how much still had to be done in Lambarene.

In 1928 Schweitzer was again in Britain on another lecture and recital tour. The impact of his presence was described as “a veritable tornado – with a riot of people surging round him; secretaries with their typewriters relegated to the bathroom and stairs; important and importunate callers, with whom he had light-heartedly made appointments and had forgotten all about, demanding interviews, their indignation melting, when admitted eventually, ‘like wax in the sun.’ And when before his departure, itself an uproarious occasion, Miss Royden tried to express in halting French their gratitude for his visit and the ‘honour’ that she and her household felt in entertaining him as their guest, the Doctor, gravely shocked, drew her aside and besought her never to use such a word as that, ‘parce que ce n'est pas convenable parmi les chrétiens.’”

Another encounter: “So moved was Mr. Hudson Shaw by an address on Lambarene given by the doctor to a meeting of which he was chairman that, without a thought, he cast his gold watch into the collection. Remembering later that the watch, precious though it was to him, was of old-fashioned make and probably worth not more than the value of its gold, he offered to "ransom" it for a much larger sum. Somewhat to his surprise, Dr. Schweitzer asked if he might keep the watch for a few days longer. It was soon returned, but this time with an inscription: ‘Rev. Hudson Shaw et Dr Albert Schweitzer – fratres. 21/5/28.’ The considerate thoughtfulness of this gesture was noted by Miss Royden as characteristic of the "quality of perfection – and I should add, of exquisite care – that gives a grace and fitness to all he says and does – trifles in themselves perhaps – but not trifles to those to whom beauty is as precious as strength.”

In 1934 he gave the Hibbert Lectures in Oxford and the Gifford Lectures, Edinburgh, also lecturing and/or playing the organ at Harrogate, Leeds, Peterborough, Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham, London.

Dr. Micklem of Selly Oak College, Birmingham wrote in his introduction to the published lectures. "It is not easy to explain in words that will not appear extravagant how greatly we were drawn to the man himself. We knew he was strong, but we found him gentle; we have not often seen such intellectual freedom coupled with so evangelical a zeal."

A young journalist, Hubert le Peet, who later became editor of The Friend and also of the British edition of Schweitzer's hospital bulletins, went to Oxford to interview Schweitzer and found himself appropriated as his guide in London. He wrote of those days as “a strenuous time, conveying the burly black-cloaked figure from theologian to theologian, from organ to organ… He sometimes forgets that other people are not quite so tireless as himself, and I've sometimes been quite sorry for dear Madame Schweitzer!”

From Edinburgh come two stories: One about Sir Wilfred Grenfell, who had founded a hospital for fishermen in Labrador, doing in the frozen wastes what Schweitzer was doing in the hot swamps of Africa. A mutual friend invited them both and they met on the doorstep. "We began at once," says Schweitzer, "to question each other about the problems connected with the management of our hospitals. His chief trouble was the disappearance of reindeer for their periodic migrations; mine the loss of goats, from theft and snake-bites. Then we burst out laughing: we were talking not as doctors concerned with patients, but as farmers concerned with livestock!”

When they signed the visitors' book – the dark burly doctor from the African river and the white-haired doctor from the snows – Schweitzer was impelled to add under his signature: "The Hippopotamus is delighted to meet the Polar Bear."

And the great cellist, Pablo Casals, wrote in his autobiography, Joys and Sorrows: “I had looked forward eagerly to meeting Schweitzer. Not only was I familiar with his writings on Bach, but I had of course an intense admiration for him as a man. On that occasion in Edinburgh there were a number of public and private concerts, and Schweitzer became very excited over my playing of Bach. He urged me to stay on – he wanted to hear more Bach – but I couldn't stay, because of other engagements. I had to catch a train after my last performance, and I had gotten my things together and was hurrying down a corridor when I heard the sound of running footsteps behind me. I looked around. It was Schweitzer. He was all out of breath. He looked at me with that wonderful expression of his which mirrored the great compassion of the man. ‘If you must leave,’ he said, ‘then let us at least say goodbye with intimacy.’ He was speaking in French. "Let us tutoyer one another before we separate. We embraced and parted.”

From this time on the British Hospital Fund was among those trying to get him the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Columbia Gramophone Company recorded Schweitzer's playing of a number of Bach works in London for the Bach Organ Music Society. The organ he had played on was that of All Hallows in the Tower. These first six works, advertised as "played by Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the greatest interpreter of Bach," proved so successful that in 1936 the company wished to make fifty-two more records.

Though he liked the organ at All Hallows Schweitzer had not been entirely happy about the arrangements there. The rector had not been very enthusiastic about the enterprise, and Schweitzer had been able to work there only at nights. Moreover, much of the time he had spent on stepladders stuffing the windows with cotton wool to prevent vibration. He proposed instead the organ of St. Aurelie in Strasbourg – an organ built by his favorite organ builder, Silbermann, and restored by his friend Frederic Härpfer. The secretary of the Bach Organ Music Society went especially to Strasbourg to hear it and was so impressed by the organ's tone that Columbia agreed to spend a great deal of money sending their recording equipment from London to Strasbourg for what was at that time the "largest plan of consecutive gramophone record making ever undertaken by an artist.”

Jawaharlal Nehru was due to be released after one of his regular spells in a British jail, and Mahatma Gandhi wrote to ask if Schweitzer would look after him for a few days while he accustomed himself to freedom. So Nehru was briefly the guest of the Schweitzers in Lausanne.

(back to top)