Parramatta Greats: Lily Sampson

As a writer, missionary and Salvation Army officer, Lily Sampson not only set an example of selfless sacrifice, but left a lasting legacy with her pen.

It has often been remarked that the Army is the richer for the single women officers who gave unstintingly of their talents. Lily Sampson was one such who served as an officer both in Australia and overseas from 1926 to her promotion to glory in 2000. As Lieut-Commissioner Bram Cook expressed it, “To Lily Sampson, every duty had been a sacred offering.” At her official retirement in 1966, she herself put it this way: “What better way is there to spend 40 years of a life than to learn what God’s grace can do for you?”

Background

Lily came from a family of heroes. Sarah Kells, her mother, was a pioneering officer. Her father had been a member of the Australasian Guards Band, who, during the 1890s, travelled the continent with only what they could carry. The bandsmen often took it in turns to lug the heavy basses around the country.

John and Sarah married in 1899 and were active officers for some years before resigning from the Army while their children were small. The family worshipped with the Methodists and the 16-year-old Lily had no experience of Army worship and service until her father announced one Wednesday that he was returning to officership and would be in charge of the corps (church) at Parramatta. The next Sunday the teenager was shocked by the spectacle of a woman preacher – her own mother! 

Lily soon settled into the Army as a soldier born, as she surely was, and soon (in 1926) she was at the Livingston Road Training College in Sydney, training for officership. Several appointments to country corps followed with a stint at Territorial Headquarters and some time as Divisional Youth Secretary in the Bathurst Division.

In India

Then, in the difficult years after World War One, she spent time in several Indian territories. Her generous heart was stirred by the poverty she saw all around her and she did what she could to alleviate it. For example, she discovered that her salary exceeded that paid to the Indian woman officer who was her colleague, so she promptly rectified the inequality by giving half the difference to her colleague. Her correspondence at this time allows us a glimpse of some of her kindnesses to those she worked with and her recognition of sacrificial service by the many Salvationists she met.

Between two terms in India, she worked from 1947 to 1951 in the editorial department at International Headquarters, revelling in the friendship of such Salvation Army giants as Frederick Coutts, Noel Hope and Catherine Baird.

Women in need 

But her real love was for downtrodden womenfolk. She wanted to help them in any way possible and thus was happy to be appointed Women’s Court Officer in Sydney. The appointment meant much sacrifice on her own part – irregular hours, taking on others’ burdens and inadequate living conditions. It was this work which a daily newspaper said had made her friend and confidant of thousands of Sydney women in distress  

It was also, at this time, that she protested to Army leadership, including the General, about the confined living situations of unmarried women officers – who were given a small allowance and left to find their own accommodation. These conditions limited them to single room with limited access to facilities for washing, bathing and relaxation. As on many other matters, When I felt [a rule or procedure] was unequal, I said so, and kept saying so, until I got into trouble. Then I kept on anyway – it made a better Army. Some things were changed at long last. It is good to record that her efforts on behalf of women in trouble with the law and her uncomplaining colleagues both bore fruit.  

Talents: art and poetry

Before becoming an officer, Lily had been employed as a commercial artist and used these skills in her Army work. One important example is that while working on THQ in 1936, she drew the first “Home on the Bible” logo, which has been adopted and adapted for use by Home Leagues throughout the world.

Her skills with words were used in songs, poetry, plays and articles. This writer remembers as a boy taking part in an anniversary sketch in which one band boy tells another that a bassoon is An ill wind that nobody blows good. Many older Australian officers will recall taking part in commissioning pageants written by the same officer.

One of her songs, written for the wedding of two officers, has become an Army classic. Number 711 in the Salvation Army Song Book, As the Varied Way of Life we Journey has brought blessing not only at weddings but also funerals and in many other meetings. Another interesting but less well-known example, written when she was in her 80s, is Give God the Glory, to the tune of Waltzing Matilda. 

History 

Finally, we should recognise her contribution to Army history writing. In her retirement, drawing on family diaries and letters and spending her own savings on publication, she published:

• Grassroots Army Collaroy 1994, which tells how The Salvation Army came to own the Manly Estate on which the Collaroy Conference Centre now stands, and some of the early work based there;
• Grassroots Army – Marching Men 1890, which tells the story of the itinerant bands which marched and played around Australasia;Grassroots Army – Two Wings for an Eagle, which continues the story of the Army’s development in our part of the world; and
• Grassroots Army – Andy: Stranger than Fiction. This remarkable book tells how Lily and her lieutenant prayed for “the worst man in town” without knowing who he was. The narrative continues with him arriving, uninvited, to the meeting and being saved. The rest of the story is truly “stranger than fiction”.

By George Hazell

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