Priest in Deep Water

This book is an introduction to the remarkable life of Charles Plomer Hopkins. Charles Plomer Hopkins, a Victorian church organist, called by circumstance to a seamen's chaplaincy on the Indian sub-continent, eventually achieved an unlikely apotheosis in his announcement and leadership of the first, and, so far, only international seamen's strike. 'The extraordinary effect of Hopkins's ministry among seafarers on his own and other churches is only now beginning to be appreciated. His influence was profound. His troubles, often of his own manufacture, were great. It seemed apt to entitle his life story Priest in Deep Water, its ambiguity encapsulating both the general thrust of his ministry and the particular troubles by which it was dogged.' from the Introduction.