| He Could 'Fight Like A Devil And Drink Like A Fish' back to 'Elijah Cadman'
he could 'fight like a devil and drink like a fish'
Small boys for narrow flues! ...was a common advertisement put out by chimney sweeps in the mid-l9th century, and, as a six-year-old, Elijah, the last of a family of five and unusually small, had been ideally suited to such an occupation, Beginning his day's work at four in the morning, whatever the weather, he continued to climb up and down chimneys until he was 13, when a law was passed preventing boys being used in that way. From the age of six he was often drunk, and by the time he was 17 he could 'fight like a devil and drink like a fish'. Not until he was 21 did he become a Christian as a result of listening to a street preacher whom he'd intended heckling.
Elijah as a small child
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Methodist lay-preaching now filled every spare moment left over from his chimneys until, in the summer of 1876, selling his house and business, uprooting his wife and children, he became an evangelist with Booth's Christian Mission. Considering that he was illiterate until at the age of 22 he was taught to read by his young bride, and this supposed descendant of the earliest English Christian poet (the also illiterate Saxon, herdsman Caedmon) displayed an amazing facility with words. His reports to The Christian Mission Magazine provided not only God-glorifying reading but also a high degree of entertainment.
Elijah and family
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Cadman was sent to 'open fire' in Whitby, where the local citizens, expecting England to go to war at any moment against Russia, were transfixed by a poster announcing that the 'Hallelujah Army' was declaring 'War in Whitby' under the command of 'Captain Cadman'. As a result, 3,000 people regularly attended his meetings, and when William Booth, the General Superintendent of The Christian Mission, visited the town, Cadman announced that 'the General of the Hallelujah Army' was coming to 'Review the Troops'.
His magnificent entry into Whitby, and the effect it had upon the towns-folk was reported in The Christian Mission Magazine of September 1878.
 Click here to read Elijah Cadman's report from Whitby
Cadman was also the inventor of Salvation Army uniform, declaring at the fledgling Army's War Congress in August 1878: 'I would like to wear a suit of clothes that would let everyone know I meant war to the teeth and salvation for the world' His earliest uniform cap is held in the International Heritage Centre collection, together with his Bible, his bugle and his brass War Office plaque from the days when he commanded the Yorkshire Division.
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