William Henry Houghton (28 June 1887 - 14 June 1947) was an evangelist and the fourth president of Moody Bible Institute. Biographer Wilbur Smith said of him: "Two primary passions possessed the soul of Will H. Houghton, from the beginning of his ministry to the end… evangelism, and the study of the word of God." Houghton was known for his fundamentalist Christianity.
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William was born in South Boston to John William Houghton and Carrie Maude Grant of Nova Scotia. He was converted to Christianity at the age of 14 during at evangelistic meeting in Lynn, Massachusetts. In June 1914, Houghton married Adelaide Franks and they had two children: Adelaide Maude and Everett Arthur. Mrs. Houghton died two years later, and Houghton remarried in December 1918 to Elizabeth Andrews. On 8 December 1919, they had a son: Firman Andrews. Houghton himself died of a heart attack in 1947 while still president of MBI.[1]
Initially interested in theatre and active in the Vaudeville Circuit, he became convinced in 1909 to give up drama and instead enrolled at the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute in North Scituate, Rhode Island, but soon left without finishing. He was later awarded an honorary doctor of divinity degree in 1931 by Wheaton College and an honorary doctor of law degree by Bob Jones University in 1942.[1]
Houghton took his first pastorate at the First Baptist Church of Canton, Pennsylvania in 1915. After two years, Houghton left to pursue evangelistic work throughout New York and Pennsylvania. After a series of revivalistic meetings at a Baptist church in New Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the spring of 1918, he accepted their offer of the pastorate and stayed until he took a new pastorate at the First Baptist Church of Norristown, Pennsylvania in the fall of 1920. Houghton then pastored at the First Baptist Tabernacle of Atlanta from 1925 to 1928 and the Calvary Baptist Church in New York City, the headquarters of the New York Youth Christian Center, from 1930 to 1934. In 1932 he founded the New York Summer School of Theology.[1]
In 1934, James Gray, then-president of Moody Bible Institute, visited Calvary Baptist and, impressed with Houghton, offered him the presidency of the Institute. The Board of Trustees extended an official offer on 16 August 1934, and Houghton succeeded Gray on 1 November 1934. Houghton was president at MBI for twelve years. During his first eleven years, enrollment increased 70%. He also directed the D. L. Moody Centenary Celebration that was held on 5 February 1937 and oversaw construction of a twelve-story administrative building at 820 North LaSalle Street, dedicated on 4 February 1939 (re-named Crowell Hall in 1945). In addition to the start of WMBI broadcasting regularly, Houghton established fundamentalist chain radio broadcasts and the Moody Institute of Science. In 1950, the Institute named a nine-story women's dormitory Houghton Hall after William Henry Houghton.[1]