"[3] In 1869, he entered the office of colonial brokers in Mincing Lane, London; but the following year, he was suddenly converted while sitting alone reading a Greek play.

[9] In 1889, Fegan married Mary Pope, who quickly became her husband's associate, caring for him "with assiduous forethought and sympathy, and in many a tight corner advising him in the work.

[12] After the expiration of the lease on the Greenwich property in 1900, Fegan decided to move the orphanage to the country and in a spirit of "divine recklessness" offered £4,500 for a building at Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire worth ten times that amount.

The mortgage holder readily agreed to sell if payment were made within two weeks, and Fegan duly raised the sum after meeting with his friends for nightly prayer.

[13] In 1913 Fegan vacated the Southwark Street property and opened another building at 62-64 Horseferry Road, which he called "The Red Lamp" because of the light left on at night to signal assistance given to anyone who needed shelter whatever the hour.

Charles Darwin lived nearby, and once when Fegan took his boys camping in the neighborhood, they sang hymns in front of his residence, Down House.

"[20] Even a private secretary who greatly admired Fegan called him "autocratic, dictatorial and impatient, for he was a perfectionist and did not suffer fools gladly."