Harold Bolce

William Harold Bolce (1868-1940) American journalist, traveller, church minister, writer and playwright.

Born in California, schooled in Oakland California, he worked as a journalist to pay for his theological studies. In 1896 he and his young wife travelled to the Transvaal as a representative of the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Journal. While in Johannesburg he wrote and published a four act satiric skit, A Slump in Heroes: A Transvaal War Drama without Warriors. The play was first advertised in The Star on 25 March, 1896. The proceeds from this work allowed him to undertake travels throughout Egypt, France, Italy Germany and England before returning to San Francisco, where, in December 1896, he founded The Cosmopolitan Church at the age of 28. In 1907 he published The New Internationalism (reprinted from the Cornell University Library's print collections by Nabu Press, 2010).