He was born in London and educated at Spring Hill College, Birmingham, for the Congregational ministry. In 1853 he was invited to Carr's Lane Chapel, Birmingham, as co-pastor with John Angell James, on whose death in 1859 he became sole pastor for the rest of his life. In the London University M.A. examination (1853) Dale stood first in philosophy and won the gold medal. The degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Glasgow during the lord rectorship of John Bright. Yale University gave him its D.D. degree, but he never used it, not because it came from America, but because "I have a sentimental objection -perhaps it is something more - to divinity degrees."
Dale displayed a keen interest in Liberal politics and in the municipal affairs of Birmingham; and his high moral ideal made him a great force on the progressive side. In 1886 he adhered to Joseph Chamberlain in opposition to Irish Home Rule, but this difference did not diminish his influence even among those Liberals and Nonconformists who adopted the Gladstonian standpoint. In the education controversy of 1870 he took an important part as a champion of the Nonconformist position.
When Foster's bill appeared, Dale attacked it on the grounds that the schools would in many cases be purely denominational institutions, that the conscience clause gave inadequate protection, and that school boards were empowered by it to make grants out of the rates to maintain sectarian schools. He was himself in favor of secular education, claiming that it was the only logical solution and the only legitimate outcome of Nonconformist principles. In Birmingham the controversy was terminated in 1879 by a compromise, from which Dale stood aloof. His interest in educational affairs had led him to accept a seat on the Birmingham school board. He was appointed a governor of the grammar school, served on the royal commission of education, and was also chairman of the council of Mansfield College, Oxford, which he helped found. He was a strong advocate of disestablishment, holding that the church was essentially a spiritual brotherhood, and that any vestige of political authority impaired its spiritual work. In church polity he held that congregationalism constituted the most fitting environment in which religion could achieve her work. Perhaps the most effective contributions he made to ecclesiastical literature were those dealing with the history and principles of the congregational system. At his death he left an unfinished manuscript of the history of congregationalism, since edited and completed (1907) by his son, AWW Dale, principal of Liverpool University.
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