Now the labourer’s task is o’er

Now the labourer’s task is o’er. John Ellerton* (1826-1893). According to James Edmund Jones, in the Canadian annotated Book of Common Praise (Toronto, 1909) it was written in three 4-line stanzas and published in Ellerton’s Hymns (1859). It was re-written in 1867 and published in Robert Brown-Borthwick*’s Supplemental Hymn and Tune Book in that year. It reached a wider congregation in the SPCK Church Hymns (1871; Church Hymns with Tunes, 1874), of which Ellerton was one of the editors. It was printed in the Second Edition of A&M (1875), remaining in successive editions until it was omitted by A&MR. Henry Housman, Ellerton’s biographer, described this as ‘the loveliest and most...