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As the wind song through the trees. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Dated 2005, this hymn was the outcome of a partnership between New Zealander Shirley Erena Murray and Singaporean Lim, Swee Hong (林瑞峰)* (1963— ). It started with the music, not the text. The composer, Lim Swee Hong, completed the tune shortly before the season of Pentecost in 2004, marking a departure from his usual practice of creating tunes for existing words. He then sent this tune to his long-time friend Shirley...
Although this account focuses on five 20th-century Australian hymnals, Australia's history of hymn publication extends back to 1821 and has involved the Roman Catholic and major protestant traditions, and others including the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Salvation Army, Churches of Christ, Reformed Church and various Pentecostal groups (see 'Australian hymnody'*). Of the hymnals discussed here, two in particular represent the force of ecumenism in Australian since the 1960s; the others reflect...
1788-1859
The European phase of Australian history commenced with the establishment in 1788 of a penal settlement to which prisoners or convicts were transported from England, Ireland and Scotland to serve out their sentences. Little evidence concerning the singing of hymns in this settlement or elsewhere in the earliest years has survived, although it is clear that hymns were greatly treasured by individuals and groups. An early chronicler recorded that the first service in Melbourne was...
Because you live, O Christ. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931–2020).
The author described the impetus for this hymn: 'The creative irritant to write this came from the outdated words in our parish hymnbook and my love of this great tune. I wanted a fresh expression of community joyfulness, with light, color and the vision of the covenant rainbow through the Resurrection' (Murray, 1992, Notes).
The tune is the buoyant 17th-century Dutch melody VRUECHTEN, music usually associated with Easter, most...
Brother, sister, let me serve you. Richard Gillard* (1953-). Written in 1976/7 by New Zealand author and composer Richard Gillard when he was a member of St Paul's Church, Auckland, and known as 'The Servant Song', this hymn began as a verse (now the third verse) and a tune jotted down in 1976, then further developed in 1977. The author says,
In the back of my mind was the passage in John's Gospel [John 13: 2-9] where Jesus washes the disciples' feet, and the re-enactments of that moment I...
Carol our Christmas. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Written in 1986 as a reaction to Northern hemisphere carols and their imagery of holly and snow which dominated New Zealand Christmas celebrations well into the 20th century, despite the fact that New Zealanders actually celebrate the festival in high summer. This carol joyfully plays with the term 'Antipodean', offering itself as an 'Up-side-down' vision of Christmas where snow is not falling and trees are not bare, a time when the Christ...
PILCHER, Charles Venn. b. Oxford, 4 June 1879; d. Sydney, Australia, 4 July 1961. He was educated at Charterhouse School (1892-98) and Hertford College, Oxford (BA 1902, MA 1905, BD 1909). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1903, priest 1904), becoming curate of St Thomas', Birmingham (1903-05) and Domestic Chaplain to Handley Moule*, Bishop of Durham (1905-06). In 1906 he left for Canada, where he taught Greek at Wycliffe College, Toronto, later becoming a curate at St James's Church (later the...
Child of Joy and Peace. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Shirley Murray wrote this text in 1987. It was entitled 'Hunger Carol'. She described it as 'a protest at our consumer society'. It was first published in the Asian hymnal Sound the Bamboo (1990) and the author's American collection In Every Corner, Sing (1992) before reaching New Zealand publication in Alleluia Aotearoa (1993) and Carol our Christmas (1996).
Fired by indignation, the text steadily extends its assault on the secular...
WILLCOCK, Christopher John. b. Sydney, 8 February 1947. He attended De La Salle College, Armidale (1960-63), then studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, becoming an Associate in Music in theory and piano. At the University of Sydney he completed a BMus with honours in composition (1974), and took a BD at the Melbourne College of Divinity, followed by a Master's degree in Sacramental Theology at the Catholic Institute, Paris (1982). He then completed doctoral studies in liturgical and...
NORTON, Christopher Garth. b. Dunedin, New Zealand, 22 June 1953. Educated at Otago Boys' High School, Norton showed early promise as a musician; he began composing at the age of 14, and by the age of 16 he had had an orchestral work performed and broadcast. In 1974, already a talented pianist studying under Maurice Till, he gained a first-class degree in music from the University of Otago, and went on to teach music in a number of Wellington high schools, where he worked as a...
GIBSON, Colin Alexander. b. Dunedin, New Zealand, 26 March 1933; d. Dunedin, 10 December 2022. He was educated at Otago Boys' High School and the University of Otago (he studied English, classics and music and completed a doctorate in English literature), Christchurch Training College and the University of Canterbury. He became Donald Collie Professor of English and chairman of the Department of English at the University of Otago, where he taught for 42 years. From 1956 until his death he was...
Come and find the quiet centre. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
This hymn, a favourite among North American congregations, was originally written in 1989 for a New Zealand Presbyterian Women's Conference whose theme was 'Making Space'. There it was sung to a Gaelic folk melody from the island of Lewis, also used in the Scottish CH4. When it was published in Shirley Murray's first major American collection, In Every Corner, Sing: The Hymns of Shirley Erena Murray (1992), it was set to a...
Come, Christmas Child. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
This new four-stanza text, written in 2013, is entitled 'A Carol for Advent'. It prays for the Christ child to 'come again in your wonder' to change the world, to come 'where our cruelties keep us in chains' (stanza 2). In a modern phrase, the Christ child is asked to 'bring us your mindset that mends and restores', and Murray is acutely aware that children still suffer as the Holy Innocents did: 'Herod still hunts for the innocent...
Community of Christ. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Written to provide a hymn on the theme of social justice, this hymn was first officially sung at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand in that year, linked as it has been since with the familiar tune LEONI. It was then taken up in Australia and published first in an inclusive language collection Out of the Darkness, then in Songs for the Journey (1991) and Together in Song: the Australian Hymn Book II (1999). It...
Creation sings. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931–2020).
This hymn was written for a Hymn Search by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians to celebrate the gift of music. It was first published in four 4-line stanzas in the meter of 11.10.11.10 in the author's collection, Faith Makes the Song: New Hymns Written between 1997 and 2002 (Carol Stream, Illinois, 2003). This collection paired the text with the tune CREATION SINGS by Hal H. Hopson* (1933- ). It appeared in the collection Hope Is Our...
GARRATT, Dale. b. Auckland, New Zealand, 1939. With her husband David Garratt (b. Wellington, 1938), whom she met in 1962 through the Youth for Christ movement, she worked as a musical evangelist, singing at youth conventions and gospel meetings. In 1963 the pair withdrew to refocus their ministry on incorporating scripture into contemporary worship music. They were married in 1964. Their first album, Scripture put to Song (1968) has been recognised as the initiator of the modern praise and...
ZSCHECH, Darlene Joyce. b. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 8 September 1965. She was given an early training in music and dance as a child at Brisbane. By the age of ten she was performing on and hosting segments of a children's weekly television programme, and went on to record commercials for a number of international companies and form backing choirs for touring singers. During her teenage years she led various gospel bands in Brisbane, then with her husband Mark joined a youth band which...
Deep in the human heart. William (Bill) Wallace* (1933- ).
Written by New Zealand Methodist minister Bill Wallace, the received text was written in November 1977 for a 'People's Night' of the combined Methodist and Presbyterian Churches held in the Christchurch Town Hall. It has its biblical model in Luke 4: 18-19 and calls for 'a vision of a world renewed through radical concern'. It sets out a social and political programme to build a world of peace, justice, truth and freedom, a world...
SMITH, Elizabeth Joyce. b. Stawell, Victoria, Australia, 27 February 1956. The daughter of Churches of Christ parents, she was educated at Euroa High School and Monash and Melbourne Universities (1974-78); Trinity College Theological School (the Anglican member of Melbourne's United Faculty of Theology), where she took a BD (1986); and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. There she completed her PhD in 1995; it was published as Bearing Fruit in Due Season: Feminist Hermeneutics...
MERRINGTON, Ernest Northcroft. b. Newcastle, New South Wales, 27 August 1876; d. 26 March 1953. He was educated at Sydney Boys' School and the University of Sydney (MA in Philosophy, 1903, by which time he had completed his theological training and had been ordained as a Presbyterian minister, 1902). After a period in Edinburgh, he undertook further study at Harvard (PhD, 1905).
He held parish appointments in New South Wales and Queensland, while lecturing in philosophy at the University of...
For everyone born, a place at the table. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
This was written in 1996 from Murray's involvement in the work of Amnesty International, and the liberal theology of her husband, John Stewart Murray*, in his church at Wellington, New Zealand. It has its origins in the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' of the United Nations (December 1948), which stated that 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights', and that 'Everyone has the right to...
For the music of creation. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Written in 1988 as a contribution to a Festival of Praise celebrating the Arts at an ecumenical event at the Civic Centre in Shirley Murray's then home town, Wellington.
It was first published in Murray's collection, In Every Corner, Sing: The Hymns of Shirley Erena Murray (1992) set to her preferred tune RUSTINGTON by C.H.H. Parry* (1848-1918). It has since been included in New Zealand, Canadian and North American hymnals such as...
God of eternity, Lord of the ages. Ernest Northcroft Merrington (1876-1953).
This was the first, and for many years the only Australian hymn to gain international recognition. It was written in 1912 for the Jubilee of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Brisbane, where Merrington was the minister. He wrote of his hymn: 'The main thought in my heart was of thankfulness to the Giver of all good for the splendid services rendered in the [British] Colonies of our blood and creed, and thankfulness for...
God of freedom, God of justice. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Described by its author as one of her first 'gap-fillers', this hymn was written in 1980 for Amnesty International's Campaign Against Torture when she could find nothing relevant to sing at a service for prisoners of conscience.
It was first published in Murray's New Zealand collection, In Every Corner, Sing: New Hymns to Familiar Tunes in Inclusive Language (Wellington, 1987) where the suggested setting was PICARDY. It has...
God of Nations at thy feet. Thomas Bracken (1843-1898).
New Zealand's second national anthem, of equal official standing with its first, 'God Save the Queen', is a hymn written in 1876 by Thomas Bracken, Irish-born journalist, poet and parliamentarian. The text was published in a weekly journal under the title 'National hymn' together with a competition to compose a suitable melody. The winner was John Joseph Woods (1849-1932), an Otago schoolteacher.
In 1940, at the time of New Zealand's...
God weeps. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931–2020).
Shirley Erena Murray explores the profound and complex reality of God's Incarnation in this hymn. She describes the context for the composition in her collection, Every Day in Your Spirit (1996), where it was first published: 'God Weeps (1994). A protest at violence, including child abuse and the battering of women, as well as violence on a world scale' (Murray, 1996, n.p.).
As is common with Murray's texts, she sets the structure and tone in the...
HAY, Granton Douglas. b. Devonport, Tasmania, Australia, 26 August 1943. Hay received his primary and high school education at Devonport. After early work in the retailing industry he studied for the Congregational ministry at Parkin Theological College, Adelaide, and at the University of Adelaide (BA, 1974). He was ordained in 1964 and served in a joint-pastorate parish in Adelaide, and Uniting Church parishes in Canberra and Melbourne.
He has contributed articles to various church magazines,...
WOOD, Harold D'Arcy. b. Nuku'alofa, Tonga, 9 December 1936. He is the son of Methodist missionary parents who for 13 years directed Tupou College, a school for boys in Tonga. His father, Alfred Harold Wood (1896-1989), played the piano, conducted choirs and published extensively on hymns. He was chairman of the Australian Hymn Book Committee from its formation in 1968 to the publication of the hymnbook in 1977.
On the family's return to Australia, D'Arcy Wood was educated at Wesley College and...
He came singing love. Colin Gibson* (1933-2022).
Written in 1972, when it was submitted for a national hymn competition organized by Television New Zealand, this has become an iconic hymn sung by congregations throughout New Zealand and far beyond its shores. It has received several arrangements and been recorded by choirs and solo singers.
It was first published in the local hymn book supplement of the Mornington Methodist Church, Dunedin, then in WOV, in Colin Gibson's own 1988 collection...
He who by a mother's love. George MacDonald* (1824-1905).
This two-stanza poem appeared in MacDonald's 'Organ Songs', in his Works of Fancy and Imagination (1871), and then in his Poetical Works (1893). It was entitled 'Christmas Meditation':
He who by a mother's love Made the wandering world his own, Every year comes from above, Comes the parted to atone, Binding Earth to the Father's throne.
Nay, thou comest every day! No, thou never didst depart! Never hour hast been away! Always...
THWAITES, Honor Mary (née Scott Good). b. Young, New South Wales, Australia, 21 September 1914; d. Canberra, 24 November 1993. Born into a Presbyterian family (her father, a family doctor, was an elder of the Presbyterian Church), she became a member of that church as well as working as a Sunday-school teacher. She was educated at the Geelong Church of England Grammar School, and went on to study French and German at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a BA Hons degree. It was while...
I know that my Redeemer. Hallgrim Pjetursson* (1614-1674), translated by Charles Venn Pilcher* (1879-1961).
This hymn by Hallgrim Pjetursson (Hallgrímur Pétursson) exists in manuscript form in the museum at Reykjavík. It was printed in Magnús Jónsson's Hallgrímur Pétursson (Rekjavík, 1947). It begins 'Allt eins og blómstrið eina' ('Even as a little flower') and has 13 verses. Pilcher translated seven stanzas for his Icelandic Christian Classics (Melbourne, 1950). The selection used in the...
In faith and hope and love. James Phillip McAuley (1917-76).
Following the success of the collaboration between Australian poet James Phillip McAuley* and composer Richard Connolly* which led to the publication in the 'Living Parish' series of their first collection of hymns, We Offer the Mass (Sydney, 1959), they were commissioned to continue their work. 'In faith and hope and love' was written in 1963 and tried out with the small Roman Catholic congregation at North Ryde, Sydney, to which...
MINCHIN, James Blundell. b. Hartwell, Victoria, Australia, 29 November 1942. James (Jim) Minchin was educated at Camberwell Grammar School (1948-59), where he studied the piano and organ. He attended Trinity College, University of Melbourne, from 1960-66, completing a BA in Classics and a ThL. There, too, he began a long and close involvement with the Student Christian movement. In 1967 he was ordained an Anglican priest in the diocese of Melbourne, and served at St George's, Malvern (1966-68),...
DECK, James George. b. Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, 1 November 1807 (JJ gives 1802); d. Motueka, near Nelson, New Zealand, 14 August 1884. He was educated under one of Napoleon's generals to serve in the army, and posted to India in 1824. His religious interests were strengthened by conversion in England in 1826, and he returned to India to witness for Christ among his brother officers. He resigned his commission in 1835. He left the army with the intention of becoming a priest of the Church of...
McAULEY, James Phillip. b. Lakemba, Sydney, 12 October 1917; d. Hobert, Tasmania, 15 October 1976. McAuley was educated at Fort Street Boys' High School, Sydney, and went on to complete an MA at the University of Sydney and a Dip Ed at the Sydney Teachers' College. He taught for a time in state secondary schools, then served in the Army Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs, mainly in New Guinea, during the Second World War. He held the position of Lecturer in Government at the Australian...
MARSHALL, Jocelyn Mary (née Crabtree). b. Morrinsville, Waikato, New Zealand, 15 September 1931. She was educated at Hamilton West School, Epsom Girls' Grammar School, and the Auckland and Christchurch Teachers' Colleges, graduating in 1951. She worked initially as a Speech Therapist in Auckland schools. Brought up first in the Presbyterian and then the Methodist Church she was involved in the Auckland Methodist Youth Council, the Student Christian Movement and occasional radio broadcasting. In...
MURRAY, John Stewart. b. Invercargill, New Zealand, 5 November 1929; d. 17 February 2017. The son of a pioneer Scottish settler family, John Murray was educated at King's High School and the University of Otago, Dunedin. After graduating (MA 1952), he studied at King's College, Cambridge, from 1952 to 1955, completing an MA in Divinity in 1954, followed by a period of study at the Graduate School, Bossey Ecumenical Institute, Geneva, where he was awarded a Diploma in Ecumenical Studies. He...
WHEELER, John Harry Rupert Angior. b. Colac, Victoria, Australia, 26 July 1901; d. Colac, 10 September 1984. Wheeler was educated at Colac High School and Melbourne Grammar School. At the University of Melbourne he studied English, French and History. He taught at several Victorian schools before joining the staff of the Australian Broadcasting Commission as a script-writer from 1938 to 1964. He wrote poetry, art songs and children's song lyrics as well as a number of plays, and co-operated on...
O'NEILL, Judith Beatrice (née Lyall). b. Melbourne, Australia, 3 June 1930. She was educated at Mildura High School (the family moved to Mildura, in the north of the State of Victoria, in 1940) and the University of Melbourne. She studied in London (1952-53), and taught English Literature at the University of Melbourne (1954-55, and again in 1959-64; from 1955 to 1959 she was in Göttingen and Cambridge, with her postgraduate student husband, whom she married in 1954). In 1964 she returned to...
BARTLETT, Lawrence Francis. b. Mosman, Sydney, 13 February 1933, d. Melbourne, 17 March 2002. He was educated at public schools in Mosman and Manly, and at the North Technical High School, where he accompanied the school choir and made musical arrangements for it. From 1950 to 1957 he studied harmony, piano, organ and singing at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and in 1960 at the Melbourne Conservatorium.
After holding the position of Assistant Director of Music at the King's School,...
GARRETT, Leslie Norman ('Les'). b. Matamata, New Zealand, 15 July 1943. Educated at the New Life Word of Faith Bible School, Tuaranga, he moved to Australia to become pastor of the Christian Family Centre, Maddington, Perth, Western Australia. He later became a travelling evangelist. He published Scripture in Song, volume 1 (Brisbane, 1967) a collection of praise songs that included the well known 'This is the day'*. He has conducted preaching tours of mainly Baptist churches in North America,...
Let Christian faith and hope dispel. Granton Douglas Hay* (1943- ).
This seven-stanza text, based on Romans 8: 31-39, was written for the Australian Hymn Book (WOV). According to Wesley Milgate*, it was written at the request of the texts committee, which found the original 'rather wordy and archaic' (Milgate, 1982, p. 46).
It is a reworking of a slightly longer paraphrase in the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1781). See 'Let Christian faith and hope dispel (Logan)*. See also 'The...
Loving Spirit, loving Spirit. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
This hymn, written as what the author calls 'a simple reflection into images of God', was written in 1986, and has since been used at a number of ordination and commitment services as well as a general hymn.
It was first published in Murray's New Zealand collection, In Every Corner, Sing: New Hymns to Familiar Tunes in Inclusive Language (Wellington, 1987) where the suggested setting was OMNI DIE, and has since been published in a...
WILLIAMSON, Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher. b. Sydney, 21 November 1931; d. Cambridge, 2 March 2003. Williamson was educated first at Barker College, Hornsby, and then, from the age of 11, at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, under its director Sir Eugene Goossens. There he studied the piano, the French horn and composition. In 1953 he left Australia to live in London to study with Elizabeth Luytens and Erwin Stein, a pupil of Schönberg, supporting himself by playing as a church...
BARRELL, Margaret (Marnie) Louise. b. Ashburton, New Zealand, 30 December 1952. Educated at Timaru and Christchurch Girls' High Schools, the University of Canterbury, where she completed a BA in Psychology, and the University of Auckland, where she completed a Bachelor of Theology degree. She is a music teacher and a Lay Preacher and Music Director at a Christchurch Anglican Church.
Encouraged in 1986 by Shirley Erena Murray* to attempt hymn writing, Marnie Barrell has since written a number of...
See also 'New Zealand hymnody'*. The first European Christian church communities in New Zealand to use printed hymnbooks were largely made up of immigrants from England and Scotland, who brought their hymnbooks with them. For more than a century, and in some cases to the present day, denominational hymnbooks in successively revised editions and differentiated titles were sourced overseas, at first from Britain and later from America and Australia.
Dependence on overseas publications was also...
See also 'New Zealand hymnbooks'*. The history of New Zealand Pakeha (non-Maori) hymnology begins on Christmas Day, 1841, with a service of worship conducted in the presence of a largely Maori congregation by the Reverend Samuel Marsden (1765-1838) representing the Church of England's Church Missionary Society. Marsden himself led the singing of Psalm 100, to Loys Bourgeois*' tune known in England as the OLD HUNDREDTH. The Anglican presence in the new colony-to-be was followed by the arrival of...
O God, we bear the imprint of your face. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931–2020).
This hymn was originally entitled 'A Hymn about Racism'. It was written in 1981, when the New Zealand Anti-Apartheid Movement organized demonstrations against the proposed tour of the South African Rugby Team, New Zealand's most formidable opponents (which made the protests more important in NZ). Shirley Murray's husband, John Stewart Murray* (1929–2017), was a leader in these unsuccessful protests, resulting in...
O threefold God of tender unity. William (Bill) Wallace* (1933-).
Written by a New Zealand Methodist minister, Bill Wallace, for the 1988 Hymn Society of America's search for 'new hymns with a new vision of the living God'. It was the winning entry. In the author's words, 'the text attempts to hold together the intangible and incarnate dimensions of the Trinity while avoiding paternalistic concepts of power'. Typical of Wallace's reforming theology, in this hymn the Trinity, 'Parent, Spirit,...
See 'New Zealand hymnody#Pacific Island Churches'*
BRENNAN, Patrick. b. Carraghroe, Co. Roscommon, Ireland, 1877; d. North Perth, Western Australia, 18 May 1951. He left for Australia 'in his early years' (Milgate, 1982, p. 224). He was ordained to the priesthood in 1902, serving in the diocese of Perth and editing the diocesan paper, The Record. After twelve years in parish work, he was accepted in 1915 by the Congregation of the most Holy Redeemer (C.SS.R), the 'Redemptorists', who sent him as a missionary to the Philippine Islands. He was...
CONNOLLY, Richard. b. Sydney, 10 November 1927; d. May 2022. He was educated at Lewisham Christian Brothers' School, then at Springwood (New South Wales) Marist Brothers' school. In 1946 he travelled to Rome and attended the Propaganda Fide College where he studied theology and music but withdrew in 1950 shortly before completing his ordination for the Roman Catholic priesthood. On his return to Australia he completed a BA at the University of Sydney (1956). In the same year he took up a...
GILLARD, Richard Arthur Moss. b. Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, 22 May 1953. His family migrated to New Zealand in 1956 and he spent his early years in Auckland, later moving with his family to Northland, where he attended Whangarei Boys' High School, before returning to Auckland and completing his secondary education at Takapuna Grammar School. He trained to be a primary school teacher at the North Shore Teachers' College but left teaching early in 1975 and eventually took up work as a...
MANN, Robin. b. Murray Bridge, near Adelaide, South Australia, 26 July 1949. He was the son of sixth-generation German Lutheran parents. He was educated at Immanuel College, where he took piano lessons, and the University of Adelaide, where he completed a BA and Dip Ed. He underwent some musical and theological training at Luther Seminary, Adelaide. Three years of high-school teaching followed, before he took up work as a parish lay worker for St Stephen's Lutheran Church, Adelaide (1976-95)....
SMITH, Rodney ('Gipsy' Smith). b. Epping Forest, near London, 31 March 1860; d. at sea 4 August 1947). He was born in a Romany tent, the fourth of six children of Cornelius Smith (1831-1922) and Mary Welch (ca. 1831-1865). His family made a living selling baskets, clothes pegs, tinware, and through horse-dealing; neither of his parents could read. He grew up 'as wild as the birds, frolicsome as the lambs, and as difficult to catch as the rabbits' (Smith, 1901, Chapter 1). His mother died of...
MURRAY, Shirley Erena. b. Invercargill, New Zealand, 31 March 1931; d. Wellington, NZ, 25 January 2020. She was educated at Southland Girls' High School, and held an MA with Honours in Classics and French from the University of Otago, Dunedin, where she took an active part in the Student Christian Movement. She became a teacher, researcher and radio hymn programme producer. In 1954 she married Presbyterian minister John Stewart Murray*, and eventually moved with him to St Andrew's Church on the...
Sing a happy hallelujah. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020).
Written in 1989 and given its first performance at the World Council of Churches Assembly in Canberra, Australia, in the same year, this hymn is dedicated to the writer's son Alistair, and is one of a number of hymns expressing Shirley Murray's infectious sense of delight and joy. As she says, 'despite all, I know God must have a sense of humour'.
It was first published in Murray's American collection, In Every Corner, Sing: The Hymns...
Tama ngakau marie ('Son of a peaceful heart'). Traditional Maori hymn. Neither the author nor the composer of this Maori hymn and melody have been traced, though the text is actually a free paraphrase of 'Jesus, meek and gentle' by George Rundle Prynne (1818-1903). Among Maori it is often sung at a funeral or commemorative service, but it was also adopted as a troop song by the Maori Battalion serving with the New Zealand forces in the Second World War. As a song common to both Maori and Pakeha...
GRIFFITHS, Thomas Vernon. b. West Kirby, Cheshire, England, 22 June 1894; d. 23 November 1985. He was the son of an Anglican priest, educated at Norwich Grammar School. After war service in Europe, he won an organ scholarship to the University of Cambridge. There he gained a BA in History (1921) and a MusB (1922). He converted to Catholicism; and in 1926 he emigrated to New Zealand to take up a post as lecturer in music at Christchurch Teachers' Training College with responsibility for the...
MILGATE, Wesley. b. Leura, New South Wales, 18 January 1916; d. Sydney, 15 July 1999. His primary and secondary school education took place at Leura and at Katoomba. Milgate (known universally as 'Wes') completed a BA (1935) and MA (1943) at the University of Sydney. He trained as a secondary school teacher at Sydney Teachers' College in 1935 and taught in several state schools from 1936 to 1945. He held the first Nuffield Dominion Fellowship in the Humanities at Merton College, Oxford...
JAMES, William Garnett. b. Ballarat, Victoria, 28 August 1895; d. Sydney, 10 March 1977. James studied music at the University of Melbourne's Conservatorium. In 1914 he went to London to pursue his studies and from 1915 gave a number of performances as a concert pianist under Sir Henry Wood. He then toured the United Kingdom as an accompanist for artists such as Tetrazini, Fritz Kreisler, and the Australian singer Peter Dawson. He returned to Australia in 1915, and in 1935 became the first...
WALLACE, William (Bill) Livingstone. b. Christchurch, New Zealand, 9 March 1933; d. Christchurch, 26 February 2024. He completed a Diploma of Education at the University of Otago, and a BA in philosophy at the University of Auckland. He was active in the Student Christian Movement and as a student experienced working-class life. He entered the Methodist ministry in 1961 and spent his working life as a parish minister mainly in poorer urban areas until his retirement in 1995. For a time he...