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SEYMOUR, Aaron Crossley Hobart. b. County Limerick, Ireland, 19 December 1789; d. Bristol, 22 October 1870. He was the son of a vicar of Caherelly in the diocese of Cashel, Co. Tipperary, and the brother of the anti-Catholic polemicist Michael Hobart Seymour (1800-74). He received most of his education at home, and was drawn in early life into the Calvinistic 'Connexion', founded by Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon* (to whom 'When Thou, my righteous judge, shall come' has been...
HYDE, Abigail (née Bradley). b. Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 28 September 1799; d. Andover, Connecticut, 7 April 1872. She was educated at a school in Litchfield, Connecticut; in 1818 she married the Revd Lavius Hyde (1789-1865), a minister at Salisbury, Connecticut. Her husband was dismissed for holding ideas about slavery contrary to those of his congregation, and moved to Bolton, Connecticut. From there he moved to Ellington, Connecticut; Wayland and Beckett, Massachusetts; and then back to...
Den Besten, Adriaan Cornelis ('Ad'). b. Utrecht, the Netherlands, 11 March 1923; d. Amstelveen, 31 March 2015. He went to primary and secondary school in Utrecht, and after graduating in 1941 he went to Utrecht University to study theology. Two years earlier, he had made his literary debut in Opwaartsche Wegen, a magazine for young protestant poets. In 1943 he was forced to abandon his studies as Utrecht University was closed by order of the German occupying forces. Den Besten and other...
GREENAWAY, Ada Rundall. b. Trivandrum, India, 12 October 1861; d. Woking, Surrey, 15 May 1937. She was the daughter of a general in the Indian army. Like many army children, she was sent to Britain as a child. She lived in Surrey in later years, first at Guildford, and finally at Woking. She had an arrangement to write improving words for the calendars and Christmas cards of Mowbrays, the religious publishers. Her 'Rise in the strength of God'* (in the Second Supplement of A&M, 1916, and in...
HABERSHON, Ada Ruth. b. Marylebone, London, 8 January 1861; d. London, 1 February 1918. She came from a religious family: she was the daughter of a physician, Dr Samuel Habershon, and his wife Grace. She was educated at a boarding school at Dover. She was steeped in evangelical culture: she was a friend of Charles Haddon Spurgeon*, and an enthusiastic supporter of the 1884 London Mission of Dwight L. Moody* and Ira D. Sankey*. Her autobiography and memoir, A Gatherer of Fresh Spoil, compiled by...
FOX, Adam. b. Kensington, London, 15 July 1883; d. Westminster, London, 17 January 1977. He was educated at University College, Oxford (BA 1906, MA 1909), becoming an assistant master at Lancing College, Sussex (1906-18). During this time at Lancing he trained for the priesthood at Cuddesdon College, and was ordained (deacon 1911, priest 1913). He was Warden of Radley College, near Oxford (1918-24), before teaching at the Diocesan College, Rondebosch, South Africa (1925-29). He returned to...
ADAM of St Victor. d. Paris, 1146. The earliest identification of this figure is probably the signature 'Subdeacon Adam' in a 1098 charter of Notre Dame cathedral, Paris. He was certainly precentor there by 1107, although he became an Augustinian canon* at the Abbey of St Victor in Paris ca. 1133 after being part of a failed attempt to impose the Augustinian rule on the cathedral canons. A vita of Adam was later written by a monk of the Abbey of St Victor, William of St Lô (d. 1349).
In modern...
THEBESIUS, Adam. b. Seifersdorf, near Liegnitz, Silesia (Rosochata, Poland), 6 December 1596; d. Liegnitz, 12 December 1652. The son and grandson of Lutheran pastors, he was educated at Liegnitz and the University of Wittenberg (MA 1617), where he studied theology. He became pastor at Mondschütz (Mojęcice) in the principality of Wohlau (Wolów) (1619-27), pastor at Wohlau itself (1627-39), and finally pastor of the Oberstadtkirche, the principal church at Liegnitz (Legnica).
Thebesius is known...
TICE, Adam Merrill Longoria. b. Boynton, Pennsylvania, 11 October 1979. Adam Tice spent his growing up years in several states across the USA, ending up in the town of Goshen in northern Indiana. He is a graduate of Goshen College (B.A. in music, 2002), and the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana (now Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, AMBS), with an MA in Christian Formation (2006).
It was at AMBS that he wrote his first hymn text. This began a profound and...
POLLARD, Adelaide Addison. b. Bloomfield, Iowa, 27 November 1862; d. New York City, 20 December 1934. She was christened Sarah, but chose the name Adelaide for herself. She attended the Boston School of Oratory, and taught in several girls' schools in Chicago. Although she was brought up a Presbyterian, Pollard's spiritual journey extended to faith healers such as John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907), and preachers of the imminent coming of Christ including her contemporary Frank Sanford...
PROCTER, Adelaide Anne. b. London, 30 October 1825; d. London, 2 February 1864. She was the daughter of Bryan Waller Procter, a distinguished literary figure and friend of Charles Dickens. Under the pseudonym 'Mary Berwick', she submitted poems to Dickens's periodicals: 73 of them were published in Household Words and seven in All the Year Round. Her poems were published in Legends and Lyrics (First Series 1858, Second Series 1861). After her death they were published in a single volume, with...
THRUPP, Adelaide ('A.T.'). b. London, 1831; d. Guildford, Surrey, 1908. She was the sister (not the daughter, or the wife, as is sometimes asserted) of Joseph Francis Thrupp*, and she assisted him with the publication of Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship (Cambridge, 1853). In this book his hymns appear with the initials 'J.F.T.' and the hymn by which she is remembered, 'Lord, who at Cana's wedding-feast'*, is one of two given the initials 'A.T.' The other was 'O Thou, who didst Thy light...
JUDSON, Adoniram. b. Maldon, Massachusetts, 9 August 1788; d. at sea on the Indian Ocean (Bay of Bengal), 12 April 1850. Judson, considered by many as the first American foreign missionary, spent almost forty years in Myanmar (Burma) where he translated the Bible into Burmese, published religious tracts in the indigenous language, completed a Burmese grammar, compiled a Burmese-English dictionary (published posthumously), established Baptist churches in Myanmar, and authored several...
GAUNT, Alan. b. Manchester, 26 May 1935; d. The Wirral, Merseyside, 19 July 2023. He was educated at Silcoates School, Lancashire Independent College, and Manchester University. He was ordained in the Congregational (later United Reformed Church) ministry in 1958, and served churches at Clitheroe and Barrow, Lancashire; Keighley, Yorkshire; Sunderland; Heswall; the South-West Manchester group of Baptist and United Reformed churches; and Windermere.
He published books of prayers, including New...
HOMMERDING, Alan Joseph. b. Port Washington, Wisconsin, 19 November 1956. He earned graduate degrees in theology, liturgy and music from St Mary's Seminary in Baltimore and the University of Notre Dame. Additional studies in organ, accompanying and vocal/choral studies were taken at Princeton University, Westminster Choir College and the Peabody Conservatory.
In addition to serving as a church musician and a music advisor for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, Hommerding is Senior...
LUFF, Alan Harold Frank. b. Bristol, 6 November 1928; d. Cardiff, 16 April 2020. He was educated at Bristol Grammar School. After University College, Oxford (1947-1952), where he read 'Greats' (Literae Humaniores, Greek and Latin/ Ancient Philosophy and History) and then Theology (1952), he trained for the Anglican priesthood at Westcott House, Cambridge (1954-56). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1956, priest 1957), and after curacies at Stretford and Swinton, diocese of Manchester (1956-62), he...
DALE, Alan Taylor. b. Baddeley Green, near Stoke-on-Trent, 9 April 1902; d. Dartmouth, Devon, 31 January 1979. He was educated at Hanley School, Stoke. He trained as a teacher, and taught for two years before entering Victoria Park College, Manchester, to train for the United Methodist Church ministry. Ordained in 1928, he was a missionary in China (1929-35), followed by Methodist circuits at Skipton, Blackpool North, Sheffield North-East, and Bath. His final post was as a lecturer in religious...
ORSBORN, Albert (William Thomas). b. Maidstone, Kent, 4 September 1886; d. Boscombe, Hampshire, 4 February 1967. He was the son of Salvation Army officers who had helped to pioneer Army work in Norway in 1888; he became one of the Army's most significant writers of congregational song in the 20th century.
His early efforts at writing poetry, as a junior clerk, aged about 15, were despised by his office manager, but were encouraged by the editors of The War Cry, the Salvationist newspaper, when...
GOODSON, Albert A. b. Los Angeles, October 1933; d. Los Angeles, December 2003. Goodson was brought up in the Pentecostal church. At the age of twelve he joined St Paul Baptist Church where he apparently received his only formal musical training, and was introduced to gospel music by the church's director of music, J. Earle Hines (1916-60) and pianist Gwendolyn Cooper-Lightner (1925-1999), who in 1946 founded the church's Echoes of Eden Choir, and with others established St Paul's as a center...
BAYLY, Albert Frederick. b. Bexhill, Sussex, 6 September 1901; d. Chichester, 26 July 1984. He was educated at Hastings Grammar School. He trained as a shipwright at the Royal Dockyard School, Portsmouth; but working on warships was contrary to his strong pacifist views, and he offered for the Congregational ministry, having obtained by part-time study an external BA (1924) from London University. He trained at Mansfield College, Oxford (1925-28), and was ordained in 1929. He served at Whitley...
BRUMLEY, Albert Edward. b. near Spiro, Oklahoma, 29 October 1905; d. Powell, Missouri, 15 November 1977. Brumley was born on a cotton farm. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas notes: 'Music, both sacred and secular, formed an important part of Brumley's childhood. His parents were firmly committed Campbellite Protestants, [whose worship excluded instruments] but his father was also a noted fiddler, and his mother enjoyed singing parlor songs. Music was integral to the family's weekly church gatherings...
KNAPP, Albert. b. Tübingen , 25 July 1798; d. Stuttgart, 18 June 1864. He was educated at the theological seminary at Maulbronn (1814-16) and at the 'Stift' at Tübingen (1816-20). He served as a 'Vikar' (assistant) at Feuerbach and at Gaisburg, both near Stuttgart, before being appointed 'diakonus' at Sulz am Neckar (1825-31), at Kirchheim unter Teck (1831-36), and at the Hospitalkirche at Stuttgart (1836-37). (During these years he was a friend of William Nast, who immigrated to the USA and...
DAWSON, Albert Mason Patrick. b. Wicklow, Ireland, 8 May 1880; d. 13 March 1963. He was educated in Cheshire at Frodsham Grammar School and Chester School of Science and Arts. He published two books of poetry, St Phocas and Other Poems (1923) and The Pageant of Man: Poems (1943); also 'Where love is, God is': a Modern Morality Play founded on Tolstoy's Story (1919). He was closely associated with the Adult School Movement, and was President of the Clapham and Balham Adult School, which suggests...
MIDLANE, Albert. b. Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, 23 January 1825; d. Newport, Isle of Wight, 27 February 1909. He was educated at Newport, Isle of Wight, and contributed to magazines in his youth under the name 'Little Albert'. He was then employed as an ironmonger's assistant, ultimately going into business for himself as tinsmith and ironmonger. Though he received his religious training in the Congregational church and its Sunday school, in which he became a teacher, he subsequently joined the...
ALBRECHT, Count (Markgraf) of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Duke of Prussia. b. Ansbach, 17 May 1490; d. Tapiau (now Gvardeysk, Russia), 20 March 1568. Born into a branch of the Hohenzollern family, he was appointed Grand Master ('Hofmeister') of the Teutonic Knights ('Deutschen Ordens') in 1511, in the hope that he would restore the Order from Polish domination. He led the Prussian forces against Poland in an unsuccessful war of 1519-1521, followed by a four-year truce, at the end of which, at the...
Alcuin of York. b. 730-740; d. 804. Alcuin entered the religious community associated with York Minster as a small boy and remained there, first as a pupil and then as a teacher and librarian, until 781. In 781, returning from Rome where he had been collecting the pallium for the new Archbishop of York, Alcuin met Charlemagne at Parma, and was invited to join the royal court as a teacher. From then on, he spent most of his time in Francia, his visits to Northumbria ceasing after the Viking sack...
MILNER-BARRY, Alda Marguerite. b. Scothorne (now Scothern), Lincolnshire, 18 August 1875; d. Weston-super-Mare, 15 April 1940. She was the daughter of the vicar of Scothorne, Edward Milner-Barry. She was the author of Lessons on the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer. Junior Classes. Prepared for Use in South Africa (London and Johannesburg, 1939). A posthumous publication, edited with Dorothy Allsup, was Forms of Prayer and Praise for Use in Sunday School (1946). She was a student and an...
MANZONI, Alessandro. b. Milan, 7 March 1785; d. 22 May 1873. Born into a distinguished family, he was educated at Milan and briefly at the University of Pavia; academically he was undistinguished, but he produced his first poem, 'Il Trionfo della Liberta' as early as 1801. After the death of his father in 1805, he lived for two years with his mother at Auteuil, Paris, where he met French writers and encountered the anti-church ideas of Voltaire. In 1808, however, back in Milan, he married...
CLARK, Alexander. b. near Steubenville, Ohio, 10 March 1834; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 6 July 1879. Clark was a Methodist Episcopal Church minister. He was at some time at Union Chapel, Cincinnati, Ohio. He is referred to as 'DD' in Sacred Songs and Solos, in which two of his hymns appeared:
Heavenly Father, bless me now*
Make room for Jesus! room, sad heart!
He edited The Methodist Reporter, published in Pittsburgh, from 1870 to 1879. Among his several books were The Old Log School House;...
VINET, Alexandre. b. near Lausanne, 17 June 17, 1797; d. Clarens, 4 May 1847. Vinet was a literary critic, with essays on Pascal, Racine and Châteaubriand, pastor in the Canton of Vaud, moralist, and poet.
Vinet studied theology in Lausanne. He taught French and French literature at the Basel gymnasium as early as 1817, before being ordained in his native town in 1819. During this period he acted as a stand-in for other pastors in Basel. In 1819 he became a privat-docent at the University,...
ACKLEY, Alfred Henry. b. Spring Hill, Pennsylvania, 21 January 1887; d. Whittier, California, 3 July 1960. Ackley received his early musical training from his father, and later studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and in New York City to become an accomplished cellist. He graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary, Westminster, Maryland, in 1914, and served Presbyterian churches in Wilkes-Barre and Elmhurst, Pennsylvania, and Escondido, California. Ackley claimed he wrote the...
BARRY, Alfred. b. London, 15 January 1826; d. Windsor, 1 April 1910. He was the son of the architect of the Houses of Parliament, Sir Charles Barry. He was educated at King's College, London (1841-44) and Trinity College, Cambridge (1844-48; BA 1848, MA 1851). He was briefly a Fellow of Trinity College, and took Holy Orders (deacon 1850, priest 1853). By that time he had become sub-Warden of Trinity College, Glenalmond, Perthshire, an independent school of the Scottish Episcopal Church founded...
ALSTON, Alfred Edward. b. British Columbia, Canada, 25 June 1862; d. Framingham Earl, Norfolk, UK, 13 May 1927. Educated in England at St Paul's School, London, and Gloucester Theological College, Alston took Holy Orders (deacon 1886, priest 1887), and after a curacy at St Mark's, Gloucester (1886-87) he was appointed rector of Framingham Earl with Bixley, Norfolk, where he remained until his death, by which time he had been rector for almost fifty years. He published Some Liturgical Hymns...
TENNYSON, Alfred. b. Somersby, Lincolnshire, 6 August 1809; d. Haslemere, Surrey, 6 October 1892. He was the son of the rector of Somersby, educated at Louth Grammar School, and then privately. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827, leaving in 1831 without taking a degree, but having published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830).
At Cambridge he became friendly with the brilliant Arthur Henry Hallam (1811-33), whose sudden death, and the reflections upon it, were the cause of Tennyson's most...
FLOWERDEW, Alice. b. 1759; d. Ipswich, Suffolk, 23 September 1830. Her maiden name is unknown (JJ, p. 379). She married Daniel Flowerdew, who for some years held a Government appointment in Jamaica. He died in 1801, and she suffered further distress when her son, Charles Frederic Flowerdew, died on 29 November 1802, aged 21. She opened a school in Islington. She later lived in Bury St Edmunds, where she continued to teach, and Ipswich. She has been variously described as a General Baptist and a...
PARKER, Alice. b. Boston, 16 December 1925; d. Hawley, Massachusetts, 24 December 2023. Distinguished, widely celebrated composer, conductor, author and teacher, Parker began composing at the age of eight, and completed her first orchestral score in high school. She studied at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, majoring in music performance and composition (BA 1947), and the Juilliard School of Music, New York City (MS 1949), where her teachers included Robert Shaw (1916-1999), Julius...
ROBERTSON, Alison Margaret (née Malloch). b. Glasgow, 22 February 1940. She was the younger twin of the Revd. Jack and Nancy Malloch. In 1948 the family moved to the Gold Coast (now Ghana), when her father became a Church of Scotland missionary principal of the Teacher Training College at Akropong. Her mother ran a baby clinic once a week and Alison, at the age of 10, was made responsible for the small wounds part of the clinic, cleaning and dressing fresh and infected wounds sustained by the...
CHATFIELD, Allen William. b. Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, 2 October 1808; d. Much Marcle, Gloucestershire, 10 January 1896. He was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1831, MA 1836). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1832, priest 1833), and was vicar of Stotfold, Bedfordshire (1833-47) and of Much Marcle with Yatton, Gloucestershire, Diocese of Hereford (1847-96). He followed John Mason Neale* in his interest in Greek hymnody: he was a remarkable translator from (and into)...
LIGUORI, St Alphonsus (Alphonso Maria de'). b. Marianella, near Naples, 27 September 1696; d. Pagani, near Salerno, 1 August 1787. Born into an ancient and noble family, he studied law at a very young age at the University of Naples (1708-13). He became a lawyer at Naples, but following what he saw as unjust practice he left the law in 1723 to study theology. He was ordained in 1726, and became Bishop of Castellamare di Stabia in 1730. There he founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Saviour...
AMBROSE of Milan. b. Trier, 339 (or 340); d. Milan, 4 April 397. Born into a Roman Christian family, Ambrose pursued the cursus honorum (the ladder of advancement within the Roman public hierarchy) and became governor of the province of Emilia-Liguria in 370, moving to Milan. On the death of the Arian bishop, Auxence, Ambrose was chosen by the people as their bishop, was baptised and, one week later, was consecrated (1 December 373 or 7 December 374). During the 23 years of his episcopate, he...
BLARER (or Blaurer), Ambrosius. b. Konstanz, Bodensee, 4 April 1492; d. Winterthur, 6 December 1564. He was educated from the age of 11, after the death of his father, at the Benediktinerkloster at Alpirsbach in the Black Forest. He entered the University of Tübingen (BA 1511, MA 1512), and after a further period of study, he returned to the Benedictine monastery. He was elected prior, but left in 1522, having been introduced to the writings of Martin Luther* by his [Blarer's] brother Thomas....
LOBWASSER, Ambrosius. b. Schneeberg, Saxony, 4 April 1515; d. Königsberg, 27 November 1585. He studied at Leipzig, and became a tutor at the university there. He received a doctorate from the University of Bologna; he was appointed Professor of Law at Königsberg in 1563, remaining in post until 1580.
Lobwasser is chiefly known for his translation into German of the metrical psalms of Théodore de Bèze* and Clément Marot*, Der Psalter dess Königlichen Propheten Davids, In deutsche Reymen...
CARMICHAEL, Amy Beatrice. b. Millisle, Co Down, Ireland (later Northern Ireland), 16 December 1867; d. Tirunelveli, India, 18 January 1951. She was the eldest of seven children of David Carmichael, a prosperous owner of flour mills, and his wife, Catherine Jane Filson Carmichael. Her father died in April 1885, two years after the family moved to Belfast for business. Under the influence of her devout (Presbyterian) mother, Carmichael became involved in welfare work for the underprivileged from...
GRANT, Amy. b. Augusta, Georgia, 25 November 1960. A prominent Christian song-writer and pop singer, Grant attended Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina (1978-80) and Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (1980-81). She grew up in a conservative Church of Christ congregation that did not believe musical instruments were appropriate for worship. Influenced by charismatic theology and practice via Don Finto (1930-) and Nashville's independent Belmont Church, she began writing...
VAN BURKALOW, Anastasia. b. Buchanan, New York, 16 March 1911; d. Wantage, New Jersey, 14 January 2004. She was a hymn writer, hymnologist, geologist, and physical geographer. Born into a family with church music and teaching in its DNA, Burkalow pursued both with passion and dedication throughout her life. Her father, James Turley Van Burkalow (d. 1959) of Salisbury, Maryland, a second-generation Methodist minister, served churches throughout the Hudson Valley area and, after earning a PhD at...
FROSTENSON, Anders. b. Loshult, Kristianstad, Sweden, 23 April 1906; d. 4 February 2006. Frostenson studied history of literature and theology at the University of Lund. He served in Stockholm from 1933, first as a curate in Gustav Vasa, a big city parish, and then as a parish clergyman in Lovö parish, near to Drottningholm, one of the castles of the royal family, where he served as a preacher from 1955. In 1969 he became a member of the Swedish official hymn committee and in 1981 he was...
NYBERG, Anders. b. Malung, north-west of Västerås, Sweden, 1955. He studied choral conducting and composition at the Royal Music Academy, Stockholm. In 1978 he led a Swedish worship group called 'Fjedur' to South Africa, then under an apartheid regime. They worked in black churches, and soon after Nyberg returned to work in the township of Guglethu, Cape Town (see 'South African freedom songs'). He subsequently worked in Latin America, taking another group, 'Gondwana', to Cuba and other...
CROUCH, Andraé Edward. b. San Francisco, California, 1 July 1942; d. Los Angeles, California, 8 January 2015. Andraé Crouch began performing as a teenager in his church, directed a choir at a Teen Challenge drug rehabilitation center, and in 1960 formed a singing group, the COGICS, for his Church of God in Christ denomination (Holiness/Pentecostal). He studied at the L.I.F.E. Bible College and Valley Junior College in Los Angeles where in 1965 he founded the 'Andraé Crouch and the Disciples'...
GRYPHIUS, Andreas. b. Glogau, Silesia (now Glogów, Poland), 2 October 1616; d. Glogau, 16 July 1664. He was the son of a Protestant priest (the family Latinised the name Greif to Gryphius, a common practice). He had a difficult childhood: he lost his father in 1621 and his mother in 1628, and his school education was interrupted by the disturbances of the wars of religion. He was educated at the Evangelisches Gymnasium at Glogau, the Gymnasium at Fraustadt, and the Akademisches Gymnasium at...
TEICH, Andreas Hans. b. Krefeld, Germany, 5 October 1960. A parish pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Teich studied at Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania (AB, 1982), Christ Seminary-Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago, Illinois (MDiv, 1986). He was ordained in 1986. His pastorates at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Bellevue, Kentucky (1986-1990), and Messiah Lutheran Church, Bay City, Michigan (1994- ), are noted for employing the rich chorale tradition as well as...
DONALDSON, Andrew James. b. Matheson, Ontario, Canada, July 22, 1951. Pastoral musician Andrew Donaldson is a composer, hymn-writer, and leader of congregational song, the third of seven children of missionaries in northern Ontario. He was educated in French and English studies at Glendon College, York University (BA, 1974), and studied classical guitar at the Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT, Classical Guitar Performance, 1979).
From 1982 until 2010 he combined directing music at Beaches...
KIPPIS, Andrew. b. Nottingham, 28 March 1725; d. London, 8 October 1795. Kippis was educated (1741-46) at the dissenting academy at Northampton run by Philip Doddridge*. He became a minister, holding charges at Boston, Lincolnshire, and Dorking, Surrey, before becoming the minister of Princes Street Chapel, Westminster in 1753. He remained there until his death, and was regarded as 'the leading Presbyterian minister in the metropolis' (JJ, p. 625). He was a voluminous writer, contributing to...
ANDREW of Crete, St. b. ca. 660; d. ca. 732. Andrew was the oldest representative of kanon* writers who distinguished himself as both poet and orator. A native of Damascus, St Andrew became archbishop of Gortyna in Crete, ca.712, where it is believed he wrote his most famous hymn, the Great Kanon. This vast cycle, sung in sections on the first four days of Lent and in its entirety on the fifth Thursday of Lent, is characterised by the fusion of praise of the Divinity with passages of confession...
PRATT, Andrew Edward. b. Paignton, Devon, 28 December 1948. He was educated at Barking Regional College of Technology, London, where he read Zoology, and the University College of North Wales, Bangor, where he obtained an M.Sc. in Marine Biology. He became a teacher, but then decided to train for the Methodist ministry, studying at Queen's College, Birmingham. (1979-82). He has served as a Methodist minister in circuits in Cheshire and Lancashire (Northwich; Nantwich; Leigh and Hindley; Orrell...
REED, Andrew. b. London, 27 November 1787; d. London, 25 February 1862. He was the son of a watchmaker, who was also a lay preacher. He became a watchmaker himself, but sold his tools and entered Hackney College in 1807 to train for the Congregational ministry. He was ordained in 1811 to a chapel at New Road, East London. He built a new chapel called Wycliffe in Commercial Road, Whitechapel, and became minister of the congregation there in 1831; he retired in November 1861, after thirty years...
YOUNG, Andrew. b. Edinburgh, 23 April 1807; d. Edinburgh, 30 November 1889. The son of a schoolteacher, he was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he was an outstanding student. In 1830, at the age of 23, he was appointed by the Town Council of Edinburgh to be headmaster of Niddry Street School, 'where he began with 80 pupils, and left with the total at 600' (JJ, p. 1299). After ten years in this post he became head of English at Madras College, St Andrews (1840-53). He retired to...
See 'Johannes Scheffler'*
TAYLOR, Ann and Jane. Ann, b. Islington, London, 30 January 1782, d. Nottingham, 20 December 1866, married name Ann Taylor Gilbert; Jane, b. Islington, 23 September 1783, d. Ongar, Essex, 13 April 1824.
After Isaac Watts* and Charles Wesley*, Ann and Jane Taylor were the most important of the early hymn writers for children. Their Hymns for Infant Minds was first published in 1810 and was a commercial success in Britain and America (by the 1860s, it had gone into nearly 50 editions in America,...
GRIFFITHS, Ann. B. Llanfihangel, Montgomeryshire, April 1776; d. Llanfihangel, August 1805. Ann Thomas was brought up on the farm of Dolwar Fach, Llanfihangel, the daughter of the devout Thomas family who worshipped at the local parish church and who prayed regularly together. She took a full part in local life, and is said to have been frivolous in her youth, much enamoured of dancing, and ready to mock the Methodists. She was only 18 when her mother died and she took over the running of the...
NITSCHMANN, Anna, b. 24 November 1715; d. 21 May 1760; Johann, b. 25 September 1712; d. 30 June 1783. Born at Kunewald, near Fulneck, Moravia; the family moved to Herrnhut when they were children in 1725. Anna was appointed Unity-Elder, with responsibility for the unmarried women of the Herrnhut community. With her friend Anna Dober*, she founded the 'Jungfrauenbund' for them. Johann studied theology at the University of Halle and became private secretary to Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf*. Anna...
WARNER, Anna Bartlett. b. New York, 31 August 1827; d. Constitution Island, 22 January 1915. Born at New York, she moved with her family in 1837 to a farmhouse on Constitution Island, on the Hudson River, after the failure of her father's real estate speculation. She and her sister, Susan Bogert Warner*, wrote many novels, Susan very successfully. Anna used the pseudonym 'Amy Lothrop'. She also wrote hymns for the Sunday school, and translated hymns from French and German. She edited Hymns of...
BRIGGS, Anna. b. Newcastle upon Tyne, 15 February 1947. Anna is the eldest of six daughters. Her parents, Harry and Gwen Briggs, were active in the church, the Labour Party and many other political pressure groups, and she grew up surrounded by campaigning and lobbying as a way of life, not divorced from, but an essential part of, her family's Christian beliefs.
She graduated in Political and Economic Studies from University College, Cardiff (1968) and took a postgraduate Diploma in Health...
DOBER, Anna (née Schindler). b. Kunewald, near Fulneck, Moravia, 9 April 1713; d. Marienborn, near Büdingen, Hesse, 12 December 1739. She joined the Moravian community at Herrnhut in 1725, where she assisted Anna Nitschmann* (also born at Kunewald) in founding a young women's movement, the 'Jungfrauenbund'. In 1737 she married Johann Leonhard Dober*, later to be a Moravian bishop. She helped him in his missionary work at Amsterdam; she died aged 26 at Marienborn.
According to JJ, stanzas 4 and...
HOPPE, Anna Bernardine Dorothy. b. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 7 May 1889; d. Milwaukee, 2 August 1941. Hoppe, a Lutheran Wisconsin Synod member, penned around 600 original hymns and chorale translations that remained uncollected and unpublished until 75 years after her death. She was born to German-Lutheran immigrants Albert and Emilie Hoppe. Baptized and confirmed by pastor Johann Bading of St John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, she alone of her five siblings attended the parochial school there,...
BARBAULD, Anna Letitia (née Aikin). b. Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, 20 June 1743; d. Stoke Newington, London, 9 March 1825. At Kibworth her father was a Presbyterian minister teaching at the dissenting academy (her maternal grandfather, John Jennings, had taught Philip Doddridge* there). In 1753 her father moved to the celebrated Warrington Academy, where she thrived in the cultural and intellectual freedom and began to write, publishing (with her brother John) Poems (1773) and...
GOTTSCHICK, Anna Martina. b. Dresden, 29 September 1914; d. Kassel. 8 November 1995. Although born at Dresden, she moved with her family to Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland). She was a journalist on a local newspaper during World War II. After the war she worked at Kassel as a reader and editor for Johannes-Stauda-Verlag, a section of the publishers Bärenreiter. Her hymn, 'Herr, mach uns stark im Mut, der dich bekennt'* ('Lord, make us strong in courage, we who confess you') is in the 'Ende des...
ANNA SOPHIA, Countess of Hesse-Darmstadt. b. Marburg, 17 Dec 1638; d. Quedlinburg, 13 Dec 1683. She was the daughter of the Landgrave (Count) Georg II. She chose a convent life, and in 1657 was elected Pröpstin (lady provost) of the aristocratic Fürsten-Töchter Stift (the prince's daughter's foundation), a Lutheran institute at Quedlinburg. She was elected Abbess in 1680. She wrote Der Treue Seelen-Freund Christus Jesus mit nachdenklichen Sinn-Gemählden, anmuthigen Lehr-Gedichten und neuen...
COUSIN, Anne Ross (née Cundell). b. Hull, Yorkshire, 27 April 1824; d. Edinburgh, 6 December 1906. The daughter of a Scottish army surgeon, she moved to Leith, near Edinburgh, as a small child. In 1847 she married William Cousin, who became the minister of the Free Church of Scotland at Irvine, Ayrshire, and later Free Church minister of Melrose, Roxburghshire. When at Irvine, she wrote her best known hymn, 'The sands of time are sinking'*. She published a collection of poems, Immanuel's Land...
STEELE, Anne. b. Broughton, Hampshire, 1716; d. Broughton, 11 November 1778. She was the daughter of a timber merchant and Baptist pastor. She was delicate in health as a child, and as a young woman she suffered a tragic loss in 1737 when her fiancé, James Elcombe, was drowned shortly before they were due to be married. Her quiet and apparently uneventful life thereafter gave rise to the idea that she was a suffering soul who turned her resignation into hymns. This has been shown to be a myth...
HERBERT, Annie (Annie Herbert Barker). b. Leon, New York State, 1844; d. San Rafael, California, 21 January 1932. She was born in a small town in Cattaraugus County on the western edge of New York State. She married her cousin, James Barker, Jr., but is more often known as a hymn writer by her maiden name. She was a teacher: she and her husband must have been courageous and intrepid young people, for they worked for a time with the pioneers in Meagher County in what was then the remote state...
COGHILL, Annie (Anna) Louisa (née Walker). b. Brewood, Staffordshire, 23 June 1836; d. Bath, Somerset, 7 July 1907. She was the daughter of a civil engineer, who took his family to Canada to work on the railways when Annie was in her 'teens, ca. 1853. She began writing poetry as a child and young woman, and her volume Leaves from the Backwoods was published anonymously in Montreal in 1861. It contained the poem for which she is remembered, 'Work! for the night is coming'*.
The family returned...
HAWKS, Annie Sherwood. b. Hoosick, New York, 25 or 28 May 1835 or 1836; d. Bennington, Vermont, 3 January 1918. According to Taylor (1989) there is uncertainty about her date of birth. Annie Sherwood married Charles Hawks; for many years she was a member of the Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, where her pastor, Robert Lowry*, encouraged her to write verse. After her husband's death in 1888, she lived with her daughter in Vermont, though she was buried beside her husband in...
ANSELM. b. Aosta, Italy, 1033; d. 21 April 1109. Anselm studied under Lanfranc at the Norman abbey of Bec where he became a monk in 1060, prior in 1063, and abbot in 1078. He was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093. A philosopher and theologian, he is famous for formulating the ontological argument for the existence of God: nothing greater than God can be imagined and reality consists of more than what is imagined, therefore God exists in reality. 'Quid commisisti, dulcissime puer'*,...
BOURIGNON, Antoinette. b. Lille, France, 13 January 1616; d. Franeker, the Netherlands, 30 October 1680. She early demonstrated an enthusiasm for religion: she refused the husband chosen for her by her father and devoted her life to a mystical and spiritual life. She had a vision that she was chosen to restore the church to a primitive Christianity, and she was engaged for much of her life in controversy with established religion. She later lived in Ghent and in Amsterdam, where her voluminous...
CHARTERIS, Archibald Hamilton. b. Wamphray, Dumfiesshire, Scotland, 13 December 1835; d. Edinburgh, 24 April 1908. He was educated at Wamphray, and at the University of Edinburgh (MA, 1852). He became minister of New Abbey, south of Dumfries, and of the Park Church, Glasgow, built in 1858, and now sadly demolished. In those years he wrote The Life of the Rev. James Robertson, formerly Professor of Divinity and Ecclesiastical History at Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1863). He gave speeches and preached...
DUBA, Arlo Dean. b. Platte, Brule County, South Dakota, 12 November 1929; d. Gunnison, Colorado, 27 June 2023. Duba was raised in a Bohemian Presbyterian farming family whose Hussite/Czech forebearers settled in the Dakotas in the 1880s. He attended the University of Dubuque, where he met his wife, Doreen. He majored in music and religion (BA 1952), and Princeton Theological Seminary (BD 1955, PhD 1960). His dissertation title was 'The Principles of Theological Language in the Writings of...
PÖTZSCH, Arno. b. Leipzig, 23 November 1900; d. Cuxhaven, 19 April 1956. He entered the teacher's college at Bautzen in 1915. After an illness, he worked during the First World War in a grenade factory and served in the navy. After the end of the war he found refuge at Herrnhut, working as a teacher and studying from 1925 to 1927 at the seminary for mission, training as a social worker and finally beginning to study theology. While continuing his responsibilities and his work with young people,...
BROOKS, Arnold. b. Edgbaston, Birmingham, 25 December 1870; d. Edinburgh, 2 July 1933. Brooks was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (BA 1893, MA 1897). After serving a curacy at Bermondsey, London (1897-99), he moved to Scotland and to the Scottish Episcopal Church, becoming a 'licensed curate' of St Peter's, Lutton Place, Edinburgh (1899-1905), and then of St John's, Princes Street, Edinburgh (1905- 09). He was priest-in-charge of St...
THOMAS, (Henry) Arnold. b. Clifton, Bristol, 13 June 1848; d. Sneyd Park, Bristol, 28 June 1924. The son of the minister of Highbury Chapel, Bristol (Congregational), he was educated at Mill Hill School, University College, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He assisted his father at Highbury Chapel before training for the Congregational ministry at New College, London. He was ordained to pastorates at Burntash, Lewisham, London (1873-74) and Ealing (1874-76); but 'it was fore-ordained...
ARNULF von Löwen [Leuven, Louvain, Leeuwen]. b. Louvain, ca.1200; d. ca.1251. He became the Cistercian Abbot of Villers-en-Brabant (1240-1248). Arnulf von Löwen is famous for his long Passion poem 'Ad singula membra Christi patientis rhythmus' which begins 'Salve mundi salutare'. There are seven sections, each beginning 'Salve'. Each section consists of five verses, devoted to Christ's wounds, to (respectively) the feet, the knees, the hands, the side, breast, heart, and the face.
The poem...
PATTEN, Arthur Bardwell. b. Bowdoinham, Maine, 26 March 1864; d. Claremont, California, 10 May 1952. He was educated at Colby University, Waterville, Maine (now Colby College, to indicate its status as an old-established Liberal Arts College). He graduated AB in 1890, and went on to Bangor Theological Seminary (graduated 1893). He became a minister in the Congregational Church, serving pastorates at Everett, Massachusetts (1895-97), South Hadley, Mass. (1897-1905), Sant Rosa, California...
GOOK, Arthur Charles. b. London, 11 June 1883; d. London, 18 June 1959. Gook was the son of an estate agent, who would not allow him to take up a scholarship to a university. After working briefly in his father's business, and for a London publisher, he trained as a homeopathic practitioner at the London Homeopathic Hospital. He was converted at a Bible Class, and joined the Open Brethren (OBs: see Brethren hymnody, British*). With his wife Florence, he went to Iceland in 1905 to take over a...
COXE, (Arthur) Cleveland. b. Mendham, New York, 10 May 1818; d. Clifton Springs, NY, 20 July 1896. The son of a Presbyterian minister named Cox (according to Samuel Willoughby Duffield, 1886, p. 224, he added an 'e' as part of his rebellion against his father and his father's denomination), he lived as a young man in New York with his uncle, a doctor who was an active member of the Episcopal Church. Coxe became an Episcopalian himself, and after graduating from New York University he trained...
CLYDE, Arthur G. b. Bradford, Pennsylvania, 28 December 1940. A prominent United Church of Christ (UCC) musician and editor of The New Century Hymnal (Cleveland, 1995), Clyde attended Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania (BA, in Sociology, 1963), with additional studies at Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University, Philadelphia (1963-64, 75-77). He was an English language teacher in Japan under the missions program of the Lutheran Church in America (1965-1968), taught music...
JONES, Arthur Morris. b. 1899; d. 1980. He was a missionary and musicologist, educated at Keble College, Oxford, and Wells Theological College. He took Holy Orders (deacon 1922, priest 1923) and served curacies at Ashford, Kent (1922-24) and St Michael and All Angels, Maidstone, Kent (1924-28). In 1929 he became a missionary in what was then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. He took up a post as Warden of St Mark's Teachers' Training College, under the auspices of the Universities' Mission to...
RILEY, John Athelstan Laurie. b. Paddington, London, 10 August 1858; d. Jersey, Channel Islands, 17 November 1945. He was the son of a successful barrister, of Yorkshire stock: educated at Eton and Pembroke College, Oxford, which he left without taking a degree. He spent much time travelling in Europe and the Near East, publishing Athos; or, the Mountain of the Monks, in 1887. He was an active Anglo-Catholic: he wrote a preface to a book by his friend William John Birkbeck*, Why I am an...
DE VERE, Aubrey (Thomas). b. Curragh Chase, Co. Limerick, Ireland, 10 January 1814; d. Curragh Chase, 21 January 1902. Born into the landed gentry (his mother was a Spring-Rice), he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (1832- ), after which he travelled widely and succeeded in meeting many of the remarkable people of his time, such as William Wordsworth*, John Henry Newman*, and Alfred Tennyson*. As a result of his travels in Europe, he published two early books, The Waldenses, and Other...
MIEIR, Audrey Mae (neé Wagner). b. Leechburg, Pennsylvania, 12 May 1916; d. Irvine, California, 5 November 1996. Audrey Wagner was educated at the L.I.F.E. Bible College (Meridian, Idaho). As a young woman, she moved to California where she was influenced by Aimee Semple McPherson (1890–1944), founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. She married Charles Brooks Mieir (1911-1996), and was ordained to the Gospel ministry of the Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 1937.
She...
CRULL, August. b. Rostock, Mecklenburg, Germany, 27 January 1845; d. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 17 February 1923. August Crull was a German-American Lutheran theologian and educator who played an important role in 19th-century American Lutheranism as a hymnal editor and hymn translator. As a hymnal editor, he helped compile and edit the first English-language hymnals of the Missouri Synod branch of American Lutheranism, thus shaping its hymnic tradition as it began to transition from German to...
SPANGENBERG, August Gottlieb. b. Klettenberg, near Nordhausen, 15 July 1704; d. Berthelsdorf, near Herrnhut, 18 September 1792. He was a student at the University of Jena, first of law and then of theology. He worked at the University of Halle, but was deprived of his posts in the Theology Faculty and as Superintendent of the Orphanage schools because of his association with separatist churches. He joined the Moravians in 1733, where his talents were soon put to good use: he was the leader of...
FRANCKE, August Hermann (I). b. Lübeck, 22 March 1663; d. Halle, 8 June 1727. He was educated at the Universities of Erfurt, Kiel, and Leipzig, graduating from Leipzig in 1685. Two years later, at Lüneberg, he had a religious experience which caused him to call Lüneberg his spiritual birthplace, and which turned him towards Pietism. He became a disciple of the founder of Pietism, P.J. Spener*, who had instituted meetings for prayer, Bible study and devotion. Francke was more combative than...
FRANCKE, August Hermann (II). b. Gütersloh, 30 August 1853; d. Montreux, Switzerland, 31 May 1891. He had the same name as the great German Pietist (1663-1727). The son of a primary school teacher, he was educated at Barmen and at the Universities of Leipzig and Bonn, with interruptions owing to ill health. He worked as an assistant at the cathedral seminary at Berlin (1879) and at Halle, where he taught from 1882 to 1885, before becoming Professor of New Testament Theology at Kiel. He resigned...
KJELLSTRAND, August W. b. Skoefde, Vastergötland, Sweden, 10 February 1864; d. 29 October 1930. His family emigrated to the USA in 1870, when August was a child. He was closely associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod of North America: he graduated from Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, in 1885. He was appointed to Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas, to teach Latin in 1886. After a further period of study, he returned to Bethany in 1893.
He graduated from Augustana...
Augustine of Hippo (St) [Aurelius Augustinus]. b. Thagaste, 13 November 354; d. Hippo, 28 August 430. One of the most influential figures in the history of Christian thought, Augustine was born in Thagaste in North Africa. His father was a pagan, but his mother, St Monica, encouraged him towards Christianity even after he had lost his initial Christian faith. In 373, inspired by Cicero's Hortensius, he decided to pursue the life of a philosopher, becoming a Manichean and teaching the liberal...
TOPLADY, Augustus Montague. b. Farnham, Surrey, 4 November 1740; d. Kensington, London, 11 August 1778. He was the son of an army officer, Richard Toplady, who was killed at the siege of Carthagena in 1741. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Dublin. He was converted by a travelling Methodist preacher, James Morris, and was associated with the Methodists until he began to differ from John Wesley* because of his (Toplady's) strong adherence to Calvinist views. He took Holy...
CHRISTIANSEN, Avis Burgeson. b. Chicago, 11 October 1895; d. 14 January 1985. She was a member of the Moody Church in Chicago, and married Ernest C. Christiansen, vice-president of the Moody Bible Institute. Her numerous hymns, the earliest in collaboration with Daniel B. Towner*, appeared in Tabernacle Praises (Chicago, 1916). They are characteristic of early 20th-century Gospel hymnody, with a concentration on the love of Jesus and the hope of heaven. She also wrote under pseudonyms: Avis...
See Charitie Lees De Chenez*.
NOEL, The Hon. Baptist Wriothesley. b. Edinburgh, 10 July 1799; d. Stanmore, Middlesex, 19 January 1873. Born into a noble family (see Burke's Peerage, 1939, p. 1055; the name 'Baptist' was common in the family), he was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge (MA 1821). He studied law, and entered Lincoln's Inn, but against the wishes of his family he became an Anglican priest, curate of Cossington, Leicestershire, and then minister of a proprietary chapel in London (St...
HAMM, Barbara Elizabeth. b. Sterling, Colorado, 25 September 1943. Barbara Hamm began piano study as a young girl, learning to improvise on gospel hymns in a small Baptist congregation in the Midwestern United States. She gained further experience while playing for a small church during her college study in Eastern Tennessee. This early involvement in worship led to a lifetime of music ministry.
A United Church of Christ (UCC) church musician, composer, and hymn writer, Barbara Hamm received...
GESIUS, Bartholomäus. b. Müncheberg, near Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, 1551/52; d. Frankfurt an der Oder, 1613. His name is spelt in several ways (see MGG entry below). He studied theology at Frankfurt-am-Main from 1575. He broke his studies by working as a cantor in Müncheberg (documentary evidence survives from 1582), and then returned to university, where his presence is recorded in 1585. He became a domestic tutor to a nobleman in Muskau and Sprottau before 1588. He moved to be cantor at the...
RINGWALDT, Bartholomäus. b. Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, ca. 1530/1532; d. Langenfeld, 9 May 1599. The details of his early life are unknown until his matriculation as a student of theology at Frankfurt/Oder in 1543. He became a pastor in 1556, and in 1559 he was a pastor at Pieske (Polish Pieski), before becoming pastor at Langenfeld (or Langfeld), Neumark (near Sonnenburg, Brandenburg). He was a strong Lutheran presence at a time of division and disintegration in church and state, and a dependable...
BRIDGE, Basil Ernest. b. Norwich, 5 August 1927; d. Norwich, 11 September 2021. He was educated at the City of Norwich School and Fitzwilliam House, Cambridge (BA, 1948). He trained for the Congregational ministry at Cheshunt College, and was ordained in 1951. He served in Congregational (after 1972 United Reformed Church) churches at Knowle, Warwickshire (1951-55), Leicester (1955-74), Stamford and Bourne, Lincolnshire (1976-89), and Harrold, Bedforshire (1989-94). He has written over 30 texts...
WOODD, Basil. b. Richmond, Surrey, 5 August 1760; d. Paddington Green, London, 12 April 1831. Woodd was educated by a clergyman and then at Trinity College, Oxford (BA 1782, MA 1785). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1783, priest 1784), becoming 'lecturer' (preacher) at St Peter's, Cornhill, London (1784-1808). In 1785 he became preacher at Bentinck Chapel, Marylebone, London, a proprietary chapel that he purchased in 1793. He was also chaplain to the Marquis Townshend, and rector of Drayton...
BEDE [the Venerable]. b. 673/4; d. 26 May 735. Bede was born in Northumberland and, at the age of seven, was given by his family to Benedict Biscop, abbot of St Peter at Wearmouth, for his education. In 682, when Biscop founded the brother monastery of St Paul at Jarrow, Bede was sent to join the new community under its abbot Ceolfrith; he remained there for the rest of his life.
Bede dedicated himself to teaching and writing, never travelling beyond Northumbria. The monasteries of Wearmouth...
PICTET, Bénédict. b. Geneva, 19 May 1655; d.10 January?/9 June? 1724. Pictet was the son of André Pictet and Barbe Turrettini. He was a Calvinist theologian who revised the Psalter, and who was a pioneer in writing hymns in French-speaking Reformed circles. He was educated by his maternal uncle and godfather, the professor of theology François Turrettini (1623-87), an influential figure in the Reformed Church of Geneva and a defender of the strictest Calvinism. At the age of 14, he entered the...
BEDDOME, Benjamin. b. Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, 23 January 1717; d. Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, 3 September 1795. He was the son of a Baptist minister. He intended to become a doctor, and was apprenticed to a Bristol surgeon; but he moved to London and became a member of the Prescott Street Baptist Church in 1739. At that church he was called to the ministry, and in 1740 he moved to Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire. He remained there as Baptist pastor for the remainder of...
FRANCIS, Benjamin. b. Wales, 1734; d. Horsley, Gloucestershire, 14 December 1799. Francis was a Welsh speaker, who wrote hymns in Welsh and English, and edited a Welsh hymnbook (Aleluia: neu Hymnau perthynol I addoliad cyhoeddus, Caerfyrddin, 1774). JJ, p. 386, lists five hymns in Welsh that were in use in 1892. He trained at the Baptist College, Bristol, and served as a minister at Sodbury (Old Sodbury and Chipping Sodbury), Gloucestershire, and then, from 1757 to 1799, at Horsley, near...
KENNEDY, Benjamin Hall. b. Summer Hill, Tipton, near Birmingham, 6 November 1804; d. Torquay, Devon, 6 April 1889. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham (1814-18) and then at Shrewsbury School (1819-23), followed by St John's College, Cambridge (BA 1827). At Cambridge he was an outstanding figure, winning many of the University Prizes, becoming President of the Union, and being a member of the 'Apostles' (the intellectual society that included such figures as Arthur Hallam and...
INGHAM, Benjamin. b. Ossett, Yorkshire, 11 June 1712; d. Aberford Hall, near Tadcaster, Yorkshire, 2 December 1772. He was educated at Batley Grammar School and Queen's College, Oxford (1730-34), where he became acquainted with Charles Wesley* and was associated with the Oxford Methodists (his diary of these years was edited by Heitzenrater, 1985). He was persuaded by the Wesley brothers to accompany them to Georgia; his letter describing the voyage is printed in Heitzenrater (2003). In Georgia...
JONSON, Benjamin (Ben). b. (probably) London, June 1573; d. London, August 1637. His father died shortly after he was born, but his mother married a prosperous bricklayer, a trade to which Jonson himself was apprenticed. However, he had also been educated at Westminster School under William Camden, and was well trained in Latin and Greek and Hebrew. He fought in the campaign in the Netherlands (1591-92), before becoming an actor in a travelling company, and beginning to write his early plays,...
KEACH, Benjamin. b. Stoke Hammond, near Leighton Buzzard, Buckinghamshire, 29 February 1640; d. London, 18 July 1704. He was apprenticed to a tailor. His early reading and experience inclined him towards Calvinism and adult baptism, and by 1658 he was preaching and ministering to a Baptist congregation at Winslow, Buckinghamshire. In 1664 he published The Child's Instructor, a book which contained not only the basic educational information (reading, writing, arithmetic) but also material...
RHODES, Benjamin. b. Mexborough, Yorkshire, 1743, date unknown; d. Margate, Kent, 13 October 1815. He was the son of a schoolmaster, who gave him a good education. At the age of 11 he was much influenced by hearing George Whitefield* preach, and in 1766 he became one of 'Mr Wesley's preachers', serving until his death at Margate. In the obituary in the Minutes of the Methodist Conference he was described as 'a man of great simplicity and integrity of mind; he was warmly and invariably attached...
SCHMOLCK, Benjamin. b. Brauchitzdorf, near Liegnitz, Silesia, 21 December 1672; d. Schweidnitz, 12 February 1737. The son of a Lutheran pastor, he was educated at the Gymnasium at Lauban and at the University of Leipzig (1693-97). He was ordained in 1701. In 1702 he was appointed diaconus of the Lutheran Friedenskirche at Schweidnitz. He remained there for the rest of his life, as diaconus, then archdiaconus (1708), and then pastor primarius (1714). Following the wars of religion, Schweidnitz...
WAUGH, Benjamin. b. Settle, Yorkshire, 20 February 1839; d. Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, 11 March 1908. He left school at 14, and was apprenticed to a linen draper in Southport; but at 23 he entered Airedale College, Bradford, to train for the Congregational ministry (1862-65). He served at Newbury, Berkshire (1865-66), Greenwich, London (1866-85), and New Southgate, Middlesex (1885-87). While at Greenwich he became interested in the welfare of children, and in 1887 he resigned from the full-time...
ACKLEY, Bentley D. b. Bradford, Pennsylvania, 27 September 1872; d. Winona Lake, Indiana, 3 September 1958. Rising to prominence as pianist for the Billy Sunday and Homer A. Rodeheaver* revival meetings, B. D. Ackley became a prolific composer of gospel songs and editor of gospel hymnals. He was born into a family of musicians in Bradford, Pennsylvania, including his younger brother Alfred Ackley*, who also became a gospel song composer. Their father, Stanley Ackley, served as a Methodist...
BARTON, Bernard. b. Carlisle, 31 January 1784; d. Woodbridge, Suffolk, 19 February 1849. Born into a Quaker family, he was the son of a manufacturer. His mother died a few days after he was born, and his father married again, moving to London and then Hertford. Bernard was sent to a Quaker school at Ipswich, where he learned the principles of business and trade. In 1806 he moved to Woodbridge, Suffolk, where he was a partner in a coal and coke business. He married in 1807, but his wife died in...
KYAMANYWA, Bernard. b. Kagera Region, Tanganyika (now Tanzania); 10 May 1938. A teacher, Lutheran pastor, and hymnwriter, Kyamanywa studied to be a schoolteacher at Kigarama Teacher's College (Bukoba, Tanzania) where he received his basic musical training. He continued his study at Lutheran Theological College (now Makumira University College) in Arusha (Diploma in Theology, 1968). He became known for his exceptional mastery of Hebrew, a skill that earned him the position as a representative of...
BERNARD of Clairvaux. b. Fontaines-lez-Dijon, Côte-d'Or, ca. 1090 ; d. 1153. He was born, probably in 1090, at the castle of the son of Tescelin le Saur, lord of Fontaine, vassal of the duke of Burgundy, and of Aleth de Montbard. He studied with the canons of Saint-Vorles at Châtillon-sur-Seine. In 1112, Bernard, accompanied by thirty followers, entered Cîteaux Abbey (founded in 1098 by Robert de Molesme); he took vows one year later. In 1115, at the request of Abbot Stephen Harding, Bernard...
BERNARD of Cluny. Dates unknown, 12th century. Little is known of Bernard's life. He is sometimes referred to as 'Bernard of Morlaix' (for example by John Mason Neale*). Neale believed that Bernard had been born in Brittany of English parents, but this is not certain. He entered the monastery at Cluny, and was a monk there under Peter the Venerable*, abbot from 1122 to 1157. He dedicated his great poem, De Contemptu Mundi, to 'Peter his abbot'. It is a remarkable work of 2966 lines, written in...
INGEMANN, Bernhard Severin. b. 28 May 1789; d. 24 February 1862. He was born in the parsonage of Thorkildstrup. His father was dean of the northern half of the Danish island of Falster. After the death of his father in 1799 Ingemann grew up in Slagelse (West Zealand), where he attended the grammar school. From 1806 to 1816 he studied at the University of Copenhagen without taking a degree (as an undergraduate he took part in the defence of Copenhagen in 1807). In 1811 Ingemann published his...
POLMAN, Bert Frederick. b. Rozenburg, the Netherlands, 28 August 1945; d. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1 July 2013. Polman spent part of his childhood in Indonesia with his missionary parents. After the family immigrated to western Canada, Polman received his education at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa (BA, 1968); University of Minnesota (MA, 1969; PhD in Musicology, 1981); and did postgraduate work at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He taught music at the Ontario...
BIANCO da Siena. b. date unknown; d. 1434. Little is known of his life. He was born at Anciolina, a small village north-west of Arezzo, Tuscany. In 1367 he joined an Order of Lay Brothers, the Jesuates, established by the Blessed John Colombinus of Siena (the Order was abolished by Pope Clement IX in 1668). He is said to have lived in Venice for some years, and to have died there.
His hymns remained in manuscript until they were published by Telesforo Bini, entitled Laudi Spirituali del Bianco...
Gaither, Bill (William James). b. Alexandria, Indiana, 28 March 1936. Gaither was one of four children of the marriage of George W. (1913-2005) and Lela (née Hartwell) (1914-2001). The farming family attended the Church of God in Alexandria, a restoration group with Wesleyan holiness roots headquartered in Anderson, Indiana, (not related to Pentecostal denominations with the same name). Early on Gaither studied piano and organ, 'performing wherever he could in recitals and as an accompanist'...
TAMBLYN, Bill. b. Birmingham, 5 December 1941. He was educated at University College, Durham, during which time he began to study plainchant with Fr Laurence Hollis at Ushaw College and converted to Roman Catholicism. On leaving university, he became, first, cantor and then for ten years, director of music at Our Lady of Grace and St Edward, Chiswick, West London. Tamblyn edited Church Music until 1974, and during the late 1960s he travelled with John Michael East (director of the Church Music...
KWILLIA, Billema. b. ca. 1925. (also known as Belema Kwelea and Belema Kollia). Kwillia is a literacy teacher and evangelist from Liberia in West Africa. She is best known for the hymn 'Come, Let Us Eat' ('A va de laa mioo'), which has been included in several hymnals and ecumenical collections. Kwillia composed the hymn in the 1960s.
Margaret D. Miller (b. 1927), a missionary to Liberia from the United States who served in the Lutheran Literacy Centre in Wozi, transcribed this communion hymn...
BOYE, Birgitte Katerine (née Johansen). b. Gentofte, Denmark, 7 March 1742; d. 17 October 1824. Born into a family in the king's service, she was married to Herman Hertz, one of the king's foresters. He was appointed forester of Vordingborg, in the south of Zealand, in 1763. Birgitte bore him four children, and also found time to study German, French and English: she translated hymns into Danish from these languages. She was discovered as a hymn writer when a new hymn book to replace that of...
Gillman, Robert (Bob). b. West Ham, London, 16 June 1946. Bob Gillman received his education in the Borough of West Ham, including the local Catholic Junior School followed by South West Ham Technical School, finishing his education at Abbs Cross Technical School in Hornchurch. Retired now, his career included performing, composing, and pursuing his interest in steam-driven trains while managing a printing company. After passing the qualifying exams, Gillman worked for the London Underground...
HURD, Bob (Robert L.). b. Lakewood, Ohio; August 9, 1950. Bob Hurd is a Catholic composer, teacher, liturgist, and author who is known for his many English-language and bilingual compositions in Spanish and English. He studied at St John's Seminary College (Camarillo, California; BA 1973) and De Paul University (Chicago; MA 1976; PhD 1980). Hurd has served in several academic and pastoral settings including Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), the Franciscan School of Theology (Berkeley,...
KILPATRICK, Bob. b. Louisville, Kentucky, 25 October 1952. Born into a Scottish-American Air Force chaplain's home, Kilpatrick became a Christian in 1968, and from that time on has devoted himself to a troubadour ministry of contemporary Christian music. He is a solo performer, song writer, broadcaster, and record producer. Think, Pray, Groove (2003), and This Changes Everything (2006) document his style of music: a mix of folk, gospel and progressive rock. 'In my life, Lord, be glorified'* is...
BOETHIUS, Anicius Manlius Severinus. b. ca. 475-77; d. ca. 524. Born into an aristocratic family, the Anicii, Boethius was adopted into an even more illustrious family, the Symmachi, following his father's death. In his twenties he married his adopted father's daughter, Rusticiana, and began a project to write books on the four mathematical sciences or quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy – his writings on only the former two survive). His rapid political rise, marked by...
Bonaventura da Bagnoregio (Giovanni di Fidanza) b. Bagnoregio, Italy, ca. 1217; d. Lyons, France, 14 July 1274. The rise of St Bonaventura from young scholar to prominent theologian and mystic, minister general of the Order of Friars Minor, prelate, and advisor of popes is one of the remarkable stories of the Middle Ages. There is no contemporary source of biographical information about Bonaventura. The earliest are a 15th-century biography by Mariano of Florence and a Chronicle of the...
DRAPER, Bourne Hall. b. Cumnor, near Oxford, 1775; d. Southampton, 12 October 1843. He was born into a Church of England family that was too poor to send him for training as an ordinand. He worked as a printer's apprentice at the Clarendon Press, Oxford. He became a Baptist, and when his apprenticeship was ended, he went to study (1802-04) at the Baptist Academy, Bristol, under John Ryland* (Junior, 1753-1825). Ordained in 1804, he became pastor of a Baptist Church at Chipping Norton, and then...
BROWN, Brenton. b. Port Elizabeth, South Africa, 1 July 1973. Raised in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, Brown attended South African College Schools, studied law at the University of Cape Town, and then received a Rhodes Scholarship to study PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) at the University of Oxford (1996-98), where he also received a one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Theology (1998-99).
Brown's involvement in worship leadership began during his time at the University of Cape Town,...
WREN, Brian Arthur. b. Romford, Essex, 3 June 1936. He was educated at the Royal Liberty (Grammar) School, Romford. After National Service (1955-57), he read Modern Languages at New College, Oxford (BA 1960) and Theology at Mansfield College, Oxford (BA 1962). He was awarded the Oxford DPhil in 1968 for a thesis on 'The Language of Prophetic Eschatology in the Old Testament'.
Ordained in 1965, he served as minister of Hockley and Hawkwell Congregational Church in his native Essex (1965-70). He...
FOLEY, (William) Brian. b. Waterloo, Liverpool, 28 November 1919; d. Crosby, Liverpool, 11 October 2000. He was educated at St Mary's Irish Christian Brothers' School at Crosby, Lancashire, and at Upholland College, near Wigan, where he trained for the Roman Catholic priesthood. He was ordained in 1945. His parish ministry was in Liverpool for ten years; Bootle for eleven; Birkdale for five; and eventually, from 1971, in Clayton Green, Chorley, Lancashire. He died at Nazarene House,...
HOARE, Brian Richard. b. Upminster, Essex, 9 December 1935. Hoare was educated at Southwell Minster Grammar School, at Westminster College, London, and at Richmond College, University of London. After teaching Religious Education at Calverton, Nottinghamshire, he became Secretary of the Colleges of Education Christian Union (Inter-Varsity Fellowship) in London (1962-68). He was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1971, and was chaplain at Hunmanby Hall School, Filey, Yorkshire. He then served...
MILES, C. (Charles) Austin. b. Lakehurst, New Jersey, 7 January 1868; d. Pitman, New Jersey, 10 March 1946. Educated at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and the University of Pennsylvania, Miles ended his pharmaceutical career in 1892 and turned to writing gospel music. His first song 'List, 'tis Jesus' voice' was accepted by the Hall-Mack Publishing Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which led to his appointment as editor and manager, a post he continued after that company's merger in...
Woolston, C. Herbert. b. Camden, New Jersey, 7 April 1856; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 20 May 1927.A pastor, gospel song writer, and sleight-of-hand magician, Clarence Herbert Woolston claimed that he had 'addressed many more than 1,000,000 children' (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1927, p. 4).
The son of Isaiah S. and Sarah B. Woolston, Herbert attended public schools in Camden, New Jersey, and the South Jersey Institute at Bridgeton. He entered the ministry under the influence of evangelist...
CAEDMON. b. 7th century; d. ca. 670-680. What little is known of Caedmon's life is found in Bede*'s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (finished 731), where he describes Caedmon as a lay brother and herdsman at Whitby Abbey during the time of St Hilda as abbess (657-680). According to Bede's story, the monks were singing one evening, and Caedmon left the gathering and went to the stable because he knew no songs (the Anglo-Saxon gloss to Bede*'s Historia adds that Caedmon left 'for shame')....
MALAN, (Henri Abraham) Caesar (César). b. Geneva, Switzerland, 7 July 1787; d. Vandoeuvres, Switzerland, 18 May 1864. Descended from Waldensians (see Waldensian hymnody*), Malan's family originally settled at Mérindol in Provence, but were dispersed owing to religious persecution in 1714. Educated in Geneva, Malan was at first pastor in the National Church of Geneva and in accord with its near-Unitarian character. Around 1820, he became pastor of a separatist group in Geneva.
Malan was a...
LAUFER, Calvin Weiss. b. Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania, 6 April 1874; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 20 September 1938. Calvin Weiss Laufer was a minister, editor, writer of hymn texts and tunes, and a founder of The Hymn Society (now The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada*). The eldest child of Nathan Laufer, a farmer and miller, and Angelina Weiss Laufer, he was baptized at Zion German Reformed Church in Brodheadsville. His parents settled in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood in...
ROBERTS, Caradog. b. Rhosllanerchrugog, Denbighshire, 30 October 1878; d. Wrexham, Denbighshire, 3 March 1935. He trained as a carpenter but became a full-time musician, studying with J.C. Bridge, organist of Chester Cathedral. He was organist of Mynydd Seion Congregational Church, Wrexham (1894-1903), and of Bethlehem Congregational Church, Rhosllanerchrugog (1904-35). He was director of Music at University College of North Wales, Bangor (1914-20). As a hymn tune composer he is known outside...
BONNER, Carey. b. Southwark, London, 1 May 1859; d. Muswell Hill, London, 16 June 1938. Born in London, the son of a Baptist minister, who gave him his Christian name in admiration of the great Baptist missionary, William Carey (1761-1834). After working in London for a publisher, Bonner trained for the Baptist ministry at Rawdon Baptist College, Leeds, and was ordained in 1884. He was minister at Oakfield Union Church, Sale, Cheshire (1884-95), and at Portland Chapel, Southampton (1895-1900)....
GARVE, Carl Bernhard. b. Jeinsen near Hannover, 24 January 1763; d. 21 June 1841. He was educated at a school of the Moravian Brotherhood, becoming a teacher in a secondary school at Niesky (1784) and a lecturer in the theological college of the Brotherhood (1789). There he was introduced to the idealist and romantic spirit, which saw the influence of the Enlightenment as pernicious. He was transferred to work in the archives of the Unitas Fratrum in 1797. He became a preacher in Amsterdam...
DØVING, Carl. b. Norddalen, Sunnmøre, Norway, 1 March 1867; d. Chicago, Illinois, 2 October 1937. Døving left Norway as a young man and lived in South Africa (1883-90), where he taught at a mission school, the Schreuder Mission in Natal, founded by the Norwegian missionary Hans Schreuder (1817-1882). Døving emigrated to the USA in 1890 and attended Luther College, Decorah, Iowa (AB, 1893) and Luther Seminary of the Norwegian Synod, St Paul, Minnesota (CT [Candidatus theologiae], 1896). He was a...
BOBERG, Carl Gustav. b. 16 August 1859; d. 7 January 1940. Born at Mönsterås, Sweden, he was the son of a ship's carpenter. He began life as a sailor. He was converted at the age of 19, and then attended Kristinehamn Bible School. He then became a preacher at Mönsterås, later becoming its member in the Upper House of the Swedish Parliament from 1912 to 1931. He edited a religious magazine, Sanningsvittnet ('Witness of Truth') from 1890 to 1916. He was a poet and hymn writer: many of his hymns...
DAW, Carl Pickens, Jr. b. Louisville, Kentucky, 18 March 1944. Carl Daw was born into a Baptist preacher's family. He received degrees in English from Rice University, Houston, Texas (BA 1966), and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville (MA, PhD, 1970); he taught English at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia (1970-78). In 1981 he received a divinity degree from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. After ordination in the Protestant Episcopal Church, he...
ROSAS, Carlos. b. Linares, Nuevo León, Mexico, 4 November 1939; d. San Antonio, Texas, 12 February 2020. Catholic hymn writer, composer, church musician, and lecturer, and son of Anastacio Rosas and Isabel Delgado, he was the tenth of twelve children. He and his wife María Teresa de León (1940-2011), a citizen of the United States, were married on December 26, 1965. He resided in San Antonio, Texas, near his five children, ten grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
Rosas's compositions...
OWENS, Carol. b. El Reno, Oklahoma, 30 October 1931. She was educated at San Jose State College in California. Her husband Jimmy* (they married in 1954) was a jazz band arranger who directed music in several churches in southern California. Beginning in the 'Jesus Movement' (see Christian popular music, USA*), the Owens were active in writing contemporary Christian musicals, performing and recording in various places in California, and doing musical missions for the Church of the Way in Los...
GILLETTE, Carolyn Winfrey. b. Harrisonburg, Virginia, 28 May 1961. Hymn writer and ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She was raised, baptized, and confirmed in the United Methodist Church; she earned a bachelor's degree in religion from Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania before going on to receive her M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary (1985). She was ordained in 1986. Gillette has served at churches in New Jersey and Delaware, and as a hospital and...
CAMERON, Catherine Bonnell Arnott Oskamp. b. St John, New Brunswick, Canada, 27 March 1927; d. Claremont, California, USA, 26 July 2019. She was born into a Presbyterian preacher's family, which immigrated to the United States in 1935, at which point she became an American citizen. She was educated at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario (BA in English, 1949); and at the University of Southern California (MA, 1970, PhD 1971, in Social Psychology). She married Robert Arnott, a minister, from...
ALEXANDER, Cecil Frances. b. Dublin, April 1818, exact date unknown; d. Derry, 12 October 1895. She was the daughter of Major John Humphreys, a distinguished former soldier who had served in the Napoleonic Wars, and his wife Elizabeth. Her father became agent to the Earl of Wicklow in 1825, and the family were closely associated with the Protestant aristocracy of Ireland. Fanny, as she was known to her family, was well educated and religious, much influenced by figures such as John Keble* and...
TAYLOR, Cecily. b. Coulsdon, Surrey, 25 March 1930. She was evacuated during the war, and enjoyed what she calls a 'considerably varied' primary school career, attending six schools by the age of twelve. She worshipped in the local Anglican Church, but returned after the war to her home, where she was introduced to a Congregational youth group by a friend. At the age of 17 she joined the church and remained in membership for 40 years. There also she met her husband, and was involved in church...
GABARÁIN, Cesáreo. b. Hernani, Gipúzkoa, Basque Country, Spain, 16 May 1936; d. Antzuola, Spain, 30 April 1991. Monseñor Cesáreo Gabaráin was one of the best-known composers of Spanish liturgical music following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). He was inspired by the feelings and actions of the humble people he met during his ministry. His hymns were recorded on thirty-seven albums (the last completed posthumously). He is the only Roman Catholic Church composer to receive...
DE CHENEZ, Charitie Lees (née Smith; also Charitie Lees Bancroft). b. Bloomfield, Merrion, Dublin, 21 June 1841; d. (?) Oakland, California, USA, 1923. The daughter of a Church of Ireland rector, Sidney Smith, she lived at home at Aghalurcher, County Fermanagh, and in Tattyreagh, County Tyrone, where her father held the living from 1867 onwards. She married Arthur E. Bancroft in 1869; after his death she married again, and is sometimes known by her second married name of De Chenez (sometimes...
COFFIN, Charles. b. Buzancy, 4 October 1676; d. 20 June 1749. Buzancy is a small town in the present-day département of Ardennes, in the diocese of Rheims. Coffin left there in 1693 for Paris to complete his education. He was an outstanding student: as the favoured successor of Charles Rollin, he became a tutor of the Collège de Beauvais and then (1712) its head. In 1718 he was elected rector of the University of Paris and did much to reorganize its finances. He was entrusted with delivering...
MUDIE, Charles Edward. b. Chelsea, London, 18 October 1818; d. Hampstead, London, 28 October 1890. Mudie followed in his father's footsteps as a bookseller. He established his own shop in Bloomsbury in 1840, and for a time was also in business as a publisher. In 1842 he founded the subscription library for which he is chiefly remembered. At its peak this had over 25,000 subscribers, with branches in several parts of London, as well as Birmingham and Manchester. The library exercised a great...
CLARKE, Charles Erskine. b. 10 February 1871; d. 8 March 1926. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (BA 1892, MA 1896). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1896, priest 1897), serving curacies at St Luke's, Southampton (1896-99), St Mary's, Battersea, London (1899-1900), and St Luke's, Battersea (1900-14). He was vicar of St Luke's (1914-24), and Perpetual Curate of St John the Evangelist, Redhill, Surrey (1924-26).
Clarke's 'O, David was a shepherd lad'* was written for a hymn...
SPURGEON, Charles Haddon. b. Kelvedon, Essex, 19 June 1834; d. Menton, France, 31 January 1892. He was the elder son of a clerk to a coal merchant who was also a Baptist lay preacher and who later became an independent minister. Charles went to school in Colchester and later spent a few months at an agricultural college. He joined the Baptist Church on 3 May 1850 and in spite of his extreme youth almost immediately began his preaching ministry. After short period in teaching, he became a...
HUTCHESON, Charles. b. Glasgow, 1792; d. Glasgow, 20 January 1860. He lived all his life in Glasgow and worked in business there. He was a member of St George's Parish church (now St George's Tron Church). He was an amateur composer, and had a fine singing voice. He published Christian Vespers (1832), containing hymn tunes. He is known for the tune STRACATHRO, composed probably ca. 1849, and published in a collection entitled Mitchison's Improved and Enlarged Edition of Robertson's Selection of...
GABRIEL, Charles Hutchinson. b. Wilton, Iowa, 18 August 1856; d. Hollywood, California, 14 September 1932. Following in his father's footsteps, Charles Gabriel became a singing school teacher at the age of 16, and after 1887 served as music director in the Grace Methodist Church in San Francisco. He settled in Chicago, the center for evangelical and revivalist publishing, in 1892, where he devoted the rest of his life to writing, composing, editing, and publishing. A list of his works includes...
PARKIN, Charles. b. Felling on Tyne, England, 25 December 1884; d. Portland, Maine, 3 March 1981. Charles Parkin studied at Oxford University and served in the British Army during World War I. Following the War, he was secretary of the British Poetry Society. In 1922, Parkin moved to the United States and was ordained a minister in the Maine Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. From 1950 to 1952, Parkin was the superintendent of the Portland District of the Maine Conference, and then...
KRAUTH, Charles Porterfield. b. Martinsburg, Virginia, 17 March 1823; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2 January 1883. The son of a Lutheran minister, Charles Philip Krauth, Charles Porterfield Krauth was educated at Pennsylvania College (later Gettysburg College), of which his father was the first President, and at Gettysburg Theological Seminary, graduating in 1841. He served Lutheran churches in Canton, Baltimore (1841-42), the Second English Lutheran Church, Baltimore (1843-47); Winchester,...
JONES, Charles Price Sr. b. Texas Valley, Georgia, 9 December 1865; d. Los Angeles, California, 19 January 1949. Preacher, hymnist, and denominational leader, Jones was baptized in 1884 and ordained in 1887. He became senior pastor of St Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas (1888) and graduated at Arkansas Baptist College (ca. 1893), accepting a call to Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church in Searcy, Arkansas, and serving as corresponding secretary of the Arkansas Colored...
ROBERTSON, Charles. b. Springburn, Glasgow, 22 October 1940. He was educated at The Orphan Homes of Scotland Primary School (Quarrier's), Bridge of Weir; Camphill Senior Secondary School, Paisley; and New College, University of Edinburgh (MA). After studying divinity at New College, he was licensed to preach on 22 April 1964, and ordained and inducted to Kiltearn Parish Church, near Dingwall, Ross-shire, on 21 October 1965. He married Alison Robertson* in 1965. In June 1978 he was translated...
NUTTER, Charles Sumner. b. Tuftonboro, New Hampshire, 19 September 1842; d. Melrose, Massachusetts, 2 August 1928. Charles Nutter and Wilber Fisk Tillett* (1854-1936) wrote The Hymns and Hymn Writers of The Church, an Annotated Edition of The Methodist Hymnal (New York and Cincinnati: The Methodist Book Concern, 1911). Nutter was an avid collector of hymnological materials, and his collection together with that of Frank Metcalf (1765-1945) total more than 2500 volumes, comprising the core of...
ROBINSON, Charles Seymour. b. Bennington, Vermont, 31 March 1829; d. New York, 1 February 1899. The son of General Henry Robinson (1778-1854) and Martha P. Haynes (1800-1857), Robinson studied theology at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, Union Seminary, New York City, and graduated from Princeton Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey. Following his ordination in 1855, he served as pastor of Park Presbyterian Church, Troy, New York. In 1858 he married Harriet Read Church (1835-1895),...
CALVERLEY, Charles Stuart. b. Martley, Worcestershire, 22 December 1831; d. London, 17 February 1884. He was the son of a clergyman, Henry Blayds, and was known until 1852 as Charles Blayds. He was educated privately from the age of five to fifteen, after which he was at Marlborough College for a short time before moving to Harrow in 1846. He won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, and matriculated there in 1850, winning the Chancellor's Prize for a Latin poem in 1851. He was sent down...
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...
EVEREST, Charles William. b. East Windsor, Connecticut, 27 May 1814; d. Waterbury, Connecticut, 11 January 1877. Everest graduated from Washington College (now Trinity College), Hartford, Connecticut, in 1838. He was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1842, and served as rector of the Episcopal Church at Hamden, Connecticut, for the following thirty-one years. Among his publications were Vision of Death (Hartford, 1837), Babylon, a Poem (Hartford, 1838) and The poets of Connecticut: with...
WESLEY, Charles. b. Epworth, Lincolnshire, 18 December 1707; d. London, 29 March 1788. He was youngest son and 16th/17th child (though calculations vary) of Samuel Wesley (I)* and the redoubtable Susanna, and younger brother to John*. From Westminster School (1716-26), first as King's Scholar and finally Captain of the school, he gained a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1730, MA 1733). He became leader (in John's absence as their father's curate) of a small group known as the 'Holy...
FRY, Charles William. b. Alderbury, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, 30 May 1838; d. Polmont, near Falkirk, Scotland, 24 August 1882. He was the son of a bricklayer. He was registered at birth as 'William Charles', but married as 'Charles William'. At the age of 17 he was converted at a Sunday evening prayer meeting at the Wesleyan chapel in Alderbury. He became a Wesleyan local preacher, but he was also a considerable musician, playing various instruments, including the cornet, which he played in a...
TUCKER, Charlotte Maria [pseudonym A. L. O. E. (A Lady of England)]. b. Friern Hatch, Barnet, 8 May 1821; d Amritsar, India, 2 December 1893. She was the daughter of Henry St George (1771/2-1851), who rose to the position of chairman in the East India Company, and his wife, Jane Boswell (d. 1869), who was related to Samuel Johnson's biographer. She had a privileged and largely secular upbringing, but underwent an Evangelical conversion around 1848, which led her to devote her life to God's...
TOMLIN, Christopher (Chris). b. Grand Saline, Texas, 4 May 1972. Tomlin is a performer, worship leader and songwriter, well-known in the USA for his association with the Passion Conferences, and internationally for his contributions to contemporary Christian music. He was educated at Tyler Junior College, Texas, and Texas A&M University. He is a multiple-award winner in the Gospel Music Association's Dove Awards. He has released ten albums, and has collaborated frequently with other...
BUNSEN, Christian Carl Josias. b. Corbach in Waldeck, Germany, 25 August 1791; d. Bonn, 28 November 1860. He was educated at the Universities of Marburg and Göttingen, becoming an assistant master at the Gymnasium (High School) of Göttingen. He resigned his post to engage in philological and historical research, which he continued throughout his career. He married Frances Waddington, of an English landed family, in 1817. He entered the diplomatic service, becoming Prussian Minister at Rome...
DAVID, Christian. b. Senftleben (Zenklava), Moravia, 17 February 1691; d. 3 February 1751. He was brought up as a Catholic, learning the trade of a carpenter (ca. 1713). He came to know the Bible well, and discussed its contents with the Jews. Intending to become a Protestant, he sought out the Lutherans in Hungary, in Leipzig and finally in Prussia. Working as a kitchen-boy, he took part in the operations to regain Stralsund. In Berlin he converted to the Protestant faith. In 1717 at Görlitz,...
RICHTER, Christian Friedrich. b. Sorau, Brandenburg, 5 October 1676; d. Halle, 5 October 1711. The son of a high-ranking civil servant, Richter studied both medicine and theology at the University of Halle. He impressed August Hermann Franke*, who made him inspector of schools and then medical officer of all the educational institutions in Halle. He was a chemist, who researched into materia medica. His hymns were much influenced by the Pietist atmosphere in Halle. In JJ two are annotated...
GELLERT, Christian Fürchtegott. b. Hainichen, Saxony, 4 July 1715; d. Leipzig, 13 December 1796. The son of a Lutheran pastor, he was educated at the famous Electoral College at Meißen. From 1734 to 1743, interrupted by periods of earning his living as a tutor, he attended Leipzig University. After finishing his BA and MA (1744), he launched into an academic career and was appointed professor of philosophy in 1751. Beginning under the auspices of J.Chr. Gottsched and taking part in publications...
BARTH, Christian Gottlob. b. Stuttgart, 31 July 1799; d. Calw, 12 November 1862. He was educated at the Gymnasium at Stuttgart, followed by the University of Tübingen (1817-21). He became assistant at Neckarweihingen and Dornham (1821-22), curate at Effringen and Schönbrunn (1822-24), and pastor at Möttlingen, near Calw, Württemberg (1824-38). In 1838 he resigned his living and went to live at Calw in order to devote more time to writing and missionary work until his death.
Barth translated...
GREGOR, Christian. b. Dirsdorf, Silesia, 1 January 1723; d. Berthelsdorf, Herrnhut, 6 November 1801. Born the son of a humble peasant farmer, he associated with the Brethren at Herrnhut from 1742, serving as organist. In 1748 he moved to Herrnhaag as director of music, and in 1749 to Zeist, returning to Herrnhut in 1753. From 1764 he was a member of the directing board of the Unitas Fratrum and was given the task of editing a hymnal which would collect and preserve what was valuable of the vast...
BATEMAN, Christian Henry. b. Wyke, Yorkshire, England, 9 August 1813; d. Carlisle, Cumberland, 27 July 1889. Bateman was the son of John Frederick Bateman (1772–1851), a mostly unsuccessful inventor, and Mary Agnes Bateman (née La Trobe) (1772–1848), and the fourth of six siblings (his older brother, the eminent civil engineer John Frederick La Trobe Bateman (1810–1889), was - unlike his father - one of the most successful innovators of his era, supervising reservoirs and waterworks in Ireland...
KNORR VON ROSENROTH, Christian. b. Alt-Raudten, Silesia (Stara Rudna, Poland), 15 July 1636; d. Großalbershof, near Sulzbach, Bavaria, 4 May 1689. The son of the pastor of Alt-Raudten, he was educated at the Latin School in Fraustadt, and later at Frankfurt-an-der-Oder and Stettin. After studying at the Universities of Leipzig and Wittenberg, where he did a dissertation on Roman coins, he travelled through the Netherlands, France, and England. Through meetings with an impoverished Armenian...
FISCHER (Vischer), Christoph. b. Joachimsthal (now Czech Jáchimov), ca. 1518; d. Celle, 1597 (buried 16 Oct). He was probably taught at school by Nikolaus Herman*. He studied at Wittenberg, where he was one of Luther's lodgers, together with Johannes Mathesius*, who lived there at the same time, and who also came from Joachimsthal. Mathesius left in 1542 but Fischer stayed until 1544, when he graduated MA and was ordained. He was pastor at Jüterbog (1544-52), near Wittenberg, where he was known...
SMART, Christopher. b. Shipbourne, near Maidstone, Kent, 11 April 1722; d. London, 20 May 1771. He was educated at Maidstone Grammar School to the age of 11, when his father died and he was sent to live with his uncle at Staindrop, County Durham. He continued his education at Durham School, and from 1739 at Pembroke College, Cambridge (BA, 1744). He won the prestigious Craven Scholarship in 1742, and was made a Fellow of Pembroke in 1745. His turbulent life there, and his predilection for...
MARTIN, Civilla Durfee (née Holden). b. Jordan, Nova Scotia, 21 August 1866; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 9 March 1948. Civilla Durfee was a village schoolteacher with some musical training. She wrote some gospel songs with her husband, Walter Stillman Martin (1862-1935), formerly a Baptist minister but later an itinerant evangelist, teacher, and pastor for the Disciples of Christ, based in Atlanta. She is best known for two very comforting gospel songs: 'Be not dismayed whate'er betide'* ('God will...
CLONINGER, (Elizabeth) Claire (née de Gravelles). b. Lafayette, Louisiana, 12 August 1942; d. Fairhope, Alabama, 15 August 2019. She was the daughter of Charles de Gravelles (1913-2008), a notable oil and gas land agent and a Republican politician in a predominantly Democrat state. She was educated at Louisiana State University and the University of Southwestern Louisiana (BA 1966, MA, 1967). She married Robert ('Spike') Cloninger and held various positions as elementary school teacher,...
BENOIT, Claire-Lise de. b. Calcutta 28 August 1917; d. Geneva (?) 15 November 2008. She was the eldest of seven children born to Pierre and Renée de Benoit. Her father was a Missionary Doctor in India. She became a Scripture Union pioneer worker in French-speaking Switzerland, and a well known Evangelical hymnwriter.
From 1939, remaining single, she developed children's work over forty years through holiday camps and publishing. She represented the Scripture Union at an international level....
SANTEUIL, Claude de. b. 3 February 1628; d. 29 September 1684. Born into a prosperous Parisian family, he became a secular ecclesiastic at the Seminary of St Magloire, Paris, taking the name 'Santolius Maglorianus'. He was invited by Cardinal Péréfixe and Archbishop Harlay to revise the Paris Breviary, which appeared in 1680, containing some of his hymns and those of his younger brother, Jean-Baptiste de Santeuil*. He is best known for the hymn 'Prome vocem, mens, canoram', translated by John...
McAFEE, Cleland Boyd. b. Ashley, Missouri, 25 September 1866; d. Jaffrey, New Hampshire, 4 February 1944. Educated at Park College in Parkville, Missouri (founded in 1875 by his father) (BA, 1884; MA, 1888) and Union Theological Seminary in New York City (dipl. 1888), Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri (PhD, 1892). McAfee returned to Park College, served the campus church as Presbyterian preacher and led its choir while he taught philosophy there (1888-1901). Later, he was pastor of First...
MAROT, Clément. b. Cahors, 1496; d. Turin/Torino, Italy, 1544. He was the son of the poet and rhetorician Jean Marot. He played a leading role in the development of French poetry and hymnology. He had possibly received a musical education, allowing him to sing and play an instrument. He was first at the service of Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy, and secondly, around 1519, of Marguerite d'Alençon (1492-1549), sister of Francis I. In 1527, he was appointed as a 'valet de chambre'. In...
Clement of Alexandria (Titus Flavius Clemens). b. Athens, ca. 150; d. Caesarea, Cappadocia, ca. 215/220. What little is known of Clement's life is found in the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260/265- ca. 339/340). Clement was born at Athens and educated there, becoming familiar with Greek literature and culture. He acquired a remarkable knowledge of Plato and of other philosophers such as Philo of Alexandria. After some travelling he settled in Alexandria, where he became a renowned...
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...
COLUMBA, St. ('Colm Cille'). b. County Donegal, Ireland, 521; d. Iona, Scotland, 597. Born in the north-west of Ireland, he was trained and educated in Ireland, emigrating to Iona in 563 where he founded a monastery and remained for the rest of his life. The name 'Colm Cille' means 'Dove of the Church', which is latinised as 'Columba'.
St Adomnán (d. 704), ninth abbot of Iona and Columba's biographer, stated that Columba had written a book of hymns for the week (Hymnorum liber septimaniorum)...
COLUMBANUS, St. b. Ireland, 543; d. Bobbio, Italy, 615. Born in the western part of the province of Leinster, St Columbanus became a monk at the Abbey of Bangor, Co. Down (now in Northern Ireland), during the abbacy of its founder, St Comgall (ca. 516-601). He went into exile, ca. 590, together with twelve companions. They called themselves Peregrini pro Christo and were responsible for the foundation of numerous monasteries in France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy during the 7th and 8th...
BECKER, Cornelius. b. Leipzig, 24 October 1561; d. Leipzig, 25 May 1604. He spent almost his whole life in the city of his birth, studying at the University of Leipzig, becoming a teacher at St Thomas' School (1588), diaconus of St Nicholas' Church (1592), and pastor there (1594); he was also Professor of Theology in the University of Leipzig. A convinced Lutheran, he was disturbed by the influence of the Calvinism of the Reformed church, and especially by the popularity of the metrical psalms...
CRUCIGER (CREUTZIGER), Elisabeth (née von Meseritz). b. Meseritz, Pomerania (now Międzyrzecze, Poland), ca. 1500; d. Wittenberg, 2 May 1535. From a noble Catholic family, she was sent to be educated at a Premonstratensian convent, where she studied Latin and Biblical Studies. She became a nun, but under the influence of Johannes Bugenhagen (1485-1558, Luther's 'Doktor Pomeranus', the Lutheran apostle to Pomerania), she left the convent in 1521. She married Caspar Cruciger/Creutziger, a pupil...
GÜNTHER, Cyriakus. b. Goldbach, near Gotha, 15 January 1650; d. Gotha, 7 October 1704. Günther was educated at Goldbach and at Gotha. He studied at the University of Jena, after which he was appointed 'Conrektor' at Eisfeld, Thuringia; he returned to Gotha in 1679 as 'Collega tertius' (third-form master) at the Gymnasium, remaining in that post until his death.
At his death he left a notebook containing over thirty hymns. His son, Friedrich Philipp Günther, verger of St George's Church at...
HAMBLY, Cyril Grey. b. Cardiff, 6 January 1931; d. Shrewsbury, 4 December 1999. He was educated at the University of Wales (where he studied music), and trained for the Methodist ministry at Hartley Victoria College, Manchester. He was ordained in 1954, and held appointments in a number of circuits, principally in Wales and East Anglia. He was a contributor to Partners in Praise (1979) and published A Hymn for the Lectionary (1981), a collection of 70 hymns written by him to accompany the...
TRUEBLOOD, David Elton. b. Pleasantville, Marion County, Iowa, 12 December 1900; d. Meadowood Retirement Community, near Lansdale, Pennsylvania, 20 December 1994. Some records indicate that Elton was born 'near Indianola', but he writes that 'On rare occasions we drove sixteen miles to either Indianola or Knoxville…' (While It Is Day, p. 10). Other records state that he was born at the family farm (near Waveland, in Warren County); he himself, however, states that he was born at Pleasantville...
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...
DANIEL BEN JUDAH. (fourteenth century). Daniel ben Judah is thought to have been a Roman dayan (or dayyan, a rabbi and judge) who composed the Yigdal, a metrical paraphrase of the thirteen articles of Jewish faith drawn up by Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon, 1130-1205). The Yigdal is known to Christians through a further paraphrase by Thomas Olivers*, with its first phrase 'The God of Abraham praise'*, often sung to LEONI.
Little is known about Daniel ben Judah. Indeed, it appears that only...
DAMON, Daniel Charles. b. Rapid City, South Dakota, 2 July 1955. Damon was educated at Greenville College in Illinois and at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. After serving parishes in Sutter, Meridian, Modesto, and Richmond, all in California, he is currently retired as an Elder in the United Methodist Church in 2020. He also teaches church music at the Pacific School of Religion on an adjunct basis, plays in jazz clubs, and leads jazz vespers for the students at the...
ROBERTS, Daniel Crane. b. Bridgehampton, Long Island, New York, 5 November 1841; d. Concord, New Hampshire, 31 October 1907. He was educated at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. During the Civil War he served as a private in the 84th Ohio volunteers. Immediately after the war he was ordained into the Episcopal Church of America (deacon 1865, priest 1866). He served in parishes at Montpelier, Vermont; Lowell, Massachusetts; Brandon, Vermont; in 1878 he was appointed to St Paul's, Concord, New...
IVERSON, Daniel. b. Brunswick, Georgia, 26 September 1890; d. Asheville, North Carolina, 3 January 1977. Iverson studied at the University of Georgia, the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Columbia Theological Seminary in New York City, and the University of South Carolina. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1914, he initially served congregations in Georgia and North and South Carolina, and then founded and pastored the Shenandoah Presbyterian Church in Miami, Florida (1927-51). An...
MALGAS, Daniel. b. Eastern Cape, South Africa, ca.1853; d. Fort Beaufort, South Africa, March 1936. Malgas was an ordained Anglican priest, whose career was based in the eastern part of the Cape Colony near Kwa Maqoma (formerly Fort Beaufort). An official record of his exact birth date has not been found. It is possible that his birth was not registered because his parents converted to Christianity when Malgas was in his late teens. He began formal education in 1872 at St Luke's Mission....
MARCH, Daniel. b. Milbury, Massachusetts, 21 July 1816; d. Woburn, Massachusetts, 2 March 1909. March was educated at Amherst College (1834-36), and Yale University (BA, 1840). After serving as principal of Fairfield Academy in Connecticut, he returned to Yale for his theological studies. He was ordained into the Presbyterian ministry in 1845, but later changed to Congregationalism, and served churches in Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, and twice in Woburn, Massachusetts (1856-64,...
SCHUTTE, Daniel L. b. Neenah, Wisconsin, 28 December 1947. Schutte was educated at St Louis University, St Louis, Missouri (BS, 1972). After three years teaching Oglala Sioux high school students at Red Cloud Indian School at Pine Ridge, South Dakota (1973-76), he went to the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California (1976-80, MDiv 1980) to complete his formal theological training in preparation for priestly ordination. He also holds an MTh degree from the Graduate Theological Union,...
SUDERMANN, Daniel. b. Liège (Luik), the Netherlands (now Belgium), 24 February 1550; d. Strasbourg, ca. 1631. He was the son of a painter and engraver. For much of his life he lived and worked in Strasbourg. In 1587 he was vicar of the Bruderhof, the chapter house of the cathedral. With Adam Reissner he published translations from the Latin hymns of Prudentius*, Tägliche Gesangbuch…Prudentius vor tausend Jahren, auss dem Latein verteütscht (Strasbourg, 1596). The majority of Sudermann's large...
NILES, Daniel Thambyrajah. b. Jaffna, north Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) 4 May 1908; d. 17 July 1970. He was born into a Tamil Christian family: his grandfather was a Methodist minister, and his father was a lawyer. He studied law, but then chose to become a Methodist minister; he was ordained in 1936. As a young district evangelist, he was a delegate to the International Missionary Council Tambaram Conference of 1938; he then became YMCA evangelism secretary in Geneva (1939-40), before returning to...
WHITTLE, Daniel Webster. b. Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, 22 November 1840; d. Northfield, Massachusetts, 4 March 1901. Whittle was given the name of the great lexicographer, Daniel Webster, which suggests a respect for learning on the part of his parents, who moved to Chicago in his teenage years. He worked as a Wells Fargo Bank cashier in Chicago before serving in the Civil War. In 1861 he joined the 72nd Illinois infantry regiment: he took part in Sherman's march through Georgia from...
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...
TERRY, Darley. b. Brighouse, Yorkshire, 19 January 1847; d. Prestatyn, North Wales, 21 January 1933. Terry was a printer at Dewsbury, Yorkshire and a Sunday-school superintendent. He represented Yorkshire on the council of the National Sunday School Union. He was an active member of the Methodist New Connexion, serving on its Sunday schools committee from 1877 to 1899, and on its Young People's and Temperance Department. He is said to have published Poems and Hymns (1904, 1914, second series,...
Bjorlin, David Donald. b. Duluth, Minnesota, 8 March 1984. David Bjorlin is a minister in the Evangelical Covenant Church, a liturgy professor, and a hymn writer. He is the son of Dean and Marijo Bjorlin, one of four children. He was raised in Hermantown, near Duluth, where he graduated from high school. His musical interests began as a part of a children's choir, Hermantown (now Lake Superior) Youth Chorus, and were honed as a violinist in his Pentecostal church's orchestra and as a piano and...
DENICKE, David. b. Zittau, Oberlausitz, Saxony, 31 January 1603; d. Hannover, 1 April 1680. Denicke was educated at the Gymnasium at Zittau, and at the Universities of Wittenberg and Jena, where he studied philosophy and law. He taught law at Königsberg as a 'Privatdozent', before making several journeys between 1624 and 1628 to observe the laws and customs in Holland, England and France. He was then employed as tutor to the sons of the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg at Herzberg. In 1639 he...
GAMBRELL, David. b. Raleigh, North Carolina; 4 December 1972. David Patrick Gambrell is ordained to ministry in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a liturgical scholar, and a hymn writer. His love for hymn singing was cultivated at a young age in the Presbyterian congregations where he was raised.In addition to singing in church choirs, he sang in coffee houses most weekends, reflecting the influence of folk music by Pete Seeger, 'whose passion for music, pursuit of justice, and care for...
CORNER, David Gregor. b. Hirschberg, Silesia (now Jelenia Góra, Poland), ca. 1587; d. Vienna, Austria, 9 January 1648. Corner studied at the Universities of Prague and Graz, and later became a Doctor of Theology at the University of Vienna. He became a Catholic priest in 1614, and served at Rötz before entering the monastery at Gottweig as a novice in 1628. In 1636 he became abbot of the monastery, but his period of office lasted only a short time because he was nominated as Rektor of the...
David J. Evans ('Dave'), b. Dartford, Kent, 1957. As a child he lived in Winchester; he was educated at the University of Southampton (BSc). He is a music teacher who has been involved in leading contemporary worship in a number of 'new' churches. He has written many worship songs; by far the best known is 'Be still, for the Presence of the Lord'*.
JRW
Further Reading
Christopher Idle, Exploring Praise! Volume 2: the authors and composers (Darlington: Praise Trust, 2007).
KAI, David. b. Toronto, Ontario, 14 May 1955. David Kai is a composer, songwriter, and arranger whose extensive body of work reflects his own background as a Sansei (a third generation Canadian of Japanese descent), and his eclectic musical training and experience. Kai grew up in Toronto, highly involved in the music ministry of Centennial-Japanese United Church, where he began playing piano for Sunday school by about age 10. By the age of 13 he was playing for services.
Influences upon him...
RITCHIE, David Lakie. b. Kingsmuir, Angus, Scotland, 15 September 1864; d. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 14 December 1951. He was educated at Forfar Academy and at the University of Edinburgh. He was ordained to ministry in the Congregational Church in Scotland, with a pastorate at Dunfermline (1890-96) and then in England at St James's Congregational Church, Newcastle upon Tyne (1896-1903). He was Principal of Nottingham Theological Institute from 1903 to 1919; and, after a year in Montreal as...
MORGAN, David Thomas. b. 17 September 1809; d. Whipps Cross, Walthamstow, Essex (now Greater London), 14 November 1886. He is described by some authorities as a 'Russian merchant'. He published Hymns of the Latin Church. Translated by D.T. Morgan. With the originals appended (privately printed, 1871). This was enlarged as Hymns and other Poetry of the Latin Church, Arranged according to the Calendar of the Church of England (1880), containing one hundred hymns. The Preface to this second book...
DUFNER, Delores (OSB). b. near Buxton, North Dakota, 20 February 1939. Born in the family farmhouse during a winter blizzard, Dufner's elementary education was in a one-room country school; she was later educated by the Benedictine Sisters in Crookston, Minnesota. She entered St Joseph's Benedictine Monastery in St Joseph, Minnesota, and was awarded graduate degrees in Liturgical Music (1973) and Liturgical Studies (1990) from St Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana, and the University of...
MONAHAN, (Carl) Dermott. b. Ikkada, South India, 1 January 1906; d. Lambeth, London, 23 May 1957. He was the son of a Wesleyan Methodist missionary, educated at Kingswood School, Bath, the school founded by John Wesley* for the sons of ministers. From there he went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge (BA 1927); after a year (1927-28) as a Colonial Administrator in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), he studied at Handsworth College, Birmingham. He served in educational work in India in the Hyderabad District...
TUTU, Desmond. b. Klerksdorp, North West Province, Republic of South Africa, 7 October 1931; d. Cape Town, RSA, 26 December 2021. After a short period as a teacher, he was ordained an Anglican priest in 1960. He went to Britain to pursue theological studies at King's College, London (1962-66). Returning to South Africa, he taught at UBLS (the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) before becoming Director of the Theological Education Fund for Africa (1972-75). He was Dean of St Mary's...
HUNTINGTON, DeWitt Clinton. b. Townshend, Windham, Vermont, 27 April 1830; d. Lincoln, Nebraska, 8 February 1912. One of a family of nine children, he was the son of Ebenezer Huntington (1780-1866) and Lydia Peck (1786-1857). He was educated at Syracuse University, New York, after which he was ordained as a Methodist Episcopal Church minister in 1853. He was the pastor of churches in New York State and Pennsylvania: Rochester (1861-71); Syracuse (1873-76); Rochester again (1876-79); Bradford,...
RIMAUD, Didier. b. Carnac, Morbihan, Brittany, 6 August 1922; d. Lyon, 24 December 2003. Rimaud was educated at l'Externat St Joseph and the Lycée St Marc at Lyon. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1941, and after studying classics and philosophy in addition to his training as a Jesuit, he was ordained priest in 1955. He taught in colleges in France before being appointed to the Centre National de Pastorale Liturgique in 1950. This institution was engaged in producing a modern...
DOLBEN, Digby Augustus Stewart Mackworth. b. Guernsey, Channel Islands, 8 February 1848; d. Luffenham, Rutland, 28 June 1867. He was the son of aristocratic and fiercely Protestant parents, and Digby reacted by becoming involved with Roman Catholicism while still at school at Eton, when he associated with an unofficial order of Benedictines which allowed him to dress as a monk. At Eton he became friendly with Robert Bridges*, who encouraged him to write poetry and admired the result; on a visit...
FISHEL, Donald Emry. b. Hart, Michigan, 1 November 1950. Fishel, a flautist, attended the University of Michigan, studying under Nelson Hauenstein and Michael Stoune (BM, 1972). Brought up a Methodist, he turned to Roman Catholicism in 1969, and worked for the charismatic Roman Catholic 'Word of God Community' in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as publications editor of their Servant Music and as director of the parish orchestra, until 1981. He was principal flautist with Dexter Community Orchestra and...
HUGHES, Donald Wynn. b. Southport, Lancashire, 25 March 1911; d. Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, 12 August 1967. The son of a Methodist minister, Hughes was educated at the Perse School, Cambridge, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He took First Class Honours in the English Tripos, after which he taught at the Leys School, a Methodist foundation in Cambridge (1935-46). He was a distinguished cricketer, playing first-class cricket as an amateur for Glamorgan, for whom he took part in a...
AKERS, Doris Mae. b. Brookfield, Missouri, 21 May 1922; d. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 26 July 1995. Doris Akers had an active career as singer, choir director, songwriter, and recording artist, though she had no formal training in music. She wrote her first song at age ten, and afterwards composed hundreds of gospel songs and hymns (some sources indicate 500[1]) including 'Lead me, guide me'* and 'There's a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place'* which have influenced developments in Black Urban...
GURNEY, Dorothy Frances (née Blomfield). b. London, 4 October 1858; d. London, 15 June 1932. She was the daughter of the vicar of St Andrew Undershaft in the City of London, and granddaughter of a Bishop of London. In 1887 she married Gerald Gurney, the son of Archer Thompson Gurney*. She and her husband became Roman Catholics in 1919. She published The Childhood of Queen Victoria (1901), Poems (1913), and A Little Book of Quiet (1915). After her death two collections of her poems were...
RAMBO, Dottie (Luttrell, Joyce Reba). b. Madisonville, Kentucky, 2 March 1934; d. Mount Vernon, Missouri, 11 May 2008. Raised during the Great Depression in the poverty-stricken coalfields of western Kentucky, Dottie expressed an early affinity for country music, taught herself to play guitar by listening to country music radio performances broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry, and began writing songs at the age of eight. Four years later she had a born-again Christian experience and made a...
BUCHANAN, Dugald (Dughall Bochanan). b. Ardoch, Balquhidder, Perthshire, 1716; d. Ardoch, 2 July 1768. His diarydescribed his early manhood as a period of recklessness and ungodliness, profanity and vice (it is possible that he took the outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor (d. 1734), who lived at Balquhidder, as an example). He had some education in Stirling and Edinburgh, and worked for a time as an itinerant carpenter. During the 1740s he is believed to have spent some time at Glasgow at the Divinity...
MacGREGOR, Duncan. b. Fort Augustus, Inverness-shire, 18 September 1854; d. Inverallochy, near Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, 8 October 1923. He attended the University of Aberdeen in the years 1870-71 and 1873-74, but did not take a degree. He was a 'missioner' in parts of Scotland, including the Orkney Islands, before becoming minister of Inverallochy from 1881 until his death.
He became an authority on the early Scottish church, publishing Early Scottish Worship: Its General Principles and...
McNEIL (sometimes McNeill), Duncan. b. Glasgow, 15 February 1877; d. Glasgow, 28 January 1933. McNeil was a travelling Scottish evangelist, based in Glasgow. He continued to live there, apart from a visit to the USA in 1927-30, where he was associated with Kimball Avenue United Evangelical Church, Chicago (1928-30).
McNeil published Duncan McNeil's Hymn Book (London and Glasgow: Pickering and Inglis, n.d., but dated 1923 in British Library Catalogue). It is said to include 'Song Testimonies'...
MARLATT, Earl Bowman. b. Columbus, Indiana, 24 May 1892; d. Winchester, Indiana, 13 June 1976. His father was a Methodist Episcopal minister. He and his twin brother, Ernest F. Marlatt, were the youngest of eight brothers and sisters, all of whom graduated from DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana (a Methodist foundation, originally Indiana Asbury University). Earl Bowman graduated in 1912 and then studied at Harvard and Boston Universities, and at Oxford and Berlin. He taught school in...
ESPINOSA, Eddie. b. Los Angeles, California, 10 September 1953.
Eddie Espinosa is an educator, counselor, administrator, worship leader, composer, and producer. His family moved to Phoenix when he was in first grade. Though raised a Catholic and served as an altar boy, he made a profession of faith on August 24, 1969. Soon afterward, he attended a Dave Wilkerson Youth Rally and experienced Andraé Crouch* 'taking people into the presence of God'. At that point, he understood his calling...
STITES, Edgar Page. b. Cape May, New Jersey, 22 March 1836; d. Cape May, 9 January 1921. Stites lived in Cape May for most of his life, apart from a period in Philadelphia during the Civil War, where he worked in the provisions department of the Union army, and another period when he was a missionary in Dakota. He was a pilot on the Delaware River and a lifelong Methodist, a member of the Cape May chapel for sixty years. He was the cousin of Eliza E. Hewitt* of Pennsylvania, whom he would have...
BUDRY, Edmond Louis. b. Vevey, 30 Aug 1854; d. Vevey, 12 Nov 1932. Born in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, Budry was educated at Lausanne, studying at the theological faculty of the Église Évangélique Libre du Canton de Vaud, a breakaway church from the National Reformed Church of Vaud. He served as a pastor of that church at Cully and Ste Croix, between Lausanne and Vevey (1886-89) and of the Free Church at Vevey (1889-1924). He died at Vevey and is buried at Cully. He is famous for...
PIDOUX, Edmond.b. Mons, Belgium, 25 October 1908; d. 17 April 2004. He was a poet and dramatist, the son of the pastor-hymnwriter Louis Samuel Pidoux (1878-1953), and brother of the musicologist Pierre Pidoux*. He was educated at the University of Lausanne and became a teacher and lecturer. He published a collection, Anthologie romande de la litérature Alpestre (Lausanne, 1982) in a career which included theatrical pieces, such as L'Histoire de Jonas and L'Arche de jonc (on the Exodus). He was...
SEARS, Edmund Hamilton. b. Sandisfield, Massachusetts, 6 April 1810; d. Weston, Mass., 16 January 1876. Sears was educated at Union College in Schenectady, New York (1834), and Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge (MA 1837). He was ordained as a Unitarian minister in 1839, but believed in the divinity of Christ, and had an interest in Swedenborgianism. He served churches in Wayland, Lancaster, and Weston, all in Massachusetts.
Among his many very successful books were Regeneration (1854, Ninth...
SPENSER, Edmund. b. London, ca. 1552; d. Westminster, London, 13 January 1599. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Pembroke Hall, Cambridge (BA 1573, MA 1576). He was briefly secretary to John Young, bishop of Rochester, before entering the service of the Earl of Leicester (1579). In the same year he published The Shepheardes Calender. In 1580 he moved to Ireland as secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, acquiring land there and restoring the ruined Kilcolman Castle, County Cork, ca....
VAUGHAN, Edmund. b. Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, 26 November 1827; d. Bishop Eton, Liverpool, 1 July 1908. Born at into a distinguished Roman Catholic family, he became a member of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (C.ss.R), the order of mission priests ('Redemptorists') founded by St Alphonsus Liguori*. He was a Novice in 1850, made his profession as a Redemptorist on 2 February 1852, and was ordained to the priesthood on 22 February 1852. He worked for a time in Australia, and was...
PRYS, Edmwnd. b. Llanrwst, Denbighshire, 1542/3; d. Maentwrog, Merioneth, 1623. He received his early education in the Grammar School of the Diocese of St Asaph. He went as a student to St John's College, Cambridge in 1565 (BA 1568, MA 1571). He was ordained deacon in 1567 and priest in 1568. He became a Fellow of St John's College in 1570, College Preacher in 1574, College chaplain in 1575, and University preacher in the same year. He was appointed to parishes in North Wales, a number of which...
DAYMAN, Edward Arthur. b. Padstow, Cornwall, 11 July 1807; d. Shillingstone, Dorset, 30 October 1890. He was educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton, Devon, and Exeter College, Oxford (BA 1830, MA 1831, BD 1841). An outstanding undergraduate with a First Class degree, he was appointed to a Fellowship of his College. He took Holy Orders, becoming rector of Shillingstone in 1842. He was a Canon of Salisbury Cathedral from 1862 onwards, and a noted historian of the Cathedral: with a fellow Canon,...
CASWALL, Edward. b. Yateley, Hampshire, 15 July 1814; d. Birmingham, 2 January 1878. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at Chigwell, Essex and King Edward's Grammar School, Marlborough, Wiltshire. He entered Brasenose College, Oxford (BA 1836, MA 1838) and took Holy Orders (deacon, 1838, priest, 1839). He became Perpetual Curate of Stratford-sub-Castle, near Salisbury, where his uncle, Thomas Burgess, was bishop. He married in 1841, and in 1845 he and his wife went on a tour of the...
DENNY, (Sir) Edward. b. Dublin, 2 Oct 1796; d. London, 13 June 1889. He was the son of an Irish baronet, succeeding to the title in 1831. He was the owner of Tralee Castle, and of much of the county of Kerry, where he was an absentee landlord (living in London for most of his life) but a charitable and sympathetic one. In old age he remembered that he was converted by reading a novel about a Jesuit priest, Father Clement, by Grace Kennedy (Edinburgh, 1823), but he became a member of the...
HARLAND, Edward. b. Ashbourne, Derbyshire, 1810; d. Colwich, Staffordshire, 8 June 1890. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford (BA 1831; MA 1833). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1833, priest 1834), and was curate of Newborough, near Peterborough (1833-36) and Sandon, Essex (1836-51). In 1851 he became vicar of Colwich, and chaplain to the Earl of Harrowby. He was admitted Prebendary of Eccleshall in Lichfield Cathedral, 1873. He was the author of Index Sermonum (1858), and a popular Church...
PRUDEN, Edward Hughes. b. Chase City, Virginia, 30 August 1903; d. Richmond, Virginia, 1987. After school in Chase City, Pruden was educated at the University of Richmond, Virginia, a Baptist school attended by pre-ministerial students (graduated 1925), followed by the Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky (MDiv). Further graduate study followed at Yale, and Edinburgh, Scotland (PhD). He was awarded a DD at the age of 29 from the University of Richmond (the youngest person ever to...
BRAILSFORD, Edward John. b. Birmingham, 8 March 1841; d. Ilfracombe, Devon, 30 November 1921. He was educated in Ireland at the Wesleyan Connexional School, Dublin, and trained for the Wesleyan Methodist ministry at Didsbury College, Manchester. He was ordained in 1863, and served in various circuits, including Bangor and Caernarvon, Liverpool, London, Bolton, and Ilkley, Yorkshire, where some of his hymns were written. He served as Chairman of the District in no fewer than five districts,...
MOTE, Edward. b. London, 21 January 1797; d. Horsham, Sussex, 13 November 1874. He worked in London as a cabinet-maker. He was greatly influenced by the preaching of the Revd John Hyatt at George Whitefield*'s Tottenham Court Road chapel. Mote became a Baptist minister, serving as pastor of a Baptist Chapel at Horsham, Sussex (1852-74) until his death.
His hymn writing had begun long before his ordination: the hymn by which he is remembered, 'My hope is built on nothing less'*, was published...
PERRONET, Edward. b. probably at Sundridge, Kent, 1721; d. Canterbury, 2 January 1792. He was the son of an Anglican vicar from a Swiss Huguenot family, Vincent Perronet (1693-1785), curate of Sundridge and later (1728) vicar of Shoreham, Kent. Vincent Perronet was initially concerned about Methodist activity within the Church of England, but was convinced by a long letter from John Wesley* of 1748, later published as A Plain Account of the People called Methodists (1749). He became a strong...
SHILLITO, Edward. b. Hull, 4 July 1872; d. Buckhurst Hill, Essex, 1 March 1948. He was educated at Silcoates School, Wakefield, Yorkshire (founded as the Northern Congregational School), and Owens College, Manchester (later the University of Manchester). He trained for the Congregational ministry at Mansfield College, Oxford, and was ordained as an assistant at Ashton-under-Lyne, near Manchester (1896). He subsequently served at Tunbridge Wells (1898-1901), Brighton (1901-06), Harlesden,...
BLAXILL, (Edwin) Alec. b. Colchester, Essex, 16 March 1873; d. Colchester, 25 June 1953. He was educated at the Grammar School (later the Royal Grammar School) at Colchester, and lived all his life in the town. After leaving school he worked in the family business, which included a builders' merchants (which still exists). He was a member of Lion Walk Congregational Church at Hythe ( part of Colchester), and a teacher, and later Superintendent of the Sunday School there. He was elected to the...
CHAPIN, Edwin Hubbell. b. Union Village, New York, 29 December 1814; d. Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts, 26 December 1880. Chapin was a Universalist minister, author, orator, social reformer, and writer of hymns. With John Greenleaf Adams (1810-1897) he compiled Hymns for Christian Devotion.
Edwin Chapin was a descendant of Samuel Chapin (1598-1675), born in Devon, England, who became a prominent settler at Springfield, Massachusetts. Among other descendants of Samuel Chapin were hymn tune...
LE GRICE, Frederick Edwin. b. Harleston, Norfolk, 14 December 1911; d. Ripon, North Yorkshire, 25 June 1992. Educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, Edwin Le Grice was ordained in the Church of England in 1936 and served curacies in Leeds and Paignton before becoming Vicar of Totteridge, Greater London. He later became a residentiary canon at St Albans Cathedral before his appointment as Dean of Ripon Cathedral, a post he held from 1968 until his retirement in 1984.
Several texts by Le Grice...
FARJEON, Eleanor. b. Westminster, London, 13 February 1881; d. Hampstead, London, 5 June 1965. Born into a distinguished literary family, she became a writer herself, publishing books for both adults and children. Two of her books were memoirs: A Nursery in the Nineties (1935), about her childhood, and Edward Thomas: the Last Four Years (1958), recording her friendship with the poet who was killed in the Great War of 1914-1918. She published a book of poems, Pan Worship, in 1908; her Nursery...
HULL, Eleanor Henrietta. b. Cheetham, Manchester, 15 Jan 1860; d. Wimbledon, Surrey, 13 Jan 1935. Born into an Irish family, Eleanor Hull was educated at Alexandra College, Dublin, and the Royal College of Science. She was evidently very proud of her Irish background, and devoted her life to the study of Irish culture. In 1899 she was one of the founders of the Irish Texts Society, and she acted as its London secretary for thirty years.
Before 1899 she had already edited The Cuchulain Saga in...
See 'Howell Elvet Lewis'*
ESLINGER, Elise Shoemaker (née Matheny). b. Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 2 December 1942. Elise Matheny's musical education began in early childhood with her aunt and continued with piano lessons at age 5 and organ lessons at age 14. Following graduation from high school in Meridian, Mississippi (1960), she pursued her undergraduate education at Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi (BA in Organ, Minor in English, Magna cum laude, 1963). She continued graduate studies in music literature at the...
HOFFMAN, Elisha Albright. b. Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, 7 May 1839; d. Chicago, Illinois, 25 November 1929. Hoffman was an Evangelical Association minister's son (his middle name was given in honour of the founder of the Association, Jacob Albright). After fighting on the Union side in the Civil War, he attended Union Bible Seminary in New Berlin, Pennsylvania, and was ordained in 1868 by the Evangelical Association. He worked with the Association's publishing arm in Cleveland, Ohio (1868-79)....
HEWITT, Eliza Edmunds. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 28 June 1851; d. Philadelphia, 24 April 1920. Eliza Hewitt spent her entire life in the city of her birth. She taught school there, after being educated at the Girls' Normal School, until she was incapacitated by a spinal injury for some time. Initially active in Olivet Presbyterian Church, Hewitt worked at the Northern Home for Friendless Children, and later as a Sunday-school superintendent at Calvin Presbyterian Church. Publishing various...
HAMILTON, Eliza H. b. Glasgow, 3 October 1807; d. Bridge of Allan, Stirling, 14 April 1868. Hamilton's Hymns for the Weary was published at some time before 1869. In that year the Third Edition was advertised in an Edinburgh newspaper, the Daily Review (British Newspaper Archive, 3, 10 and 17 February), together with several other publications by Eliza H. Hamilton, such as The Destroyer, a Temperance Tale, price 1s 6d, The Convent: or, Paths of Danger, price 2d, The Hurricane: a Touching Story,...
WESTBURY, Eliza. b. Hackleton, Northamptonshire, 1808 (Baptized 22 May); d. 11 April 1828. She was a member of Hackleton Baptist Church (among its founders in 1781 had been the local shoemaker, William Carey, who became a famous missionary and was instrumental in establishing the Baptist Missionary Society). Westbury learned to read and write at Sabbath School. She was a lace-maker and a Particular Baptist. Converted to an evangelical faith in 1826, she subsequently wrote about 150 hymns: 71...
CLEPHANE, Elizabeth Cecilia Douglas. b. Edinburgh, 18 June 1830; d. Melrose, Roxburghshire, 19 February 1869. She was a daughter of Andrew Clephane, Sheriff Principal of Fife and Kinross. The family later moved to Melrose, in the Scottish Borders, where Clephane became renowned for her kindness and generosity to the poor: she is said to have sold her horses to provide relief for the poor. Between 1872 and 1874 eight of her hymns were published in The Family Treasury, a religious magazine, under...
PRENTISS, Elizabeth (née Payson). b. Portland, Maine, 26 October 1818; d. Dorset, Vermont, 13 August 1878. She became a teacher before marrying (1845) George Lewis Prentiss (1816-1903), a Congregational (later Presbyterian) minister and well known author. They lived at New Bedford, Massachusetts (1845-51) and then in New York, with a period in Europe (1858-60). Her husband became Professor of Pastoral Theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York. She died at their summer residence at...
SCOTT, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Scott Williams Smith). b. Hitchin, Hertfordshire, 17 October 1708; d. Wethersfield, Connecticut Colony, 13 June 1776. She was the writer of several hymns that were widely published in England and New England during the 18th and 19th centuries, all of which are included in a manuscript volume identified by a label on its binding (but not inside) by the words 'Hymns and Poems by Elizabeth Scott', preserved in the Beinecke Library of Yale University. It contains 90...
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...
WORDSWORTH, Elizabeth. b. Harrow, Middlesex, 22 June 1840; d. Oxford, 30 November 1932. She was the eldest child of Christopher Wordsworth*, headmaster of Harrow School from 1836 to 1844, and later Bishop of Lincoln. She was educated privately, teaching herself Greek, and becoming an accomplished linguist. After many years as CW's daughter when he was the vicar of Stanford-in-the-Vale, Berkshire (also a canon of Westminster), and later a Bishop (whom she assisted in his Commentary on the Whole...
ARMITAGE, Ella Sophia (née Bulley). b. Liverpool, 3 March 1841; d. Leeds, 20 March 1931. Born into a distinguished Congregationalist family, she was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she was one of the first five undergraduates (Newnham was one of the first colleges for women). She was a notable linguist, historian and archaeologist, working at Manchester University, from which she received an Honorary Degree. She married the Revd. Elkanah Armitage, a professor at the Yorkshire...
GOREH, Ellen Lakshmi. b. Benares (now Varanasi), India, 11 September 1853; d. Cawnpore (Kanpur), 1937. Her father, Nehemiah Goreh (later to become an influential priest of the Indian Church) had been excommunicated from his Brahmin caste for converting to the Christian faith. Her mother, Lakshmibai Jongalekar, died less than three months after her birth. Ellen was adopted by a Mrs Smailes, an indigo planter's wife. The Smailes lost their estate in the Indian Mutiny (1857-8) and were unable to...
HARRISON, Eluned (née Cornish). b. Cardiff, South Wales, 19 December 1934. She grew up in Dinas Powys, and was educated at Penarth County School for Girls and University College, London. She taught science at both school and college level. In 1960 she married Graham Stuart Harrison*, who was soon to become a long-serving church pastor in Newport. Of more than fifty hymns she has written, originally for use in personal devotion, the most in demand has been 'O Lord my God, I stand and gaze in...
HALL, Elvina Mable (née Reynolds); JJ prints her second name thus; HymnQuest prints it as 'Mabel'. b. Alexandria, Virginia, 4 June 1820; d. Ocean Grove, New Jersey, 18 July 1889. She was a member of the Monument Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Baltimore. She married Richard Hall; after his death she married the Revd Thomas Myers, of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Church. She is remembered for one hymn, 'I hear the Savior say'*. This is frequently known and referred to as 'Jesus...
PERKINS, Emily Swan. b. Chicago, Illinois, 19 October 1866; d. Riverdale, New York, 27 June 1941. Perkins was a composer of hymn tunes and the founder in New York City of The Hymn Society (later The Hymn Society of America; now The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada*). She was the fourth child and only daughter of George Walbridge Perkins (1831-1886) and Sarah Louise Mills Perkins (1833-1872) and was named for Emily Swan, a friend of her parents. Two years after Sarah Perkins died in...
BEVAN, (Emma) Frances (née Shuttleworth). b. Oxford, 25 September 1827; d. Cannes, France, 15 March 1909. Born at Oxford, the daughter of the Warden of New College, the anti-Tractarian Philip Shuttleworth, who became Bishop of Chichester in 1840. She married Robert Bevan, a banker, in 1856. She subsequently became a member of the Plymouth Brethren. She referred to herself as 'Frances Bevan' or 'F.B.'.
She published many books on religious topics, including Service of Song in the House of the...
TOKE, Emma (née Leslie). b. Holywood, near Belfast, 9 August 1812; d. Ryde, Isle of Wight, 29 September 1878. She was the daughter of a clergyman, John Leslie, who became Bishop of Elphin (later Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh) in 1819. She married the Revd Nicholas Toke, of Godinton Park, near Ashford, Kent, in 1837 (Godinton was the seat of the Toke family, which he may have served as chaplain. He is not listed as holding a benefice, and is not found in the Clergy List after 1867; he may have died...
SONTONGA, Enoch Mankayi. b. ca. 1873; d. 18 April 1905. The short, but significant life of Enoch Sontonga, from the Mpinga clan (Xhosa), began in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, around 1873. Like Bokwe* and Soga*, he may have been educated as a teacher at the Lovedale Mission. He was then sent to a Methodist Mission school in Nancefield, near Johannnesburg, to teach. Working as a choirmaster, Sontonga wrote the text and the music of his most famous hymn and the best known hymn in all of Africa,...
EPHREM the Syrian (Syriac: AFREM). b. Nisibis, ca. 306; d. Edessa, 9 June 373. Ephrem was born at Nisibis (today Nusaybin). He received his religious instruction in Nisibis, where he was also appointed to work as a teacher (malfanā) and he was possibly ordained as a deacon as well. In 363, when Roman-ruled Nisibis was handed over to the Persians, he fled together with a part of the Christian community to Amid (today Diyarbakır) and later to Edessa (today Sanlıurfa). Ephrem spent the rest of his...
ALBER (or ALBERUS), Erasmus. b. Wetterau (?), ca. 1500; d. Neubrandenburg, Mecklenburg, 5 May 1553. Little is known for certain about Alber's early years, although he is thought to have been born in the Wetterau (the area of the river Wetter, north of Frankfurt-am-Main). He matriculated as a student at Wittenberg in 1520, which places his birth date as ca. 1500. After a period as a schoolmaster, he became pastor at Sprendlingen and Götzingen, south of Frankfurt (1528-39), superintendent at...
REID, Eric James. b. Banff, 24 February 1936; d. near Aberdeen, 20 August 1970. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen. He studied in Germany as a postgraduate, where he became deeply interested in twelve-tone music. He was director of music at Turriff Academy, Aberdeenshire (1961-67); lecturer in music, Dundee College of Education (1967-69); exchange teacher, Trenton State College, New Jersey, USA (1969-70). After his return to Scotland he was tragically killed in a car accident near...
ROUTLEY, Erik Reginald. b. Brighton, Sussex, 31 October 1917; d. Nashville, Tennessee, USA, 8 October 1982. He was the only child of John, a businessman and town councillor who was Mayor of Brighton in 1936-37, and Eleanor, a homemaker and musician. He attended Fonthill Preparatory School, 1925-31 and Lancing College, 1931-36. He read Literae Humaniores (nicknamed 'Mods' and 'Greats': classics/ ancient history and philosophy) at Magdalen College, Oxford (BA 1940, MA 1943). He became an...
RYDEN, Ernest Edwin. b. Kansas City, Missouri, 12 September 1886; d. Providence, Rhode Island, 1 January 1981. Born into a Swedish family, Ryden attended the Manual Training School in Kansas City, worked for a newspaper published by the Kansas City Railway, and was a telegraph editor for a newspaper in Moline, Illinois. He attended Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, in 1910 (BA, honorary DD, 1930; he was later President of the Board); and Augustana Theological Seminary, Rock Island (BD,...
DODGSHUN, Ernest James. b. Leeds, 8 March 1876; d. St Briavels, Gloucestershire, 24 August 1944. He was educated at Silcoates School, Wakefield, founded for the children of nonconformist clergy; and then at St John's College, Cambridge. Although brought up in a Congregationalist family, he joined the Society of Friends in 1908. He gave up work as a businessman and became closely associated with the National Adult School Union (cf. George Currie Martin*), of which he became Secretary (1924-44)....
EMURIAN, Ernest K. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 20 February 1912; d. Alexandria, Virginia, 23 January 2004. A hymn writer, author, hymn enthusiast, and a fourth-generation preacher, Emurian was the son of a composer, hymn writer, and publisher. He earned a BA (1931) from Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, a BD from Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, and a ThM from Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree...
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...
SANDS, Ernest. b. 1949; d. Oswestry, 11 April 2016. A bucolic, witty and charismatic priest and composer, 'Ernie' Sands sprang to fame and ultimately (in the USA) notoriety as the composer of 'Sing of the Lord's goodness'* described by one critic as 'a rip-off from Dave Brubeck's “Take Five”'. A founder member of the St Thomas More Group*, Sands had a number of pieces published in the UK and USA in group song collections. 'Sing of the Lord's goodness'* was chosen for the enthronement in 1991 of...
SHURTLEFF, Ernest Warburton. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 4 April 1862; d. Paris, France, August 1917. He was educated at the Boston Latin School and Harvard University, with a further period of study at the New Church (Swedenborgian) Theological Seminary. He trained for the Congregational ministry at Andover Theological College, graduating in 1888. For the graduation ceremony he wrote the hymn by which he is still known, 'Lead on, O King eternal'*. He subsequently served as a minister at...
HOMBURG, Ernst Christoph. b. Mihla, near Eisenach, 1 March 1607; d. Naumburg, June 1681 (buried 27 June). The son of a pastor, Homburg studied law at Wittenberg (ca. 1632). After his 'Wanderjahre' in the Netherlands, Hamburg, Dresden and Jena, he became a lawyer in Naumburg in 1642. His career was disrupted by ill-health: he suffered from depression and from domestic problems, seeking refuge in writing. He was admired by his contemporaries for his secular work, including Schimpff- und...
WHITE, (Elizabeth) Estelle. b. South Shields, County Durham (now in Tyne and Wear), 4 December 1925; d. Dewsbury, Yorkshire, 9 February 2011. Born into a musical family, she learned to play the guitar and saxophone in her youth. She joined the army in 1943, and was based at Fenham Barracks, Newcastle upon Tyne, until she was moved to London with an army band to play the saxophone. After coming out of the army, she trained as a physiotherapist. She worked with children with cerebral palsy for...
CARPENTER, (Joseph) Estlin. b. Ripley, Surrey, 5 October 1844; d. Oxford, 2 June 1927. He was born into a distinguished Unitarian family: his grandfather, Lant Carpenter, was a noted Unitarian minister and schoolmaster, who taught James Martineau*, who in turn taught Estlin ('Joseph' was usually dropped). The family moved to Hampstead, north London, and Estlin was educated at University College School, London, and the University of London, where he read mental and moral philosophy. He trained...
BERSIER, Eugène. b. Morges, Switzerland, 5 February 1831; d. Paris, 18 November 1889. He was a French Evangelical Reformed Pastor, liturgist, preacher, historian and hymnwriter. His Swiss parents, Jacques Bersier and Louise Coindet (she was born in England), were of French Huguenot descent. So Eugène was naturalised French in 1855. His grandmother, on his mother's side, taught him English. He lived in Geneva with his widowed mother from 1838 to 1848. She prayed the 'Prayer-Book' services with...
BARTLETT, Eugene Monroe Sr. b. Waynesville, Missouri, 24 December 1885; d. Siloam Springs, Arkansas, 25 January 1941. Bartlett received his education at the Hall-Moody Institute in Martin, Tennessee, and at the William Jewell Academy, Independence, Missouri (1913-14). He served as president of the Hartford Music Company, in Hartford, Arkansas (1918-35), publishing songbooks and editing the company's music magazine, Herald of Song. He was associated later with the Stamps-Baxter Publications* in...
BASH, Ewald Joseph (Joe). b. Portland, Indiana, 4 November 1924; d. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 17 July 1994. Bash graduated from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio (1948), and served Lutheran parishes in New Lexington and Eagleport, Ohio (1948-53), and Cleveland, Ohio (1953-56). After being a campus pastor at Ohio State University (1956-60), he was appointed Associate Youth Director of the American Lutheran Church. Later he taught extension courses for Augsburg and other schools in the...
TUCKER, Francis Bland. b. Norfolk, Virginia, 6 January 1895; d. Savannah, Georgia, 1 January 1984. The son of an Episcopalian Church bishop, he was educated at school in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (BA 1914). After service with the Medical Corps in World War I, he trained for the priesthood at Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria (BD, 1920, h. c. DD, 1942). He was ordained (deacon 1918, priest 1920), serving parishes at Brunswick County, Virginia...
F.B.P. These initials appear over the text of 'Hierusalem my happie home' ('Jerusalem, my happy home'*) in a manuscript book in the British Library (Add. 15,225). The hymn is of 26 4-line stanzas, entitled 'A Song Mad (i.e. 'made') by F:B:P. To the tune of Diana.' The text is based on a passage from St. Augustine's Meditations beginning 'Mater Hierusalem, Civitas sancta Dei'. In the version ascribed to 'F.B.P.' the text suggests a Roman Catholic origin (as opposed to a Protestant text by W....
HAMILTON, Fayette Montgomery ('F.M.'). b. Washington, Arkansas, 3 September 1858; d. Sparta, Georgia, 10 November 1912. The life of this hymnodist, composer, arranger, and editor is most accurately told within the context of the early history of the Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church (in 1954 the name was changed to the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church). It was first organized on 16 December 1870 as The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, an ecclesial body of mostly African...
ARÉVALO, Faustino (S.J.). b. Campanario, Badajoz, Spain, 29 July 1747; d. Madrid, 7 January 1824. Arévalo entered the novitiate in 1761 at Villagarcía de Campos, in the province of Castile. There, together with his training as a Jesuit, he received a solid humanistic education which would be reflected later in his work. In 1764, one year after taking his religious vows, he continued his education at the seminary at Medina del Campo, until the expulsion from Spain of the Society of Jesus in...
PAGURA, Federico José. b. Arroyo Secco, Santa Fe, Argentina, 9 February, 1923; d. Rosario, Santa Fe, 6 June 2016.
Life and Ministry
In the second half of the 20th century Federico Pagura was among the most notable leaders of the church in South America and one of the leading authors and translators of congregational hymnody from this continent. Not only was he a pillar of the Evangelical Methodist Church in Argentina; he was also a resilient and compelling voice for human rights (derechos...
FILOTHEI the Hieromonk. b. Wallachia, ca. 1640; d. ca. 1720. A Romanian interpreter, translator and author of Byzantine hymns and liturgical texts, Filothei studied Byzantine music with priest Teodosie from the Metropolitan Church of Wallachia. He spent a few years in the monasteries on Mount Athos, improving his knowledge of Byzantine music and the Greek and Medieval Slavonic languages. He returned to Wallachia before 1700 and is known as a hieromonk (a monk who has also been ordained as a...
CHESTERTON, Frances Alice (née Blogg). b. 28 June 1869; d. 12 December 1938. She was the eldest child of a diamond merchant, George William Blogg (of French descent: the name was originally de Blogue) and his wife Blanche, née Keymer. Frances was educated at Notting Hill High School, followed by a time as a pupil-teacher at a Church of England Convent, St Stephen's College (1889-91). Her parents had progressive views about the education of women, and her mother set up a debating society in the...
OWEN, Frances Mary (née Synge). b. Glanmore Castle, County Wicklow, Ireland, 16 April 1842; d. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, 19 June 1883. Born into the Irish landed gentry, she married (1870) the Revd J.A. Owen, sometime Fellow of University College, Oxford, and subsequently a housemaster at Cheltenham College. She helped her husband in the care of boys in his house, and also did much work in Cheltenham with friendless girls and the education of working people. Her influence in the town was so...
WILE, Frances Whitmarsh. b. Bristol Centre, New York, 2 December 1878; d. Rochester, New York, 31 July 1939 (places and dates from Henry Wilder Foote, American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns, compiled for the Hymn Society of America, Cambridge, Mass., 1959), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53833/53833-h/53833-h.htm). She was an active member of the First Unitarian Church in Rochester, of which William Channing Gannett* was the pastor from 1889 to 1908. According to Ronander and Porter (1966,...
BOTTOME, Francis ('Frank'). b. Belper, Derbyshire, 26 May 1823; d. Tavistock, Devon, 29 June 1894. As a young man he was greatly influenced by the Methodists in his native town, and was called upon to preach to them. After training under Thomas Jackson and obtaining a local preacher's license, serving the Belper Circuit, he went to Guelph, Canada, as a missionary to the Native Americans. His health broke down, and he went to New York en route for England. In New York he recovered in the hands...
JOHNSON, Francis Hall. b. Athens, Georgia, 12 March 1888; d. New York, 30 April 1970. African-American composer, arranger, violinist, author, and choral director, Johnson was the fourth of six children, born to William Decker (1842–1909), an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal church and a college president, and Alice Virginia (née Sansom, b. 1857), enslaved until the age of 8, who entered Atlanta University (now the Atlanta University Center) at age 14. A strong proponent of...
ROWLEY, Francis Harold. b. Hilton, New York, 25 July 1854; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 14 February 1952. Born in upper New York State, he was educated at the University of Rochester (BA 1875) and Rochester Theological Seminary (BD 1878). He became a Baptist minister, serving at Titusville, Pennsylvania (1879-84), North Adams, Massachusetts (1884-92), Oak Park, Illinois (1892-96), Fall River, Mass. (1896-1900), and First Baptist Church, Boston, Mass. (1900-1910).
On taking early retirement in...
QUARLES, Francis. b. Romford, Essex, 1592 (baptized 8 May); d. London (?), 8 September 1644. He retained a strong connection with the county of his birth throughout his life. He was educated at a school 'in the countrey' (probably meaning the county) and then at Christ's College, Cambridge. After graduating in 1609, he studied at Lincoln's Inn, though he never practised law. He was secretary to Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh (ca. 1626-ca. 1630), returning to London and then to Roxwell, Essex...
ROUS, Francis. b. 1580/81; d. 7 December 1659. Born the son of a Cornish nobleman, Sir Anthony Rous, he was a child prodigy, educated at Broadgates Hall (later Pembroke College), Oxford (BA 1597), and at the age of 16 writing a Spenserian poem, Thule, or, Virtue's History (published 1598). He matured into a serious man of affairs and politician, with a strong sympathy for the Puritan cause. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1626 to 1629, returning in 1640 after the period in which...
STANFIELD, Francis. b. probably at Camden, London, 5 November 1835; d. Clapton, east London, 12 May 1914. His family lived at Camden from 1832 to 1839. He was the son of Clarkson Stanfield (1793-1867), the theatrical and landscape painter, and friend of Charles Dickens. Clarkson Stanfield became an increasingly devout Roman Catholic in his later years. Two of his children, Francis and Raymund, became Catholic priests. Francis, a convert to Catholicism like his father, was ordained in 1860 and...
XAVIER, Francis. b. Xavier, Navarre, Spain, 7 April 1506; d. Shang Chuan, near China, 3 December 1552. He was born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta in a new castle ('Xavier' in the Basque language) belonging to his aristocratic family in the kingdom of Navarre: the kingdom was invaded and divided during his youth, and the castle was reduced in size by the order of Cardinal Cisneros (see 'Spanish hymnody'*). He was educated at the Collège Sainte Barbe in Paris (1525- ), where he met Ignatius...
CHRISTIERSON, Frank von.
See 'Von Christerson, Frank'*
WHITELEY, Frank J. b. Sheffield, England, 22 December 1914; d. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, 20 October 1998. Whiteley's parents emigrated to Dryden, Ontario, in 1919, when he was four years old. He graduated from Peterborough Normal School in 1941 and taught elementary school for one year. He studied at Queen's University in Kingston (BA 1944), Queen's Theological College (BD 1946) and the Victoria University of Toronto (MDiv 1970). He was ordained in the United Church of Canada in 1946 and...
HEDGE, Frederic Henry. b. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 12 December 1805; d. 21 August 1890. He was the son of Levi Hedge, Professor of German at Harvard, and his wife Mary Kneeland. Frederic, their only child, was sent to Germany at the age of thirteen to be educated, in the company of George Bancroft (1800-1891, later to become a distinguished statesman and diplomat). He was a pupil at the Gymnasium of Ilfeld (Hannover) and of Schulpforta (Saxony). Returning to the USA in 1823 he entered Harvard,...
HUSENBETH, Frederick Charles. b. Bristol, 30 May 1796; d. Costessey, Norfolk, 31 October 1872. The son of a wine merchant who had originated from Germany, he was educated at Sedgley Park School, a Roman Catholic school near Wolverhampton (1803-10), before entering his father's firm. After three years he decided to become a priest: he returned briefly to Sedgley Park (1813), and thence to St Mary's College, Oscott (1814). He was ordained in 1820. After a short period as a Catholic missioner at...
SCOTT, Frederick George. b. Montreal, 1861; d. 19 January 1944. He was educated at Bishop's University, an Anglican foundation, at Sherbrooke, Lennoxville, Quebec (BA 1881, MA 1884). He was ordained (deacon 1884, priest 1886), and after serving as a curate at St John the Evangelist, Montreal (1884-86) he spent a year in England as curate of Coggeshall, Essex (1886-87). Returning to Canada, he was rector of St George's, Drummondville, Quebec (1887-96); curate and then rector of St Matthew's,...
HOSMER, Frederick Lucian. b. Framingham, Massachusetts, 16 October 1840; d. Berkeley, California, 7 June 1929. Following graduation from Harvard (BA, 1862) he served for two years as headmaster of Houghton School, Bolton, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard Divinity School (BD 1869), and in the same year he was ordained into the Unitarian ministry. He served the First Congregational Church at Northboro, Massachusetts (1870-72), and the Second Congregational Church, Quincy, Illinois (1872-77);...
OAKELEY, Frederick. b. Shrewsbury, 5 September 1802; d. London, 29 January 1880. He was the son of a baronet, Sir Charles Oakeley. He was educated mainly at home and with a private tutor, before entering Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1824). He took Holy Orders (deacon and priest, 1827), and was appointed chaplain and fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, becoming a tutor in 1830. Among his pupils was Archibald Tait, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury, and who remained Oakeley's friend for the...
FABER, Frederick William. b. Calverley, West Yorkshire, 28 June 1814; d. London, 26 September 1863. He was born at Calverley vicarage, the son of Thomas Henry Faber, who became secretary to Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham (1734-1826). He was educated briefly at the grammar school in Bishop Auckland, then privately by the Revd John Gibson at Kirkby Stephen. He entered Shrewsbury School in 1826, and Harrow School in 1827. He matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1832, and was elected...
FOSTER, Frederick William. b. Bradford, Yorkshire, 1 August 1760; d.Ockbrook, near Derby, 12 April 1835. Foster was a Moravian, educated at Fulneck, near Leeds at the Settlement there, and then at the Moravian Settlement at Barby, Germany. He became a minister in the Moravian Church, and was made a Bishop in 1818. He compiled a Supplement (1808) to A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren (1801), edited by John Swertner*, re-titled Liturgy and Hymns for...
FUNCKE, Friedrich. b. Nossen (between Dresden and Chemnitz), 1642 (baptized 27 March); d. Römstedt, near Lüneburg, 20 October 1699. He was educated at Freiberg and Dresden, where he studied music. He was appointed Kantor at Perleberg, in the north of Brandenburg, and Stadt Kantor at Lüneburg (1664). He became pastor of Römstedt in 1694. During his time at Lüneburg he revised the Lüneberger Gesangbuch (see 'Hannoversches Gesangbuch'*) in an edition of 1686. It included 43 of his tunes, and seven...
OSER, Friedrich. b. Basel, 29 February 1820; d. Biel-Benken, near Basel, 15 December 1891. He was educated at school and university at Basel, where he also studied theology. He was ordained to a pastorate at Waldenburg in 1845. For a large part of his active life he was prison chaplain at Basel (1867-1884), followed by a pastorate at Biel-Benken from 1884 until his death.
The tragic loss of his wife and daughter caused Oser to write Sechzig Kreuz- und Trostlieder mit einem Anhang von Liedern...
SPEE von Langenfeld, Friedrich. b. Kaiserswerth, near Düsseldorf, 25 February 1591; d. Trier, 7 August, 1635. He was educated at the Jesuit gymnasium at Cologne, and entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1610, first at Trier and at Fulda, and then as a student of philosophy at Würzburg, finally studying at Speyer and Mainz. He entered the Jesuit priesthood in 1622, and was sent as Professor of Philosophy to Paderborn (1623-26). After a period as a missionary priest, during which he survived an...
FULBERT of Chartres. b. ca. 960; d. 10 April 1028. Born possibly in Italy, he studied in Rome and later in Rheims. Between 984 and 987 he was at the court of the Frankish king. He moved to Chartres ca. 992, where he held a teaching office and that of singing-master. He was consecrated bishop of Chartres in 1006. He did much to enhance the spiritual and temporal power of the French bishops, and he began the rebuilding of the cathedral after the fire of 1020. The hymns ascribed to him are found...
GRÜNWALD, Georg. b. Kitzbühel, Austria, date unknown; d. Kufstein, Austria, 1530. He was a shoemaker, an Anabaptist, who suffered death by burning at the stake. He had lived for a time at Augsburg to escape persecution, but on his return to the Tirol he was imprisoned and burnt. A contemporary hand-written account of the Anabaptists describes his martyrdom 'zu kopffstain', and adds that the hymn 'Kommt her zu mir, spricht Gottes Sohn' was 'Newgesungen und gedichtet' ('newly sung and composed')...
ZOLLIKOFER, Georg Joachim. b. St Gallen, Switzerland, 5 August 1730; d. Leipzig, 22 January 1788. Zollikofer was educated at St Gallen and at Bremen and Utrecht. After a short period as a private tutor at Frankfurt-am-Main, he returned to Switzerland as pastor of the Reformed church at Murten (in the canton of Freiburg today), followed by pastorates at Monsheim (Pfalz), 1754-58, and briefly at the Huguenot town of Neu-Isenburg, near Frankfurt/Main (a few months in 1758). In 1758 he accepted a...
NEUMARK, Georg. b. Langensalza,Thuringia,16 Mar 1621; d. Weimar, 8 July 1681. His father Michael worked as a clothmaker. His mother Martha was a daughter of the well-known princely official Salomon Plathner. In 1624 the family moved to the free imperial city of Mühlhausen (Thuringia), where Neumark received his early education. From 1632 to 1636 he attended the Hennebergisches Gymnasium in Schleusingen, presumably followed by the Latin School in Osterode (Harz) from 1636 to 1640. In 1641 he...
VETTER, Georg. b. Hohenstadt, Moravia, ca. 1536; d. Groß Seelowitz (Židlochovice, south of Brno), 25 Jan 1599. He was educated at the University of Königsberg, and became a priest (1567). He was a schoolmaster and preacher at Jungbunzlau, Moravia, and joined the Bohemian Brethren in 1575, later becoming a member of the Council and a Consenior for Groß Seelowitz, where he lived and worked after leaving Jungbunzlau.
Vetter is the third hymn writer of the early Bohemian Brethren, though less...
SIMONS, George Albert. b. LaPorte, Indiana, 19 March 1874; d. Brooklyn, New York, 2 August 1952. Son of a Methodist pastor, George Henry Simons and his wife Ottilie Schulz, Simons attended Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, New York; German-Wallace College (now Baldwin-Wallace College), Berea, Ohio (AB, 1899; DD, 1908); New York University (AB, 1903); the Theological School of Drew University, Madison, New Jersey (BD, 1905). In 1899, after finishing theological studies, he was ordained in the Methodist...
SHEA, George Beverly. b. Winchester, Ontario, 1 February 1909; d. Montreat, North Carolina, 16 April 2013. Shea was a celebrated vocalist, hymn writer, and composer. His long tenure with the Billy Graham Crusades, five decades of concerts, appearances on radio and television, and 70 recordings, brought him many accolades, including 'America's beloved gospel singer', and 'the first international singing star of the gospel world'. Shea was the fourth of eight children born of the union of Adam...
BUCHANAN, George. b. Killearn, near Glasgow, February 1506; d. Edinburgh, 28 September 1582. He was educated at the University of Paris (1520-22), the University of St Andrews (BA 1525), and the Scots College in Paris (BA 1527, MA 1528). After a successful early career in Paris, he returned to Scotland in 1537, where he wrote Somnium, a satire on the Franciscans. At this time he was still a Catholic, but a critical one. Imprisoned in 1539 during a persecution of Lutheran sympathisers, he...
COTTON, George Edward Lynch. b. Chester, 29 October 1813; d. Kushtai, India, 6 October 1866. He was the son of an army officer, who was killed in the Peninsular War on 13 November 1813, two weeks after the birth of his son. George was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College Cambridge (BA, 1836), becoming a master under Thomas Arnold at Rugby School in 1837 (in Thomas Hughes's famous novel about Rugby School, Tom Brown's Schooldays, Cotton is 'the young master'). He was appointed...
SMYTTAN, George Hunt. b. Bombay (now Mumbai), India, 1822; d. Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, 21 February 1870. He was the son of a doctor of the Bombay Medical Board. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (BA 1845, MA 1849), and took Holy Orders (deacon 1848, priest 1849). Two of his sermons were printed in Alnwick, Northumberland, which suggests that he served a curacy there before becoming rector of Hawksworth, near Newark, Nottinghamshire, in 1850. He resigned the Living of...
MacDONALD, George. b. Huntly, Aberdeenshire, 10 December 1824; d. Ashstead, Surrey, 18 September 1905. Educated at King's College, Aberdeen (MA 1845), MacDonald moved to London where he was briefly a student at Highbury Theological College (1848- ). Although he did not complete the course, he was ordained at Arundel Congregational Church in 1950. He resigned in 1853, and moved to Manchester, where he became a writer, publishing a dramatic poem, Within and Without (1855), Poems (1857), Hymns and...
MATHESON, George. b. Glasgow, 27 March 1842; d. North Berwick, 28 August 1906. The son of a Glasgow merchant, he was educated at Glasgow Academy and the University of Glasgow, where he won several prizes. He graduated in 1866 and was licensed by the Presbytery of Glasgow in the same year. After serving a probationary year at Trinity Church, Sandyford, he was ordained and inducted as minister of Innellan in 1868. In 1886 he moved to Edinburgh to be minister of St Bernard's Church. He died in...
RAWSON, George. b. Leeds, 5 June 1807; d. Bristol, 24 March 1889. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School. He became a solicitor and practised in Leeds, where he was also an active Congregationalist. He assisted George William Conder* and other local figures in the preparation of an influential Congregationalist collection entitled Psalms, Hymns, and Passages of Scripture for Christian Worship, usually called the 'Leeds Hymn Book' (1853). He then assisted the Baptists in the compilation...
PRYNNE, George Rundle. b. West Looe, Cornwall, 23 August 1818; d. 25 March 1903. Educated at St Catherine's College, Cambridge (BA 1839), he took Holy Orders (deacon 1841, priest 1842), serving a curacy at St Andrew's, Clifton, Bristol. He was appointed vicar of St Peter's, Plymouth, in 1848, where he remained for the rest of his life. A record of part of his time there was published as Thirty-five years of mission work in a garrison and seaport town (Plymouth, 1888). An indication of his...
HODGES, George Samuel. b. Walmer, Kent, 1827; d. Maidenhead, Berkshire, 10 December 1899. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge (BA 1851), and took Holy Orders (deacon 1851, priest 1852). He served curacies at Calbourne, Isle of Wight (1851-52), Farnham, Surrey (1852-55), Calbourne again (1856-58), Kirkham, Lancashire (1858-60), and Fladbury, Worcestershire (1860-61), before becoming vicar of Wingates, Lancashire (1861-75). He was subsequently vicar of Dunston and Coppenhall,...
ROBINSON, George Wade. b. Cork, Ireland, 1838; d. Brighton, 28 January 1877. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, before training for the Congregational ministry at New College, London. He served as a Congregational minister at Dublin, London, Dudley (near Birmingham) and Brighton. During his short life he published Lays of a Heart (1867), Iona and other Sonnets (Dublin, 1868), Loveland and Other Poems, chiefly concerning Love (1870, Second Edition, 1873), and Songs in God's World...
CONDER, George William. b. Hitchin, Hertforshire, 30 November 1821; d. Forest Hill, London, 8 November 1874. He was educated at Hitchin Grammar School. He then went to London to make a career in business, becoming a member of King's Weigh House Chapel under the ministry of Thomas Binney*. Binney encouraged him to enter the Congregational Church ministry, and he trained at Highbury College before serving at High Wycombe (1845-47), Ryde, Isle of Wight (1847-49), and Belgrave Chapel, Leeds...
BLUNT, Abel Gerald Wilson. b. 1827, date unknown; d.1902. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, (BA 1850, MA 1860). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1851, priest 1852). He served a curacy at Lilleshall, Shropshire, (1851-56) before becoming Perpetual Curate of Crewe Green, Cheshire, (1856-60). From there he was appointed Rector of St Luke's, Chelsea, where he remained for forty years (1860-1901). He retired to Grasmere, Westmorland (now Cumbria).
According to JJ, his hymns were written...
LATTY, Geraldine. b. 1963. Latty is a British songwriter and performer of West Indian descent. Her diverse religious background includes time spent in Pentecostal, Methodist and Baptist churches. A music graduate of Bath University, she taught music in a Catholic school in Bristol for twelve years. She has also taught a range of music courses at the London School of Theology and Dordt University, Iowa. She has released six solo albums of her own music and has also featured prominently in...
NOEL, The Hon. Gerard Thomas. b. Ketton, Rutland, 2 December 1782; d. Romsey, Hampshire, 24 February 1851. Born into a noble family (his father was Sir Gerard Noel Edwardes, who took the name of Noel in 1798, and became a Baronet in 1813). He was educated in Kent, and Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1805, MA 1808). He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1798, presumably intending to become a lawyer, but decided to take Holy Orders (deacon 1806, priest 1807). He was curate of Radwell, Hertfordshire...
CARTFORD, Gerhard M. b. Madagascar, 21 March, 1923; d. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 8 February 2016. He was the son of missionary parents. He studied at St Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota (BM, 1948), The School of Sacred Music, Union Theological Seminary, New York (MSM, 1950), Luther Northwestern Seminary (now Luther Seminary*) St Paul, Minnesota (1954-1955), St John's University, St Cloud, Minnesota (1955), and the University of Minnesota (PhD in musicology, 1961). As a Fulbright scholar, he...
GERMANOS of Constantinople (the Confessor), St (or Germanus). b. Constantinople, ca. 655; d. Platonium, before 754. He was the son of a patrikios. In 669, after his father's execution by the Byzantine emperor, Germanos was made a eunuch and enrolled in the clergy of Hagia Sophia. He quickly established a reputation as an expert in theology. He became bishop of Cyzicus (ca. 706) and patriarch of Constantinople in 715.
Germanos opposed various heresies; in 730, under pressure from Emperor Leo...
SUPPE, Gertrude (née Cross). b. Los Angeles, California, 6 November 1911; d. Escondido, California, 3 August 2007. Gertrude Suppe, a translator, transcriber, cataloguer, and promoter of Spanish-language hymnody, was the daughter of William Gray Cross, who worked in public utilities and enjoyed singing, and Florence Cross (née Stratton), a violinist. In addition, her musical family included her grandmother, Susan Stratton, a piano and organ teacher who had taught at Dwight L. Moody*'s...
RORISON, Gilbert. b. Glasgow, 7 February 1821; d. Bridge of Allan, 11 October 1869. He was educated at the University of Glasgow. He was a member of the United Presbyterian Church, but joined the Episcopal Church of Scotland. After theological training in Edinburgh he was ordained in 1843, and served as an Episcopal Church priest at Leith, Helensburgh and Peterhead.
He published sermons and other devotional works (On the Christian miracles, 1854; Depression of the clergy the danger to the...
TICKLE, Gilbert Young. b. Maryport, Cumberland (now Cumbria), 30 June 1819; d. Liverpool, 21 April 1888. Tickle was the greatest hymn-writer among Churches of Christ in Great Britain and Ireland. He was born in Maryport, the thirteenth in a family of sixteen, and after education in a dame's school, finishing with a master, he was apprenticed to a draper in Carlisle at the age of 14. Brought up in a hyper-Calvinist Scotch Baptist family, he became a Sunday School teacher in the Independent...
GODRIC (Saint). b. Norfolk, ca. 1070; d. Finchale, County Durham, 21 May 1170. Born to an Anglo-Saxon couple in the early years following the Norman Conquest, Godric became a pedlar and then a trader with European countries. He travelled widely, making pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostella. At some point in the early 12th century (ca. 1104-05) he sold all his goods and became a hermit, first at Whitby and then at Finchale, on the banks of the river Wear near Durham. There...
LIGHT, Gordon Stanley. b. Claresholm, Alberta, 7 May 1944. A bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada, Gordon Light was born into a military family. He has lived in Alberta and in various places in Canada. Studies at Carleton University (Ottawa) (BA, 1965), then at Trinity College (Toronto) (STB, 1969) led to ordination as deacon and priest in the Anglican Church in 1969. In 2001, he was consecrated as bishop for the Anglican Parishes of the Central Interior of British Columbia. Light worked in...
DEANS, Graham Douglas Sutherland. b. Aberdeen, 15 August 1953. He was educated at Mackie Academy, Stonehaven, and the University of Aberdeen (MA 1974, BD 1977). He was licensed by the Presbytery of Aberdeen, 1977; he has served as assistant minister, Corstorphine, Edinburgh (1977-78), minister of Denbeath with Methilhill, Fife (1978-87), of St Mary's Parish Church, Dumfries (1987-2002), of South Ronaldsay and Burray, Orkney (2002-08), and of Queen Street Church, Aberdeen (2008- ).
Deans holds...
KENDRICK, Graham Andrew. b. Blisworth, Northamptonshire, 2 August 1950. He was the son of a Baptist minister; the family later moved to Essex and London. He started composing songs at 15 years of age, having taught himself to play the piano. In response to the Church's lack of connection with youth culture during the 1960s, he formed an early interest in the use of rock and folk music for outreach and evangelism.
He trained as an English/Ceramics teacher at Avery Hill College, Kent, but...
MAULE, Graham Alexander. b. Glasgow, 24 September 1958; d. Glasgow, 29 December 2019. The eldest of four children born to Margaret and Tom Maule, he studied architecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, University of Glasgow, 1975-80 (B.Arch., 1978); he then studied sculpture at the Leith Art School and Edinburgh College of Art (MFA, 2002). He completed a doctoral degree in sculpture at the University of Edinburgh (PhD, 2013).
In a tribute to Graham Maule that was read during his...
TULLAR, Grant Colfax. b. Bolton, Connecticut, 5 August 1869; d. Ocean Grove, New Jersey, 20 May 1950. He was a gospel singer, evangelist, publisher, writer of hymn texts, and composer of hymn tunes.
A few months before Tullar's birth, Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) and Schuyler Colfax (1823-1885) were inaugurated President and Vice-President of the United States. Tullar was named in their honor. His father, Austin Milleon Tullar (1830-1896) fought briefly in the Civil War, having enlisted 30...
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,...
GREGORY of Nazianzen. b. Nazianzen, ca. 329; d. Nazianzen, 25 January 389. His father was bishop of Nazianzen, and Gregory was born on the family estate. He studied at Caesarea, Alexandria, and Athens, where he studied rhetoric in the 350s. He became a monk, but returned home, where he was ordained by his father in 362. For the next decade, he assisted his father. In 372 a new administrative division of Cappadocia led to the establishment of a new see at Sasima. Against his will, Gregory's...
GREGORY the Great. b. probably in Rome, ca. 540; d. Rome, 12 March 604. Born into a noble Roman family, Gregory was well educated. He became a monk in Rome, having founded a monastery there as well as six in Sicily. Gregory was sent to Constantinople with a diplomatic mission where he remained as 'apocrisiarius' ('ambassador'), and became very popular, from 579 to 585. He was recalled to Rome, and was elected Pope Gregory I in 590. Gregory is said to have seen Anglo-Saxon children in the slave...
NAREKATSI, Grigor (St Gregory of Narek), b. ca. 951; d. 1003. Grigor Narekatsi is the author of Matean voghbergut'ean ('Book of Lamentations'), the most recognised work in Armenian literature. This is a book of devotion and spiritual consolation second only to the Bible. Mischa Kudian, in his foreword to his English translation of the first 25 elegies from Matean voghbergut'ean calls Narekatsi 'the most outstanding figure in the whole of Armenian literature', and he deserves to be known as one...
WILLIAMS, Gwilym Owen. b. East Finchley, North London, 23 March 1913; d. Bangor, 23 December 1990. Although born in London he was brought up in the North Wales village of Penisarwaun, and educated there and at Brynrefall Grammar School, Llanberis. From there he went to Jesus College, Oxford, where he read English (BA 1933) and then Theology (BA 1935). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1937, priest 1938) in the Church in Wales, and became successively curate of Denbigh (1937-40), chaplain and...
PJETURSSON, Hallgrim (PÉTURSSON, Hallgrímur). b. Hólar, Iceland, 1614; d. 1674. His father was a bell-ringer at the cathedral. He worked in Copenhagen as a blacksmith, until Brynjolf Sveinsson, who later became Bishop of Iceland, asked him to instruct some returned captives in the Christian faith. He fell in love with one of them, Gudred, living in poverty with her in Iceland although her husband was still living. He married Gudred on the death of her husband, and was subsequently pardoned by...
MacGILL, Hamilton Montgomerie. b. Catrine, Ayrshire, 10 March 1807; d. Belleville, Paris, 3 June 1880. Born into a Secession family, MacGill entered the University of Glasgow in 1827, studying at the Theological Hall of the United Secession Church, a denomination recently formed in 1820 from two elements of the Secession church. Licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Kilmarnock, he was ordained in 1836 as colleague-minister in Duke Street Church in Glasgow. Dissension led to the exit of part...
BRORSON, Hans Adolph. b. 20 June 1694; d. 3 June 1764. Born at Randerup in the Danish part of West Schleswig, where his father Broder Broderson was vicar. He was educated at the Cathedral School of Ribe (1709-1712) and from 1712 at the University of Copenhagen, where he graduated as Master of Theology in 1721. From 1716 to 1721 Brorson was back in West Schleswig, most of the time as private tutor at the family of one of his uncles in Løgumkloster. Here he became acquainted with the Lutheran...
SACHS, Hans. b. Nürnberg, 5 November 1494; d. Nürnberg, 19 January 1576. Born the son of a tailor, he attended the Latin school there. He was then apprenticed to a shoemaker, but also became a poet under the instruction of the Meistersinger Leonard Nunnenbeck. He combined his work as a shoemaker with his poetry, travelling in Europe for what were known as his 'Wanderjahre' from 1511 to 1516. He returned to Nürnberg in 1516, where he lived for the remainder of his life, working as a shoemaker...
YARDLEY, Harold Francis. b. Salford, Lancashire, England, 11 March 1911; d. 10 October 1990. Yardley received an elementary education at Nicholls Hospital (1919-25) and worked as an office boy and as a farm labourer before emigrating in 1929 to Ontario, where he eventually settled in Toronto, working in the magazine and book wholesaling trade. He was unemployed during the early years of the Depression, and United Church superintendents in Toronto persuaded him to undertake lay pastoral work in...
PIERSON, Harriet H. (Hattie). b. Canaan, New York, 1865; d. Sagaponack (a village in the Town of Southampton), New York, 25 February 1921. Pierson, a writer of gospel hymn texts and plays for children, was a daughter of Albert Jackson Pierson (1827?-1884), a farmer, and Phebe T. Pierson (1825?- ), who were married 30 March 1853. Little is known about her childhood and that of her sister and lifelong companion Miss Mary E. Pierson (1855 - ?).
At least two of her school plays were...
McKEEVER, Harriet Burn. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 28 August 1807; d. Chester, Pennsylvania, 7 February 1886 or 1887. A member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, McKeever taught for 36 years in a girls' school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was also a successful author of novels, mainly on religious themes and for young women, several of which are still available in digital/printed form. An example is Edith's Ministry (Philadelphia, 1860), which traces the life of the eldest daughter...
SPAETH, Harriet Reynolds Krauth (Harriet Krauth). b. Baltimore, Maryland, 21 September 1845; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5 May 1925. Spaeth was an author and translator of hymn texts and composer of hymn tunes, and a music editor. Her best known translations are 'As each happy Christmas' and verses 3 and 4 of 'Lo, how a rose e'er blooming' (see 'Es ist ein' Ros entsprungen'*). She was the daughter of Charles Porterfield Krauth (1823-1883) and Susan Reynolds Krauth (1821-1853). C. P. Krauth,...
FOSDICK, Harry Emerson. b. Buffalo, New York, 24 May 1878; d. Bronxville, New York, 5 Oct 1969. Fosdick was educated at Colgate College, Hamilton, New York (BA, 1900); Union Theological Seminary (BD, 1904), and Columbia University (MA, 1908)., the latter two in New York City. Following Baptist ordination in 1903, he was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montclair, New Jersey (1904-15), and then taught homiletics and practical theology at Union Theological Seminary in 1915, interrupted by a...
SUSO (or Seusse), Heinrich. b. Constance, Swabia, 21 March ca. 1295-1300; d. Ulm, 25 January 1366. Born of a noble family (von Berg) he took his name from his devout mother (Sus or Süs). At the age of 13 he entered a Dominican convent at Constance, and then studied theology under Meister Eckhart, and perhaps John Tauler*, at Cologne (1324-27). From 1329 to 1334 he was a lektor at Constance; in 1343 he was made a prior, probably at Diessenhofen. He was then a prior at Ulm, where he lived until...
LAUFENBURG, Heinrich von. b. Laufenburg, Aargau, Switzerland, ca. 1390; d. Strasbourg, ca. 1460. He is named after his birthplace, a town on the Rhine, now on the border with Germany: in JJ he is listed as 'Heinrich of Laufenburg' (p. 507; Catherine Winkworth* uses 'Henry of Loufenburg', and Wackernagel 'Heinrich von Loufenberg'). In JJ James Mearns* noted that he was first heard of as Dean of the Collegiate Church of St Maurice at Zofingen, Aargau. He later became a Dean at Freiburg, Baden,...
WILLIAMS, Helen Maria. b. London, 17 June 1759; d. Paris, 15 December 1827. Her father, Charles Williams, died in 1762, and her widowed mother brought up Helen Maria and two other children in Berwick upon Tweed, on the Scottish border. The family returned to London in 1781, where Helen Maria began to make a name for herself as a young poet, encouraged by Andrew Kippis*, her Presbyterian/Unitarian minister. Her Poems were published in 1786, containing the two hymns noted in JJ (see below). She...
Heloise (other names not known) b. 1090–97; d. 16 May 1163/4. She was the daughter of Herenade, who may have been a scion of the Montmorency family (as possibly was Heloise's father) in the region of Paris. Up to about 1116 she was educated at the convent of Argenteuil where she later returned as a nun after her affair with Abelard*, the birth of their son, and Abelard's castration after their clandestine marriage (1117-18) to which she was a most unwilling partner. Their separation after these...
CAPIEU, Henri. b. Bizerte, Tunisia 1909; d. Meudon, France 1993. Capieu was a French Reformed Pastor, ordained in 1933, who served at Clairac and at Les Salies de Béarn (1946-47). He was inspired by the discreet piety of his mother, biblical narratives, and the Protestant poet Antoine de la Roche Chandieu (1534-1591). He pastored the church in Algiers (1947-61) where he befriended Albert Camus, and worked against torture during the Algerian war. He then became pastor in central Paris at the...
FRY, Henrietta Joan. b. Bristol, 6 December 1799; d. Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, 1860. She was the daughter of Joseph Storrs Fry, a wealthy chocolate maker, and a Quaker, part of the celebrated 'Fry's Chocolate' dynasty.
She was a fine linguist. She published translations from the hymns of Johann Kaspar Lavater* with the title The Pastors' Legacy; or Devotional Fragments from the German of Lavater (Bristol and London, 1842). She noted that they were taken from Hundert Sentenzen von Seligen...
HAYN, Henriette Luise von. b. 22 May 1724; d. 27 August 1782. Born at Idstein, Nassau, she became a member of the Moravian community at Herrnhaag. She taught in the girls' school there, and at Grosshennersdorf. From 1751 to 1766 she taught at Herrnhut; from 1766 until her death she cared for the invalid sisters of the community. JJ described her as 'a gifted hymn-writer' (p. 499), and noted that over 40 of her hymns were in the Moravian Brüder Gesang Buch (1778), but annotated one hymn only....
ALLON, Henry. b. Welton, near Hull, 13 October 1818; d. London (? buried at Abney Park Cemetery)16 April 1892. He was apprenticed as a builder, but decided to become a minister of the Congregational Church. He was educated at Cheshunt College from 1839. He became assistant pastor of Union Chapel, Islington, in 1844, and sole pastor from 1852 to 1892.
His organists there were Henry John Gauntlett* from 1853 to 1861 and Ebenezer Prout* from 1861 to 1873. He wrote a hymn for Passion-tide, 'Low in...
DEXTER, Henry Martyn. b. Plympton, Massachusetts, 13 August 1821; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 13 November 1890. He was educated at Yale (graduated 1840) and Andover Theological Seminary (1844). He served as a Congregational Church Minister at Manchester, New Hampshire (1844-49), and Boston, Massachusetts (1849-67). He resigned his pastorate in order to edit the Congregationalist and Recorder. He was a prolific writer: in addition to his many sermons and discourses, he published Congregationalism:...
MILLS, Henry. b. Morriston, New Jersey, 12 March 1786; d. Auburn, New York, 10 June 1867. He was educated at the College of New Jersey, Princeton, graduating in 1802. According to the Revd. F. M. Bird in JJ, p. 736, he held the degree of DD, which he presumably acquired in the years that followed, when he was also a teacher. In 1816 he was ordained Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Woodbridge, New Jersey. In 1821 he was appointed Professor of Biblical Criticism and Oriental Languages at Auburn...
McFADYEN, Henry Richard. b. Bladen County, near Elizabethtown, North Carolina, 1 February 1877; d. High Point, North Carolina, 22 June 1964. The son of Rev. Archibald McFadyen (1836–1911) and Miriam Eliza McFadyen (née Cromartie; 1844–1907), he was one of eight children. He married Myrtle Louise Angle (1884–1976) in 1907, and they had two children. Henry's father was a Lieutenant in the North Carolina Cavalry for the Confederate cause in the Civil War, studying for the ministry while a...
VAN DYKE, Henry Jackson. b. Germantown, Pennsylvania, 10 November 1852; d. Princeton, New Jersey, 10 April 1933. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he was at school at Brooklyn, New York before studying at Princeton University (BA 1873, MA 1876). After a further period of study at Princeton Theological Seminary (1876-77) and in Berlin, he was ordained to the ministry, serving at a Congregational Church at Newport, Rhode Island (1878-82) and Brick Presbyterian Church, New York (1882-99). During...
VAUGHAN, Henry, b. Newton-by-Usk, Llansanffraid, Breconshire, April 1622; d. Llansanffraid, 23 April 1695. Born into an old, though impoverished, Welsh family, he was educated by a clergyman-schoolmaster, Matthew Herbert of Llangattock, and then at Jesus College, Oxford, from 1638. Leaving in 1640 before taking his degree, Vaughan then studied law in London at the wish of his father. Attempting to escape the consequences of the Civil War (he fought on the Royalist side), he returned to South...
WARE, Henry, Jr. b. Hingham, Massachusetts, 21 April 1794; d. Framingham, Massachusetts, 25 September 1843. Ware, a teacher, influential Unitarian minister, writer, and author of hymns (see Unitarian-Universalist hymnody, USA*), was born of the marriage of Henry Ware (1757-1845) and Mary Clarke Ware (1752-1805). His father was a Minister of First Parish (originally Puritan, then Unitarian-Universalist), Hingham, Massachusetts, 1787-1805, and Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard College,...
STUEMPFLE, Herman G. Jr. b. Clarion, Pennsylvania, 2 April 1923; d. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 13 March 2007. Distinguished pastor, teacher and hymn writer, Stuempfle attended Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania (AB, 1945), Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg (BD, 1946), Union Theological Seminary, New York City, New York (STM, 1967), and Southern California School of Theology, Claremont, California DTh, 1971). He pastored congregations in Baltimore, Maryland; Gettysburg,...
Hermannus Contractus (Hermann the Lame). b. Swabia, 18 July 1013; d. Reichenau, 24 September 1054. He was a Benedictine monk of the monastery on the Reichenau*, the island in Lake Constance.
Hermann, born of a noble Swabian family, was crippled from birth. He was given as an oblate to the monastery on the Reichenau on 15 September 1020 and remained there all his life. His biography can be reconstructed from his own writings and from an account written by his disciple Berthold. This was composed...
HILARY of Poitiers. b. Poitiers, early 4th century; d. Poitiers, 13 January 367/8. Born into a wealthy pagan family, he converted to Christianity ca. 350. In 353 he was elected to the bishopric of Poitiers, despite his married status. He was a strong defender of orthodox Christianity against Arianism. This led to his exile after the Council of Béziers in 356 where he refused to condemn Athanasius; he was released from exile in 361 and died in 368. St Hilary is chiefly remembered for his...
HILDEGARD of Bingen. b. Böckelheim, 1098; d. 17 September 1179. The last of ten children of Mechthild and Hildebert, members of the minor nobility, Hildegard was a weak child whose illness was linked throughout her life with distinctive visions. Committed to the religious life as a sort of tithe, Hildegard lived for several years with Jutta of Sponheim, who taught her to read and chant the psalter before both were enclosed as anchorites at Rupertsberg Abbey on 1 November 1112. Hildegard...
HILDUIN. b. ca. 785; d. 22 November 855-61. A cousin of the Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious (ruled 814-840), Hilduin was abbot of Saint Denis, near Paris, from 814 until 840, and also abbot of Saint Médard of Soissons, Saint Germain des Prés in Paris, and Saint Ouen in Rouen during this time. As Archicapellanus of Louis the Pious' chapel from 819 to 840, he was a member of the royal household, responsible for ecclesiastical legislation, and close to the centre of Carolingian politics. Hilduin...
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...
BONAR, Horatius. b. Edinburgh, 19 December 1808; d. Edinburgh, 31 July 1889. Educated at the Edinburgh High School and Edinburgh University, he served as a missionary assistant at St James' Church, Leith, and in 1837 was ordained and inducted as minister of the North Parish Church, Kelso. He left the Church of Scotland in the Disruption of 1843 and remained in Kelso as a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. In 1866 he was called to Thomas Chalmers Memorial Church in Edinburgh and in 1883 he...
BALLOU, Hosea. b. Richmond, New Hampshire, 30 April 1771; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 6 June 1852. The eleventh child of Maturin (1720-1804) a Calvinist Baptist preacher, and Lydia (née) Harris Ballou (1728-73), Hosea converted to Universalism in 1789. He spent several years as an itinerant preacher before taking his first congregation in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1809. He subsequently received a call to serve the Second Universalist Society of Boston in 1815. Hosea Ballou made a notable...
GROSE, Howard Benjamin. b. Millerton, New York, 5 September 1851; d. Ballston Spa, New York, 19 May 1939. Educated at the University of Chicago (BA) and the University of Rochester, New York State (MA), he worked as a journalist before becoming a Baptist minister in 1883. He pastored congregations in Poughkeepsie, New York (1883-87) and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1888-90) before turning to academic life. He had spoken at a memorial service for a classmate, Edward Olson, President of the...
ROBBINS, Howard Chandler. b. Philadelphia, 11 December 1876; d. Washington, DC, 20 March 1952. Educated at Yale (BA 1899) and the Episcopal Theological Seminary (BD 1903). He was ordained (deacon 1903, priest 1904), serving a curacy at St Peter's, Morristown, New Jersey (1903-05). He was rector of St Paul's Church, Englewood, New Jersey (1905-11), rector of the Church of the Incarnation, New York City (1911-17), and Dean of the Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York (1917-29). He became...
OLSON, Howard. b. St Paul, Minnesota, 18 July 1922; d. Sun City Center, Florida, 1 July 2010. Howard Olson has a well-deserved reputation for his African hymns, such as 'Christ has arisen, Alleluia (Mfurahini, Haleluya)*, 'Neno lake Mungu' ('Listen, God Is Calling'), and 'Njoo kwetu, Roho mwema' ('Gracious Spirit, Heed Our Pleading'). They have have found their way into hymnals around the globe. Olson's Tumshangilie Mungu: Nyimbo za Kikristo za Kiafrika has gone through six successive...
LEWIS, Howell Elvet. b. Cynwyl Elfed, Carmarthenshire, 14 April 1860; d. Penarth, Glamorgan, 10 December 1953. Lewis was born into a farming family. He trained for the ministry in the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen, but in fact he read so widely that he was largely self-taught. He was ordained in the Congregational ministry in 1880, serving from then until 1904 in English-speaking churches in Wales and England. It was, however, during this period that he was most active as a poet in Welsh,...
HRABANUS MAURUS (Rabanus/Rhabanus). b. Mainz, ca. 780; d. Winkel, 4 Feb 856. Educated at Fulda, and subsequently at St Martin's, Tours (under Alcuin of York*), Hrabanus became a prominent Frankish churchman. He was ordained deacon in 801 and priest in 814. He became abbot at Fulda (822-42) and archbishop of Mainz (847-56); died at Winkel on the Rhine. Hrabanus wrote several biblical commentaries as well as homilies and treatises on a wide range of subjects. He was involved in the controversy...
BLAIR, Hugh. b. Edinburgh, 7 April 1718; d. Edinburgh, 27 September 1800. According to James Mearns* (JJ, pp. 144-5), he was educated at the University of Edinburgh from 1730 (when he was twelve years of age), graduating MA in 1739 (Mearns gives his death date as 27 December 1800). He was licensed to preach in October 1741, and became minister of Collessie, Fife, in 1742. He moved as second minister to the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, in 1743, and to Lady Yester's Kirk (see William Robertson, d....
MARTIN, Hugh. b. Glasgow, 7 April 1890; d. East Grinstead, Sussex, 2 July 1964. He was educated at the University of Glasgow and Glasgow Baptist College. He was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Student Christian Movement in 1914, and worked for the SCM until 1950; he was one of the founders of the SCM Press, and later editor of the Press. An eminent Baptist, he was Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council, 1953-54. He was made a Companion of Honour in 1955.
For the SCM Press he wrote or...
SHERLOCK, Hugh Braham. b. Portland, Jamaica, 21 March 1905; d. 19 April 1998. Educated at Beckford and Smith School (now St Jago High School) and Calabar High School, Sherlock worked as a civil servant before attending Caenwood Methodist Theological College. He was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1932, and served as a missionary in the Turks and Caicos Islands, before returning to Kingston, Jamaica, in 1940. At Kingston he did remarkable work under the name of 'Operation Friendship' in a...
McELRATH, Hugh Thomas. b. Murray, Kentucky, USA, 13 November 1921; d. Penney Farms, Florida, USA, 8 May 2008. McElrath was a renowned Southern Baptist hymnologist, seminary professor, church musician, and music missionary who combined high intellectual achievement and skilled musicianship with a devout Christian faith rooted in Baptist tradition. He attended Murray State College [today Murray State University], Murray, Kentucky (BA, 1943), and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary...
KERR, Hugh Thomson. b. Elora, Ontario, Canada, 11 February 1871; d. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 27 June 1950. Kerr was educated at the University of Toronto, and at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. After being ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1897, he was pastor of congregations in Kansas and Illinois before having a distinguished and lengthy ministry through two world wars at Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh (1913-46). He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the...
OOSTERHUIS, Huub (Hubertus Gerardus Josephus Henricus). b. Amsterdam, 1 November 1933; d. Amsterdam, 9 April 2023. Oosterhuis was educated at the Jesuit Ignatius College and met Bernard Huijbers* in the Liturgical Choir there. He entered the Jesuit Novitiate, singing again under Huijbers in the Gregorian Choir. He studied Philosophy and History, Language and Theatre, and published his first devotional song (to Mary) in 1954. Working with Huijbers he published Fifty Psalms (eventually published...
FRASER, Ian Masson. b. Forres, 15 Dec 1917; d. Alva, near Stirling, 10 April 2018. He was the son of a butcher whose family were required to become involved from an early age in the business. Educated at Forres Academy and the University of Edinburgh (MA, BD, PhD). He was one of the earliest members of the newly-founded Iona Community and, in tune with its emphasis on the importance of witnessing to the Gospel within the political and industrial life of society, became a 'pastor-labourer' in a...
WATTS, Isaac. b. Southampton, 17 July 1674; d. Stoke Newington, London, 25 November 1748.
His Life and Ministry
He was the eldest of nine children in a prosperous dissenting family. His father, who has been variously described as teacher, clothier and gentleman, was a deacon of the Above Bar Congregational Church. His mother's family, the Tauntons, were of Huguenot descent. Tradition has it that during the year of his birth he was breast-fed by his mother on the steps of the Old Town Gaol,...
PROKHANOFF, Ivan Stepanovich. b. Vladikavkas, Russia, 17 April 1869; d. Berlin, Germany, 6 October 1935. Prokhanoff was a gifted author, preacher, poet and hymn writer, and a primary leader of the evangelical community in Russia. St Petersburg was the center of his activity. Here he founded the Russia Evangelical Association (1905), and the All-Russian Evangelical Association (1908).
His parents grew up in the Molokan ('milk drinkers') tradition of Russia, a pietistic movement that emerged...
ORR, James Edwin. b. Belfast, Northern Ireland, 12 January 1912; d. Asheville, North Carolina, 22 April 1987. As a young man he became a travelling evangelist, beginning in 1933, visiting many countries. It was during one of these visits, to an Easter Conference at Ngaruwahia, New Zealand in 1936, that he wrote the hymn by which he has become known, 'Search me, O God, and know my heart today'*. He later became assistant pastor of the People's Church, Toronto, Canada; he was ordained to the...
MARASCHIN, Jaci C. b. Bagé, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 12 December 1929; d. São Paulo, 29 June 2009. At the end of his career Maraschin was Emeritus Professor at the São Paulo Methodist University and an ordained priest of the São Paulo Anglican DioceSse of the Brazilian Episcopal Anglican Church, part of the Anglican Communion. He started his musical education early in life with private tutors for music theory and piano. He held a Diploma from the Instituto Musical de Porto Alegre, Brazil, and...
KERLE, Jacobus de. b. Ypres, the Netherlands, 1531 or 1532; d. Prague, 7 January 1591. Kerle was a singer at Cambrai Cathedral from 1548 to ca.1550. From ca.1550 to 1562 he was in Italy as director of the boys' choir and organist at Orvieto cathedral. In 1562 he went to Rome as director of the private chapel of Cardinal Otto Truchsess von Waldburg, Bishop of Augsburg, whom he served until May 1565 when the Cardinal was forced to disband his chapel. By the end of that year Kerle was back in...
JACOPONE da Todi (BENEDETTI, Jacopo). b. Todi, Italy, ca. 1236; d. Collazzone, 25 December 1306. The Franciscan poet Jacopo Benedetti was born to a noble family. He signed his name Jacobus Benedicti de Tuderto; chroniclers refer to him as either Jacobus Tudertinus or Jacobus de Benedictis. The name Jacopone (something on the lines of 'Big Jim') may refer to his physical stature, for he was a tall man. More importantly, it was the common and, ironically, belittling name, unbefitting his...
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...
BRUMM, James Leslie Hart. b. New Brunswick, New Jersey; 11 November 1962. James Hart Brumm is a pastor in the Reformed Church of America (RCA), church historian, theological educator, and hymn writer. The son of James A. Brumm and Ruth Soden Brumm and the brother of six siblings—John, David, Catherine, Anthony, Leslie, and Shelly—his interest in music and hymnody was cultivated in church children's choirs as well as school band and chorus programs. His interest in hymnody was the result of...
LAWSON, James. b. Elston, Nottinghamshire, England, 17 March 1847; d. Ottawa, Canada, 1 May 1926. Lawson has been difficult to identify, if only because his best-known hymn, 'I will follow thee, my Savior'*, has, in some books, been incorrectly attributed to 'James L., Elginburg'. In his 1989 Companion to the Song Book of the Salvation Army of 1986, Gordon Taylor suggested that 'it seems likely that his name was James Lawson, and that Elginburg was not a surname but was possibly a place with...
MILLIGAN, James Lewis. b. Liverpool, England, 1 February 1876; d. Toronto, Canada, 1 May 1961. According to Stanley Osborne*, Milligan began his journalism career with the London Daily Chronicle and the Weekly Graphic. He was awarded the Felicia Hemans Prize for poetry by Liverpool University in 1910, a year prior to emigrating to Toronto. He worked in Toronto as a freelance journalist, before his appointment to a Methodist lay pastorate at Actinolite, north of Tweed in central Ontario. In 1913...
MARTINEAU, James. b. Norwich, 21 April 1805; d. London, 11 Jan 1900. He was born into a Unitarian family of Huguenot descent, and educated at Norwich Grammar School and at the school at Bristol run by the distinguished Unitarian Dr Lant Carpenter. He became an engineering apprentice at Derby, but decided to become a Unitarian minister and entered Manchester College, then at York, in 1822. In 1828 he became minister of Eustace Street Presbyterian Meeting House, Dublin, and in 1832 moved to...
MONTGOMERY, James. b. Irvine, Ayrshire, 4 November 1771; d. Sheffield, 30 April 1854. His father was minister of the Moravian congregation at Irvine. He was educated at the Moravian school at Fulneck, Pudsey, near Leeds. In 1783, his parents went as Moravian missionaries to Barbados, where they both died of fever when he was about twenty years old. He was apprenticed to a baker in Mirfield, Yorkshire, but was more interested in writing poetry or playing and composing music. He ran away from the...
NEWTON, James. b. Chenies, on the Buckinghamshire/ Hertfordshire border, 1732, date unknown; d. Bristol, 1790, date unknown. As a young man he went to London, where he became a Baptist. He was appointed assistant to a Baptist minister (J. Tommas) at Bristol in 1757; in 1770 he became a tutor at the Baptist College, Bristol, a post that he held until his death.
James Newton is known as the author of one hymn, 'Proclaim,' saith Christ, 'my wondrous grace'*.
JRW
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...
WEDDERBURN, James. b. Dundee, Scotland, ca. 1495; d. Dieppe or Rouen, France, 1553. James was the eldest of (probably) four brothers, the son of a merchant of Dundee. The others were John*, Robert and Henry (there may have been others). James was a student at St Andrews University (matriculated 1514), but left without taking a degree. He became a merchant in northern France, but returned at some point before 1539 to Dundee. He wrote two plays, The Beheading of Johne the Baptist and The Historie...
HUS, Jan. b. ca. 1370; d. 6 July 1415. Born at Husinec (or Hussinecz), southern Bohemia, he was educated at the University of Prague (BA 1393, Bachelor of Theology 1394, MA 1396). He taught at the University after graduation, and was Dean of the Faculty (1401) and Rector (1402-03, 1409-10). In 1402 he was appointed capellarius (chaplain and preacher) of the Bohemian chapel in Prague, a chapel founded to encourage preaching in the Bohemian language. Hus's preaching there, much influenced by the...
UTENHOVE, Jan. b. the Netherlands, ca. 1520; d. London, 6 January 1566. Utenhove was a leading lay Reformer in the Calvinist tradition, born into a Flemish aristocratic family with strong connections with Erasmus. He was obliged to leave Ghent in 1544, almost certainly because of adverse reaction to a play he had written and performed. Thereafter he travelled widely in Europe, staying in Heinrich Bullinger's Zürich, Martin Bucer*'s and Peter Martyr's Strassburg, Thomas Cranmer's London, and...
CREWDSON, Jane (née Fox). b. Perran-ar-worthal, Cornwall, 22 October 1809; d. Whalley Range, Manchester, 14 September 1863. As a young woman she moved with her family to Exeter in 1825. There she met Thomas D. Crewdson, a Manchester manufacturer, whom she married in 1836. The marriage is recorded in the Register of Marriages of the Devon Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends: the Crewdsons were a notable Quaker family, originally from Kendal. She was a strong supporter of the Reformation....
CALVIN, Jean (John). b. Noyon en Picardie, France, 10 July 1509; d. Geneva, 27 May 1564. He attended the 'Collège des Capettes' in his native town. In May 1521, an ecclesiastic benefice was granted to him in the Cathedral of Noyon. Two years later, he studied at the 'Collège de la Marche' at Paris with the humanist Mathurin Cordier. Between 1524 and 1528, he received a scholastic training at the 'Collège Montaigu'. After having obtained the degree of 'Maître ès Arts', according to his father's...
DE BRÉBEUF, Jean, SJ. b. Condé-sur-Vire in Lower Normandy, France, 25 March 1593; d. Saint-Ignace, Canada, 16 March 1649. Born into a family that may have been related to the English Earls of Arundel, Brébeuf entered the Jesuit novitiate at Rouen at age 24, where he taught at the Collège de Rouen and was ordained priest in 1622 at Pontoise. A linguist, he was chosen to go to the missions in New France; he sailed from Dieppe in April 1625. After spending a winter with the Montagnais of the...
FÉCAMP, Jean de (Jean d'Allie, Jean de Ravenne). b. Ravenna, Italy, ca. 990; d. Fécamp, Normandy, ca. 1078. He was a disciple (not, as is sometimes stated, the nephew) of the celebrated reformer and architect, Guillaume de Volpiano (Guglielmo da Volpiano, 962-1031) who restored many French abbeys and built the chapel at Mont St Michel. Jean was a monk at one of the abbeys, Saint-Bénigne de Dijon, before being nominated by Guillaume to be prior of another, the re-founded Abbaye de la Trinité at...
MAUBURN, Jean. b. Brussels, ca. 1460; d. Paris, 1503. According to Frost (1962, p. 561), he studied music at Utrecht, and was an Augustinian canon of various French abbeys (in The Voice of Christian Life in Song, 1858, Elizabeth Rundle Charles* described him as Abbot of Livry).
In 1491 Mauburn published Rosetum exercitiorum spiritualium ('Spiritual Exercises for the Confraternity of the Rosary'). According to The Hymnal 1982 Companion, these were spiritual exercises for the laity. From this...
TISSERAND, Jean. b. date and place unknown; d. 1494. Tisserand was a Franciscan friar, working in Paris in the late 15th century, where he founded an Order for penitent women. He was the author of two Easter hymns, 'Surrexit hodie' and 'O Filii et Filiae'*. His sermons were published after his death as Sermones Religiosissimi F. Jo. Tisserandi, quos tempore Adventus Parisiensibus disseminavit (Paris, 1517).
The authorship of 'O filii et filiae' was uncertain for many years. Tisserand was...
LUKE, Jemima (née Thompson). b. London, 19 August 1813; d. Newport, Isle of Wight, 2 February 1906. She grew up in a pious Congregationalist family: her father, Thomas Thompson, was an active member of the Bible Society, of the London Missionary Society, and the Home Missionary Society. He also proposed a floating chapel for sailors. She later commemorated him in Sketches of the Life and Character of Thomas Thompson (1868).
With this upbringing, it is not surprising that she should have...
MIDDLETON, Jesse Edgar. b. Pilkington Township, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada, 3 November 1872; d. Toronto, 27 May 1960. He was educated at Strathroy and Dutton, Ontario; he attended Ottawa Normal School and taught school (1892-95). He took a job in Cleveland, Ohio, as a proof-reader and copyist for a book publisher, before returning to Canada to the city of Quebec as a reporter for the Montreal Herald. After five years he joined the Mail and Empire in Toronto as a music critic, becoming a...
ADAMS, Jessie. b. Ipswich, Suffolk, 9 September 1863; d. York, 15 July 1954. She was educated at Ipswich and at York (her family moved to York in 1878). She continued to live with her parents in various parts of London (Tottenham, Twickenham, Forest Gate) from 1889 until 1900, when they moved back to East Anglia. She returned to York in her final years.
Adams was a member of the Society of Friends; she was very interested in the Adult School Movement (the National Adult School Organisation...
OWENS, Jimmy Lloyd. b. Clarksdale, Mississippi, 9 December 1930. After school at Jackson, Mississippi, he attended Millsaps College, and was a jazz band arranger; after a conversion he directed music in several churches in southern California. He married Carol Owens* in 1954. Beginning in the 'Jesus Movement', the Owens were active in writing contemporary Christian musicals, performing and recording in various places in California, and doing musical missions for the Church of the Way in Los...
OUDAAN (Oudaen), Joachim Fransz. b. Rijnsburg, the Netherlands, 7 October 1628; d. Rotterdam, 26 April 1692. Oudaan was a tile-maker in Rotterdam. As an enthusiastic young man he was attracted to millenarian sects; he later became associated with the Anabaptists, who were strong in the Netherlands at the time, developing into the Mennonites. Oudaan became a member of the Mennonite community, and a deacon of it. He translated the psalms into Dutch in Davids Psalmen Nieuwelkx op Rym-maat gestelt...
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...
BRUN, Johan Nordahl. b. 21 March 1745; 26 July 1816. Born at Byneset (now in Norway), he was educated at the University of Trondheim. He became a private tutor, and accompanied his pupil to Soro in Denmark (where, according to the Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, 1942, p. 488, he took the theological examination after only three months' study and was placed in the lowest possible grade; he re-took the examination at Copenhagen in 1767, after more study, and did better). After periods as a...
WALLIN, Johan Olof. b. Stora Tuna, Dalarna, Sweden, 15 October 1779; d. Uppsala, 30 June 1839. The son of a soldier, Wallin studied at Falun, Västeros, and Uppsala (PhD, 1803). He was ordained in 1806, and became theological assistant, then lecturer at Karlberg War College (1807), and pastor at Solna (1808). In 1812 he was appointed pastor of Adolf Frederik Church, Stockholm. He was subsequently dean of Västeros (1818-21), pastor of Storkyrkan Church, Stockholm (1821-24), Bishop (1824) and...
ROTHE, Johann Andreas. b. Lissa, near Görlitz, 12 May 1688; d. Thommendorf, near Bunzlau, 6 July 1758. He was the son of a Protestant priest. He studied theology in Leipzig, and in 1711 he was admitted to the preachers' college of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Görlitz. From 1719 to 1722 he was private tutor to Count von Schweinitz at Leuba near Görlitz, before Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf* called him to be priest at Bethelsdorf (in which parish 'Herrnhut' was situated). As a rousing...
HEERMANN, Johann. b. Raudten, Silesia (now Rudna, Poland), 1585; d. Lissa (Leszno, Poland), 17 February 1647. He was educated at Raudten and at Wohlau. He then attended the Gymnasium at Breslau (Wroclaw) and then at Brieg (Brzeg), later matriculating as a student at the University of Strasbourg (1609). His studies were cut short by a serious eye infection, and he returned to Silesia, where he was ordained deacon in 1611, becoming assistant to the elderly pastor at Köben (now Chobienia, Poland)....
LAVATER, Johann Kaspar. b. Zürich, Switzerland, 15 November 1741; d. Zürich, 2 January 1801. The son of a doctor, he was educated in his native city in the Academic Gymnasium and the Theological Faculty of the University (as a young man he was a close friend of Heinrich Füssli, who came to England and became famous as the painter Henry Fuseli). Lavater was ordained in 1762, taking up a position as diaconus of the Orphanage Church in 1769 and becoming pastor in 1775. In 1778 he became diaconus...
DOBER, Johann Leonhard. b. 7 March 1706; d. 1 April 1766. Like his father, he was a potter by trade, a descendant of Bohemian brethren who had emigrated to Mönksroth, Northern Bavaria. According to accounts of his life, in 1723 he was 'immediat vom Heyland ergriffen' ('suddenly moved by the Saviour'), and in 1725 he followed his elder brother Martin to Herrnhut, where he worked as a potter. In 1732 he went with David Nitschmann as the first missionary to St Thomas in the West Indies, from which...
BRUGMAN, Johannes (Jan). b. Kempen, the Netherlands, ca. 1400; d. Nijmegen, June 1473. Brugman joined the Order of Friars Minor-Conventual in 's-Hertogenbosch some time between 1420 and 1425, and shortly afterwards entered the studium generale in Paris. He became swept up in the controversy over the interpretation of the rule of St Francis between the Conventual and Observant branches of the Franciscan Order (see Franciscan hymns and hymnals*) in the 1440s. Following the reformation of the...
SCHMIDLIN, Johannes. b. Zürich, 22 May 1722; d. Wetzikon, 5 November 1771. The son of a ship's captain, he was a student at the music college of the church of Our Lady at Zürich. From 1736 he attended the Collegium Carolinum under Cantor Johann Caspar Bachofen, who influenced him greatly. At the same time he studied theology, and was ordained in 1743. He was vicar of Dietlikon (1744-54) and priest of Wetzikon and Seegräben from 1754 until his death. He was known as a composer of edifying...
STAPFER, Johannes. b. Bern, Switzerland, 1719 (baptised 27 December); d. Bern, 21 October 1801. He was educated at Bern, and became a minister of the Swiss Reformed Church, serving at Aarburg (in the Canton of Bern, now in Aargau), before returning to Bern as Professor of Practical Theology at the Theological College in 1756. He taught at the Latin School at Bern (1761-73) and at the Theology College (1774- ), where he was Rektor (1787-90, and 1796). His sermons were printed as Johannes...
STOREY, John Andrew. b. Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, 24 March 1935; d. Yeovil, Somerset, 5 December 1997. He was born into a Congregationalist family. Instead of two years of National Service, he engaged for three years in order to become a medical orderly in the Royal Air Force. He then trained for the Congregational ministry at the Western College, Bristol (1956-61), where he became interested in the study of comparative religion.
Storey became minister of a group of Congregational churches...
BOWRING, (Sir) John. b. Exeter, Devon, 17 October 1792; d. Exeter, 23 November 1872. He was educated at school in Exeter at an evening school run by the Unitarian divine, Dr Lant Carpenter. On leaving school he entered a business engaged in foreign trade, where he met many travellers and laid the foundations of his truly extraordinary linguistic acquisition, learning French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Dutch. He later became proficient in Swedish, Russian, Danish, Serbian, Polish...
GEYER, John Brownlow. b. Wakefield, Yorkshire, 9 May 1932; d. Tayport, Fife, 26 July 2020. He was educated at Silcoates School, Wakefield, the Congregational foundation for the sons of nonconformist ministers. After National Service (1951-53), he read Theology at Queens' College, Cambridge (BA 1956), and trained for the Congregational ministry at Mansfield College, Oxford (1956-59), with a period studying at Heidelberg (1957-59). He was minister of the Congregational Church, St Andrews, Fife,...
CENNICK, John. b. Reading, Berkshire, 12 December 1718; d. London, 4 July 1755. On one side of the family his grandparents had been Quakers, persecuted for their beliefs, but his parents were members of the Church of England. He was educated at Reading, and brought up strictly, 'kept constant to daily Prayers'. As a young man he subsequently went through a period of depression. He was trained as a shoemaker.
He had an experience of salvation in 7 September 1737, and sought out the Methodists in...
DAMASCENE, John, St (John Chrysorrhoas, John of Damascus). b. ca. 655; d. ca. 745. John received a good literary and philosophical education in his native Damascus, and became renowned in Constantinople as the author of liturgical hymns. Eventually he became a monk, probably at Jerusalem Cathedral rather than at the monastery of St Sabas, as has traditionally been believed (see Conticello, 2000, Louth, 2002). He became the theological advisor of Patriarch John V of Jerusalem, who ordained him...
PARK, John Edgar. b. Belfast, Northern Ireland, 7 March 1879; d. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 4 March 1956. Park was educated at the Queen's University of Belfast (then Queen's College), and thereafter at Universities of Dublin, Edinburgh, Leipzig, Munich, Oxford and Princeton. His time at Princeton was followed by permanent residence in the USA: he became a Presbyterian minister, serving in the lumber camps of the Adirondack Mountains in upper New York State. He then became a Congregational...
FAWCETT, John. b. Lidget Green, Bradford, West Yorkshire, 6 January 1740; d. 25 July 1817. He was the son of Stephen Fawcett, who died young. Influenced while an apprentice by the preaching of George Whitefield on John 3: 14, he was interested in Methodism but joined the Particular Baptists in Bradford. He entered the ministry, and in May 1764 became minister at the small, damp Wainsgate Baptist Church high in the hills at Old Town above Hebden Bridge, where his remuneration never exceeded £25...
YOUNG, John Freeman. b. Pittston, Maine, 30 October 1820; d. New York City, 15 November 1885. He was the son of John Young and Emma Freeman. His family were Wesleyan Methodists, but he joined the Episcopal Church and was educated at Virginia Theological Seminary. He took Holy Orders (deacon, 1845, priest 1846), serving churches in Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana before becoming assistant rector of Trinity Church, New York City. He was secretary of the Russo-Greek Committee of the...
HARRIS, John. b. Ugborough, South Devon, 8 March 1802; d. London, 21 December 1856. Harris was the son of a tailor and outfitter, who moved his family to Bristol, ca. 1815, when John would have been 13. Originally they attended the Cathedral, but on a rainy day they turned into the Tabernacle Church, where they remained as members: the young man became a Sunday-school teacher and then a preacher. He trained for the Congregational ministry at Hoxton Academy, London (1823-25) before becoming...
HOLMES, John Haynes. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 29 November 1879; d. New York City, 3 April 1964. Pastor, hymn writer and social activist, Holmes attended Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts (BA 1901) and Harvard Divinity School, (STB 1904). Following ordination by the American Unitarian Association, he served as minister to the Third Religious Society of Dorchester, Mass. (1904-1907), and then accepted the pastorate at the Unitarian Church of the Messiah, New York City (after 1919...
NILES, John Jacob. b. Portland (now a neighborhood of Louisville), Kentucky, 28 April 1892; d. Boot Hill Farm, near Lexington, Kentucky, 1 March 1980. Niles was a singer, composer, and collector of traditional music. His Christmas carol, 'I wonder as I wander'*, is found in several hymnals.
As a youngster living near a river city in Kentucky, Niles became familiar with folk music and various other forms of musical entertainment. He was especially fond of vaudeville. Before leaving his work on...
CUMMINS, John James. b. Cork, Ireland, 5 May 1795; d. London, 23 November 1867. An Irishman, he lived in London from 1834 onwards. He was a Director of the Union Bank of Australia. He was also a student of Hebrew and Theology. He published Seals of the Covenant Opened or the Sacraments of the Church considered in their Connexion with the Great Doctrines of the Gospel (1839), a prose work for his family 'to remind them of their solemn responsibilities, as members of the Church of Christ; and...
JULIAN, John. b. Mithian, near St Agnes, Cornwall, 27 January 1839; d. Topcliffe, Yorkshire, 22 January 1913. The Methodist archives in the John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester, searched by John Lenton, inform us that John Julian was the son of Thomas and Ann Julian, and christened at St Agnes (2 March 1839). He was brought up as a Wesleyan Methodist, and became a Probationer minister, a 'Preacher on Trial' in the Leeds Third Circuit (1861), the Kington Circuit (stationed...
BOKWE, John Knox. b. 15 March 1855; d. 21 July 1922. Bokwe studied with William Kolbe Ntsikana, grandson of Ntsikana Gaga* (or 'Gaba'), and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in Scotland (1906). He was a member of the Ngqika Mbamba clan (Xhosa), born at Ntselamanzi near Lovedale, the Presbyterian mission. Bokwe was the first to adapt John Curwen's Tonic Sol-fa* system to Xhosa music. Bokwe's transcriptions of Ntsikana's songs, published in 1878, conveyed in notation aspects of the oral...
KOUKOUZELES, John, St [Ioannes]. b. ca. 1280; d. ca. 1350. A singer and prolific composer from Mount Athos, Koukouzeles was the foremost exponent of the kalophonic vocal style. In his works we note a marked expansion both of music and text. He increases the length of traditional melodies in three ways: (i) by setting very many notes to the individual syllables of the hymnody (melismas); (ii) by interpolating new words and phrases in pre-existing texts thereby giving him scope to write more...
MURRAY, John. b. Alton, Hampshire, England, ca. 1740; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 3 September 1815. Murray is regarded as the founder of the Universalist denomination in America (see Unitarian-Universalist hymnody, USA*). He contributed five hymn texts to James Relly* and John Relly's Christian Hymns, Poems, and Sacred Songs: Sacred to the Praise of God Our Saviour (Portsmouth, Massachusetts, 1782). His wife, Judith Murray*, became an important American literary figure and Universalist...
HOPPS, John Page. b. London, 6 November 1834; d. Shepperton, Middlesex, 6 April 1911. He was educated at Leicester General Baptist College, where he trained for the Baptist ministry. After serving as minister at Hugglescote and Ibstock (1856) and at Birmingham (1857-), he became a Unitarian in 1860 and went on to serve as a Unitarian minister in Sheffield, Dukinfield, Glasgow, Leicester and London. Hopps published many books, pamphlets and sermons, many of which proved controversial: he...
PECHAM, John (Johannes de Pescham, Peccanus, Pischano, Pisano, Pithyano). b. Patcham, Sussex, ca. 1230; d. Mortlake, Surrey, 8 December 1292. After receiving his early education at the Cluniac Priory at Lewes, John Pecham joined the Order of Friars Minor in Oxford ca. 1250. Pecham studied the liberal arts at Oxford and then, some time between 1257 and 1259, travelled to Paris, where he completed his studies in theology. He served as Franciscan lector and regent master of theology there from...
WREFORD, John Reynell. b. Barnstaple, Devon, 12 December 1800; d. London, 2 July 1881. He was educated for the Unitarian ministry at Manchester College (then at York). He was appointed co-pastor of the New Meeting, Birmingham, in 1826, but was forced to leave his post in 1831 because of trouble with his voice. In conjunction with another Unitarian minister from Birmingham, Hugh Hutton, he then opened a school at Edgbaston, Birmingham. He retired to Bristol and died in London.
Wreford published...
RYLAND, John. b. Warwick, 29 January 1753; d. Bristol, 25 June 1825. He was the son of a Baptist pastor, John Collett Ryland (1723-1792), a notable figure in 18th-century Baptist circles (he was baptized by Benjamin Beddome* and his funeral sermon was preached by John Rippon*). To distinguish himself from his forceful parent, the son called himself 'John Ryland, Junior'. In 1759 John Collett Ryland moved to Northampton as pastor: he taught his son Hebrew and Greek, and John Ryland Junior is...
MONSELL, John Samuel Bewley. b. Londonderry, Ireland 2 March 1811; d. Guildford, 9 April 1875. He was the son of an archdeacon of Derry, and brother of the politician William Monsell, first Baron Emly (1812-94). He entered Trinity College, Dublin (BA 1832). He was ordained (deacon 1834, priest 1835), and was successively chaplain to Bishop Richard Mant*; Chancellor of the diocese of Connor; rector of Ramoan, Co. Antrim; vicar of Egham, Surrey (1853-70); and rector of St Nicolas, Guildford...
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...
SWERTNER, John. b. Haarlem, the Netherlands, 1746; d. Bristol, 11 March 1813. As a young man he came to England, where he married Elizabeth, the daughter of John Cennick*. He was the minister of the Moravian church at Dublin, and for ten years minister of the Fairfield Moravian Settlement, Droylsden, Manchester (1790-1800).
He was the editor of the British Moravian hymnbook, A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren (1789) and of its enlarged edition,...
TAULER, John (Johannes). b. Strasbourg, ca. 1300; d. Strasbourg or Cologne, 15 June 1361. Tauler became a Dominican monk. He studied under the great teacher Meister Eckhart, and became renowned as a teacher and preacher, first at Strasbourg and then at Basle. His place of death is uncertain. He is normally thought of as one of the 'Friends of God', a name for some 14th-century mystics: Catherine Winkworth* described him as one of those who 'spoke often of a mystical or hidden life of God in the...
THOMAS, John (I). b. Myddfai, Carmarthenshire, 1730 (baptized 25 March); d. between 1804 and 1811. He learned to read as a boy with the help of friends and through Sunday school. He was converted by the preaching of Howell Harris in 1743 and later went to Trevecca, subsequently teaching in Griffith Jones's circulating schools in south Wales. He joined the Congregationalists, attended the Academy at Abergavenny, and was ordained in 1767 as minister of Rhayader and Llandrindod. He left...
GRANT, John Webster. b. Truro, Nova Scotia, 27 June 1919; d. Toronto, 16 December 2006. He was educated at Pictou Academy and Dalhousie University, Halifax (BA 1938, MA 1941). He attended Princeton University on a graduate scholarship before enrolling in Pine Hill Divinity Hall at Halifax. Ordained to the ministry of the United Church of Canada in 1943, he was appointed director of information to the non-Roman Catholic churches with the Wartime Information Board and chaplain to the Royal...
OLDHAM, John Wesley. b. Sarnia, Ontario, 11 April, 1945. John Oldham grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He studied History and Philosophy at Carleton University, Ottawa (BA, 1966) before pursuing Theology at Emmanuel College, Toronto (BD, 1969). In 1969, he was ordained in The United Church of Canada. Over the next 25 years, he served rural and urban congregations across Manitoba before being called to Rama United Church near Orillia, ON. Conflicts in this pastoral charge led to Oldham being placed on...
WORK, John Wesley (III). b. Tullahoma, Tennessee, 15 June 1901; d. Nashville, Tennessee, 17 May 1967. John Work III was born into a family of musicians, including John Wesley Work (I)*, John Wesley Work (II)*, and Frederick Jerome Work*. The family were among the leaders in the collecting, arranging, developing, and preserving of African-American spirituals and folksongs. John Work (III) is known especially for American Negro Songs and Spirituals: a Comprehensive Collection of 230 Folk...
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...
YLVISAKER, John Carl. b. Fargo, North Dakota, 11 September 1937; d. Waverly, Iowa, 9 March 2017. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) composer of over 1,000 songs and hymns, church musician, and a performer, he was influenced by the music of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, including the songs of Pete Seeger (1919-2014). The content of many of the texts and the folk musical style of his songs led Gracia Grindal* to call him the 'Bob Dylan of Lutheranism' (Ortárola, Star...
LOCKWARD, Jorge. b. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; 2 January 1965– . Jorge Lockward is a composer, arranger, editor, translator, producer, and enlivener of congregational song. He has served in a variety of leadership positions in choral music, ministry, and administration. He holds degrees from Azusa Pacific University (BA in Religion, 1986) and City College of New York (BM in Music, 1990), with further graduate studies at Rutgers University (Musicology, 1990–92) and Drew University...
ADAM, Joseph. b. perhaps Dundee, ca. 1843, date unknown; d. Bournville, Birmingham, 10 March 1919. According to the Churches of Christ periodical, The Bible Advocate ('Pleading for a Complete Return to the Faith and Practice of the New Testament Church'), 4 April 1919, he was born 'some seventy-six years ago in the city of Dundee'. Adam was trained as a carpenter, but became a Churches of Christ evangelist, trained at Birmingham by the great Churches of Christ evangelist David King (1819-1894)....
SCRIVEN, Joseph Medlicott. b. Seapatrick near Banbridge, Co Down, Ireland (later Northern Ireland), 10 September 1819; d. Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, 10 August 1886. The son of James Scriven and Jane Medlicott, he attended Addiscombe Military College, Surrey (1837-39), training for service in India. Owing to poor health he withdrew, returning to Ireland and studying at Trinity College, Dublin (BA 1842). Impelled by his fiancée's drowning on the eve of their wedding, Scriven emigrated from...
MOHR, Joseph. b. Salzburg, Austria, 11 December 1792; d. Wagrein, near St Johann, 4 December 1848. He was a chorister in the cathedral choir at Salzburg. He was ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1815. Most of his life was spent in parishes near Salzburg, but from 1817 to 1819 he was assistant priest at Oberndorf in Bavaria. His next appointments were as assistant at Ramsau and Laufen; as co-adjutor at Kuchl, Golling, Vigann, Adnet and Authering; as vicar-substitute at Hof and at...
COOK, Joseph Simpson. b. County Durham, England, 4 December 1859; d. Toronto, Ontario, 27 May 1933. He emigrated to Georgetown, Ontario, entering the Methodist ministry as a probationer with London Conference in 1880, serving Bayfield Mission on the eastern shore of Lake Huron from 1881 until 1883. He enrolled in a combined course in Arts and Theology at McGill University and Wesleyan Theological College, being ordained in 1885. He earned an MA from Illinois Wesleyan University (1892), a BD...
STENNETT, Joseph. b. Abingdon, Berkshire, 1663; d. Knaphill, Buckinghamshire, 11 July 1713. He was educated at Wallingford Grammar School. He moved to London in 1685, joining the Seventh Day Baptist Congregation at Pinners' Hall, Broad Street in 1686 and becoming pastor there in 1690. As a Seventh Day Baptist, he was free to preach in other chapels in London on Sundays, and he became widely known and respected as an eminent nonconformist. He married Susanna, daughter of George Guill, a Huguenot...
SWAIN, Joseph. b. Birmingham, 1761; d. London, 16 April 1796. His parents died when he was very young, and he was apprenticed to an engraver in Birmingham, completing his training in London, where he had gone to live with his brother. In 1782 he 'came under the conviction of sin' (ODNB) and was baptized in 1783 by John Rippon*. In 1792 he became minister of East Street Baptist Chapel, Walworth, South London: in spite of a split in the congregation between Strict and Particular Baptists and...
JOSEPH the Hymnographer, St. b. Sicily, between 812 and 818; d. ca. 886. He was taken as a child to Peloponnesos, but fled to Thessalonike, where he became a monk. Later he went to Constantinople, living for several years in the Church of Antipas. He founded his own monastery, ca. 850. After capture by the Arabs, and exile during the iconoclastic controversy (cf. Theodore of Studios*), he returned to Constantinople no later than 866-7, where he was later appointed staurophylax (guardian of the...
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...
MURRAY, Judith Sargent. b. Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1 May 1751; d. Natchez, Mississippi, 9 June 1820. She was an essayist, writer for women's rights, poet, and playwright. Possibly she was the first American-born woman to have a hymn published in a hymnal.
Judith's parents were Winthrop Sargent (1727-1793) and Judith Sanders Sargent (1731-1793). The Sargent family had been well established in Gloucester for several generations. 'In spite of his activity in introducing Universalism [cf.,...
HOWE, Julia Ward (née Ward). b. New York, 27 May 1819; d. Portsmouth, Rhode Island, 17 October 1910. She was the daughter of a wealthy and respected New York banker. In 1843 she married Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), founder of the Perkins School for the Blind at Watertown, Boston, Massachusetts. Howe, who was much older than Julia, had old-fashioned views about the place of women in marriage, and she was repressed and unhappy, partly because her husband was bisexual and unfaithful. Her...
JULIAN of Norwich. b. 1342; d. ca. 1416. Her anchorite cell was at the Parish Church of St Julian, Conisford, Norwich, and this may be the origin of her name. Little is known for certain about her life, although she became an anchoress before 1394.
She wrote The Revelations of Divine Love, reflections on sixteen visions of Christ crucified which she received in May 1373. A short version was written at some point in the years following the vision; the longer version (on which her reputation...
TRANOVSKÝ, Juraj (Tranoscius). b. Teschen, Silesia (Cieszyn, Poland), 9 April 1592; d. Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš, Hungary, 29 May 1637. He studied at the Gymnasium (Grammar School) at Guben from 1603-05 and at Kolberg, and later at Wittenberg (1607-12), returning to Prague, where he taught in the St Nicholas Gymnasium, later becoming rector of a school in Holešov, Moravia. He was ordained in 1616, and became pastor of Meziřiči. In 1623 he was imprisoned during the persecution of Protestants...
JUSTINIAN I, Emperor. b. ca. 482; d. 565. The troparion (see Byzantine hymnody*), 'ό Μονογενής' ('The Only-begotten'), is attributed to the Emperor Justinian by the Chalcedonians, and to Severus, patriarch of Antioch, by the monophysites. The Chalcedonians held the belief, agreed at the 451 Council of Chalcedon, that Christ was one person in two natures (human and divine), while the monophysites believed that Christ possessed only one nature.
The hymn takes the form of a prayer, ending with a...
FALCKNER, Justus. b. Langenreinsdorf, near Zwickau, Saxony, 22 Nov 1672; d. probably in America, ca. 1723. The son of a Lutheran pastor, he studied at Halle under August Hermann Francke (I)*. The intense and demanding Pietism of Halle made him feel inadequate to be a minister, and he became a lawyer in Rotterdam; but he responded to a call from a Swedish pastor, Andrew Rudmann, for help for the Lutherans in America, where he agreed to be ordained (1703). He ministered to a Dutch congregation...
KASSIA the Nun. ca. 800-805; d. by 867. Well educated in Byzantine imperial court circles, Kassia became an hegoumena (abbess). More than twenty securely attributed works survive, principally stichera. Kassia is one of four known female Byzantine hymnodists. She appears to have written both texts and music herself, thus being the only known Byzantine female melode (composer of both text and music). Her most famous composition in her lifetime was the sticheron 'Augoustou monarchēsantos'...
GETTY, (Julian) Keith. b. 16 December 1974. Getty is a Northern Irish hymn-writer, composer and performer. His work is often collaborative, working together with his wife, Kristyn Getty* and Stuart Townend*. In partnership with Townend, he has been responsible for some of the most popular hymns of the early 21st century, most famously 'In Christ alone my hope is found'* (2001). This hymn has become one of the best known of all 21st-century hymns; it has frequently featured at or near the top of...
KHATCHATUR Tarōnetsi. fl. 13th century. Khatchatur of Tarōn was a poet and musician, and he occupies a special place among the authors of Armenian hymns. His best known hymn is 'Khorhurd khorin' ('Mystery profound') which is also called 'The Hymn of Vesting', sung at the beginning of Holy Mass. Successive 4-line quatrains spell out the author's name (KHATCHATUR). According to certain sources, Khatchatur composed it on the occasion of an open-air liturgy organised at the request of Prince...
KOMITAS. Komitas I Aghtsetsi, Catholicos of All Armenians. b. ca. 560; d. 628. A well-known churchman, poet, and musician. When he was Catholicos (primate) of the Armenian church (615-628) the relics of a group of nuns, headed by Gayanē and including Hrip'simē, who was of famed beauty, were discovered in Edjmiadsin. Komitas constructed the Church of St. Hrip'simē in 618, where the remains were interned, and composed the hymn 'Andzink' nvirealk'' ('Devoted souls') to celebrate the occasion. He...
KOSMAS of Maiouma, St (The Hagiopolite, the Jerusalemite, the Melode, the Monk, the Poet). b. ca. 675; d. 752/754. He was born in the patriarchate of Jerusalem, probably in Jerusalem itself. According to later hagiography Kosmas lived as a monk at Saint Sabas, but according to recent research it is more likely that he served at the Resurrection Cathedral at Jerusalem. He was elected bishop of Maiouma in Phoenicia, ca. 743, at the age of nearly 70.
Together with St John Damascene*, Kosmas was...
PAL, Krishna. b.1764, date unknown; d. Serampore, 1822, date unknown. Pal was a Hindu carpenter at Serampore, near Calcutta, India, who was converted and baptised by William Carey (1761-1834), the great Baptist missionary, in 1800, after which he became a Christian evangelist. He died of cholera at Serampore. Pal wrote hymns in Bengali, some of which were translated by Carey. The best known is 'Je Jone Apon Pan' translated by Carey as 'He who yielded up his breath' (available at...
GETTY, Kristyn (née Lennox). b. 22 May 1980. She is a Northern Irish singer and hymn-writer. Best known for her work in collaboration with her husband Keith Getty*, and Stuart Townend*, she features prominently as a soloist or lead singer on their albums and continues to perform with her husband as part of an Irish-American folk band. She and her husband are frequently cited as co-authors and their work features strong Celtic influences, both in words and music. Their series New Irish Hymns has...
IHLENFELD, Kurt. b. Colmar, Alsace, 26 May 1901; d. Berlin, 25 August 1972. His family moved to Silesia at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and he was at school at the Gymnasium at Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz, Poland). He then studied theology and art history at Halle and Greifswald. In 1923 he was awarded the Dr.phil. degree for a thesis on the medieval gravestones of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. He became a pastor in various parts of Silesia. During his time as pastor in Breslau (Wroclaw),...
Copenhaver, Laura Lu (née Scherer). b. Columbus, Texas, 29 August 1868; d. Rosemont, Marion, Virginia, 18 December 1940. She was the daughter of native Virginian, Lutheran minister and denominational leader Jacob Scherer (1830-1919) who founded Marion Female College in 1873 two years after his return to Virginia from Texas. At the early age of ten, Laura began teaching Sunday School classes and writing plays that were produced at the College. After graduating from Marion Female College in 1884...
HOUSMAN, Laurence. b. Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, 18 July 1865; d. Glastonbury, Somerset, 20 February 1959. He was the son of a solicitor, and the younger brother of the poet and scholar A.E. Housman (1859-1936). He was educated at home and at Bromsgrove School, before training in London as a graphic artist. He worked as a book illustrator, and was art critic of The Manchester Guardian for 16 years from 1895. He wrote poems, novels, and plays, and journal articles on topics such as feminism,...
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,...
SANDELL-BERG, Lina (née Sandell, Karolina Vilhelmina, sometimes Sandell, Lina). b. 3 October 1832; d. 27 July 1903. Born at Fröderyd, Smaland, Sweden, the daughter of a pastor, she lost both her parents, her father drowning before her eyes in a boating accident. After the death of her parents she lived in a home run by a religious group, and began to write poems, using the initials 'L.S.'. Many of them were set to music by the guitarist Oskar Ahnfelt (1813-1882), the 'spiritual troubadour' of...
GOOD, Linnea. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 24 March 1962. Born in Boston, Linnea Good was raised in Fredericton, New Brunswick. From an early age she was steeped in music. Her father, Frank Good (1938–2015), was well known in the provinces of eastern Canada as a hilarious and engaging performer in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. At age 12, 'at an age when other kids were leaving the church', Good notes, she was invited to sing in the choir of the local Anglican church.
Good pondered a vocation as...
KROEHLER, Lois Clara. b. Saint Louis, Missouri, 9 September 1927; d. Bremerton, Washington, 3 August 2019. Missionary, translator, music teacher, hymn writer, and hymnal editor, Lois Kroehler lived in Belleville, Illinois, Ft. Collins, Colorado, and Lyman, Nebraska during her childhood. She graduated from the University of Nebraska (1949) with a major in Spanish and went immediately to Cuba upon graduation to serve as an English language secretary for the Cuban Director of Presbyterian Schools...
STEAD, Louisa M.R. b. Dover, England, 1 February 1846; d. Penkridge (now Mutare), near Umtali, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), 18 January 1917. Louisa immigrated to the United States as a young woman, ca. 1871, where she resided with friends in Cincinnati, Ohio. At a camp meeting revival in Urbana, Ohio, Louisa committed herself to missionary service, but was unable to fulfill her vow owing to poor health. After marrying George Stead in 1873, she gave birth to their only child, Louise...
AKERMAN, Lucy Evelina, (née Metcalf). b. Wrentham, Massachusetts, 21 February 1816; d. Providence, Rhode Island, 21 February 1874. She was an active Unitarian: some of her hymns were printed at Boston, with those of Jones Very*, under the title of Order of Exercises at the Unitarian Festival, Faneuil Hall, Tuesday, May 26 1863. Another volume, Nothing but leaves: a poem, was published at Philadelphia in 1868.
She married Charles Akerman. The couple lived at Providence, Rhode Island, where,...
REED, Luther Dotterer. b. North Wales, Pennsylvania, 21 March 1873; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 3 April 1972. Reed's distinguished career included a wide spectrum of activity in liturgics, church art and architecture, church music, and hymnody. He attended Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania (AB, 1882, MA, 1897), the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia ['Mt. Airy'] (BD, 1895), with further study in Germany, Scandinavia and Great Britain (1902-1903). He was...
LANDSTAD, Magnus Brostrup. b. 7 October 1802; d. 8 October 1880. Born at Måsøy, he was one of ten children born to parish priest Hans Landstad (1771-1838) and Margrethe Elisabeth Schnitler (1768-1850). His family moved several times, settling finally in Seljord, Telemark, in 1819. He was raised in a period of abject poverty in rural Norway, partially caused by the Napoleonic wars. His father educated him until 1822, when he began studies at the University of Christiania (Oslo), where he...
CHRYSAPHES, Manuel. fl. 1440–1463. He was the most impressive, prolific and distinguished Byzantine composer, singer, scribe and theoretician at the time of Constantinople's political decline. His output was exceptionally prolific and his chants were known and sung for centuries, not only in the Greek- but also in the Slavonic- and Romanian-speaking east. His contributions to the repertory of Byzantine liturgical music reveal him as an important figure in the development of the Eastern chant...
CLARKSON, (Edith) Margaret. b. Melville, Saskatchewan, Canada, 8 June 1915; d. Toronto, 17 March 2008. Margaret Clarkson moved with her family to Toronto at the age of four. As a child she attended St John's Presbyterian Church in Toronto where she would study a hymnbook during the sermons, beginning her lifelong engagement with hymnody. She wrote her first hymn texts at twelve. Educated in Toronto, she taught elementary school for 38 years, starting in lumber and mining communities in northern...
COCKBURN-CAMPBELL, Margaret (née Malcolm). b. 1808; d. Alphington, near Exeter, Devonshire, 6 February 1841. She was the daughter of a General, Sir John Malcolm, GCB, who was a friend of the Duke of Wellington. She married her cousin, Sir Alexander Thomas Cockburn-Campbell, in 1827. He was one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren, and he and his wife must have been closely associated with them in their early years during her short life-time. One year after her death, some of her hymns were...
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...
FERSCHL, Maria. b. Melk, Austria, 18 March 1895; d. Saulgau, Baden-Württemberg, 10 April 1982. She was the daughter of a superintendent in the imperial and royal post office of Austria. She was educated at High School, and a Teachers' Training College in Vienna. She taught German, history and singing in a technical school. From 1925 onwards she was involved with the movement for the development of Catholic liturgy at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, writing Kreuzweg der Klosterneuburger...
COLLIHOLE, Marian (née Howells). b. Pontypridd, Wales, 14 August 1933. She was educated at Pontypridd Grammar School. She worked as a Primary School teacher in Smethwick, Birmingham. While there, she entered writing competitions, including a BBC TV hymn-writing competition in 1966. Her text, 'Where is God?' ('Woman racked and torn with pain') was written in response to the Aberfan landslide that year, which engulfed a primary school, killing 116 children and 28 adults. The entry was not...
NYSTROM, Martin J. b. Seattle, Washington State, 1956. Following his graduation from Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma (BME, 1979) he became an evangelist and musician in New York with the 'Christ for the Nations' movement, and for Hosanna! Music, Mobile, Alabama, for whom he produced five Praise-Worship albums. He has composed over 250 songs, mostly one-stanza worship songs such as: 'Times of refreshing, here in your presence', 'Jesus I am thirsty' (with Don Harris), 'I will come and...
OPITZ, Martin. b. Bunzlau, Silesia (Boleslawiec, Poland), 23 December 1597; d. Danzig (Gdansk, Poland), 20 August 1639. The son of a master butcher, he was educated at Bunzlau, the Magdalene-Gymnasium at Breslau, and the University at Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. He studied at Heidelberg for a year (1619-20) before travelling as a tutor to a young Danish nobleman in Holland and Jutland. He was briefly professor of poetry at the Gymnasium at Weissenberg, Transylvania (1622-23), before being employed...
BYRNE, Mary Elizabeth. b. Dublin, Ireland, 2 July 1880; d. Dublin, 19 January 1931. She was educated at the Dominican Convent in Dublin, and the National University of Ireland (the Roman Catholic university founded by John Henry Newman to provide higher education for Catholics parallel to that of Trinity College, Dublin). Her Irish name was Máiri Ní Bhroin, but she published much of her work as Mary E. Byrne. She was a research scholar who worked for the Board of Intermediate Education. With...
Mary Frances Reza. b. Dawson, New Mexico; 17 January 1932.
Mary Frances Reza, sometimes referred to as the 'godmother' of Hispanic liturgical music in the United States, is a Catholic leader in Hispanic music and ministry. She is known for her bilingual psalm settings and congregational settings of the Mass, her advocacy for unpublished composers of Spanish-language USA congregational song, her workshops on Hispanic congregational song, and her leadership in worship and music for the...
BRINGLE, Mary Louise ('Mel'). b. Ripley, Tennessee, 31 July 1953. Bringle grew up in a family active in the Presbyterian Church US: her father served as a deacon and ruling elder, and her mother taught two-year-olds in Sunday school. She sang in children's and youth choirs at the First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. She majored in French and religious studies at Guilford College, Greensboro (BA 1975); received a Fribourg Foundation grant to study at the Institut de Science...
PETERS, Mary (née Bowly). b. Cirencester, 17 April 1813; d. Clifton, Bristol, 29 July 1856. Mary Bowly became governess to the children of the Revd John William Peters (1791-1861), rector of Quenington (1823-34) and perpetual curate of Ampney St Mary (1824-32) (both in Gloucestershire), and vicar of Langford (on the Berkshire-Oxfordshire border) (1825-34). Peters resigned the Ampney living in 1832 in order to serve the other two parishes more adequately, and in 1834 he resigned the others on...
SHEKLETON, Mary. b., place and date unknown, 1827; d. Dublin, 28 September 1883. She was born in England, but the place and exact date are unknown. After the death of her father when she was six months old, her mother returned to her family home in Ireland with her children. Shekleton was deeply influenced by her mother, who had experienced an evangelical conversion on the death of her husband, and who brought up her four daughters in a prayerful, scripture-centred household where an emphasis...
EDGAR, Mary Susannah. b. Sundridge, Ontario, 23 May 1889; d. Toronto, 17 September 1973. She won awards for essays, poems and plays written at Havergal College in Toronto. She took a BA in English, through extension courses from the University of Chicago and the University of Toronto. In 1912 Mary Edgar began her career working with the Young Women's Christian Association in Montreal. She studied at the National Training School of the YWCA in New York City in 1914-15, where she also attended...
SARBIEWSKI, Mathias Casimir (Maciej Kazimierz). b. near Plonsk, Poland, 24 February 1595; d. 2 April 1640. Sarbiewski entered the tutelage of the Jesuit order at the age of seventeen. After a thorough grounding in rhetoric, philosophy, and the humanities, he journeyed to Rome in 1622, where he was ordained as a priest in 1623. It was perhaps during this time that he first encountered Maffeo Barberini, a man educated by and sympathetic to the Jesuits (Barberini was elected Pope Urban VIII in...
REDMAN, Matt. b. Watford, Hertfordshire, 14 February, 1974. He was raised in Chorleywood, attending St Andrew's Church, and being educated at Watford Grammar School until 1992.
He has been a full-time worship leader since the age of 20, helping to set up the 'Soul Survivor' movement in Watford, and developing an enthusiasm for Christian song-writing that reaches people normally outside the more established church circles. He has travelled internationally, settling twice in America (California...
Mechthild of Magdeburg. b. near Magdeburg ca. 1207; d. ca. 1282. Mechthild became a Beguine (a lay sister) ca. 1230 and entered the convent of St Mary at Helfta, Saxony, ca. 1270. Various dates have been proposed for her death; Hans Neumann's estimate of ca. 1282 has the widest currency.
Mechthild wrote the mystical Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit ('The flowing light of the Godhead') between ca. 1250 and ca.1282. One text, written in Low German, is in the library of the monastery of...
SCHIRMER, Michael. b. Leipzig, 1606 (baptised 18 July); d. Berlin, 4 May 1673. He was educated at the Thomasschule at Leipzig, and studied theology at the University there. He was a youthful prodigy, who began his undergraduate study at the age of 13. He became Rektor at Freiberg (Saxony) in 1630, combining it with the post of pastor at Striegnitz. He was crowned as a 'King's Poet' in 1637.
In 1636 he was appointed Sub-Rektor at the Gymnasium at the Greyfriars Cloister in Berlin, where he...
Monk of Salzburg. fl. late 14th century. Part of a literary circle, some of whose members are referred to in his songs, the monk of Salzburg was associated with the hedonistic court of Pilgrim II von Puchheim, archbishop of Salzburg from 1365 to 1396. 57 secular songs and 49 sacred songs survive, some of which are translations of Latin monophonic and polyphonic hymns and sequences* into German. The monk's songs were widely transmitted for over a century; they are found in almost 100...
RHYS, Morgan. b. Efail-fach, Cil-y-cwm, Carmarthenshire, 1 April 1716; d. August 1779. Very little is known of his life. Such as is known comes from the references to him in Welch Piety, the annual reports of the progress of the circulating schools that Gruffydd Jones (1683-1761) provided for the subscribers to that enterprise in universal education in Wales. It is clear that Morgan Rhys was a teacher in those schools between 1757 and 1775 and that his work with both children and adults was...
TILAK, Narayan Vaman. b. Karajgaon Village, Ratnagiri District, Maharashtra, 6 December 1861; d. Bombay (now Mumbai), 9 May 1919. Born into a Hindu family of the Brahmin caste, he was greatly influenced by the writings of the 17th-century 'poet-saint' Tukaram (1608-1649), who wrote devotional poems and hymns in Marathi. Tilak was converted to Christianity (baptised 1895), encountering opposition from his family and friends. He worked for more than twenty years at the American Congregational...
FROTHINGHAM, Nathaniel Langdon. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 23 July 1793; d. Boston, 4 April 1870. He was educated at the Latin school in Boston and Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1811, at the age of 18. He became a 'preceptor', studied divinity, and was ordained as minister of the First Church (Unitarian), Boston, in 1815. He married Ann Gorham Brooks, of Boston, in 1818. He received the degree of DD from Harvard College in 1836 (Putnam, 1875, p. 88). He was minister of First Church...
NETO, Rodolfo Gaede. b. Ituêta, Minas Gerais, Brazil; 26 July 1951. Neto, a pastor in the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB), is a composer and hymnwriter. The son of Herman Carlos Ludwig Gaede and Hilda Dummer Gaede, Gaede Neto pursued the Bachelor of Theology, master's, and doctoral degrees from the Escola Superior de Teologia in São Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul state.
From 1979 to 1985, Neto served congregations in the Parishes of Alto Jatibocas (Itarana,...
MacNICOL, Nicol. b. Catacol, Lochranza, Isle of Arran, 26 February 1870; d. Edinburgh, 13 February 1952. His father was minister of the United Free Church at Lochranza, later moving to Dunoon. Nicol MacNicol was educated at Glasgow High School and the University of Glasgow. He then studied at the United Free Church Theological College in Glasgow, before being ordained as a missionary to India in 1895. He spent six years at Wilson College, Bombay, before moving to the United Free Church Mission...
MOLDOVEANU, Nicolae. b. Movileni, Romania, 3 February 1922; d. Sibiu, Romania, 12 July 2007. Following the early death of his father, Nicolae was sent to live with an uncle who enrolled him in the Army's Children, a military program for destitute children. The conductor of the military's brass ensemble recognized his love for music and encouraged him to develop musically. Then as a young teenager, he began writing religious texts and original melodies under the influence of Oastea Domnului...
GRUNDTVIG, Nicolai Frederik Severin. b. Udby, 8 September 1783; d. 2 September 1872. Born in a small village in South Zealand, Udby, where his father had been priest since 1778. The small boy remembered news of the revolution in France arriving in the village in 1789, but he seems to have been more impressed in the previous year (when he was five years old) by the news that the Russian troops on the Black Sea coast were advancing south and hoped to be in Constantinople by Easter:...
MARTÍNEZ, Nicolás. b. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 7 October 1917; d. 19 August 1972. Born into a Roman Catholic family, he became an evangelical Christian as a young man. He was educated at the Evangelical Faculty of Theology, Buenos Aires, and in Puerto Rico. He was ordained by the Disciples of Christ in 1948, and worked in Argentina and Paraguay. He was one of the editors of Cantico Nuevo, Himnario Evangelico (Buenos Aires, 1962).
Martínez is best known for 'Christo vive, fuera el llanto', set...
DECIUS, Nikolaus. b. Upper Franconia, Bavaria, ca. 1490?; d. Stettin, 21 March 1541. He was also known as Nikolaus a Curia, Nikolaus von Hofe, and Nikolaus Hovesch. He became 'Probst' ('Provost') of a monastery at Steterburg, near Wolfenbüttel in 1519. Convinced by the Reformers, he left the monastery in 1522, and became a schoolmaster at Braunschweig. He matriculated at the University of Wittenberg in 1523, and became a Lutheran preacher at Stettin in 1526, before being appointed preacher at...
ZINZENDORF, Nikolaus Ludwig von. b. Dresden, 26 May 1700; d. Herrnhut, 9 May 1760. He was raised in the home of his Pietist maternal grandmother, Henriette von Gersdorf and educated at the Pietist School (Paedagogium) at Halle and the University of Wittenberg. Although forced to study law, his true vocation was theology, and his association with the Bohemian Brethren beginning in 1722 led him to ordination in the Lutheran Church and consecration as a Moravian bishop in 1737. He was of noble...
NTSIKANA Gaga/Gaba. b. ca. 1780; d. 1821. He seems to be known in two forms, as 'Gaga' and 'Gaba'. The hymns of the prophet Ntsikana are the prototype of church music in a traditional Xhosa style. David Dargie* (1982) describes the prophet as
an attractively mysterious figure in Xhosa history. A Cirha, and son of a councillor of the famous chief Ngqika, he was the first Xhosa Christian. It was probably as a herd-boy that he heard the preaching of the first missionary among the Xhosa, Dr. J. T....
FROTHINGHAM, Octavius Brooks. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 26 November 1822; d. Boston, 27 November 1895. He was the son of Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham* (1793-1870), Unitarian minister and hymn-writer (JJ, p. 400) and his wife Ann Gorham Brooks. Octavius was educated at Harvard College (graduated 1843) and Harvard Divinity School (1843-46), where he was a contemporary of Samuel Johnson*, Samuel Longfellow*, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson*. He wrote of his time there: 'To enter at once the...
SPANNAUS, Olive Adelaide (née Wise). b. St Louis, Missouri, 23 January 1916; d. Seattle, Washington, 10 May 2018. Olive Wise was educated at Normandy High School, Brown's Business College and Washington University in St Louis. In 1939 she married the Revd Ruben Edward Spannaus (1913-2006), and lived in Seattle, Washington (1942-57), and Elmhurst, Illinois (1957-78), before retiring with her husband to Seattle. She was included in a documentation of 'key feminists who ignited the second wave...
SMEBY, Oluf Hanson. b. Rock County, Wisconsin, 31 January 1851; d. 6 July 1929. Educated at Luther College (AB, 1871) and Concordia Seminary, St Louis, Missouri, Smeby was pastor at Albert Lea, Minnesota, for almost half a century. An eminent Lutheran, he was chairman of the English Committee for The Lutheran Hymnary (1913), used by the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Hauge Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and the United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America. His translations from Norwegian...
CAMPOS DE OLIVEIRA Jr, Oziel. b. Recife, Pernanbuco, Northeast Brazil, 26 July 1946. He studied theology at the Escola Superior de Teologia in São Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and later at Luther Theological Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. Oziel has served as pastor of the Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB, Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterano no Brasil) since 1973. Despite not having any formal training in music, Oziel has always maintained an...
SOSA, Pablo. b. in Chivilcoy, a province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 16 December 1933; d. Buenos Aires, 11 January 2020. Sosa was a composer, church musician and a local minister of the Evangelical Methodist Church in Argentina. He was emeritus professor of Liturgy and Hymnology at the Instituto Universitario ISEDET (Buenos Aires), and Choir Conducting at the National State Conservatory in Buenos Aires (1975-2005). He also established the musical group 'Música para Todos' in 1972, directing and...
MATSIKENYIRI, Patrick. b. Biriri, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), 27 July 1937; d. Mutare, Zimbabwe, 15 January 2021. Patrick Matsikenyiri's career included virtually all aspects of church music—singing, choral directing, composition, hymnal editor, festival leader, professor, and enlivener of global songs in venues worldwide. In the spirit of a Shona proverb—'If you can talk, you can sing. If you can walk, you can dance'—he believed music was for everyone.
After serving as a headmaster for...
Paul the Deacon [Paul of Friuli]. b. ca. 730; d. Montecassino ca. 799. Of noble Italian birth, Paul the Deacon was educated at the court of King Rachis at Pavia before becoming attached to the court of Duke Arichis of Benevento. He entered the monastery of Montecassino after the Carolingian conquest of Italy (773-4). His letter (782) to Charlemagne, petitioning for the release of his brother Arichis, a Lombard prisoner, brought him to the attention of the Frankish king, who summoned Paul the...
MOISE, Penina. b. Charleston, South Carolina, 23 April 1797; d. Charleston, SC, 13 September 1880. Penina was the sixth of nine children born to the union of Abraham (1736-1809) and Sarah (1762-1840) Moise (Moïse). She left school at the age of 12 upon her father's death but continued to study on her own. She suffered from poverty throughout her life; she suffered severe attacks of neuralgia and lost her eyesight completely by 1865. Her first published volume, Fancy's Sketch Book, appeared in...
HARLING, Per. b. Bromma, Sweden, 20 June 1948. Harling is a prolific song and hymn writer as well as a composer of liturgical music and hymn tunes. He has written several books on worship life, hymn texts and biographies, including Ett ögonblick i sänder - Lina Sandell och hennes sånger (Libris, 2003). He is particularly noted for his work connected with service life reform in the Swedish church, especially as secretary for the hymnal supplement for the Church of Sweden, Psalmer i...
ABELARD, Peter. b. le Pallet, near Nantes, Brittany, 1079; d. Châlons-sur-Saone, 21 April 1142. He was the son of Berengar, Lord of Pallet. His distinguished family background marked him out as a potential soldier, but he became a brilliant student of philosophy and theology, both at Paris and Laon. At 22 he was made a canon and teacher at the school attached to Notre Dame in Paris, where his lectures are said to have enthralled his students but alarmed his colleagues. However, one of them,...
PETER Damian. b. Ravenna 1007; d. Faenza, 22-23 February 1072. Peter Damian entered the hermitage of Fonte Avellana in 1035, and had become prior of the community by 1043. He was interested in church reform, both of his own community (combining elements of eremitic and coenobitic monasticism) and of the wider church. He was made Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia in 1057 and was made a Doctor of the Church in 1828.
The clear attestation of Peter Damian's hymn texts and their diffusion in common with his...
DATHEEN, Peter (Petrus). b. Cassell, Nord, Belgium, c. 1531; d. Elbing, Germany, 17 March 1588. Datheen's parentage is unknown. At an early age he was placed in a Carmelite monastery at Ypres, West Flanders, Belgium, where he was schooled in medicine and theology by monks who were sympathetic to Reformation ideals. At about 18, when the monastery at Ypres was, along with many in the region, threatened with dissolution by agents of the Inquisition, Datheen fled to London, where he was part of...
PETER the Venerable (Peter of St. Maurice). b. 1092 or 1094; d. 25 December 1156. Petrus (Mauricius) Venerabilis, born at Montboissier, Auvergne, abbot of Cluny* 1122-1156, was one of the greatest of Cluny's abbots in its heyday in the 10th-12th centuries. He came of a noble family, became an oblate of Sauxillanges and entered Cluny under Abbot Hugh. He was prior of Vézelay (ca.1115-1120) and of Domène near Grenoble (1120-1122), in which year he was elected Abbot of Cluny. He led the monastery...
WILLIAMS, Peter. b. West Marsh, near Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, 7 January 1723; d. Llandyfaelog, Carmarthenshire, 8 August 1796. He was educated at Carmarthen Grammar School. He was converted in 1743 by the preaching of George Whitefield*. He became a schoolmaster, and then decided to take Holy Orders: although he was ordained deacon, the Bishop of St David's refused to ordain him to the priesthood because of his Methodist sympathies. He was licensed as a curate, but his Methodism brought him...
PETROS Bereketes. b. 1665?; d. 1725?. The name Bereketes derives from the Turkish word 'bereket', meaning 'abundance'. The story goes that when Bereketes was asked by his pupils if he had more heirmoi for them, he always answered that he had an abundance of them. Petros studied music in his home town of Constantinople and afterwards with Damianos of Vatopedi on Mount Athos. He was influenced by works by his contemporaries Chrysaphes the Younger*, Germanos of Neai Patrai* and Balasios*. He was...
DASS, Petter. b. Northern Herøy, 1647, date unknown; d. Alstadhaug, 18 September 1707. Born at Northern Herøy in Nordland, he was the son of Peiter Pittersen Dundas (c. 1620-1654), a Scottish immigrant from Dundee, and Maren Falch (1629-1707). Following his father's death he was taken into care by relatives and friends, and was schooled in Bergen from 1660. After study at the University of Copenhagen (1666-69) he returned to Norway, where he became tutor for the family of the parish priest of...
BLYCKER, Philip Walter. b. Chicago, Illinois, 22 March 1939; d. Roseburg, Oregon, 11 June 2023. Philip Blycker (also known as Felipe Blycker J. in Spanish publications), was a missionary, hymn writer, composer, and hymnal editor. He was raised in the evangelical tradition as a Baptist. Taking piano and trumpet lessons during his youth, he received degrees from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina (B.M.E., 1960) and VanderCook College of Music in Chicago (MMus Ed., 1966). He...
PRUDENTIUS, Aurelius Clemens. b. ca. 348; d. ca. 413. Born in Spain, perhaps at Zaragoza, of a good family, he became a lawyer. According to his verse autobiography, prefixed to his poems, he was a judge in two cities. He visited Rome, where he may have been awarded a court office in the service of the Emperor Theodosius. He retired in his 57th year, unsatisfied by the worldliness of his existence. He spent the remainder of his life in the practice of religion, and devoted himself to the...
CARMICHAEL, Ralph. b. Quincy, Illinois, 28 May 1927; d. Carmillo, California, 18 October 2021. A pioneer in the Contemporary Christian Music industry, Carmichael is a prolific composer of Christian songs, whose experiments in popular musical styles have garnered him recognition by some as the 'Father of Contemporary Christian Music'. Carmichael, fostered by musician parents, early on took violin, trumpet, and piano lessons. He attended Southern California Bible College (now Vanguard University,...
EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 25 May 1803; d. Concord, 27 April 1882. The brilliant son of a Congregational minister, he was educated at Boston Latin School (1812-17) and Harvard (AB 1821). After teaching for a few years, he returned to Harvard to study Divinity and Theology (1825-26). He was licensed to preach in 1826, and in 1829 he became junior pastor of the Second Unitarian Church of Boston. He married in 1829, but his wife's death in 1831 distressed him greatly: he...
GUITIÉRREZ-ACHÓN, Raquel. b. Preston (now Puerto Guatemala), Province of Oriente, Cuba; 5 May 1927; d. Los Angeles, California, 5 January 2013. Raquel Gutiérrez-Achón was a church musician, pianist, choral conductor, hymnal editor, and promoter of Spanish-language hymns in the United States and Latin America. She studied music at the Instituto Santiago and the Conservatorio Provincial (Santiago de Cuba), Matin College (Pulaski, Tennessee), George Peabody College for Teachers (Nashville,...
PÂQUIER, Richard. b. Bursins (Switzerland), 25 October 1905; d. Vevey, 28 January 1985. The son of Ernest Henri, farmer, and Cécile Justine Masson, he became a Swiss Reformed pastor, ecumenical theologian, liturgist, and historian of the Vaud canton. A fellow student and friend of the philosopher Marcel Regamey (1905-82), he studied theology in Lausanne (1923-27) and at Hartford Seminary, Hartford, Connecticut (1929) . He was pastor in Bercher (1929-1943) and Saint-Saphorin (1943-1966). He...
COLLYER, Robert Staples. b. Keighley, Yorkshire, England, 8 December 1823; d. 1912. Collyer came from a poor family, which moved to Blubberhouses, near Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, when he was a baby. His father became a blacksmith. Robert left school at the age of eight, and worked 14-hour days in a linen factory. When he was older and stronger he was apprenticed to a blacksmith, and found work at Ilkley and studied at night. Following the death of his wife and daughter in 1849 he became a...
GRANT, (Sir) Robert. b. Kidderpore, Bengal, India, 15 January 1780; d. Dapoorie, Western India, 9 July 1838. He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge (BA, 1801, MA, 1804). He became a Fellow of Magdalene College, was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn (1807), and became King's Serjeant in the Court of the Duchy of Lancaster. He became a Member of Parliament in 1818 and a Privy Councillor in 1831, promoting a bill in 1833 for the emancipation of the Jews, which passed the Commons but was...
CULL, Robert Marcus. b. Los Angeles, California, 24 May 1949. He was encouraged by his parents to begin piano study at age six. He soon began playing music in his church, learning more than a dozen instruments. He attended Southern California College (now Vanguard University of Southern California), Costa Mesa, an Assemblies of God institution, and joined the Accents, a singing group recorded by Maranatha! Music. He attended campus concerts featuring song writers and performers in the emerging...
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)....
ROMANOS the Melodist. fl. 6th century. Little is known about his life, and even the century in which he lived has long been hotly disputed. It is likely that he was born in Syria, in the city of Emesa, and that he was of Jewish origin. As a young man he served as deacon at the Church of the Resurrection in Beirut, before coming to Constantinople during the reign of Anastasius I (491-518), where he was attached to the Church of the Virgin in the Kyros quarter of the city.
After his death he was...
RUÍZ, Rubén Avila. b. Cuautla, Morelos, Mexico, 12 November 1945. The son of a Methodist minister (later a bishop), he was educated at the Instituto Mexicano Madero. During a period in Covington, Virginia, USA, ca. 1972, Ruíz wrote a hymn in Spanish for the choir of the United Methodist Church, 'Mantos y palmas' (literally 'Cloaks and Palms', based on the account in the Gospels of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. The first stanza describes the scene; the second calls on the singers to follow...
DUCK, Ruth Carolyn. b. Washington, DC, 21 November 1947. Ruth Duck graduated from Southwestern-at-Memphis University (now Rhodes College), Tennessee (BA, 1969). She attended Chicago Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1973); University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana (MA, 1987); and Boston University School of Theology (ThD, 1989). The Chicago Theological Seminary awarded her a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1983. She was ordained in the United Church of Christ in 1974, after which she served at...
GREG, Samuel. b. Manchester, 6 September 1804; d. Bollington, near Macclesfield, 14 May 1876. His father was a prosperous Unitarian mill-owner at Styal, near Manchester. He was educated at Unitarian schools in Nottingham and Bristol and at Edinburgh University. He became a mill-owner at Bollington, near Macclesfield, Cheshire, where he was a good employer, creating a model village, and providing educational opportunities for his workers, such as flower shows and music classes; but they became...
TREGELLES, Samuel Prideaux. b. Falmouth, Cornwall, 30 January 1813; d. Plymouth, Devon, 24 April 1875. Educated at Falmouth Grammar School, he was employed at the Neath Abbey ironworks in Glamorgan, South Wales from 1829 to 1835. During that time he taught himself Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, and also learned Welsh, a language in which he sometimes preached. He was brought up as a Quaker, but joined the Plymouth Brethren. His hymns were published in their Hymns for the Poor of the Flock...
TEMPLE, Sebastian. b. Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa, 12 February 1928; d. Tucson, Arizona, 16 December 1997. He was raised by his grandparents. At the age of 16 he wrote a romantic novel, and using its royalties moved to Italy. In 1951 he moved to London and prepared BBC news broadcasts relating to South Africa. Temple went to the United States in 1958, lived in Washington DC, was a Scientologist for ten years, converted to Catholicism and became a Secular Franciscan.
He was a student of...
SECHNALL, Saint. b. ca. 372/3; d. ca. 447. His Latin name was Secundinus. Little is known of his life; such information that we have, from early Irish manuscript sources, is conflicting. Sechnall may have been born in Lombardic Gaul or Italy, and was probably educated in Gaul. 'Secundinus'/ 'Secundus' was a common late-Roman name in both Gaul and northern Italy. He seems to have been a bishop, included in the mission to Leinster led by Palladius. He was appointed bishop of Dunshaughlin (Irish...
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...
ANTONIANO, Silvio. b. Rome, 31 December 1540; d. Rome, 16 August 1603. He was educated at the University of Ferrara, before being appointed by Pope Pius IV as Professor of Belles-Lettres at the Sapienza University in Rome. He was ordained as a priest in 1568, and became Secretary of the College of Cardinals; he held various posts in the Curia under successive Popes (Pius V, Sixtus V, Clement VIII). He had a particular interest in education, and published Tre Libri dell' Educazione Christiana...
MONTEIRO, Simei. b. Belém, Brazil, 28 December 1943. She was born in the capital of Pará in the northern Amazon region of Brazil. As a child she was always listening to music: her father loved music, especially opera. Her mother could sing almost the entire hymnal by heart and was a public reciter of poetry. Both parents sang in the choir of the Baptist Church and also in events outside the church. Her uncle was the main piano tuner at the 'Teatro da Paz' in the city of Belém, and sometimes she...
MARAK, Simon Kara. b. near Kamrup, Assam, India, 1877; d. Jorhat, Assam, India, 16 February 1975. Simon Marak, an ethic A·chik (Garo) man, was a schoolteacher, pastor, and missionary in Assam, a state in far northeastern India. He received his primary education from the Guwahati Government School with the financial assistance of the Kamrup Baptist Association (1907–09) and continued his study at the Government Training School (1909–12), supplementing his early years of teaching with work as a...
SOPHRONIOS of Jerusalem. b. Damascus, ca. 560; d. 11 March 638. Born in Damascus, he became a monk at the cenobitic monastery of St. Theodosios in the Judean desert. From 578 onwards he undertook several travels in the Mediterranean region. He was patriarch of Jerusalem from 634 till his death, a year after the Arabic occupation of Jerusalem. St. Sophronios grew up within the Antiochian liturgical rite, but became familiar with that of Palestine at St Theodosios; at this time, these rites may...
DAUERMANN, Stuart. b. Brooklyn, New York, 1944. Stuart Dauermann is a Messianic Jewish Rabbi. His education includes BA and MM degrees in music theory and music education, and MA and PhD degrees in Intercultural Studies. He has published several books on interreligious relations between Jews and Christians. He is Director of Interfaithfulness, an organisation dedicated to advancing interreligious relationships between Jews and Christians, and serves as Rabbi of Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue,...
HINE, Stuart Keene. b. Hammersmith, London, 25 July 1899; d. Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, 14 March 1989. Born into a Salvation Army family in London, he was educated at Cooper's Company School. He served in the First World War from 1917 to 1918/1919, after which he and his wife became Plymouth Brethren missionaries, mainly in Eastern Europe between 1923 and 1939, when they were forced to return to Britain by the political situation. During the Second World War they worked with displaced persons....
TOWNEND, Stuart. b. Edinburgh, 1 June 1963. He was educated at Sowerby Bridge High School, near Halifax, West Yorkshire, then at the University of Sussex, Brighton (1981-1985), where he gained an honours degree in American Studies (Literature). Remaining in Brighton, after a year of training in evangelism at the Clarendon Church (now Church of Christ the King), he joined the staff at Kingsway Music, Eastbourne, initially as an in-house arranger and editor, and later as Head of Music, editing...
ELLINGSEN, Svein Ørnulf. b. Kongsberg, Norway, 13 July 1929; d. Arendal, Norway, 5 April 2020.. Ellingsen was the son of master stonemason Fritz Frølich Ellingsen and Karo Enge. He was raised in Kongsberg; from an early age he was drawn towards a career in the arts. Initially intending to study theology, Ellingsen instead studied at the Art and Craft school at Oslo (Kunst- og håndverkskolen, 1950-1951) and the National Art Academy (Statens kunstakademi, 1952-1955), with additional study,...
SYNESIUS of Cyrene. b. Cyrene, ca. 370; d. Ptolemais, ca. 414. Born at Cyrene, of a distinguished family (Gibbon, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J.B. Bury, II. 324, has some amusement at their claim to have been descended from Hercules). He was educated at Alexandria as a pupil of the famous neo-Platonist Hypatia, whom he described as 'a mother, a sister, and a teacher'. After a period as a soldier, and studying at home, he was sent on a mission to plead for remission of taxes...
TERESA of Avila, St. b. Gotarrendura, Avila, Spain, 28 March 1515; d. Alba de Tormes, 4 October 1582. She was born into a prosperous merchant family. Her intense idealism was shown in childhood when, at the age of seven, she went with her brother Rodrigo to look for the Moors with the intention of being martyred (see the Prelude to Middlemarch, by George Eliot: they were brought back by an uncle, who happened to see them). In 1536 she entered the Carmelite* convent of the Incarnation at Avila....
THEODORE of Studios, St (or 'St Theodore of the Studium'). b. 759; d. 11 November 826. Born on the family estate on the Sea of Marmora, Theodore entered the monastery of Sakkoudion in Bithynia in 781, became a priest in 784 or 787, and abbot of Sakkoudion in 794. After an Arab raid in 799, he and his monks fled to Constantinople, and he became abbot of Studios. His pro-icon stance led to his being exiled on several occasions, and he died in exile on the island of Chalcis. He wrote many letters,...
THEODULF of Orleans. b. Spain, ca. 760; d. Angers, France, 18 December 821. Theodulf was born and educated in Visigothic Spain. His flight to Francia was probably as a result of Moorish incursions; he was at the court of Charlemagne by the early 790s. An intimate of the court, Theodulf was made bishop of Orleans by Charlemagne c. 798 as well as being granted the abbacies of Fleury, Micy and Saint-Aignan, all in the neighbourhood of Orleans. Theodulf was involved in Frankish politics at the...
AQUINAS, Thomas (St). b. ca. 1224/5; d. Fossa Nuova, 7 March 1274. Born to a southern Italian noble family, Thomas Aquinas studied at the University of Naples before becoming a Dominican friar in the early 1240s, against the wishes of his family. He studied with Albertus Magnus at Cologne (probably arriving late in 1244) and accompanied Albertus to the University of Paris (1245-48), subseqently returning with him to Cologne. He began to teach in Paris in 1252, and travelled widely in the...
ELLWOOD, Thomas. b. Crowell, near Chinnor, Oxfordshire, 1639 (baptized 15 October); d. Amersham, Buckinghamshire, 1 May 1713. He was born into a Puritan family which moved to London during the Civil War to support the Parliamentary cause. In 1659 Ellwood heard two Quakers preach at Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, and was so impressed that he became one of the early Friends. Thereafter his life was dominated by the joys of being a Quaker (friendships, such as that with the Pennington family,...
KINGO, Thomas Hansen. b. 15 December 1634; d. 14 October 1703. He was born at Slangerup, North Zealand, Denmark, the son of a weaver. He attended the newly founded grammar-school at Frederiksborg from 1650 to 1654, and after four years at the University of Copenhagen he graduated in 1658 as Master of Theology. After some years as private tutor in West Zealand, he became chaplain in 1661 at Kirke Helsinge, also in West Zealand. In 1668 Kingo was appointed as priest in his native town of...
POTTER, Thomas Joseph. b. Scarborough, Yorkshire, 9 June 1828. d. Dublin, 31 August 1873. At the age of 20 he became a Roman Catholic, and was ordained as a priest in 1857. He was appointed Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and English Literature in the Foreign Missionary College of All Hallows, Dublin. From this came his instructive works, Sacred Eloquence; or, the theory and practice of preaching (Dublin, 1866), and The Spoken Word: or, the art of extemporary preaching, its utility, its danger,...
KELLY, Thomas. b. Kellyville, Queen's County [Co. Laois], Ireland, 13 July 1769; d. Dublin, 14 May 1855. He was the son of an Irish judge, Baron Kelly of Kellyville. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (BA, 1789), and began studying for a legal career. Against the wishes of his family, however, he gave up the law and became ordained as a priest in the Church of England in Ireland (1792). He began preaching in Dublin in 1793: the emphasis on the doctrine of grace, and the unusual energy...
MOORE, Thomas. b. Dublin, 28 May 1779; d. Calne, Wiltshire, 25 February 1852. He was the son of a grocer and wine merchant. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he showed early promise as a poet and man of letters, and became a popular and much admired member of London and Dublin society. After graduating from Trinity in 1795, he went to London to study for the Bar at the Middle Temple, but turned to the writing of poetry, helped by some influential patronage from Irish people in England. He...
THOMAS of Celano. b. Celano, ca. 1190; d. 4 October 1260. Because his biographies offered the world the first accounts of the life of St Francis of Assisi, the works of Thomas of Celano are considered vital tools for the interpretation of Franciscan Spirituality (see Franciscan hymns and hymnals*). Born into the noble family of the Conti di Marsi, Thomas of Celano would have had access to the best sort of education available in central Italy. His brilliant literary skills bear witness to a...
WILLIAM, Thomas. b. Pendeulwyn, Glamorgan 1 Mar 1761; d. Llantwit Major, Glamorgan, 23 Nov 1844. Thomas William joined the Methodists as a young man but was later ordained as an Independent (Congregationalist) minister. He built Bethesda chapel at Llantwit Major in 1806 and ministered there until his death. His hymns were published in volumes and collected together in Dyfroedd Bethesda ('The Waters of Bethesda'), in 1824, with a second edition in 1841. Strongly biblical and full of scriptural...
REES, Timothy. b. Llanbadarn, Trefeglwys, Cardigan (now Llanon, Dyfed), 15 August 1874; d. Llandaff, 29 April 1939. He was educated at St David's University College, Lampeter (BA 1896) and St Michael's College, Aberdare. He took Holy Orders (deacon 1897, priest 1898), serving as curate of Mountain Ash, Glamorgan (1897-1901), and returning to St Michael's College, Aberdare as chaplain (1901-06). He became a member of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, in 1907, and was a licensed...
SOGA, Tiyo. b. 1829; d. 12 August 1871. Soga was born in Gwali, Tyumie Valley, South Africa and died in Tutura, South Africa. JJ noted that 'The Rev. Tiyo Soga, a gifted Kafir missionary educated by the United Presbyterian Church, and early removed by death, compiled a book of hymns, which was printed in Scotland' (p.757). A more recent account by J. A. Millard indicates that Soga was the first Xhosa ordained in the United Presbyterian Church. Though his training at the Lovedale Mission was...
COLVIN, Thomas Stevenson ('Tom'). b. Glasgow, 16 April 1925; d. Edinburgh, 24 February 2000. He was educated at Allan Glen's School, Glasgow and at Glasgow Technical College where he trained as a mining engineer (1945-48). After National Service in Burma and Singapore with the Royal Engineers, he returned to Trinity College, University of Glasgow, to prepare for ministry in the Church of Scotland. He was ordained in 1954 in Blantyre, Nyasaland (now Malawi) as a missionary. This was followed by...
COOMES, Tommy. b. Long Beach, California, 19 May 1946. Singer/songwriter, producer, worship leader and music executive, Coomes played a key role in 'Jesus Music' in the 1960s and 1970s and development of worship music repertoire for the church in the late 20th century. Raised in Lakewood, California, he played trumpet and guitar in high school, studied music at California State University, Long Beach, and enlisted in the US Army. A year after leaving the army in 1969 he met a nucleus of hippie...
ZWINGLI, Ulrich (Huldrych). b. Born at Wildhaus, Switzerland, 1 January 1484; d. Kappel, 11 October 1531. Born in the Toggenburg valley, Zwingli was educated at the Latin school at Basel (1494-96) and Bern (1497-98) before going to the University of Vienna (1498-1502) with a period in Paris. Returning to Basel, he graduated with a Master's degree in 1506, and was ordained in the same year. After serving as a curate at Constance and a priest at Glarus, he entered the monastery at Einsiedeln in...
MENDOZA, Vicente Polanco. b. Guadalajara, Mexico, 24 December 1875; d. Mexico City, 14 June 1955. Methodist evangelist, hymn writer, and translator, he was acclaimed by many as the leading evangelist in Mexican Methodism of his generation, and the author of some of the most beloved hymns from this era in the Spanish language. Vicente P. Mendoza should not be confused with two others of his generation with a similar name: Vicente T. Mendoza (1894-1964), a Mexican Methodist musicologist,...
BEECHING, Victoria Louise (Vicky). b. 19 July 1979. Vicky Beeching is a British singer-songwriter, broadcaster and researcher. She was educated at Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School, Canterbury, and the University of Oxford.
She has recorded three albums, Yesterday, Today & Forever (2005), Painting the Invisible (2007), and Eternity Invades (2010). The first part of her career was largely spent in the USA, where she achieved considerable prominence as a recording artist and performed...
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...
WEXELS, Wilhelm Andreas. b. Copenhagen, 29 March 1797; d. Christiania, 14 May 1866. He was educated at the Metropolitan School, Copenhagen, and the University of Christiania (then in Denmark; now Oslo, Norway). After theological studies, he was appointed catechist at Vår Frelsens Kirke (Our Saviour's Church), Christiania (1818), becoming residing curate in 1846; he was also appointed preacher to the University of Christiania. He remained at Christiania for the rest of his life, declining the...
BARNARD, Willem (Wilhelmus). b. Rotterdam, 15 August 1920; d. Utrecht, 21 November 2010. Barnard was a Dutch protestant (Netherlands Reformed) theologian, pastor, writer and poet. He published about twenty volumes of poetry under the pseudonym Guillaume van der Graft. As a poet he was strongly influenced by Martinus Nijhoff.
After graduating from the Grammar School he studied Dutch Language and Literature at Leiden. However, he stated that 'I read more contemporary literature than Gothic...
MUHLENBERG, William Augustus. b. Philadelphia, 16 September 1796; d. New York City, 8 April 1877. William Augustus was the great-grandson of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg* 'the Patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America'. His name is sometimes spelt Mühlenberg, as in JJ, but he used it without an umlaut.
William Augustus became a member of the Episcopal Church in his ninth year. Educated at Philadelphia Academy and the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) (AB 1814), he was ordained deacon in...
GADSBY, William. b. Attleborough, Nuneaton, 3 January 1773; d. Manchester, 27 January 1844. Gadsby came from a very poor family (his father was a road-mender), and was uneducated. He had an unsettled childhood, but was converted at the age of 17. He attended an Independent chapel at Bedworth, but then joined the Strict and Particular Baptists at Coventry, and was baptised in December 1793 at the Cow Lane chapel. He continued to work, first as a ribbon weaver and then as a stocking weaver at...
HAMMOND, William. b. Battle, Sussex, 6 January 1719; d. London, 19 August 1793. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge. He joined the Calvinistic Methodists in 1743, and became a Moravian in 1745: his career parallels that of John Cennick*. He wrote an autobiography in Greek, and translated Latin hymns. He published a book with the revealing title Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs. To which is prefix'd a Preface, giving some Account of a Weak Faith, and a Full Assurance of Faith;...
WALLACE, William (Bill) Livingstone. b. Christchurch, New Zealand, 9 March 1933. 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 chaired Contemporary Hymns (New...
PENNEFATHER, William. b. Dublin, 5 February 1816; d. Muswell Hill, Middlesex, 30 April 1873. He was the son of a distinguished Irish lawyer who became chief Baron of the Exchequer Court. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1840; his undergraduate career was interrupted by illness). He took Holy Orders (deacon 1841, priest 1842), and was successively curate at Ballymacugh and vicar of Mellifont, near Drogheda, where he ministered to the people during the famine of 1845. He moved to...
REES, William. b. near Llansannan, Denbighshire, 8 November 1802; d. Chester, 8 November 1883. Brought up as a Calvinistic Methodist, Rees was ordained as a Congregationalist minister in 1832. He served chapels in Flintshire, Denbighshire and Liverpool, as was a renowned preacher and lecturer. Having studied Welsh poetry from a young age, his own strict-metre compositions won prizes at eisteddfodau in Brecon (1826) and Denbigh (1828). He took the Bardic name Gwilym Hiraethog. Rees was also...
HARRIS, William Wadé. b. 1860 (?); d. April 1929. Born in Liberia, Harris joined the Methodist Church at the age of twelve, although he subsequently worked as a teacher for the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was an early advocate of independence from the Americo-Liberian colonial rule, and was arrested for treason and twice imprisoned by the administration in Liberia over a two-year period, 1909-1910. During his second imprisonment he had a vision of the Archangel Gabriel, who declared him a...
WILLIAMS, William, Pantycelyn. b. Cefncoed, Llanfair-ar-y-bryn, Camarthenshire, 11 February 1717; d. Llandovery, Carmarthenshire, 11 January 1791. Williams was the fourth child of John Williams, a farmer. In 1731 William's mother, Dorothy, inherited the farm of Pantycelyn, into which, following the death of her husband, she moved in 1742. Williams married Mary Francis of Llansawel in about 1748 and they moved to live with his mother. In the Welsh manner Williams was distinguished from others of...