Mary Anne Sanderson Deck

DECK, Mary Anne Sanderson (née Gibson).  b. Hull, 1813; d. Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, 26 June 1903. Not much seems to be known about Mary Deck, except that she was married to a clergyman, the Revd John Deck, vicar of St Stephen’s Church, Hull. According to Samuel Willoughby Duffield, he was ‘a patient curate of St Stephen’s Church, and … his missionary work was from door to door, and was environed with many hardships and privations’ (Duffield, 1886, p. 234). In later life she went blind, and lived with her daughter, Amy Deck Walton, in Wolverhampton. She is known for the hymn ‘There is a city bright’*, which has continued to be printed in hymnals until recent times. This hymn is...