Mary Hamilton

HAMILTON, Mary C. D. (née Stobart). b. Edinburgh 1850; d. Worthing, Sussex, 10 June 1943.  The daughter of John Hamilton and Kathryn Barbara Stobart, Mary was born into a family whose ancestral home was Sundrum Castle in South Ayrshire, Scotland.  By 1889, she had moved to Rustington in Sussex, where she lived until the second decade of the 20th century.  By 1939 she was living in Worthing, where she died in 1943.   Hamilton gained fame for one hymn text, which earned popularity during World War I.  Her poem, ‘Lord, guard and guide the men who fly’, employs a similar metre to that of ‘Eternal Father, strong to save’* by William Whiting*, and may have been written in conscious imitation of...