Thomas Cotterill

COTTERILL, Thomas. b. Cannock, Staffordshire, 4 December 1779; d. Sheffield, 29 December 1823. He was educated locally, at the Free School, Birmingham, and at St John’s College, Cambridge (BA 1801, MA 1805), of which he became a Fellow. He took Holy Orders, becoming curate of Tutbury, Staffordshire (1803), and incumbent of Lane End, Staffordshire (1808-17). He moved to Sheffield in 1817, becoming perpetual curate of St Paul’s Church until his death. At Sheffield he met James Montgomery*, who assisted him in preparing the eighth (1819) and ninth (1820) editions of his celebrated hymnbook. It is possible that Cotterill’s first attempt to compile a hymnbook was A Selection of Psalms and Hymns,...