Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–1895) by Charles Napier Kennedy, 1894 photograph © Ulster Museum. Photograph reproduced with the kind permission of the Trustees of the National Museums & Galleries of Northern Ireland
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Alexander [née Humphreys], Cecil Frances [Fanny] (1818–1895), hymn writer and poet, was born at 25 Eccles Street, Dublin. She was the second daughter of John Humphreys, a second lieutenant in the Royal Marines and later brigade major in the Tyrone yeomanry, and his wife, ...
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J. M. Bumsted
Alline, Henry (1748–1784), evangelist and hymn writer, was born in Newport, Rhode Island, on 14 June 1748, the second son of William Alline and Rebecca Clark. His father, who was probably a miller, responded to the announcements of free land in Nova Scotia...
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Alexander Gordon
revised by M. C. Curthoys
Anstice, Joseph (1808–1836), classical scholar and hymn writer, the second son of William Anstice (1769/70–1850) and his wife, Penelope Polly Isbell (bap. 1772, d. 1857), daughter of John Poole of Over Stowey, Somerset, was born on 21 December 1808 at ...
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Sir John Stanhope Arkwright (1872–1954) by Sir Benjamin Stone, 1902 © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Arkwright, Sir John Stanhope (1872–1954), politician and hymn writer, was born at 11 Lowndes Street, London, on 10 July 1872, the only son (there were three daughters) of John Hungerford Arkwright (1833–1905), landowner and lord lieutenant of Herefordshire, of Hampton Court, Leominster, Herefordshire...
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Rosemary T. Van Arsdel
Armstrong [née Cobbe], Lucie (1851–1907), musician and writer on etiquette, was the daughter of Major Charles Henry Cobbe and granddaughter of General George Cobbe (b. 1782), who was descended on the paternal side from Charles Cobbe (1687–1765), archbishop of Dublin (1742–3). She was the second cousin of ...
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Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson
Arnold, John (1720–1792), psalmodist and composer, was baptized on 10 November 1720 in the village of Great Warley, Essex, the son of John Arnold (bap. 1689, d. 1762), yeoman farmer, and his wife, Penelope, née Brecknock (d. 1728). As a gentleman farmer he was active on the parish vestry from the age of twenty-one until a few years before his death, but he put most of his considerable energy into music. He signed the preface of his first publication, ...
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Baker, Sir Henry Williams, third baronet (1821–1877), hymn writer, was born in London on 27 May 1821, the eldest of the two sons and five daughters of Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Loraine Baker, second baronet (1787–1859), and his wife, Louisa Anne (d. 1861)...
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W. B. Lowther
revised by Karen E. Smith
Beddome, Benjamin (1717–1795), Particular Baptist minister and hymn writer, the son of John Beddome (d. 1757), Baptist minister, and Rachel Brandon, was born at Henley in Arden, Warwickshire, on 23 January 1717. He was baptized in 1739 at the Baptist church at ...
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A. F. Pollard
revised by H. C. G. Matthew
Blew, William John (1808–1894), liturgical scholar and hymn writer, was born in the parish of St James's, Westminster, on 13 April 1808, the only son of William Blew (bap. 1773, d. 1845), who was in business as a perfumer in Cockspur Street, Charing Cross...
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Horatius Bonar (1808–1889) by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Bonar, Horatius (1808–1889), Free Church of Scotland minister and hymn writer, was born at Edinburgh on 19 December 1808. He was the sixth son of James Bonar, the second solicitor of excise at Edinburgh, and his wife, Marjory Maitland (d. 1854), the daughter of ...
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Borthwick, Jane Laurie (1813–1897), hymn writer and translator, was born on 9 April 1813 in Edinburgh, the first daughter of James Borthwick, insurance manager of the North British Insurance Office, and his wife, Sarah Finlay, both staunch members of the Free Church of Scotland...
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J. H. Thorpe
revised by Ken R. Manley
Burnham, Richard (bap. 1749, d. 1810), Particular Baptist minister and hymnodist, son of William and Ann Burnham, was baptized at the parish church, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, on 22 April 1749. Burnham later embraced Baptist views and joined the Particular Baptist church at Reading...
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S. L. Ollard
revised by Leon Litvack
Coles, Vincent Stuckey Stratton (1845–1929), Church of England clergyman and hymn writer, was born on 27 March 1845 at the rectory, Shepton Beauchamp, Somerset, the only son of the Revd James Stratton Coles (1810–1872), rector of Shepton Beauchamp from 1836 and later rural dean and a prebendary of ...
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J. C. Hadden
revised by Bonnie Shannon McMullen
Cousin [née Cundell], Anne Ross (1824–1906), poet and hymn writer, only child of David Ross Cundell, an assistant surgeon of the 33rd regiment at Waterloo, and his wife, Ann, was born in Hull on 27 April 1824. Her family moved soon after to ...
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Crewdson [née Fox], Jane (1808–1863), poet and hymn writer, was born at Perran-ar-worthal, Cornwall, on 22 October 1808, the second of three daughters of George Fox, manager of a local iron foundry; his cousin was the scientific writer Charles Fox (1797–1878). In 1825 the family moved to ...
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Luned Mair Davies
Cú Chuimne (d. 747), canonist and hymn writer, is associated with Columba's monastery of Iona in a colophon found in the Paris manuscript Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat. 12021. His date of birth is unknown but his obit is recorded in 747 in the annals of ...
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Gordon Giles
Dix, William Chatterton (1837–1898), hymn writer, was born in Bristol on 14 June 1837, the only son of John Dix (b. 1811, d. in or after 1864), a surgeon and author, who was an alcoholic and subsequently abandoned the family to settle in ...
