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E. A. Hoffman

1839 - 1929 Person Name: Elisha A. Hoffman Hymnal Number: 133 Author of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" in The United Methodist Hymnal Elisha Hoffman (1839-1929) after graduating from Union Seminary in Pennsylvania was ordained in 1868. As a minister he was appointed to the circuit in Napoleon, Ohio in 1872. He worked with the Evangelical Association's publishing arm in Cleveland for eleven years. He served in many chapels and churches in Cleveland and in Grafton in the 1880s, among them Bethel Home for Sailors and Seamen, Chestnut Ridge Union Chapel, Grace Congregational Church and Rockport Congregational Church. In his lifetime he wrote more than 2,000 gospel songs including"Leaning on the everlasting arms" (1894). The fifty song books he edited include Pentecostal Hymns No. 1 and The Evergreen, 1873. Mary Louise VanDyke ============ Hoffman, Elisha Albright, author of "Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?" (Holiness desired), in I. D. Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos, 1881, was born in Pennsylvania, May 7, 1839. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907) ==============

A. H. Ackley

1887 - 1960 Person Name: Alfred H. Ackley Hymnal Number: 310 Author of "He Lives" in The United Methodist Hymnal Alfred Henry Ackley was born 21 January 1887 in Spring Hill, Pennsylvania. He was the youngest son of Stanley Frank Ackley and the younger brother of B. D. Ackley. His father taught him music and he also studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary in Maryland and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1914. He served churches in Pennsylvania and California. He also worked with the Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver evangelist team and for Homer Rodeheaver's publishing company. He wrote around 1500 hymns. He died 3 July 1960 in Los Angeles. Dianne Shapiro (from ackleygenealogy.com by Ed Ackley and Allen C. Ackley)

Martin Shaw

1875 - 1958 Hymnal Number: 147 Arranger of "ROYAL OAK" in The United Methodist Hymnal Martin F. Shaw was educated at the Royal College of Music in London and was organist and choirmaster at St. Mary's, Primrose Hill (1908-1920), St. Martin's in the Fields (1920-1924), and the Eccleston Guild House (1924-1935). From 1935 to 1945 he served as music director for the diocese of Chelmsford. He established the Purcell Operatic Society and was a founder of the Plainsong and Medieval Society and what later became the Royal Society of Church Music. Author of The Principles of English Church Music Composition (1921), Shaw was a notable reformer of English church music. He worked with Percy Dearmer (his rector at St. Mary's in Primrose Hill); Ralph Vaughan Williams, and his brother Geoffrey Shaw in publishing hymnals such as Songs of Praise (1925, 1931) and the Oxford Book of Carols (1928). A leader in the revival of English opera and folk music scholarship, Shaw composed some one hundred songs as well as anthems and service music; some of his best hymn tunes were published in his Additional Tunes in Use at St. Mary's (1915). Bert Polman

Michael Praetorius

1571 - 1621 Hymnal Number: 216 Harmonizer of "ES IST EIN ROS" in The United Methodist Hymnal Born into a staunchly Lutheran family, Michael Praetorius (b. Creuzburg, Germany, February 15, 1571; d. Wolfenbüttel, Germany, February 15, 1621) was educated at the University of Frankfort-an-der-Oder. In 1595 he began a long association with Duke Heinrich Julius of Brunswick, when he was appointed court organist and later music director and secretary. The duke resided in Wolfenbüttel, and Praetorius spent much of his time at the court there, eventually establishing his own residence in Wolfenbüttel as well. When the duke died, Praetorius officially retained his position, but he spent long periods of time engaged in various musical appointments in Dresden, Magdeburg, and Halle. Praetorius produced a prodigious amount of music and music theory. His church music consists of over one thousand titles, including the sixteen-volume Musae Sionae (1605-1612), which contains Lutheran hymns in settings ranging from two voices to multiple choirs. His Syntagma Musicum (1614-1619) is a veritable encyclopedia of music and includes valuable information about the musical instruments of his time. Bert Polman

William Kethe

? - 1594 Hymnal Number: 75 Attributed to of "All People That on Earth Do Dwell" in The United Methodist Hymnal William Kethe (b. Scotland [?], d. Dorset England, c. 1594). Although both the time and place of Kethe's birth and death are unknown, scholars think he was a Scotsman. A Protestant, he fled to the continent during Queen Mary's persecution in the late 1550s. He lived in Geneva for some time but traveled to Basel and Strasbourg to maintain contact with other English refugees. Kethe is thought to be one of the scholars who translated and published the English-language Geneva Bible (1560), a version favored over the King James Bible by the Pilgrim fathers. The twenty-five psalm versifications Kethe prepared for the Anglo-Genevan Psalter of 1561 were also adopted into the Scottish Psalter of 1565. His versification of Psalm 100 (All People that on Earth do Dwell) is the only one that found its way into modern psalmody. Bert Polman ======================== Kethe, William, is said by Thomas Warton in his History of English Poetry, and by John Strype in his Annals of the Reformation, to have been a Scotsman. Where he was born, or whether he held any preferment in England in the time of Edward VI., we have been unable to discover. In the Brieff discours off the troubles begonne at Franckford, 1575, he is mentioned as in exile at Frankfurt in 1555, at Geneva in 1557; as being sent on a mission to the exiles in Basel, Strassburg, &c, in 1558; and as returning with their answers to Geneva in 1559. Whether he was one of those left behind in 1559 to "finishe the bible, and the psalmes bothe in meeter and prose," does not appear. The Discours further mentions him as being with the Earl of Warwick and the Queen's forces at Newhaven [Havre] in 1563, and in the north in 1569. John Hutchins in his County history of Dorset, 1774, vol. ii. p. 316, says that he was instituted in 1561 as Rector of Childe Okeford, near Blandford. But as there were two Rectors and only one church, leave of absence might easily be extended. His connection with Okeford seems to have ceased by death or otherwise about 1593. The Rev. Sir Talbot H. B. Baker, Bart., of Ranston, Blandford, who very kindly made researches on the spot, has informed me that the Registers at Childe Okeford begin with 1652-53, that the copies kept in Blandford date only from 1732 (the earlier having probably perished in the great fire there in 1731), that no will can be found in the district Probate Court, and that no monument or tablet is now to be found at Childe Okeford. By a communication to me from the Diocesan Registrar of Bristol, it appears that in a book professing to contain a list of Presentations deposited in the Consistory Court, Kethe is said to have been presented in 1565 by Henry Capel, the Patron of Childe Okeford Inferior. In the 1813 edition of Hutchins, vol. iii. pp. 355-6, William Watkinson is said to have been presented to this moiety by Arthur Capel in 1593. Twenty-five Psalm versions by Kethe are included in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter of 1561, viz. Ps. 27, 36, 47, 54, 58, 62, 70, 85, 88, 90, 91, 94, 100, 101, 104, 107, 111, 112, 113, 122, 125, 126, 134, 138, 142,—the whole of which were adopted in the Scottish Psalter of 1564-65. Only nine, viz. Ps. 104, 107, 111, 112, 113, 122, 125, 126, 134, were included in the English Psalter of 1562; Ps. 100 being however added in 1565. Being mostly in peculiar metres, only one, Ps. 100, was transferred to the Scottish Psalter of 1650. The version of Ps. 104, "My soul, praise the Lord," is found, in a greatly altered form, in some modern hymnals. Warton calls him ”a Scotch divine, no unready rhymer," says he had seen a moralisation of some of Ovid by him, and also mentions verses by him prefixed to a pamphlet by Christopher Goodman, printed at Geneva in 1558; a version of Ps. 93 added to Knox's Appellation to the Scottish Bishops, also printed at Geneva in 1558; and an anti-papal ballad, "Tye the mare Tom-boy." A sermon he preached before the Sessions at Blandford on Jan. 17, 1571, was printed by John Daye in 1571 (preface dated Childe Okeford, Jan. 29,157?), and dedicated to Ambrose Earl of Warwick. [Rev James Mearns, M.A]. -- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) ==================== Kethe, William, p. 624, i., line 30. The version which Warton describes as of Psalm 93 is really of Psalm 94, and is that noted under Scottish Hymnody, p. 1022, ii., as the version of Psalms 94 by W. Kethe. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)

Thomas Olivers

1725 - 1799 Hymnal Number: 116 Paraphraser of "The God of Abraham Praise" in The United Methodist Hymnal Thomas Olivers was born in Tregonan, Montgomeryshire, in 1725. His youth was one of profligacy, but under the ministry of Whitefield, he was led to a change of life. He was for a time apprenticed to a shoemaker, and followed his trade in several places. In 1763, John Wesley engaged him as an assistant; and for twenty-five years he performed the duties of an itinerant ministry. During the latter portion of his life he was dependent on a pension granted him by the Wesleyan Conference. He died in 1799. --Annotations of the Hymnal, Charles Hutchins, M.A., 1872. ================== Olivers, Thomas, was born at Tregynon, near Newtown, Montgomeryshire, in 1725. His father's death, when the son was only four years of age, followed by that of the mother shortly afterwards, caused him to be passed on to the care of one relative after another, by whom he was brought up in a somewhat careless manner, and with little education. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker. His youth was one of great ungodliness, through which at the age of 18 he was compelled to leave his native place. He journeyed to Shrewsbury, Wrexham, and Bristol, miserably poor and very wretched. At Bristol he heard G. Whitefield preach from the text "Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" That sermon turned the whole current of his life, and he became a decided Christian. His intention at the first was to join the followers of Whitefield, but being discouraged from doing so by one of Whitefield's preachers, he subsequently joined the Methodist Society at Bradford-on-Avon. At that town, where he purposed carrying on his business of shoemaking, he met John Wesley, who, recognising in him both ability and zeal, engaged him as one of his preachers. Olivers joined Wesley at once, and proceeded as an evangelist to Cornwall. This was on Oct. 1, 1753. He continued his work till his death, which took place suddenly in London, in March 1799. He was buried in Wesley's tomb in the City Road Chapel burying ground, London. Olivers was for some time co-editor with J. Wesley of the Arminian Magazine, but his lack of education unfitted him for the work. As the author of the tune Helmsley, and of the hymn “The God of Abraham praise," he is widely known. He also wrote “Come Immortal King of glory;" and "O Thou God of my salvation," whilst residing at Chester; and an Elegy on the death of John Wesley. His hymns and the Elegy were reprinted (with a Memoir by the Rev. J. Kirk) by D. Sedgwick, in 1868. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Thomas O. Chisholm

1866 - 1960 Hymnal Number: 140 Author of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" in The United Methodist Hymnal Thomas O. Chisholm was born in Franklin, Kentucky in 1866. His boyhood was spent on a farm and in teaching district schools. He spent five years as editor of the local paper at Franklin. He was converted to Christianity at the age of 26 and soon after was business manager and office editor of the "Pentecostal Herald" of Louisville, Ky. In 1903 he entered the ministry of the M. E. Church South. His aim in writing was to incorporate as much as Scripture as possible and to avoid flippant or sentimental themes. Dianne Shapiro, from "The Singers and Their Songs: sketches of living gospel hymn writers" by Charles Hutchinson Gabriel (Chicago: The Rodeheaver Company, 1916) ============================== Signed letter from Chisholm dated 9 August 1953 located in the DNAH Archives.

Carolina Sandell

1823 - 1903 Person Name: Caroline V. Sandell-Berg Hymnal Number: 141 Author of "Children of the Heavenly Father" in The United Methodist Hymnal Caroline W. Sandell Berg (b. Froderyd, Sweden, 1832; d. Stockholm, Sweden, 1903), is better known as Lina Sandell, the "Fanny Crosby of Sweden." "Lina" Wilhelmina Sandell Berg was the daughter of a Lutheran pastor to whom she was very close; she wrote hymns partly to cope with the fact that she witnessed his tragic death by drowning. Many of her 650 hymns were used in the revival services of Carl O. Rosenius, and a number of them gained popularity particularly because of the musical settings written by gospel singer Oskar Ahnfelt. Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish soprano, underwrote the cost of publishing a collection of Ahnfelt's music, Andeliga Sänger (1850), which consisted mainly of Berg's hymn texts. Bert Polman

Christian H. Bateman

1813 - 1889 Person Name: Christian Henry Bateman Hymnal Number: 158 Author of "Come, Christians, Join to Sing" in The United Methodist Hymnal Bateman, Christian Henry, son of John Bateman, was born Aug. 9, 1813, at Wyke, near Halifax. After studying in the Moravian Church and exercising his ministry there for a time, he became, in 1843, minister of Richmond Place Congregational Church, Edinburgh. After 1846 he was successively Congregational minister at Hopton, in Yorkshire, and Beading, in Berkshire. On taking Holy Orders in the Church of England he became, 1869-71, curate of St. Luke's, Jersey, and Chaplain to the Forces; 1871-75, Vicar of All Saints, Childshill, Middlesex; 1877-84, curate of St. John's, Penymynydd, Hawarden. His hymns appeared mainly in:— The Sacred Song Book (Edin., Gall & Inglis, subsequently published as Sacred Melodies for Children; and as 200 Sacred Melodies for Sunday Schools and Families, was edited by himself, with the Rev. James Gall, and latterly with Mr. Robert Inglis, the publisher. First pub. 1843 as 25; enlarged by a second part, 1846, to 60; revised and enlarged, 1854, to 80; 1862, to 130; and 1872, to 200; it reached a circulation of a million and a half before 1862, four millions before 1872, and above six millions before 1881. It was for many years the hymnbook for Sabbath School use in Scotland. (2) The Children's Hymnal and Christian Year (London., J. Hodges, 1872), including 11 original hymns, with others from many sources. His best known hymn is: “Come, children, join to sing" (q. v.). [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.] -- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) ======================= Bateman, C. H., p. 116, i. He finally resided at Carlisle without a charge, and died there in July, 1889. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)

Samuel Sebastian Wesley

1810 - 1876 Hymnal Number: 545 Composer of "AURELIA" in The United Methodist Hymnal Samuel Sebastian Wesley (b. London, England, 1810; d. Gloucester, England, 1876) was an English organist and composer. The grandson of Charles Wesley, he was born in London, and sang in the choir of the Chapel Royal as a boy. He learned composition and organ from his father, Samuel, completed a doctorate in music at Oxford, and composed for piano, organ, and choir. He was organist at Hereford Cathedral (1832-1835), Exeter Cathedral (1835-1842), Leeds Parish Church (1842-1849), Winchester Cathedral (1849-1865), and Gloucester Cathedral (1865-1876). Wesley strove to improve the standards of church music and the status of church musicians; his observations and plans for reform were published as A Few Words on Cathedral Music and the Music System of the Church (1849). He was the musical editor of Charles Kemble's A Selection of Psalms and Hymns (1864) and of the Wellburn Appendix of Original Hymns and Tunes (1875) but is best known as the compiler of The European Psalmist (1872), in which some 130 of the 733 hymn tunes were written by him. Bert Polman