Day of doom, the last and greatest

Author: Edward White Benson

Benson, Edward White, D.D., Archbishop of Canterbury, son of Edward White Benson, of York, was born at Birmingham, 14th July, 1829, and educated at King Edward's School in that town, and Trinity Coll., Cambridge. At Birmingham his contemporaries under the head mastership of Dr. Prince Lee, subsequently first Bishop of Manchester, included Dr. Westcott, and Dr. Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham. At Cambridge he took the high position of Sen. Opt. and 1st cl. Classical Tripos, winning also the distinction of Senior Chancellor's Classical Medalist. He subsequently became a Fellow of his College. In 1852 he passed from Cambridge to Rugby as assistant master; in 1859 from Rugby to Wellington College, of which he was Head Master for fourteen years; in… Go to person page >

Day of doom, the last, the greatest. [A translation of the Dies irae, dies illa.] By Archbishop Benson. Written at Rugby, and first published in the Wellington Collection Hymn Book, 1860, and repeated in subsequent editions. It is appointed to be sung before the Litany on the Sundays in Advent, and is from the Roman Missal.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)