There Is a Green Hill Far Away

Author: Cecil Frances Alexander

As a small girl, Cecil Frances Humphries (b. Redcross, County Wicklow, Ireland, 1818; Londonderry, Ireland, 1895) wrote poetry in her school's journal. In 1850 she married Rev. William Alexander, who later became the Anglican primate (chief bishop) of Ireland. She showed her concern for disadvantaged people by traveling many miles each day to visit the sick and the poor, providing food, warm clothes, and medical supplies. She and her sister also founded a school for the deaf. Alexander was strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement and by John Keble's Christian Year. Her first book of poetry, Verses for Seasons, was a "Christian Year" for children. She wrote hymns based on the Apostles' Creed, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Ten Commandment… Go to person page >

There is a green hill far away. Cecil F. Alexander, née Humphreys. [Good Friday.] First published in her Hymns for Little Children, 1848, p. 31, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and based upon the words "Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was Crucified, Dead, and Buried," of the Apostles' Creed. It is an exceedingly popular children's hymn, and is in extensive use.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)