For a person who claimed to be unable to sing or write music, Timothy Dudley-Smith, the previous suffragan bishop of Thetford, who has died aged 97, has left a substantial legacy to Anglican church buildings in additional than 450 hymns, composed over greater than 60 years.
Not all of these within the pews might recognise his identify – in contrast, say, to Charles Wesley, the 18th-century divine who bequeathed greater than 4,000 – however they’ll definitely have sung his phrases.
Inform Out, My Soul the Greatness of the Lord, written in 1961, has been printed greater than 190 occasions, is current in at the least 220 fashionable hymn books and is sung throughout the English-speaking Anglican and Episcopalian world. Lord for the Years Your Love Has Saved and Guided, composed in 1967, is frequently sung at celebrations and anniversaries, together with Queen Elizabeth II’s golden jubilee.
But Dudley-Smith, who gave his profession to the conservative evangelical wing of the Church of England, was modest about his items: “I’m completely unmusical. I can’t sing in tune and infrequently change key with out understanding it,” he stated. “Hymn writing has been a most enriching and fully surprising present.”
What he did have, nonetheless, was a eager sense of poetry and, accordingly, an understanding of metre and rhythm, all underpinned by biblical examine. This made his hymns each conventional sounding, even old school, and rousingly singable, in order that they didn’t descend into the vacuous triteness of many “completely satisfied clappy” fashionable hymns.
The music his phrases are sung to comes from lengthy established melodies: Inform Out, My Soul, primarily based on a translation of the Magnificat, the phrases of the Virgin Mary in St Luke’s gospel, is sung to the tune Woodlands by the early Twentieth-century composer Walter Greatorex. The poet John Betjeman stated it’s “one of many only a few new hymns actually to ascertain themselves lately”.
Dudley-Smith was born in Manchester, the son of Arthur, a prep college instructor, and his spouse, Phyllis. Arthur, who died when Timothy was 11, instilled in him early a love of English poetry, conventional poets reminiscent of AE Housman, Walter de la Mare and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, then TS Eliot and Philip Larkin and in addition, conversely, from praying for his father to get higher, a want to develop into a priest.
He was educated at Tonbridge public college, studied arithmetic at Pembroke Faculty, Cambridge, and, impressed by the works of CS Lewis, he then educated for ordination at Ridley Corridor, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1950 and joined the college’s mission – youth membership – in Bermondsey, south-east London.
Whereas there, he took boys from the mission to listen to the American evangelist Billy Graham at his famously influential first go to to the UK in 1954; initially coming to London for a month, Graham stuffed the Harringay stadium for 3 months, and had a stirring impact on British evangelicals together with Dudley-Smith. The next 12 months he grew to become editorial secretary of the Evangelical Alliance after which editor of its new journal, Campaign. From there he labored for the Church Pastoral Support Society as normal secretary earlier than changing into archdeacon of Norwich after which, for 10 years (1981-91), suffragan bishop of Thetford in the identical diocese.
It was on household holidays to Cornwall every year that Dudley-Smith took the chance to put in writing hymns, getting up early within the mornings and generally musing over his notes whereas sitting on the seashore. He had initially began when a colleague engaged on a brand new hymn ebook requested whether or not he had written any verse that may work in track. Inform Out, My Soul was his first effort.
Dudley-Smith was a low church, old style evangelical – the Church Occasions reported that he as soon as refused to face when the Common Synod gave an ovation to a visiting Roman Catholic cleric – and from Cambridge days he was an in depth pal of John Stott, the main Twentieth-century English conservative evangelical, whose biography he ultimately wrote in two volumes (printed in 1995 and 1999). However Dudley-Smith himself averted the hardline conservatism of a few of his colleagues and was typically approachable and modest. Trendy developments in churchmanship handed him by as he grew older, one purpose why his hymns might sound old school – nonetheless he saved writing them yearly, sending copies of his newest carols off to associates along with his Christmas playing cards.
He was the writer of a number of collections of hymns and his work featured in lots of others, a few of his extra in style works being translated into Korean and Chinese language. His final ebook, A Purposeful Artwork (2017), was about writing hymns, the title illustrative of his decidedly right down to earth method. He obtained honorary levels from Lambeth Palace and Durham College, and was an honorary vice-president of the Hymn Society of Nice Britain and Eire, and a fellow of the sister society within the US and Canada. In 2003 he was appointed OBE for providers to hymn writing.
Dudley-Smith married June MacDonald in 1959. She died in 2007. He’s survived by their kids, James, Caroline and Sarah, and 4 grandchildren.
