Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Critical and Biographical Essay by Alfred H. Miles

John Reynell Wreford (1800–1881)

THE FOLLOWING popular national hymn was written by the Rev. John Reynell Wreford, D.D. (1800–1881). He was educated at Manchester College, York, and became co-pastor with the Rev. John Kentish at New Meeting, Birmingham, until failure of voice compelled him to resign. He then started a school at Edgbaston in conjunction with the Rev. Hugh Hutton. His hymns, fifty-five in number, were contributed to the Rev. J. R. Beard’s collection of “Hymns for Public and Private Worship” (1837), from which several have been reprinted in other hymnals. Of these one of the best is “Lord, I believe, Thy power I own,” and certainly the most widely used is the following.