For the American humorist, journalist, and writer, see Henry Alford (writer)

Henry Alford (writer)

Henry Alford is a humorist and journalist who has contributed to Vanity Fair and The New York Times for over a decade. He has also written for The New Yorker. The author of three books, he won a Thurber Prize for his second, Big Kiss, an account of his attempt to become a working actor...

.

Henry Alford (7 October 1810 – 12 January 1871) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 churchman, theologian, textual critic

Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...

, scholar, poet, hymnodist, and writer.

Life

Alford was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, of a Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

 family, which had given five consecutive generations of clergymen to the Anglican church. Alford's early years were passed with his widowed father, who was curate of Steeple Ashton

Steeple Ashton

Steeple Ashton is a village and a civil parish in Wiltshire, England.-Description:Steeple Ashton today is a busy village. It has an award winning local shop, run by a small army of volunteers, a thriving pub, a football team, an active Trust supporting the Church which organises events, a day...

 in Wiltshire

Wiltshire

Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...

. He was a precocious boy, and before he was ten had written several Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 odes, a history of the Jews and a series of homiletic outlines. After a peripatetic school course he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

, in 1827 as a scholar. In 1832 he was 34th wrangler and 8th classic, and in 1834 was made fellow of Trinity.

Service

He had already taken orders, and in 1835 began his eighteen-year tenure of the vicarage of Wymeswold

Wymeswold

Wymeswold is a village and civil parish in the Charnwood district of Leicestershire, England. It is in the north of Leicestershire, and north-east of Loughborough. It has a population of about 1,000...

 in Leicestershire

Leicestershire

Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...

, from which seclusion the twice-repeated offer of a colonial bishopric

Diocese

A diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...

 failed to draw him. He was Hulsean lecturer

Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity

The Norris-Hulse Professorship of Divinity is one of the senior professorships in divinity at the University of Cambridge.The Norrisian chair was founded in 1777 by a bequest from John Norris...

 at Cambridge in 1841-1842, and steadily built up a reputation as scholar and preacher, which might have been greater if not for his excursions into minor poetry and magazine editing.

In 1844, he joined the Cambridge Camden Society

Cambridge Camden Society

The Cambridge Camden Society, later known as the Ecclesiological Society from 1845 when it moved to London, was a learned architectural society founded in 1839 by undergraduates at Cambridge University to promote "the study of Gothic Architecture, and of Ecclesiastical Antiques." Its activities...

 (CCS) which published a list of do's and don'ts for church layout which they promoted as a science. He commissioned A.W.N. Pugin

Augustus Pugin

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was an English architect, designer, and theorist of design, now best remembered for his work in the Gothic Revival style, particularly churches and the Palace of Westminster. Pugin was the father of E. W...

 to restore St Mary's church. He also was a member of the Metaphysical Society

Metaphysical Society

The Metaphysical Society was a British society, founded in 1869 by James Knowles. Many of its members were prominent clergymen.Papers were read and discussed at meetings on such subjects as the ultimate grounds of belief in the objective and moral sciences, the immortality of the soul, etc...

, founded in 1869 by James Knowles

James Knowles

Sir James Knowles was an English architect and editor.-Life:He was born in London, the son of architect James Thomas Knowles and himself trained in architecture at University College and in Italy...

.

In September 1853 Alford moved to Quebec Chapel, Marylebone

Marylebone

Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....

, London, where he had a large congregation. In March 1857 Lord Palmerston

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, KG, GCB, PC , known popularly as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister in the mid-19th century...

 advanced him to the deanery of Canterbury

Dean of Canterbury

The Dean of Canterbury is the head of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury, England. The office of dean originated after the English Reformation, and its precursor office was the prior of the cathedral-monastery...

, where, till his death, he lived the same energetic and diverse lifestyle as ever. He had been the friend of most of his eminent contemporaries, and was much beloved for his amiable character. The inscription on his tomb, chosen by himself, is Diversorium Viatoris Hierosolymam Proficiscentis ("the inn of a traveler on his way to Jerusalem").

Published works

Alford was a talented artist, as his picture-book, The Riviera (1870), shows, and he had abundant musical and mechanical talent. Besides editing the works of John Donne

John Donne

John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...

, he published several volumes of his own verse, The School of the Heart (1835), The Abbot of Muchelnaye (1841), The Greek Testament. The Four Gospels (1849), and a number of hymns, the best-known of which are "Forward! be our watchword," "Come, ye thankful people, come

Come, ye thankful people, come

"Come, ye thankful people, come" is a harvest hymn written in 1844 by Henry Alford. It is often sung to the tune St. George's, Windsor by George Job Elvey.-Lyrics:1. Come, ye thankful people, come, Raise the song of harvest home!...

", and "Ten thousand times ten thousand." He translated the Odyssey

Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

, wrote a well-known manual of idiom

Idiom

Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...

, A Plea for the Queen's English (1863), and was the first editor of the Contemporary Review (1866–1870).
His chief fame rests on his monumental edition of the New Testament in Greek (4 vols.), which occupied him from 1841 to 1861. In this work he first produced a careful collation of the readings of the chief manuscripts and the researches of the ripest continental scholarship of his day. Philological

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

 rather than theological

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 in character, it marked an epochal change from the old homiletic commentary, and though more recent research, patristic and papyral, has largely changed the method of New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 exegesis

Exegesis

Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...

, Alford's work is still a quarry where the student can dig with a good deal of profit.

His Life, written by his widow, appeared in 1873 (Rivington).

External links

• Article on one of Alford's Hymns
• Henry Alford at the Encyclopædia Britannica (1902)
• Henry Alford at Logos Bible Software