October 2006
Great Hymns and their Writers - J.H Newman and J.B.Dykes	Show Menu

By Denis Henderson

There are two hymns in the Church Hymnal for which the lyrics were penned by J.H.Newman and the most popular tunes by J.B.Dykes. These are numbers 108, Praise to the Holiest and 653, Lead Kindly Light. I would like to share some thoughts on the author and composer and their creations.

John Henry Newman was a very high profile figure in 19th-century English church life. He became a fellow of Oriel College at Oxford at the age of 21 and two years later was ordained a Church of England priest. He was a master of English prose and his enormous output included numerous scholarly works and some twenty volumes of sermons. His best known work in verse is the Dream of Gerontius a poem of 35 stanzas, divided up into five sections, each beginning with the same stanza Praise to the Holiest in the Height.

In 1868 a condensed version was published as a hymn, and in 1900 the work was immortalised in Elgar’s oratorio of the same name. Newman decided in 1845, after much hesitation, to become a Roman Catholic, and in 1879 at the age of 78 he was made a cardinal. He wrote the lyric for Lead Kindly Light in 1832 whilst becalmed in a ship off Italy as it was returning to England. It was a time of uncertainty and stress for him which comes through in the lovely lyric. He did not originally intend it to be used as a hymn but he relented and in later life said somewhat ruefully in an interview “but you see, it is not the hymn but the tune that has gained popularity! The tune is Dykes, and Dr Dykes was a great master”.

John Bacchus Dykes was born in 1823 and at the age of ten was to be found playing the organ at St John’s Church Hull, where his grandfather was vicar. While studying at Cambridge, he helped to found the Cambridge University musical society, and became its first president in 1846. He was ordained in 1847 and two years later was appointed both a minor canon and preceptor of Durham Cathedral. His clerical career appeared to be thriving rapidly but he was a strong partisan of the high church movement of the time, which brought him into conflict with his bishop—not a career-enhancing position to take!

His sideways move to a parish in Durham probably gave him the time to write his more than 300 hymns tunes, many of which are, in the words of the Oxford Companion to Music, “melodious and suavely harmonised and the most attractive of their kind”. Our Church Hymnal has three tunes for Praise to the Holiest in the Height, but Dykes’ appropriately-named Gerontius is by far the most popular. Dykes’ tune Lux Benigna to which Lead Kindly Light is set, was first published in 1867 and was the tune for Newman’s hymn in all of the editions of our Church Hymnal up to 1960 when it was strangely and inexplicably dropped. Fortunately, wise council prevailed in the compilation of the current fifth edition of the Hymnal, and the wonderful tune has been returned to its rightful place.

Denis Henderson is a member of the choir of St Mary’s Howth

<<Previous | Next >>