Mountain, James

Composer

b New Wortley, nr Leeds, Yorks 1844, d Tunbridge Wells, Kent 1933. Trained for ministry in the churches of the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion at Rotherham College; subsequently at Nottingham, Cheshunt, Heidelberg and Tübingen (PhD). He lived in Switzerland for 2 years, and was ordained to the Congregational ministry, but indifferent health ended his pastorate at Great Marlow, Bucks. Touched by the Moody and Sankey missions of the early 1870s, he became a wholehearted evangelist who became widely known for leading ‘services of song’ from 1874 to 1882, and on world-wide tours until 1889. At Tunbridge Wells he pastored one of the Countess’s churches 1889–97, and St John’s Free Church which he founded, having then become a Baptist. With the American Robert Pearsall Smith he co-edited the 1st (1876) edn of Hymns of Consecration and Faith, used at the Keswick Convention and a precursor of The Keswick Hymn Book, to which he contributed 14 tunes; some of these proved more enduring than his texts. For these collections he enlisted the help of Frances Havergal (see Author index); he also wrote several books and hymn-related features for periodicals. Nos.715, 799.