Waring, Anna Laetitia

Author

b Plas-y-Velin, Neath, Glam (Neath) 1823, d Clifton, Bristol 1910. After an upbringing within the Society of Friends, and for a while attending Bethany Baptist Ch in Cardiff, she joined the CofE at the age of 19, being baptized at St Martin’s, Winnall, Winchester. She learnt Hebrew in order to study the original OT text and read each day from the Heb Psalms. In 1850 she compiled Hymns and Meditations which included 19 of her own texts (over the initials ‘ALW’ only), and 39 by the time of its 10th edn. She was a keen advocate of the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Soc, and visited prisoners in the jails in Bristol and beyond. Her hymns feature more in Baptist books than Anglican ones; like the 1962 Baptist Hymn Book, Christian Worship (Brethren, 1977) and GH each have 3 of them. George Crawford in Julian recognised their ‘great simplicity, concentration of thought, and elegance of diction…They are popular, and deserve to be so’. No.748.