Bridges, Matthew

Author

b Maldon, Essex 1800, d Sidmouth, Devon 1894. Brought up in the CofE, brother of the evangelical pastor/expositor (and friend of the Moule family) Charles B, he was influenced by the Oxford movement and in 1848 he became an RC. He published Jerusalem Regained, a Poem in 1825; historical and political works; and 2 small hymn collections, Hymns of the Heart for the Use of Catholics (1848) and The Passion of Jesus (1852). Henry Ward Beecher, the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, introduced his work to N America by including some of it in his 1855 Plymouth Collection. He lived latterly in Quebec, Canada, but died, aged 94, while visiting a religious community in Devon. No.480*.