Draper, William Henry

Author

b Kenilworth, Warwicks 1855; d Clifton, Bristol 1933. Cheltenham Coll and Keble Coll Oxford; ordained (CofE) 1880. Curate and later vicar in Shrewsbury, also serving the parishes of Alfreton, Derbys, and (for 20 years) Adel, Leeds; he was then Master of the Temple, London, 1919–30. He translated from the Italian of Petrarch and more than 60 Lat and Gk hymns, wrote many original texts, and edited or compiled several hymn collections between 1897 (The Victoria Book of Hymns) and 1925 (Hymns for Tunes by Orlando Gibbons). In 1919 he edited Seven Spiritual Songs by Thomas Campion (1567–1620). Many of his own texts appeared first in church periodicals; he is known today mainly for one of them, his paraphrase of Francis of Assisi’s ‘Canticle of the Sun’. No.203.