Hankey, Arabella Catherine (Katherine?)

Author

b Clapham, Surrey (S London) 1834, d Westminster 1911. Born into an evangelical Anglican banking family active in The Lord’s Day Observance Society and part of what was dubbed ‘the Clapham Sect’ (with Thornton, Venn, Wilberforce etc); by the age of 19 she was organising local Sunday Schools, leading Bible classes for shop workers, and writing Christian verse and prose. Becoming seriously ill at 30, she composed a 100-verse poem on the life of Christ, from which her other popular hymn grew: I love to tell the story. This became best known (and is still widely sung) in the USA, with an added refrain in the ‘Gospel Song’ tradition, through the N American composers Doane (qv) and Fischer, and editors Bliss (qv) and Sankey. Julian notes the ‘great beauty and simplicity’ of several of her hymns, and their suitability for ‘Mission Services and Sunday Schools’. No.683