Roger Steer

Raise the song of harvest home

Although Henry Alford was born in London, he was from a Somerset family which had, for five generations, served as clergy in the Church of England. Henry was a remarkable child: before the age of ten he wrote several lengthy lyrical poems in Latin, a history of the Jews, and outlines of sermons. He went to Cambridge in 1827, as a scholar at Trinity College, and was made a fellow of that college in 1834.

In 1835, he became vicar of Wymeswold in Leicestershire where he remained for eighteen years (turning down offers of bishoprics in British colonies). From 1841-1842 he was Hulsean lecturer at Cambridge and built up a reputation as a scholar and preacher. This reputation would probably have been even higher if he had not allowed himself to be sidetracked into digressing at length on the subject of poetry which fascinated him. He was a great friend of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. Fortunately, he turned his love of poetry into writing hymns, many of which he wrote while at Wymeswold.

From 1841 to 1861 he worked on a massive 8 volume edition of the New Testament in Greek which allowed students of the New Testament to compare the texts of the chief manuscripts and brought them up to date with the latest European scholarship.

In 1844, he joined the Cambridge Camden Society, which had been founded for ‘the study of Gothic Architecture, and of Ecclesiastical Antiques’.  The Society advised church builders and advocated a return to a medieval style of church architecture in England, known as Gothic Revival. At its peak influence in the 1840s, the society had over 700 members, including bishops of the Church of England, deans at Cambridge University, and Members of Parliament. The society, known as part of the ‘ecclesiological movement’, enjoyed wide influence over the design of English churches throughout the 19th century. It published a list of do’s and don’ts for church layout. Henry Alford commissioned Augustus Pugin to restore St Mary’s church in Wymeswold – it was Pugin who assisted Sir Charles Barry in designing the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament in the Gothic style after the fire in 1834. John Hayward, the architect of Pip and Jim’s church, Ilfracombe, was a nephew and pupil of Charles Barry. And it’s interesting to note that the Ecclesiologist, the journal of the Camden Society, declared Pip and Jim’s to be the finest new church in north Devon.

In September 1853, Henry Alford moved to Quebec Street Chapel, Marylebone, London, where he had what has been described as a ‘large and cultured’ congregation. In 1857, he did accept Lord Palmerston’s invitation to become Dean of Canterbury where he lived until he died fourteen years later, and was buried in St Martin’s Church in Canterbury. It is said that he was much loved for his ‘amiable character’. The Times published a description of his funeral and a tribute to the man. The inscription on his tomb, which he chose, read Diversorium Viatoris Hierosolymam Proficiscentis – ‘the lodging place of a traveller on his way to Jerusalem’.

Many thousands of church goers who have little knowledge of church architecture, and are not in-depth students of the New Testament, however, take Alford’s words on their lips when they sing his harvest hymn ‘Come ye thankful people, come’ which he wrote in 1844.

During his eighteen years in the rural parish of Wymeswold, he would have gained an insight into the importance of harvest time in a country community. The hymn encourages a congregation, as they sing Alford’s hymn, to think of the parables of the wheat and weeds (Matt 13: 24–30), and of the sower in Mark 4, where verse 28 is echoed in verse 2 of the hymn: ‘the earth brings forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear’.  And so, throughout his hymn, Henry Alford skilfully uses the idea of harvest as a metaphor for the Christian life, and as a parable for us to remember.

The popularity of the hymn has been hugely helped by Sir George Elvey’s wonderful tune, St George’s Windsor, which was named after the Royal Chapel. Elvey was organist of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, from 1835 to 1882. And, since Alford’s hymn appeared in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861, it has been a stirring feature of harvest festivals ever since.

All the world is God’s own field

Fruit unto his praise to yield;

Wheat and tares together sown,

Unto joy or sorrow grown;

First the blade, and then the ear,

Then the full corn shall appear:

Grant, O harvest Lord, that we

Wholesome grain and pure may be.