Robert Robinson

Robert Robinson was born in Saffham, Norfolk, in 1735. (He died in 1790). His wi­dowed mo­ther sent him at age 14 to Lon­don to learn the trade of bar­ber and hair dress­er. How­ev­er, his mas­ter found he en­joyed read­ing more than work. Con­vert­ed to Christ at age 17, Ro­bin­son be­came a Meth­od­ist min­is­ter. He lat­er became a Bapt­ist and pas­tored in Cam­bridge, Eng­land. He wrote a num­ber of hymns, as well as on the sub­ject of the­ol­o­gy. His lat­er life was ev­i­dent­ly not an ea­sy one, judg­ing from an unsubstantiated but well known sto­ry about his hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Bless­ing.” One day, he en­count­ered a wo­man who was study­ing a hymn­al and she asked how he liked the hymn she was hum­ming. In tears, he re­plied, “Madam, I am the poor un­hap­py man who wrote that hymn ma­ny years ago, and I would give a thou­sand worlds, if I had them, to en­joy the feelings I had then.”

Edward Miller

A writer of hymn tunes, Edward Miller was born in 1735 (he died in 1807). His most famous tunes are Galway and Rockingham. Ap­prent­iced to his father, a pav­ior (a lay­er of pav­ing stones and the like), he ran away to stu­dy mu­sic. At one time he was a flaut­ist in Han­del’s or­ches­tra. He played the or­gan for 50 years at Don­caster Church, and com­posed hymn tunes and harp­si­chord so­na­tas. Cam­bridge Un­i­ver­si­ty award­ed him a doctor­ate in 1786. His works in­clude: The Psalms of Da­vid Set to New Mu­sic, 1774 Elements of Thorough-bass and Com­po­si­tion, 1787 The Psalms of Da­vid for the Use of Par­ish Churche­s, 1790 Thoughts on the Present Per­form­ance of Psalm­o­dy, 1791 The Psalms of Watts and Wes­ley, 1801 Sac­red Mu­sic, 1802 History of Don­cas­ter, 1804