Hymns Ancient and Modern
Hymns Ancient and Modern is a hymnal in common use within the Church of England, a result of the efforts of the Oxford Movement. The hymnal was first published in 1861.
The organization publishing it has now been formed into a charitable trust, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd, and it publishes a wide range of hymnals as well as other theological and religious books and magazines, under imprints including the acquired publishers Canterbury Press and SCM Press.
Origin
Hymn singing
By 1830 the regular singing of hymns in the dissenting churches had become widely accepted due to hymn writers like Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley and others. In the Church of England hymn singing was not an integral part of Orders of Service until the early 19th century, and hymns, as opposed to metrical psalms, were not officially sanctioned. From about 1800, parish churches started to use different hymn collections in informal services, like the Lock Hospital Collection by Martin Madan, the Olney Hymns by John Newton and William Cowper and A Collection of Hymns for the Use of The People Called Methodists by John Wesley and Charles Wesley.Oxford Movement
A further impetus to hymn singing in the Anglican Church came in the 1830s from the Oxford Movement, led by John Keble and John Henry Newman. Being an ecclesiastical reform movement within the Anglican Church, the Oxford Movement wanted to recover the lost treasures of breviaries and service books of the ancient Greek and Latin churches. As a result Greek, Latin and even German hymns in translation entered the mainstream of English hymnody. These translations were composed by people like John Chandler, John Mason Neale, Thomas Helmore, Edward Caswall, Jane Laurie Borthwick and Catherine Winkworth. Besides stimulating the translation of medieval hymns, and use of plainsong melodies, the Oxford Reformers, inspired by Reginald Heber's work, also began to write original hymns. Among these hymnwriters were clergy like Henry Alford, Henry Williams Baker, Sabine Baring-Gould, John Keble and Christopher Wordsworth and laymen like Matthew Bridges, William Chatterton Dix and Folliott Sandford Pierpoint.Accomplishment of the Hymns Ancient and Modern
The growing popularity of hymns inspired the publication of more than 100 hymnals during the period 1810–1850. The sheer number of these collections prevented any one of them from being successful. A beginning of what would become the Hymns Ancient and Modern was made with the Hymns and Introits, edited by George Cosby White. The idea for the hymn-book arose in 1858 when two clergymen, both part of the Oxford Movement, met on a train: William Denton of St Bartholomew, Cripplegate, co-editor of the Church Hymnal and Francis Henry Murray, editor of the Hymnal for Use in the English Church Denton suggested that the 1852 Hymnal for use in the English Church by Francis Murray and the Hymns and Introits by George Cosby White should be amalgamated to satisfy the need for standardisation of the hymn books in use throughout England.Besides their idea, Henry Williams Baker and Rev. P. Ward were already engaged on a similar scheme for rival books. Given the lack of unanimity in the church's use of hymns, Henry Williams Baker thought it necessary to compile one book which would command general confidence. After ascertaining by private communications the widespread desire of churchmen for greater uniformity in the use of hymns and of hymnbooks in the services of the Church, Sir Henry Baker, vicar of Monkland in the diocese of Hereford, early in 1858 associated himself for this purpose with about twenty clergymen, including the editors of many existing hymnals, who agreed to give up their several books to try to promote the use of one standard hymn book. In October of that year an advertisement in The Guardian, the High Church newspaper, invited co-operation, and over 200 clergymen responded.
In January 1859 the committee set to work under the lead of Henry William Baker. An appeal was made to the clergy and to their publishers to withdraw their individual collections and to support this new combined venture. They founded a board, called the "Proprietors", which oversaw both the publication of the hymnal and the application of the profits to support appropriate charities, or to subsidise the purchase of the hymn books by poor parishes. The superintendent was William Henry Monk. One of the advisors, John Keble, recommended that it should be made a comprehensive hymn-book. This committee set themselves to produce a hymn-book which would be a companion to the Book of Common Prayer. Another intention of the founders of Hymns Ancient and Modern was that it would improve congregational worship for everybody. A specimen was issued in May 1859. In 1860 a trial edition was published, with the imprimatur of Dr Renn Hampden, Sir Henry Baker's diocesan. The first full edition with tunes, under the musical editorship of Professor W. H. Monk, King's College, London, appeared on 20 March 1861.