He shaped what the Church of England sang for a century. When he was dying, he kept repeating his own hymn about a lost sheep being carried home.
Sir Henry Williams Baker was born in 1821 and eventually became the most influential figure in Victorian Anglican hymnody — not as a composer in the grand sense, but as the primary driving force behind "Hymns Ancient and Modern," the collection first published in 1861 that would define what the Church of England sang for generations, eventually selling over 170 million copies across its various editions.
Baker was the chairman of the committee that produced it. He oversaw the selection process, managed negotiations with composers and copyright holders, argued for certain hymns over others, and shepherded the entire project from concept to publication with relentless energy over years of detailed work.
He also wrote hymns himself, including "The King of Love My Shepherd Is" — a paraphrase of Psalm 23 that explicitly names the shepherd as Christ, moving through the familiar imagery of green pastures and still waters and arriving at the table spread and the cup overflowing with a directness that makes the theological identification unmistakable.
The third verse sits at the hymn's emotional center:
"Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, but yet in love He sought me, and on His shoulder gently laid, and home, rejoicing, brought me."
In February 1877, Henry Baker was dying at his home in Monkland, Herefordshire. Those attending him in his final hours reported that he kept returning to that verse. Not the triumphant verses. Not the verses about green pastures or still waters. The verse about straying and being found. He said it again and again as he lay dying — the words coming back to him from somewhere deep, the thing he had written returning to him at the end as a need rather than a composition.
He died on February 12, 1877.
"He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart." — Isaiah 40:11
#TheKingOfLove #HenryBaker #ChurchHistory
Sir Henry Williams Baker was born in 1821 and eventually became the most influential figure in Victorian Anglican hymnody — not as a composer in the grand sense, but as the primary driving force behind "Hymns Ancient and Modern," the collection first published in 1861 that would define what the Church of England sang for generations, eventually selling over 170 million copies across its various editions.
Baker was the chairman of the committee that produced it. He oversaw the selection process, managed negotiations with composers and copyright holders, argued for certain hymns over others, and shepherded the entire project from concept to publication with relentless energy over years of detailed work.
He also wrote hymns himself, including "The King of Love My Shepherd Is" — a paraphrase of Psalm 23 that explicitly names the shepherd as Christ, moving through the familiar imagery of green pastures and still waters and arriving at the table spread and the cup overflowing with a directness that makes the theological identification unmistakable.
The third verse sits at the hymn's emotional center:
"Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, but yet in love He sought me, and on His shoulder gently laid, and home, rejoicing, brought me."
In February 1877, Henry Baker was dying at his home in Monkland, Herefordshire. Those attending him in his final hours reported that he kept returning to that verse. Not the triumphant verses. Not the verses about green pastures or still waters. The verse about straying and being found. He said it again and again as he lay dying — the words coming back to him from somewhere deep, the thing he had written returning to him at the end as a need rather than a composition.
He died on February 12, 1877.
"He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart." — Isaiah 40:11
#TheKingOfLove #HenryBaker #ChurchHistory
He shaped what the Church of England sang for a century. When he was dying, he kept repeating his own hymn about a lost sheep being carried home.
Sir Henry Williams Baker was born in 1821 and eventually became the most influential figure in Victorian Anglican hymnody — not as a composer in the grand sense, but as the primary driving force behind "Hymns Ancient and Modern," the collection first published in 1861 that would define what the Church of England sang for generations, eventually selling over 170 million copies across its various editions.
Baker was the chairman of the committee that produced it. He oversaw the selection process, managed negotiations with composers and copyright holders, argued for certain hymns over others, and shepherded the entire project from concept to publication with relentless energy over years of detailed work.
He also wrote hymns himself, including "The King of Love My Shepherd Is" — a paraphrase of Psalm 23 that explicitly names the shepherd as Christ, moving through the familiar imagery of green pastures and still waters and arriving at the table spread and the cup overflowing with a directness that makes the theological identification unmistakable.
The third verse sits at the hymn's emotional center:
"Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, but yet in love He sought me, and on His shoulder gently laid, and home, rejoicing, brought me."
In February 1877, Henry Baker was dying at his home in Monkland, Herefordshire. Those attending him in his final hours reported that he kept returning to that verse. Not the triumphant verses. Not the verses about green pastures or still waters. The verse about straying and being found. He said it again and again as he lay dying — the words coming back to him from somewhere deep, the thing he had written returning to him at the end as a need rather than a composition.
He died on February 12, 1877.
"He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart." — Isaiah 40:11
#TheKingOfLove #HenryBaker #ChurchHistory
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