THE celebrated hymn-writer the Rt Revd Timothy Dudley-Smith died in the early hours of Monday morning in Cambridge, aged 97.
Bishop Dudley-Smith wrote the lyrics of about 400 hymns, among the most familiar of which are “Lord, for the years” (1967) and “Tell out, my soul” (1962). John Betjeman described the latter as “one of the few modern hymns that will truly last”.
Timothy Dudley-Smith was born in Manchester on 26 December, 1926. He attended Tonbridge School, from where he went to study at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After training for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, he was ordained deacon in 1950 and ordained priest in 1951. He went on to serve as Archdeacon of Norwich from 1973 to 1981, and as Bishop of Thetford from 1981 until his retirement in 1991. He was awarded an OBE in 2003 for services to hymnody.
During the 1950s, he edited Crusade magazine, started as an offshoot of the Billy Graham campaigns. He was a close friend of the Revd Dr John Stott, at whose memorial service he preached, and whose biography he wrote.
A House of Praise: Collected hymns 1961 to 2001 was published by Oxford University Press in 2004 (Books, 30 July 2004). The Church Times columnist Ronald Blythe wrote “Word from Wormingford” that year: “Timothy Dudley-Smith has given me A House of Praise, his collected hymns, and its magnitude has simply amazed me. Also its revelations, such as his having originally written ‘Tell out, my soul’ as a poem with no thought of its being sung.”
In an article to mark Bishop Dudley-Smith’s 90th birthday in 2016, Canon David Winter described him as “one of the outstanding hymn-writers of our generation” (Features, 23 December 2016). “Hymns written by ‘TDS’ are to be found in books of every denomination and tradition throughout the English-speaking world, and translated into a dozen other languages.”
His last book, A Functional Art: Reflections of a hymn writer (OUP), was published in 2017 (Books, 21 July 2017).
The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, paid tribute this week. “Bishop Timonthy was particularly involved with education and vocations within the diocese,” he said. “I have heard how on school visits he would entertain pupils by balancing his crosier on his chin! A retired priest told me how Bishop Timothy gave him the thumbs up to continuing his ordination training when others thought him too ‘risky’ as a long-haired biker.
“Bishop Timothy and his wife, Arlette, served the diocese of Norwich for 18 years and continued to pay an active interest in our life in retirement.”
Read an obituary here