Sabine Baring-gould

1834-1924. Hymnwriter and medieval scholar. Born in Exeter and educated at Cambridge, he took holy orders in 1864 and was for three years curate at Horbury Bridge, Yorkshire. In 1865 he wrote his famous hymn “Onward, Christian soldiers” for a Whit Monday Sunday school procession. After incumbencies in Dalton, Yorkshire, and East Mersea, Essex, he appointed himself in 1881 rector of Lew Trenchard, Devon, which had been the family seat for 300 years. He was a versatile author, and his chief work was The Lives of the Saints in fifteen volumes, which had the distinction of being placed in the Roman Index Expurgatorius. Other hymns include “Now the day is over” and the translation “Through the night of doubt and sorrow.”