Fred Pratt Green (1903-; see Biographies), English Methodist minister, wrote this hymn at the suggestion of John Wilson (see SDAH 397), who was impressed with Jackson’s fine tune EAST ACKLAM and wanted a new hymn on a harvest theme.

First published in the Methodist Recorder (England) in 1970, it carried a note giving permission for the hymn to be used upon application to Fred Pratt Green. In a short time 125 requests flowed in from all over the British Isles. Now it has found its way into hymnbooks around the world and has been sung in Westminster Abbey.

Concerning the composition of the tune, Francis Jackson writes from his home in York, England: “The actual history of the tune is slightly amusing. I wrote four [tunes] for the hymn ‘God That Made the Earth and Heave [SDAH 47], because I did not like the idea of using the tune AR HYD Y NOS. By a lucky chance [EAST ACKLAM] came to the notice of Francis Westbrook, who included it in Hymns and Songs [the Methodist Hymnal supplement] to the words ‘Through the Love of God Our Savior.’ Henna caught the attention of [John Wilson and] Fred Pratt Green, who wrote the words ‘For the Fruits of His Creation.’ By a curious quirk the recently published Scottish Hymnal includes the words ‘For the Fruits of His Creation’ but set to the tune AR HYD Y NOS!”

Jackson goes on to tell how he wrote this tune originally with five notes in a bar. After he revised it to the more conventional four notes to a bar, it became a winner.

The tune gets its name ACKLAM (the EAST part is seldom used today), from a very small village of about 40 houses on the Wolds, 15 miles from York and six miles from Jackson’s native Malton. “It is in the midst of farming country,” he says, “and has been our escape for nearly 30 years (in our seventeenth-century stone cottage), but is now our permanent main home and greatly appreciated. I have used the ‘EAST’ for the hymn tune name to distinguish it from another, less attractive Acklam, which is a suburb of industrial Middlesbrough. I have recently composed an organ prelude on the tune, and it should be published next year [1985], along with four others.”

Francis Jackson was born October 2, 1917, at Malton, Yorkshire, England, and was a chorister in the magnificent York Cathedral under the organist, Sir Edward Bairstow. In 1937, at age 20, he gained the Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists with the Limpus Prize for the highest marks for tests at the organ. In the same year he graduated with a B. Mus. at Durham University, and 20 years later earned the D.Mus. From 1933 1940 he was organist at Malton Parish church, and he succeeded Bairstow as organist at York Cathedral in 1946. He stayed there until retirement at age 65 in 1982. For more than 30 years he was conductor of England’s oldest established choral society, the York Musical Society, founded 1765.

As an organ recitalist, he has toured many countries of the world; he has toured Canada and the United States six times. Compositions include a symphony and an overture for orchestra (he also conducted the York Symphony); several melodramas; part songs, solos, church anthems, and organ works. In 1970 he was made a Fellow of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, and a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music in England. In 1982, at retirement, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music, a Doctor of York University, and had conferred on him the order of Saint William of York by Archbishop Lord Blanch. He also holds the title, OBE-Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

His tune is a beautiful example of what a master composer can do with the simplest of materials—in this case, an upward-moving diatonic scale.

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.