Albert F. Bayly (1901-1984)

Bayly, Albert Frederick

b: September 6, 1901; Bexhill, Sussex
d. July 26, 1984; Chichester

Family and Personality

• Married Marjorie Shilston (1933) and, after her death in 1948, Grace Fountain (1950)
• Shy, hospitable, gracious and humble man; also a diligent and devoted pastor His
• Always had a youthfulness of mind and sense of wonder and delight that never left him
• His hobbies included painting, astronomy, music, literature, gardening and walking

Education

• Educated at Hastings Grammar School
• Also trained as a shipwright at the Royal Dockyard School, Portsmouth
• Obtained a BA (1924) from London University, then trained at Mansfield College, Oxford (1925-28), and was ordained in 1929

Highlights & Accomplishments

• He served as a minister at Whitley Bay, Northumberland (1928-38), Morpeth (1938-46), Hollingreave, Burnley (1946-50), Swanland, East Riding of Yorkshire (1950-56), Eccleston, St. Helens, Lancashire (1956-62), and Thaxted, Essex (1962-72).
• Director of the London Missionary Society
• Honorary Fellow of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey
• Honorary Vice-President of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland
• Began writing hymns in 1945 to express a Christian response to modern scientific knowledge and to contemporary problems and opportunities, interpreting central biblical teaching for the present world
• Considered a forerunner of the ‘explosion’ in new English hymn writing after the Second World War and is honoured as a pioneer of this cause throughout the English-speaking world
• Many of his poems and hymns were inspired by natural beauty, or by specific, sometimes scientific, occasions
• Joy was a repeated theme in many of his hymns, and he used modern forms of expression with care.
• He wrote words for three cantatas by William Lloyd Webber (1914 -1982), The Divine Compassion (written 1953, published 1954), Look on the fields (written 1954, published 1955), and Song of Bethlehem (1954).
• Wrote nearly 200 hymns, including 26 for children, and over 60 poems, which can be seen at the Special Collections section of Durham University Library. Most of the items were published privately in five collections: Rejoice O People (1950), Again I Say Rejoice (1967), Rejoice Always (1971), Rejoice In God (1977) and Rejoice Together (1982)

Hymns included in the Seventh-Day Adventist Hymnal

Lord of the Boundless Curves of Space, SDAH 97
Fire of God, Thou Sacred Flame, SDAH 263
Thy Love, O God, SDAH 354
Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service, SDAH 363
What Does the Lord Require?, SDAH 571
Lord of All Good, SDAH 635

Valerie Ruddle. “Albert Bayly.” The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press. Web. 20 Aug. 2017.

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