The following article will appear in the next edition of the Essex Family Historian.
It was a discussion about the hymn writer John Ellerton, who wrote the “The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended”, and his connection with White Roding that led to this article (and hopefully others). A seed of an idea, a little research and you suddenly discover that some of our best-loved hymns are written by people with Essex connections. “Crown him with Many Crowns” written by a man born in Maldon in 1800; “Onward Christian Soldiers”, written by the Rector of East Mersea; “Breathe on me Breath of God”, written by the Rector of Purleigh; and there are many more. But we start with the story of a remarkable family and their connection with Harlow.
Sarah Fuller Flower Adams
Hymnodist and Poet
‘Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
E’en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song would be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!’
There are also many inspiring true-life stories associated with this hymn. Everyone who has read about, or has been touched by the tragic saga of the RMS Titanic, is familiar with it. Some Titanic survivors said it was played by the ship’s orchestra as the ocean liner went down (though other survivors said it was a different song). Wallace Hartley, the bandleader on the Titanic, an employee of the White Star Line, who went down with the ship, was reportedly fond of this hymn and requested that it should be played at his funeral.
Another story concerns the death of American president William McKinley, assassinated in 1901. Dr. Mann, the attending physician, reported that among McKinley’s last words were “Nearer, my God, to Thee, e’en though it be a cross,’ has been my constant prayer.” On the afternoon of September 13, 1901, after five minutes of silence across the nation, bands in Union and Madison Squares in New York City played the hymn in memory of the fallen president. It was also played at a memorial service for him in Westminster Abbey, London.
The hymn was also played as the body of the assassinated American President James Garfield was interred at Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, who had been shot on the 2nd July 1881.
This hymn was written by Sarah Fuller Flower Adams, the daughter of Benjamin and Eliza Flower, who was born February 22nd, 1805, in Harlow. Her father Benjamin (1755 – 1829) was a nonconformist, journalist, political writer, editor and proprietor of the Cambridge Intelligencer, who had spent 6 months in Newgate for defamation.
On his release he had married Eliza Gould and they settled down in Harlow where Benjamin became a printer. A daughter, Eliza was born on the 19th April 1803 and Sarah in 1805.
Sarah married William Bridges Adams in 1834. She had hoped to be an actress but her stage career was cut short by ill health (although she did get to play Lady Macbeth in 1837). After retiring from the stage she and her husband lived at 9, Woodbury Hill, Loughton. There she turned to writing. A friend of the poet Shelley she had a gift for lyric poetry, and also wrote 13 hymns, the most famous of which is Nearer My God, together with poems and many magazine articles. She also wrote verses for the Anti-Corn Law League.
Sarah worshipped at the Unitarian church in Finsbury, where she was influenced by the minister William Johnson Fox, a reforming journalist and social commentator. In 1841 he published, with Sarah, a book of music Hymns and Anthems, which included Nearer my God to Thee.
Sarah died on August 14th 1848 at St Martin-in-the- Fields, of tuberculosis and is buried alongside her parents in the Baptist graveyard in Foster Street, Harlow. Her friends described her as ‘a woman of singular beauty and attractiveness, delicate and truly feminine, high minded and in her days of health, playful and high spirited.’ She left no descendants.
Her husband William Bridges Allen (1797 – 1872) was himself a remarkable man, a civil engineer, and an ingenious and prolific inventor, especially in connection with the emerging railways. He is best remembered for his invention of the ‘fish-joint’ on rails. When he patented his new method of jointing rails, he referred to the jointing plates as Fishplates. The first large railway company to use them as standard was the LNWR, which introduced them in 1853.
William and Sarah are both remembered and a blue plaque can be seen on the site of the house they occupied at Woodbury Hill, Loughton,
Sarah’s elder sister Eliza completed the remarkable family. She was a composer, friend of Robert Browning, and wrote the music for all her sister’s hymns, and like Sarah was not to survive into old age. She died of consumption on the 12th December 1846 and is also buried in the family grave in Foster Street.