Benjamin Beddome

Benjamin Beddome (January 23, 1717 - September 23, 1795) was an English Baptist minister and hymnist. He was born in Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, England.

He was the son of Bap­tist min­is­ter John Bed­dome. Benjamin was initially ap­pren­ticed to a sur­geon in Bristol, but in 1739 joined the Bap­tist church in Pres­cott Street, and at the call of his church de­vot­ed him­self to the work of Christ­ian min­is­try. In 1740 he be­gan to preach at Bour­ton-on-the-Wa­ter, Gloucestershire and became one of the most highly re­spect­ed Bap­tist min­is­ters in west­ern Eng­land, known for his literary attainments. In 1752, he wrote "A Scrip­tur­al Ex­po­si­tion of the Bap­tist Cat­e­chism, by Way of Quest­ion and An­swer". In 1770, Beddome re­ceived an MA de­gree from Providence College, Rhode Island.

Bed­dome long wrote a hymn each week to be sung af­ter his Sun­day ser­mon. Though his hymns were not orig­in­al­ly in­tend­ed for pub­li­ca­tion, he al­lowed 13 of them to be included in the "Bris­tol Bap­tist Col­lect­ion" of Ash & Ev­ans, and 36 in Rip­pon’s Se­lect­ion. In 1817, a post­hu­mous col­lect­ion of his hymns was pub­lished as "Hymns Adapted to Pub­lic Wor­ship or Family Devotion", con­tain­ing 830 piec­es. Today a number of Beddome's hymns are included in the Sacred Harp.

Rob­ert Hall wrote::The man of taste will be gra­ti­fired with the beau­ty and orig­in­al turns of thought which ma­ny of them ex­hi­bit, while the ex­per­i­ment­al Christ­ian will of­ten per­ceive the most se­cret move­ments of his soul strik­ing­ly de­lin­e­at­ed, and sen­ti­ments pour­trayed which will find their echo in ev­e­ry heart.

Benjamin Beddome died and is buried in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, Eng­land.

External links

[http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/b/e/d/beddome_b.htm Hymns by Benjamin Beddome]

[http://benbeddome.blogspot.com/ Blog dedicated to Beddome]