The Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland

Lord Lisvane, former Clerk to the House of Commons and Chairman of the Royal College of Organists, sparked a lively correspondence in The Times earlier this year when he asked whether he was alone in deploring the popularity of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, especially ‘when there are so many wonderful alternatives’. Lord Williams of Oystermouth, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, then weighed in to say that the hymns we sing today are at ‘primary school level’, and that ‘the great classics have fallen out of common memory’. ‘All Things B&B’ was indeed written for a volume called Hymns for Little Children in 1848 and, as well as being bland, said Lord William