Aaron Williams

Aaron Williams (1731–1776) was an English singing teacher, music engraver, compiler, and church musician active in London. He served as clerk at the Scottish Church, London Wall, and worked in the practical world of congregational psalmody, where teaching, printing, compiling, and arranging music were closely connected.

Williams published several influential collections of church music, including The Universal Psalmodist in 1763, The Royal Harmony in 1766, The New Universal Psalmodist in 1770, and Psalmody in Miniature near the end of his life. The Universal Psalmodist was also issued in North America as The American Harmony, helping his repertory travel beyond Britain.

The tune now known as DOVER is traced by Hymnary to Williams's psalmody of 1770 and is in the public domain. It has circulated under related names in different hymnals and was used with Charles Wesley's “Father, in Whom We Live,” the original form of the hymn now often titled “Maker, in Whom We Live.”