Claudia Frances Hernaman

Claudia Frances Hernaman (1838–1898), née Ibotson, was an English hymn writer and translator whose work was rooted in the Church of England and especially directed toward the religious formation of children. She was born at Addlestone, Surrey, on October 19, 1838, the daughter of the Rev. W. H. Ibotson, who served as vicar of Edwinstowe in Nottinghamshire. In September 1858 she married the Rev. J. W. D. Hernaman, an Anglican clergyman who also served as one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools.

Hernaman wrote more than 150 hymns, many for children, and also translated Latin hymns into English. Her best-known collection, The Child’s Book of Praise: A Manual of Devotion in Simple Verse, appeared in 1873 under the initials C. F. H. and was edited by the Rev. James Skinner. In its preface she explained her desire to give children simple but doctrinally serious hymns and to teach them to see the incarnate life of Christ as a pattern in which they themselves were called to participate. That purpose helps explain the direct, prayerful character of “Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days.”

Her later publications included The Story of the Resurrection (1879), Christmas Story (1881), two series of Christmas Carols for Children (1884 and 1885), The Way of the Cross (1885), Hymns for the Seven Words from the Cross (1885), and The Crown of Life (1886). Her work belongs to the nineteenth-century Anglican tradition of devotional and educational hymnody, combining the church year, biblical narrative, and practical Christian formation. She died on October 10, 1898.