Dorothy Frances Blomfield Gurney

Dorothy Frances Blomfield Gurney was an English poet and hymn writer born in London on October 4, 1858. She was the daughter of the Anglican clergyman Frederick George Blomfield, rector of St. Andrew Undershaft, and a granddaughter of Charles James Blomfield, Bishop of London. Her family background placed her within the religious and literary culture of Victorian Anglicanism.

In 1883, while staying at Pull Wyke near Windermere, she wrote “O Perfect Love” for the marriage of her sister Katharine Mary Blomfield to Hugh Redmayne of Brathay Hall. Gurney later recalled that the family had been singing the hymn associated with John Bacchus Dykes's tune STRENGTH AND STAY. Because her sister loved the tune but wanted wedding-appropriate words, Dorothy went to another room and produced the new text in about fifteen minutes. Her own account described its governing idea as the twofold character of a perfect union: love and life.

Gurney married Gerald Gurney in 1887. The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology records that both became Roman Catholics in 1919. Her publications included “The Childhood of Queen Victoria,” “Poems,” and “A Little Book of Quiet.” She is also remembered for the poem commonly called “God's Garden,” but “O Perfect Love” became her most widely circulated contribution to Christian hymnody.