Edward Mote

Edward Mote was an English cabinetmaker, Particular Baptist minister, and hymn writer. Born in London on January 21, 1797, he grew up with little religious instruction and was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker. He later credited the preaching of John Hyatt at Tottenham Court Road Chapel with bringing a decisive change in his Christian faith. For many years Mote continued his trade in London while writing hymns, long before entering pastoral ministry.

In 1852, at about fifty-five years of age, Mote became pastor of Rehoboth Chapel in Horsham, Sussex, a Particular Baptist congregation. Contemporary Baptist records confirm his call to that church, and he remained associated with its ministry until failing health forced him to relinquish regular preaching in 1873. He died in Horsham on November 13, 1874.

Mote published “Hymns of Praise: A New Selection of Gospel Hymns” in 1836, containing nearly one hundred of his own texts. His best-known hymn, now commonly titled “The Solid Rock,” had appeared anonymously much earlier. Mote later supplied a detailed first-person account of its composition and early circulation in an 1852 letter, making its origin unusually well documented for a nineteenth-century evangelical hymn.