Frederick Cook Atkinson

Frederick Cook Atkinson was an English organist, choirmaster, composer, and church musician born in Norwich in 1841. As a boy he was a chorister and assistant organist at Norwich Cathedral, giving him an early grounding in Anglican choral music. He earned the Bachelor of Music degree from Cambridge in 1867 and subsequently held organist and choirmaster posts including St Luke’s Church, Manningham, Bradford, Norwich Cathedral, and St Mary’s Parish Church, Lewisham.

Atkinson wrote hymn tunes, anthems, Anglican service music, songs, and piano works. His best-known hymn tune is MORECAMBE, composed in 1870. Importantly, it was not written for Croly’s text: Atkinson originally intended it as a setting of Henry Francis Lyte’s “Abide with Me.” The tune was first published in G. S. Barrett and E. J. Hopkins’s “Congregational Church Hymnal” in 1887.

MORECAMBE was named for the coastal town on Morecambe Bay in northwest England, not far from the region where Atkinson had served at Bradford. During the twentieth century it became strongly associated with “Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart,” although other tune traditions remain in use. Atkinson died at East Dereham, Norfolk, in 1896.