Henry Baker

Henry Baker (1835–1910) was an English civil engineer and amateur musician best remembered in hymnody as the composer of the long-meter tune QUEBEC, also widely known as HESPERUS. He was born at Nuneham, Oxfordshire, the son of the Rev. James Baker, and was educated at Winchester School. His professional training was in engineering, and he worked on railway construction in India.

Music nevertheless remained an important part of his life. Baker composed QUEBEC in 1854 while still a young man. According to hymnological accounts, a friend later submitted the tune anonymously in response to an 1861 London Penny Post appeal for a setting of John Keble's “Sun of My Soul.” The tune was selected and was subsequently published in John Grey's A Hymnal for Use in the English Church in 1866. Baker completed the Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Oxford in 1867.

QUEBEC became Baker's most durable contribution to congregational song. Its long-meter form made it suitable for numerous 8.8.8.8 texts, and it has appeared with several different hymns in English-language collections. Hymnary notes that some of Baker's hymn tunes were later published in Garrett Horder's Worship Songs (1905). Baker must be distinguished from Sir Henry Williams Baker (1821–1877), the priest and hymn writer who wrote “O God of Love, O King of Peace”; the two men were different contributors.