Henry Hart Milman

Henry Hart Milman was an English Anglican priest, poet, dramatist, historian, and scholar born in London in 1791. Educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford, he won the Newdigate Prize in 1812 and later served as Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1821 to 1831. He was ordained in 1816, became vicar of St Mary’s, Reading, in 1818, rector of St Margaret’s, Westminster, in 1835, and Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1849.

Milman’s career is unusual among hymn writers because his reputation increasingly rested on historical scholarship rather than hymnody. His History of the Jews provoked controversy for using historical-critical approaches unusual among English clergy of the period, and his later History of Latin Christianity became a major scholarly work. He also wrote dramas, translations, reviews, and other hymns, including When Our Heads Are Bowed with Woe.

His Palm Sunday hymn was written for Reginald Heber’s projected collection of hymns for the church year. Correspondence shows that Heber had received and admired Milman’s Palm Sunday contribution by May 1821. It was first published in Heber’s posthumous Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year in 1827 and remains the hymn most closely associated with Milman.