Kenneth Donald Smith

Kenneth Donald Smith is a British hymn-tune composer, harmonizer, and hymnal editor born in Manchester on September 28, 1928. Published hymnological records preserve relatively little personal biography, but The Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland identifies him as a former member of the Society and documents his substantial involvement in British school and church-song publishing during the 1950s and later decades.

Smith served as joint music editor of Sunday School Praise and The School Assembly, both published in 1958. The Hymn Society reports that Sunday School Praise contained thirteen tunes associated with him, ten published under his own name and three under the pseudonym C.D. His surviving hymn-tune catalog includes RAPHAEL, NEW RIVER, and a harmonization of STUTTGART. RAPHAEL was published in Sunday School Praise in 1958 and later became closely associated with Amy Carmichael's short prayer hymn Dear Lord, for All in Pain.

Smith's work belongs to a practical tradition of twentieth-century British congregational and school music: compact melodies, usable meters, and harmonizations intended for corporate singing rather than concert display. Because documentation of his later career and personal life is sparse in standard public hymnological sources, claims about appointments, denominational affiliation, or a death date are best left unstated unless stronger evidence emerges.