Lee Hastings Bristol Jr

Lee Hastings Bristol Jr was an American Episcopal layman, organist, composer, editor, educator, writer, and church-music leader. Born in Brooklyn in 1923, he graduated from Hamilton College in 1947, studied organ at Trinity College of Music in London, and pursued graduate study in Geneva. He also spent more than a decade in business and public relations with Bristol-Myers, the company founded by his grandfather and John Ripley Myers.

In 1962 Bristol left corporate work to become president of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, serving until 1969. He composed hymn tunes, choral music, organ works, and other church music, and he served the Episcopal Church as a member and officer of its Standing Commission on Church Music. He also edited More Hymns and Spiritual Songs and helped shape Episcopal hymnal supplements during a period of major liturgical and musical change.

Bristol was named a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada in 1972 and received numerous honorary degrees and church-music honors. His tune DICKINSON COLLEGE, composed in 1962, became one of several modern Long Meter melodies adopted across denominational hymnals. He died in 1979 at the age of fifty-six.