Michael Robert Newbolt

Michael Robert Newbolt was an English Church of England priest, theological writer, and hymn reviser. Born at Dymock, Gloucestershire, in 1874, he studied at St John's College, Oxford, and was ordained priest in 1900. His early ministry included several parish appointments before he became principal of the Missionary College at Dorchester, where he served from 1910 to 1916.

In 1916 Newbolt moved to St Michael and All Angels in Brighton, remaining there until 1927. He then served for many years as a canon of Chester Cathedral, retiring in 1946. Alongside pastoral and educational work, he wrote theological books, including a commentary on Revelation, and contributed to Anglican hymnody through revision of inherited texts rather than through a large independent corpus of hymns.

His hymnological significance is especially associated with the extensive reshaping of George William Kitchin's missionary processional text for the 1916 Second Supplement to Hymns Ancient and Modern. That revision, paired there with Sydney Nicholson's new tune, became the foundation of the form widely circulated in twentieth-century hymnals. Newbolt died at Bierton, Buckinghamshire, in 1956.