Thomas Tiplady

Thomas Tiplady was a British Methodist minister, chaplain, hymn writer, poet, and mission leader born at Gayle in Wensleydale on January 1, 1882. He entered the Methodist ministry in 1908 and served as a chaplain with British forces during the First World War, including service on the Somme. His wartime writings included In the Trenches, The Kitten in the Crater, and The Soul of the Soldier, works that brought pastoral and evangelical reflection into direct contact with the suffering of war.

In 1922 Tiplady began the long ministry most closely associated with his hymn writing: forty-five years at the Lambeth Mission in South London. He pioneered the evangelistic use of film through the mission's Ideal Cinema services and wrote hymns for worship in an urban setting shaped by poverty, social need, and people often outside conventional church life. The Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland credits him with more than 250 hymns.

Tiplady was among the founders of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland in 1936 and was elected a Fellow of The Hymn Society in 1962. Above the Hills of Time became one of his most widely circulated texts. He remained at Lambeth until the end of his ministry and died in London on January 7, 1967.