Timothy Dudley-Smith

Timothy Dudley-Smith was born in Manchester, England, on December 26, 1926, and grew up in Derbyshire. He studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Ridley Hall, Cambridge, before ordination as a Church of England deacon in 1950 and priest in 1951. His ministry included editorial work with Crusade magazine, service with the Church Pastoral Aid Society, appointment as Archdeacon of Norwich from 1973 to 1981, and consecration as Bishop of Thetford in 1981. He retired from episcopal ministry in 1991 and died in Cambridge on August 12, 2024, aged ninety-seven.

Dudley-Smith wrote more than four hundred hymns and became a leading voice in the late twentieth-century renewal of English-language hymnody. His texts characteristically combine close biblical attention, formal metrical craft, and language suited to congregational worship. Among his best-known works are Tell Out, My Soul and Lord, for the Years. He wrote Behold a Broken World in Cornwall in August 1984 for the Hymn Society of America's peace-hymn search. Its prophetic concern for international peace, justice, and faithful Christian response exemplifies his ability to bring Scripture into conversation with public life. He was appointed OBE in 2003 for services to hymnody and remained active as a writer and editor well into retirement.