William Barton

William Barton (c. 1598–1678) was an English clergyman, metrical psalmist, and hymn writer who worked during the turbulent middle decades of the seventeenth century. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking the B.A. in 1622 and the M.A. in 1625, and was ordained priest in 1623. Sources connect him with Puritan ministry in England, including service at St John Zachary in London and later as vicar of St Martin's, Leicester. Like many Puritan clergy, he lost his living after the Restoration settlement of 1662.

Barton's principal contribution to congregational song was his repeated revision of English metrical psalmody. The Book of Psalms in Metre first appeared in 1644 and was reissued in several altered editions. He continued refining his psalm versions for decades, aiming to keep them close to the biblical text while making them suitable for established congregational tunes. His later writings also included collections of hymns drawn from Scripture, and at Richard Baxter's request he prepared metrical versions of the Te Deum.

Barton himself wrote that the Scottish psalm book had been composed largely from his work and that of Francis Rous. Modern hymnological indexing likewise credits both men for some forms of the metrical Psalm 103 beginning “O thou my soul, bless God the Lord.” That attribution needs qualification: the 1650 Scottish Psalter was not simply a joint Barton-Rous publication, but the result of extensive revision by the Westminster Assembly and by Church of Scotland committees.

Barton's career illustrates the fluid boundary between strict psalm versification and the emerging English hymn tradition. His books circulated widely enough to influence later psalmody, while his continuing revisions show the seventeenth-century concern to balance biblical fidelity, poetic meter, and practical congregational singing.