William Pennefather

William Pennefather was an Irish-born Anglican clergyman, evangelical organizer, hymn writer, and pastor whose ministry became influential in nineteenth-century British evangelicalism. Born in Dublin in 1816, the son of jurist Richard Pennefather, he entered Trinity College Dublin in 1832 and graduated BA in 1840. He was ordained deacon in 1841 and priest in 1842, serving first in the Church of Ireland at Ballymacugh and Mellifont. During the Irish famine of the 1840s he ministered among communities affected by severe hardship.

Pennefather moved to England in 1848 and served Holy Trinity, Walton, Aylesbury; Christ Church, Barnet; and, from 1864, St Jude's, Mildmay Park in London. He developed conferences for prayer, Bible teaching, mission, and Christian service, and these gatherings grew into the Mildmay movement and related charitable ministries.

Many of his hymns were written for the Barnet and Mildmay conferences and circulated first as leaflets. A 1872 conference pamphlet contained twenty-five of his pieces, while a larger posthumous collection, Original Hymns and Thoughts in Verse, preserved dozens more. His hymns characteristically combine evangelical theology, corporate prayer, consecration, mission, and direct congregational language.