The Right Reverend Timothy Dudley-Smith, who has died aged 97, was Suffragan Bishop of Thetford in Norwich diocese from 1981 to 1993 and before that spent eight years as Archdeacon of Norwich.
He was, however, more widely known as the foremost hymn writer of his time and wrote upwards of 450 hymns, of which more than 300 were included in about 250 hymnals throughout the English-speaking world. His greatest popular success was Tell out, my Soul in 1962, but many of his other hymns are still sung.
Dudley-Smith combined poetic skill and theological depth. From his earliest years he loved poetry, thanks to the influence of his schoolmaster father, and while a student earned a few guineas from freelance writing.
It was not until much later, however, while on holiday in his beloved Cornwall, that he turned to writing religious verse. This was for his own use, but friends suggested that some of it might make good hymns.
One of these, which began “Tell out, my soul/ the greatness of the Lord”, was based on the recently published New English Bible translation of the Magnificat, and was accepted for the Anglican Hymn Book. John Betjeman called it “one of the few modern hymnsthat will truly last”. Very popular also is Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided.
Dudley-Smith’s move into professional hymn-writing coincided with an explosion of hymnody that began in the 1960s and has continued unabated. Inspired by the gifted Sydney Carter’s Lord of the Dance, a multitude of clergymen and some others decided to try their hand. A plethora of books of hymns and songs, some set to pop music, were published.
Predictably, quantity was not matched by quality and much of the worship of all the churches suffered as a consequence. Dudley-Smith’s compositions were an exception and his work, focused mainly on the central doctrines of the Christian faith, offered insight and encouraged devotion. Provision for all the seasons of the Christian year increased their usefulness.
He espoused traditional metre and rhyme and, having no musical gifts himself, adopted well-known existing tunes. This made his hymns eminently singable and is part of the reason for their continued popularity.
He resisted requests for “happy clappy” choruses, observing: “A hymn text rises above the commonplace by language which conveys a feeling of colour in its imagery.”
Timothy Dudley-Smith was born in Buxton on Boxing Day 1926, the son of Arthur and Phyllis.
At the age of 12 he had played Portia in a school production of The Merchant of Venice, and in a Church Times profile to mark his 90th birthday he reckoned that he still knew most of the “quality of mercy” speech by heart, 78 years later.
He attended Tonbridge School then Pembroke College, Cambridge. His father died when he was a boy and, having developed a firm faith in adolescence, he completed training for Holy Orders at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and was ordained in Rochester Cathedral.
From 1950 to 1953 he was a curate at Northumberland Heath in Kent, then went on to be Head of the Cambridge University Mission to Bermondsey in London’s docklands, still recovering from wartime bombing.
His work among young people proved to be particularly useful, but after two years Dudley-Smith joined the staff of the Evangelical Alliance as education secretary and editor of its magazine, Crusade.
Writing about Crusade in the Church Times, Canon David Winter, former head of BBC religious broadcasting, credited “TDS” with shaping “what was at the time something distinctly new in religious journalism in Britain. It was a glossy magazine; it cost one shilling and sixpence (a lot of money in 1955); it had cartoons and a sense of humour; and it mixed devotional material with commentary on world events and – its editor’s trademark innovation – serious poetry. I first encountered the splendid poetry of Alice Meynell in its pages...
“He also included, from his own pen, little advertising verses and promotional poems for the magazine. These (as some of us noted) were rather better than the usual commercial jingles. TDS has never been one to despise the value of light or comic verse.”
The Evangelical Alliance was the British embodiment of an international inter-church organisation dedicated to the spread of the evangelical version of the Christian faith, notably building links with Billy Graham and sponsoring his 1950s crusades to the UK.
Dudley-Smith remained in the Alliance’s service until 1959, at the same time retaining his links with the Bermondsey Mission as an honorary chaplain.
He then moved to the Church Pastoral Aid Society as its assistant secretary, moving up to secretary in 1965. Of similar aims to the Evangelical Alliance but confined to the Church of England, the CPAS has the patronage of more than 500 parishes. This enables it to ensure the continuation of evangelical clergy leadership.
Dudley-Smith devoted a great deal of time and travel to the Society, especially when vacancies occurred, and was diligent in consulting churchwardens, and sometimes bishops, before nominating a new rector or vicar.
In 1973, when the Bishop of Norwich, the evangelical Maurice Wood, needed a new archdeacon, he turned to Dudley-Smith, whose gifts and experience equipped him well for the post.
The large rural diocese, with a multiplicity of very small parishes, was in urgent need of pastoral reorganisation and amalgamations. Local interests and loyalties demanded that firmness be tempered with sensitivity and Dudley-Smith earned wide respect for the wise handling of often difficult situations.
When the suffragan bishopric of Thetford fell vacant in 1981 he was a natural choice for the succession, and by the time of his retirement in 1993 he had completed 20 years of notable service in Norfolk.
Although deeply rooted in the evangelical tradition, Dudley-Smith’s commitment to it was of the thoughtful, inclusive sort which enabled him to minister easily in other traditions as well. His preaching was valued everywhere, as was the quality of his pastoral work.
Besides hymns, he wrote many short books on the Christian faith and a major two-volume biography of his friend John Stott, the most influential Anglican evangelical leader of the 20th century. On a lesser scale, his own story was told in A Functional Art: Reflections of a Hymn Writer (2017).
His honours included a Lambeth MLitt, a Durham University DD and appointment as OBE in 2003.
He married, in 1959, June MacDonald; she died in 2007 and he is survived by a son and two daughters.
The Right Reverend Timothy Dudley-Smith, born December 26 1926, died August 12 2024
