W. J. Sparrow Simpson
English cleric
William John Sparrow Simpson (20 June 1859 – 13 February 1952) was an English Anglican priest and writer. He wrote the libretto for John Stainer's oratorio The Crucifixion (1887), several hymns, and more than fifty books. He was chaplain of Ilford Hospital Chapel from 1904 until his death.
Life
Sparrow Simpson was born in London, the son of the Rev William Sparrow Simpson, a minor canon of St Paul's and rector of St Vedast, Foster Lane. He was educated at St Paul's School, London and, from 1878, Trinity College, Cambridge. As an undergraduate he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal for English verse in a competition judged by Robert Browning; he graduated with a first class degree in theology in 1882. In the same year he was ordained deacon, and went to Christ Church, Albany Street in Marylebone, London as curate. In the following year, in which he was ordained priest, he wrote the first of two libretti for choral works by John Stainer. These were the cantata St Mary Magdalen (1883) and the oratorio The Crucifixion (1887).
Sparrow Simpson was vicar of St Mark's, Regent's Park, 1888–1904, and moved to Ilford in 1904 as chaplain to the ancient almshouse foundation, the Ilford Hospital Chapel.
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This entry incorporates text from “W. J. Sparrow Simpson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.