A. C. C.

In the influential Anglican collection The Hymnary: A Book of Church Song, co-edited by William Cooke and Benjamin Webb and published in its complete edition in 1872, the signature "A. C. C." was used to attribute authorship to William Cooke himself.

The initials "A. C. C." stood for "a Canon of Chester," representing Cooke's ecclesiastical office, as he had been appointed an honorary Canon of Chester Cathedral in 1854. Cooke was an English clergyman, antiquarian, and hymn writer who made significant original contributions and translations to nineteenth-century hymnody.

Among the notable compositions he signed with this pen name for The Hymnary is the Septuagesima hymn "In Exile Here We Wander". This piece was suggested to him by Paul Gerhardt's German hymn "Ich bin ein Gast auf Erden". Writing under this signature allowed Cooke to contribute valuable liturgical material to his own hymnal while maintaining a degree of clerical modesty.