Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Anna Laetitia Barbauld (née Aikin), daughter of the Reverend John Aikin, D.D., was born at Kibworth-Harcourt, Leicestershire, on June 20, 1743. In 1753, her father became classical tutor at the dissenting academy in Warrington. During her residence there, she contributed five hymns to Dr. William Enfield's Hymns for Public Worship (1772), which were reprinted in her Poems (1773). In May 1774, she married the Reverend Rochemont Barbauld, a dissenting minister of French Protestant descent. Together they conducted a boarding school at Palgrave, Suffolk, until 1785. Mr. Barbauld later took charge of congregations at Hampstead and Newington Green, serving until his death on November 11, 1808. Mrs. Barbauld continued her literary work until her death on March 9, 1825.

Mrs. Barbauld was a highly successful writer whose compositions gained broad acceptance in British and American Unitarian hymnals, as well as wider Christian usage. Her notable hymns include "Again the Lord of life and light," "Awake, my soul, lift up thine eyes," "Behold, where breathing love divine," "Praise to God, immortal praise," "Come, said Jesus' sacred voice," and "How blest the sacred tie that binds." Her educational volume, Hymns in Prose for Children (1781), achieved lasting international popularity and was translated into numerous languages.