Charles Tamberlane Astley

Charles Tamberlane Astley was an Anglican clergyman and author born at Cwmllecoediog, near Mallwyd, North Wales, on May 12, 1825. The son of John William Astley of Dukinfield, Cheshire, he was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, where he held a scholarship and graduated B.A. in 1847 and M.A. in 1849. Following his ordination into Holy Orders in 1849, he served as Evening Lecturer at Bideford (1849), Incumbent of Holwell, Oxford (1850–1854), Vicar of Margate (1854–1864), and Rector of Brasted (1864–1878).

Astley's principal contribution to devotional literature was his volume Songs in the Night (1860), which comprised both original compositions and English translations of German hymns. Among his original writings, the hymn "O Lord, I look to Thee" became notable for private devotional use. Written at Pisa, Italy, during a period of illness in December 1858, this ten-stanza poem of four lines was later included in an abridged nine-stanza form in Seth Stevenson's Hymns for the Church and Home (1873).