The Shadows of the Evening Hours

Short Name: Adelaide Anne Procter
Full Name: Procter, Adelaide Anne
Birth Year: 1825
Death Year: 1864

Adelaide Anne Procter was born on October 30, 1825, in Bedford Square, London, England. She was the daughter of Bryan Waller Procter, a poet and writer known by the pen name Barry Cornwall. She demonstrated strong intellectual abilities at an early age and later developed skills in music and languages.

In 1851, Procter entered the Roman Catholic Church. She began contributing literary work in 1853 to Household Words, a periodical edited by Charles Dickens. Her reputation as a poet was established with the publication of Legends and Lyrics in 1858, followed by a second volume in 1860 and an enlarged edition in 1862. She also produced other works in poetry and prose.

A number of her poems were adopted as hymn texts and became widely used in English-language hymnody. These texts were primarily drawn from Legends and Lyrics and address themes such as resignation, thankfulness, perseverance, time, and pilgrimage.

Adelaide Anne Procter died on February 2, 1864, in London. She should not be confused with Adelaide A. Pollard (1862–1934), an unrelated American hymn writer of a later period.