John Bickersteth › Recommendations

Bickersteth, John, M.A., son of Henry Bickersteth, surgeon, born at Kirkby-Lonsdale, June, 19, 1781, and educated at the Grammar School of that town, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in honours. Taking Holy Orders, he became Vicar of Acton, Suffolk, and subsequently Rector of Sapcote, Leicestershire. He died Oct. 2, 1855. The Dean of Lichfield is his second, and the late Bishop of Ripon his fourth son. In 1819 he published Psalms and Hymns, selected and revised for Public, Social, Family, or Secret Devotion, in which his hymns were included. A fourth edition, much enlarged, appeared in 1832. Of his hymns contributed to his Collection in 1819, the following were transferred to his brother's Christian Psalmody, 1833:—
1. Great God, let children to Thy throne. S. Schools.
2. Hast Thou, holy Lord, Redeemer. H. Communion.
3. Israel's Shepherd, guide me, feed me. H. Communion.
and were thus brought into wider notice than through his own work. No. 3 is sometimes given as "Heavenly Shepherd, guide us, feed us," as in the American Unitarian Hymns of the Spirit, Boston, 1864.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)