Saturday, May 31, 2025
Hymns and Arias in Mumbles
I first became curious very early on in my Swansea residency when walking down to Caswell Bay I came across Havergal House and the plaque commemorating her contribution to religious verse. This Mumbles history site takes up her story:
In the village of Newton, at the top of the hill that leads down to Caswell, a plaque in the wall of the house on the right states that the Christian poetess and hymn-writer Frances Ridley Havergal lived and died there. Frances was in her early forties when she joined her elder sister Maria there in 1878, after the family home in Worcester had been sold following their step-mother’s death.
The family had visited Langland while on holiday, and rented from the Tuckers a new house then called Park Villa. A fine musician and the daughter of an Anglican clergyman, Frances wrote seventy hymns (including one in French), and devotional books for children and adults. In her study where the west window looked over Caswell Bay stood her harp, piano and her American typewriter, for she was constantly writing articles and checking proofs of verse and music. She enjoyed walking on the cliffs, going onto Caswell beach at low tide to explore the rock pools, watching the ships with all sails up entering Swansea harbour, and was interested to visit Mumbles Lighthouse and speak with the lighthouse keeper. She became involved in temperance work, encouraging the young people to ‘sign the pledge’. As St Peter’s church in Newton was not built until after her death, Frances would attend Paraclete congregational chapel to play the organ and assist with the children’s work.
She declined several proposals of marriage, and after a short illness died of peritonitis in June 1879, being buried in the family grave at Astley in Worcestershire, within sight of the Rectory where she had been born 42 years earlier. Her hymns such as ‘Who is on the Lord’s side?’ and ‘Like a river glorious’ are still sung today, especially ‘Take my life, and let it be’, which she preferred to be sung to a tune composed by her father, instead of the usual Mozart tune! The house Park Villa was re-named Havergal, and the plaque outside was unveiled in 1937 on the centenary of her birth, while nearby a street is named Havergal Close.
A list of many of Frances works can be found here in Wikipedia.
