Elizabeth Parson (''née'' Rooker; 5 June 1812 – 6 May 1873) was a
British hymn writer.
Life
Elizabeth Parson was born in
Tavistock to the Reverend William and Elizabeth Angas Rooker. William Rooker was the first minister at Tavistock United Reformed Church in Brook Street in 1796. This chapel was extended in 1820 and rebuilt following a fire in 1832.
[History]
, Tavistock United Reformed Church, Retrieved 12 January 2016
From 1840 his daughter, Elizabeth, led a class for young members of the congregation. Over the next four years Elizabeth wrote a number of hymns for her class. She stopped leading the class in 1840 which was the same year as she married Thomas Edgecombe Parson who was a solicitor. They were married on 8 February 1844.
[ Her younger brother William was a minister and another brother Alfred Rooker was mayor of Plymouth in 1851–1852.
Elizabeth Rooker died in 1873 in ]Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
.[J. C. Hadden]
"Parson, Elizabeth (1812–1873)"
rev. Rosemary Mitchell, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 , accessed 17 January 2016
A book of her hymns was privately published["Elizabeth Parson"]
Hymnary.org, Retrieved 12 January 2016 and two of her hymns were of particular interest. These were "Jesus, we love to meet" and "O happy land! O happy land!"[ In 1907, eleven of her hymns were said to be in "common use".][
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parson, Elizabeth
1812 births
1873 deaths
Writers from Tavistock
English nonconformist hymnwriters
British women hymnwriters