Hymns Ancient and Modern

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Hymns Ancient and Modern was a hymnal in common use within the Church of England. Over the years it has grown into a large family of hymnals.

The idea for the hymn book first came about in 1858 when two clergy men met on a train. They discussed the need for a standardization of the hymn books in use throughout England and so the idea was born. They founded a board of five Proprietors who oversaw both the publication of the hymnals and the donation of the profits to appropriate charities, or to subsidise less wealthy parishes for the cost of the books.

The first edition was published in 1861 by W.M. Clowes and Sons, with an appendix added in 1868. It was revised in 1875 by William Henry Monk to produce the second edition to which, Fourteen years later 1889, Charles Steggall added several supplementary hymns. In 1904 The new and revised edition was published, edited by B. Luard. Unfortunately people complained about the difference between this and its predecessors to such an extent that, in 1906 C. Steggall's edition was republished as the old complete edition.

In 1916 the old complete edition was republished, for the last time, with a second supplement by Sydney Nicholson. Six years later, in 1922 the standard edition was published, more strongly based on the old complete edition than the less popular new and revised edition, this also was edited by Nicholson who was the musical editor until he died in 1947.

In 1950 the revised edition was published with G.H. Knight and J. Dykes having both edited since the death of Nicholson. Many hymns were weeded out for the 1950 edition as the editors wished, in part, to make space for more recent compositions, and in part to thin out the over-supplemented previous versions. In 1983 the New Standard edition was published; this comprised 333 of the 636 hymns included in A and M Revised and the entire 200-hymn contents of 100 Hymns for Today (1969) and More Hymns for Today (1980).

The most recent (2000) edition is called Common Praise, published by Canterbury Press.