author
Frances Ridley Havergal
1836–1879
A Victorian hymn writer and devotional poet whose work joined simple language with deep religious feeling. Best remembered for “Take My Life and Let It Be,” she wrote with a warmth and clarity that kept her verses alive long after her brief life ended.
2 Audiobooks
Morning Bells; Or, Waking Thoughts for Little Ones
by Frances Ridley Havergal
Kept for the Master's Use
by Frances Ridley Havergal
About the author
Born in Astley, Worcestershire, on December 14, 1836, Frances Ridley Havergal grew up in a deeply musical and religious family; her father, William Henry Havergal, was a clergyman and composer. She became known as an English religious poet and hymn writer, and her best-known hymns include Take My Life and Let It Be and I Gave My Life for Thee.
Havergal wrote hymns, poems, religious prose, and works for children, and her writing was shaped by a strongly devotional Christian faith. Readers have long valued her for the directness of her language and the sense of personal sincerity in her work, qualities that helped her hymns travel far beyond her own time.
She died on June 3, 1879, at Caswell Bay in Wales, still only 42 years old. Even so, her poems and hymns secured a lasting place in English devotional literature, especially among readers and singers drawn to heartfelt, reflective writing.