Frances Ridley Havergal

Born in Astley, Worcestershire, on December 14, 1836, Frances Ridley Havergal grew up in a family shaped by church music and religious life. She became known as an English religious poet, hymn writer, and musician, with a gift for writing clear, heartfelt verse meant to encourage Christian devotion.

Havergal was highly educated in music and languages, and her talents showed in both her hymns and her prose. Along with poems and devotional works, she wrote texts that were widely circulated in her lifetime and after her death, especially the hymn "Take My Life and Let It Be," which remains her most famous work.

She died on June 3, 1879, in Wales, still in her early forties. Even so, her writing continued to travel far beyond her own era, valued for its sincerity, musicality, and simple spiritual intensity.