Bland Tucker

Francis Bland Tucker (born Norfolk, Virginia, January 6, 1895). The son of a bishop and brother of a Presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, he was educated at the University of Virginia, B.A., 1914, and at Virginia Theological Seminary, B.D., 1920; D.D., 1944. He was ordained deacon in 1918, priest in 1920, after having served as a private in Evacuation Hospital No.15 of the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I.

His first charge was as a rector of Grammer Parish, Brunswick County, in southern Virginia. From 1925 to 1945, he was rector of historic St. John's Church, Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Then until retirement in 1967 he was rector of John Wesley's parish in Georgia, old Christ Church, Savannah. In "Reflections of a Hymn Writer" (The Hymn 30.2, April 1979, pp.115–116), he speaks of never having a thought of writing a hymn until he was named a member of the Joint Commission on the Revision of the Hymnal in 1937 which prepared the Hymnal 1940The Hymnal 1940 Companion, and was then named to the Joint Commission on Church Music of the Episcopal Church where he served from 1946 to 1958. Subsequently he served on the Theological Committee which reviewed material for the successor to The Hymnal 1940. There his poetic talent was most adept at providing new phrases in older hymns where the original lines were too obsolete or sexist for late-twentieth-century users of the hymnal.

Several of the hymns which he wrote for The Hymnal 1940 have been adopted by hymnals of other denominations throughout the English-speaking world. At its annual convocation, Princeton, New Jersey, 1980, Fr. Tucker was named a Fellow of the Hymn Society of America.

--Leonard Ellinwood, DNAH Archives