Samuel John Stone

Stone was born on 25 April 1839 at his father's rectory in the parish of Whitmore, Staffordshire.^[1] His father, William, was a Hebrew scholar and a botanist alongside his clerical work, who had published various works including a six volume religious epic and various compilations of hymns. Samuel had one sister, Sarah, who was born two years after him.^[1] When Samuel was 13 the family moved to London where his father had obtained a curacy.^[1]

Following his schooling at Charterhouse he went up to Pembroke College, Oxford, gaining a BA in 1862 and being awarded an MA in 1872. During that period too he was awarded the 1866 prize for a poem on a religious subject, in this case on Sinai, but was then deprived of it since he was no longer on the college books.^[2] He served a curacy in New Windsor from 1862 and while there wrote for his congregation the hymns of Lyra Fidelium, in which his most famous hymn, The Church's One Foundation, appears.^[3] In 1870 he moved to St. Paul's, Haggerston where, in 1874, he became the vicar.^[1][4] He remained at Haggerston for twenty years before taking up his final post at All Hallows' London Wall also in London.^[1][5]

Stone died on 19 November 1900.