Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
We were visiting Killinchy Parish church with it's excellent Livingston Family Exhibition yesterday when we came across the story of Robert Lowry. We found to our surprise that Robert's father Crozier Lowry, had emigrated from Ulster, ( near Killinchy Co Down, N Ireland), in the early part of the 19th century!
Robert Lowry (March 12, 1826 – November 25, 1899) was an American preacher who became a popular writer of gospel music in the mid-to-late 19th century.
His best-known hymns include
"Shall We Gather at the River",
"Christ Arose!",
"How Can I Keep from Singing?"
"Nothing But The Blood Of Jesus.'
"I Need Thee Every Hour."
'Follow Follow I will follow Jesus.'
'Here is Love Vast as the Ocean'.
Born in Philadelphia, Lowry studied at the University at Lewisburg and entered the Baptist ministry in 1854. During the following 45 years he held a number of pastorates in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Between 1869 and 1875 he combined his pastoral work with a professorship in rhetoric at his alma mater, and later served as the university's chancellor. From 1868 he acted as hymnals editor to Biglow and Main, the country's leading publisher of gospel and Sunday School music; under his supervision more than 20 hymnals were produced by the firm, many of wide and enduring popularity.
Despite his protestations that preaching was his main vocation and that music was merely a sideline, it is as a hymnwriter that Lowry is chiefly remembered, ranking with such as W. H. Doane and Ira D. Sankey as one of the originators of a musical tradition that has lasted until the modern era of revival.
Hymn writer
Lowry is credited with the writing of more than 500 hymn tunes, often supplying the text as well as the music – one of the earliest hymnwriters to do so. His first hymn, "When the Morning Light", was written in 1847 when he was 21 years old. His love of music dated from his childhood, when he would play any musical instrument that came to hand. His melodies were strongly influenced by the popular music of the time. Thus, Lowry characterized "Shall We Gather" as brass band music, but he would adopt a more conventional hymn tone for reflective pieces such as "I Need Thee Every Hour" and "Savior, Thy Dying Love". In a number of cases when setting the words of others he would add a chorus or refrain. He had an ear for dramatic effect, exemplified in the contrast, in "Low In The Grave He Lay", between the solemn verses and the exultant chorus proclaiming the Resurrection.
In later life, while remaining self-taught, Lowry adopted a more formal approach towards his music. According to his biographer Henry S Burrage: "When he saw that the obligations of musical editorship were laid upon him, he began the study of music in earnest, and sought the best musical text-books and works on the highest forms of musical composition".
When asked to explain his methods of composition, in particular whether in his own hymns words or music came first, Lowry replied:
"I have no method. Sometimes the music comes and the words follow, fitted insensibly to the melody. I watch my moods, and when anything good strikes me, whether words or music, and no matter where I am, at home or on the street, I jot it down. Often the margin of a newspaper or the back of an envelope serves as a notebook. My brain is a sort of spinning machine, I think, for there is music running through it all the time. I do not pick out my music on the keys of an instrument. The tunes of nearly all the hymns I have written have been completed on paper before I tried them on the organ. Frequently the words of the hymn and the music have been written at the same time."
A list of the published hymn collections for which Lowry was solely or jointly responsible is as follows. Many of these collections were very popular; Pure Gold, published in 1871, sold more than a million copies.
We were visiting Killinchy Parish church with it's excellent Livingston Family Exhibition yesterday when we came across the story of Robert Lowry. We found to our surprise that Robert's father Crozier Lowry, had emigrated from Ulster, ( near Killinchy Co Down, N Ireland), in the early part of the 19th century!
Robert Lowry (March 12, 1826 – November 25, 1899) was an American preacher who became a popular writer of gospel music in the mid-to-late 19th century.
His best-known hymns include
"Shall We Gather at the River",
"Christ Arose!",
"How Can I Keep from Singing?"
"Nothing But The Blood Of Jesus.'
"I Need Thee Every Hour."
'Follow Follow I will follow Jesus.'
'Here is Love Vast as the Ocean'.
Born in Philadelphia, Lowry studied at the University at Lewisburg and entered the Baptist ministry in 1854. During the following 45 years he held a number of pastorates in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Between 1869 and 1875 he combined his pastoral work with a professorship in rhetoric at his alma mater, and later served as the university's chancellor. From 1868 he acted as hymnals editor to Biglow and Main, the country's leading publisher of gospel and Sunday School music; under his supervision more than 20 hymnals were produced by the firm, many of wide and enduring popularity.
Despite his protestations that preaching was his main vocation and that music was merely a sideline, it is as a hymnwriter that Lowry is chiefly remembered, ranking with such as W. H. Doane and Ira D. Sankey as one of the originators of a musical tradition that has lasted until the modern era of revival.
Hymn writer
Lowry is credited with the writing of more than 500 hymn tunes, often supplying the text as well as the music – one of the earliest hymnwriters to do so. His first hymn, "When the Morning Light", was written in 1847 when he was 21 years old. His love of music dated from his childhood, when he would play any musical instrument that came to hand. His melodies were strongly influenced by the popular music of the time. Thus, Lowry characterized "Shall We Gather" as brass band music, but he would adopt a more conventional hymn tone for reflective pieces such as "I Need Thee Every Hour" and "Savior, Thy Dying Love". In a number of cases when setting the words of others he would add a chorus or refrain. He had an ear for dramatic effect, exemplified in the contrast, in "Low In The Grave He Lay", between the solemn verses and the exultant chorus proclaiming the Resurrection.
In later life, while remaining self-taught, Lowry adopted a more formal approach towards his music. According to his biographer Henry S Burrage: "When he saw that the obligations of musical editorship were laid upon him, he began the study of music in earnest, and sought the best musical text-books and works on the highest forms of musical composition".
When asked to explain his methods of composition, in particular whether in his own hymns words or music came first, Lowry replied:
"I have no method. Sometimes the music comes and the words follow, fitted insensibly to the melody. I watch my moods, and when anything good strikes me, whether words or music, and no matter where I am, at home or on the street, I jot it down. Often the margin of a newspaper or the back of an envelope serves as a notebook. My brain is a sort of spinning machine, I think, for there is music running through it all the time. I do not pick out my music on the keys of an instrument. The tunes of nearly all the hymns I have written have been completed on paper before I tried them on the organ. Frequently the words of the hymn and the music have been written at the same time."
A list of the published hymn collections for which Lowry was solely or jointly responsible is as follows. Many of these collections were very popular; Pure Gold, published in 1871, sold more than a million copies.
