Anne Steele

1717–11 November 1778

ANNE STEELE was the second child of William and Anne Froude Steele, born in 1717 in the small English village of Broughton in Hampshire. William Steele (1689–1769) was a Particular Baptist minister who acquired wealth and success by providing timber to the British Navy, enabling him to provide an affluent home (named “The Grandfathers”) for the Steele family. The Steeles were a devout, closely-knit group, and Anne and her siblings surrounded each other with warm affection and mutual support throughout their lives.

The Steeles had a long historical standing within the Baptist tradition; Anne’s maternal grandfather, Edward Froude, was present at the 1689 Assembly of Particular Baptists, which produced the well-known Second London Confession of Faith. The strong Baptist pedigree of the Steele family found expression in religious life at Broughton Chapel, which provided the rhythm and context of their daily lives.

Deep personal suffering in Steele’s life arose and greatly impacted the direction of her poetic writings. By the age of three, she had already endured the loss of her mother and infant brother; additionally, she suffered from serious physical ailments throughout her life, including a serious hip injury and the recurrent malaria she contracted as a teen. Despite these adversities and the continued loss of loved ones, those who knew her best said she consistently displayed devotion, humility, and “a native cheerfulness of disposition.”[1]

Steele benefitted greatly from receiving a formal education at a boarding school in Trowbridge, and through her poetry she became an advocate for the education of girls and young women. The strongest and most impactful source of Steele’s education, however, came from enduring friendships with godly men in the ministry, including Particular Baptist pastors James Fanch (1704–1767) of Ramsey, Daniel Turner (1710–1798) of Abingdon, John Ash (ca. 1724–1779) of Pershore, Caleb Evans (1737–1791) of Bristol, and Benjamin Beddome (1717–1795) who pastored the Baptist chapel at Bourton-on-the-Water and who offered one of three marriage proposals Steele would receive in her life. Nevertheless, Anne chose to remain single so she could fully focus upon her service to God. Also included in Steele's ministerial circle of friends were Philip Furneaux (1726–1783) of London, a former Presbyterian minister turned Independent, and Presbyterian John Lavington (1690–1759) of Exeter.

An examination of extant correspondence reveals how Fanch, Turner, and Furneaux provided guidance and editing for Steele’s hymns. First and foremost, they would have examined her work for scriptural accuracy, and their insights certainly were of inestimable worth to Steele in producing a collection of sacred verse that was “polished and carefully worked out.”[2] At a time when it was not in the mainstream for women to offer theological ideas, Steele’s well-educated, “cultured and witty” male friends recognized she had a God-given gift for writing and faithfully encouraged and supported her ministry and vocation. They also guided her in the offering of her talents for religious purposes and publication. Sharon James states, “Furneaux helped get her work published in 1760, and Evans and Ash collaborated on a further edition of her poems after her death.”[3] Because eighteenth-century British society generally discouraged women from pursuing education (much less publication), the fact that Anne Steele experienced such backing and support from her circle of male ministerial friends was remarkable. These extraordinary friendships provide a rare insight into the inner culture of those who shared a strong devotion to religious life.

Even though Steele displayed an affinity and fondness for poetry from a young age, her original intent for writing hymns was for her own private devotional use. Anne’s father was so pleased by her compositions that he introduced them as congregational songs at his pastorate in Broughton. Because metrical psalm singing had been the traditional congregational practice during this era, the introduction of Anne’s hymns into corporate worship indicated a significant change. It was with great reluctance—and only at the suggestion and encouragement of family and friends—that she agreed to introduce them to the public. Rev. and Mrs. Steele supported their daughter in her writing endeavors; her stepmother noted in her diary that it was her prayer that God would “direct and bless” Anne's work “for the good and comfort of many.”[4]

Anne Steele wrote under the symbolic pen name Theodosia, which means “gift of God.” Her feminine pseudonym indicates Steele was not trying to disguise the fact that she was a female author, but merely a Christian woman who chose to publish anonymously. Despite her own doubts about her poetic abilities, Steele had a certainty about her calling, stating confidently, she was “God’s instrument through which his words flow,” writing with his blessing and under his authority.[5] Steele issued two volumes entitled Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional in 1760. Contained in volume 1 are 105 hymns and 28 poems; volume 2 is comprised of 52 poems and 47 metrical psalms. In 1769, Evans & Ash included 69 of her hymns in A Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship. After her death in 1778, the 2-volume set was published again in 1780, with a new third volume comprised of various poetry and prose. When an edition of Steele’s work appeared soon thereafter in America, her popular acclaim rose to nearly the same level it had reached in England.

by Holly M. Farrow
The Hymn, vol. 70, no. 4 (©2019)
https://thehymnsociety.org
Used by permission

Cynthia Y. Aalders, To Express the Ineffable: The Hymns and Spirituality of Anne Steele (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008), p. 28.
J. R. Broome, A Bruised Reed: The Life and Times of Anne Steele (Trowbridge, UK: Cromwell Press, 2007), p. 165.
Sharon James, In Trouble and in Joy: Four Women Who Lived for God (Darlington, UK: Evangelical, 2011), p. 135.
Cynthia Y. Aalders, To Express the Ineffable (2008), p. 23, fn. 59.
Nancy Jiwon Cho, The Ministry of Song: Unmarried British Women’s Hymn Writing, 1760–1936, dissertation (Durham University, 2006), pp. 53-54.

Featured Hymns:

Dear refuge of my weary soul

Collections of Hymns:

Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional (by Theodosia)

1st ed., Volume 1 (1760): PDF
1st ed., Volume 2 (1760): PDF
2nd ed., Volume 1 (1780): PDF
2nd ed., Volume 2 (1780): PDF

Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse and Prose [Vol. 3] (1780): PDF

see also:

A Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, ed. Caleb Evans & John Ash

1st ed. (1769)
2nd ed.
3rd ed. (1778): PDF

Editions:

The Works of Mrs. Anne Steele, 2 vols. (Boston, 1808): Vol. 1 | Vol. 2

Hymns, Psalms, and Poems, ed. Daniel Sedgwick (London: D. Sedgwick, 1863): HathiTrust

Refuge of My Weary Soul: Selected Works of Anne Steele, ed. Alex J. Webster (Shazbaar Press, 2017): Amazon

Life & Hymns:

“Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional by Theodosia” [review], The Monthly Review, vol. 22 (London: R. Griffiths, April 1760), pp. 321–324: HathiTrust

John Holland, “Anne Steele,” The Psalmists of Britain, vol. 2 (London: R. Groombridge, 1843), pp. 223–227: Archive.org

Michael F. Dixon & Hugh F. Steele-Smith, “Anne Steele’s health: A modern diagnosis,” Baptist Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 7 (July 1988), 351–356: DOI

Richard Arnold, “A veil of interposing night: The hymns of Anne Steele (1717–1778),” Christian Scholars Review, vol. 18, no. 4 (June 1989), pp. 371–387.

J.R. Watson and Nancy Cho, “Anne Steele’s Drowned Fiancé,” British Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 28 (2005), pp. 117–21.

Faith Cook, Our Hymn Writers and Their Hymns (Webster, NY: Evangelical Press, 2005), pp. 345–350.

J.R. Broome, A Bruised Reed: The Life and Times of Anne Steele (Harpenden, U.K.: Gospel Standard Trust Publications, 2007): Amazon

Cynthia Y. Aalders, To Express the Ineffable: The Hymns and Spirituality of Anne Steele (Milton Keynes, U.K.: Paternoster, 2008): Amazon

Cynthia Y. Aalders, “In melting grief and ardent love: Anne Steele’s contribution to eighteenth-century hymnody,” The Hymn (summer 2009), 16–25: HathiTrust

Joseph Carmichael, The Hymns of Anne Steele in John Rippon’s Selection of Hymns: A Theological Analysis in the Context of the English Particular Baptist Revival, dissertation (Louisville, KY: SBTS, 2012): SBTS; revised as The Sung Theology of the English Particular Baptist Revival: A Theological Analysis of Anne Steele’s Hymns in Rippon’s Hymnal (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2021): Amazon

Priscilla Wong, Anne Steele and Her Spiritual Vision (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012): Amazon

Kevin Twit, “Christian Experience in the Hymns of Anne Steele (1716–1778),” Indelible Grace Hymn Book (11 Oct. 2013), http://hymnbook.igracemusic.com/resources/christian-experience-in-the-hymns-of-anne-steele

Michael Haykin, “Anne Steele and her hymns: ‘The tuneful tongue that sung ... her great redeemer’s praise,’” Eight Women of Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016): Amazon

Ruth Bottoms, “Contemporary Baptist congregational singing and the hymnody of Anne Steele (1717–1778),” Baptist Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 4 (2017), pp. 148–158, https://doi.org/10.1080/0005576X.2017.1376534

Holly M. Farrow, “A Baptist theology of worship and the hymnody of Anne Steele,” The Hymn, vol. 70, no. 4 (Autumn 2019), pp. 25–34.

Holly M. Farrow, Theology Inspires Doxology: The Hymnody of Anne Dutton and Anne Steele, dissertation (Ft. Worth, TX: SWBTS, 2023).

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