Elizabeth Scott

17 Oct. 1708—13 June 1776

ELIZABETH SCOTT was born at Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England. Her father, the Independent minister Thomas Scott (1679/80–1746), described her as a committed Christian poet. Her brothers, Joseph Nicoll (1702/3–1769) and Thomas Scott (1705–1775), also became Independent ministers, but she and Thomas were the primary hymn writers in the family. In January 1752, Elizabeth Scott married Elisha Williams in Norwich.  Williams was a Congregationalist minister, legislator, and army chaplain who had previously served as Rector of Yale College from 1726 to 1739 as well as minister of the church at Wethersfield, Connecticut. After their marriage, Williams returned to Wethersfield with his new wife, where he died in 1755. In 1761 Elizabeth remarried, this time to William Smith of New York. Upon his demise in 1769, she returned to Wethersfield, where she died in 1776. She wrote most of her hymns prior to her removal to America, many of which have survived in a few manuscript collections of her hymns. Her first published hymn appeared in 1763 in The Christian’s Magazine. In 1769, more than a dozen of her hymns were included in A Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, compiled by two Baptist ministers, John Ash of Pershore and Caleb Evans of Bristol. Another twenty or so hymns were published posthumously in J.A. Dobell’s A New Selection of Seven Hundred Evangelical Hymns in 1806. A large collection of her hymns and occasional poems and surviving correspondence can be found among the manuscript collections at the Beinecke Library, Yale University.

by TIMOTHY WHELAN
Nonconformist & Dissenting Women’s Studies, 1650–1850

Manuscripts:

Elizabeth Scott Williams Smith, “Poems by Miss Scott of Norwich” (94014), Connecticut Museum of Culture and History:
https://cmch.bibliovation.com/app/work/10791

Elizabeth Scott Williams Smith, Hymns & Poems, GEN MSS VOL 635, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University:
https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/16169207
https://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/12225074

Williams Family Papers, GEN MSS 1180, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University:
https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.williamsf

Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regents Park College, Oxford [includes a manuscript of 39 hymns by Scott]:
https://theangus.rpc.ox.ac.uk/

Publications of Hymns:

The Christian’s Magazine

Dec. 1763: PDF
Jan. 1764: PDF
Feb. 1764: PDF
Apr. 1764: PDF

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

1st ed. (1769): PTS / TCD
2nd ed. (1770?): TCD
3rd ed. (1778): PDF / Google / Archive.org
4th ed. (1781): Archive.org
5th ed. (1786): Hymnology Archive
6th ed. (1788): Oxford
7th ed. (1799): Archive.org

A New Selection of Seven Hundred Evangelical Hymns, ed. J.A. Dobell
A New Selection of Nearly Eight Hundred Evangelical Hymns, ed. J.A. Dobell

1st ed. (1806): Google / Archive.org [1810]
2nd ed. (1813): Google
3rd ed. (1822): Archive.org

Related Resources:

Frederic Mayer Bird, The Independent (NY)

“Hymn Notes: Elizabeth Scott. I,” vol. 34, no. 1772 (16 November 1882), p. 6: PDF

“Hymn Notes: Elizabeth Scott. II,” vol. 34, no. 1774 (30 November 1882), p. 5: PDF

“Hymn Notes: Elizabeth Scott. III,” vol. 34, no. 1776 (14 December 1882), p. 6: PDF

John Julian, “Elizabeth Scott,” A Dictionary of Hymnology (London: J. Murray, 1892), pp. 1019–1020: HathiTrust

Alexander Gordon, “Elizabeth Scott,” Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 51, ed. Sidney Lee (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1897), p. 73: HathiTrust

Timothy Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720–1840, vol. 4 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011). [The hymns here, copied from the Steele MSS, are incorrectly attributed to Mary Scott]

Clark Kimberling, “Elizabeth Scott,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology:
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/e/elizabeth-scott

Clark Kimberling, “Hymns & Poems by Elizabeth Scott,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology:
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/h/hymns-and-poems-by-elizabeth-scott

Timothy Whelan, “Elizabeth Scott,” Nonconformist & Dissenting Women’s Studies, 1650–1850:
https://www.nonconformistwomenwriters1650-1850.com/biographical-summaries/scott-elizabeth-17078-76