Olney Hymns - Background

Background

The Buckinghamshire town from which the hymns get their name, Olney, was, at the time of first publication, a market town of about 2,000 people. Around 1,200 of these were employed in its main, poorly-paid, lace-making industry. As a result Olney's population was principally of a low income status; Cowper is said to have described his neighbours as 'the half-starved and ragged of the earth'. The Olney Hymns were, however, written primarily with this poor and under-educated population in mind.

Olney itself, situated near the borders of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire, places it within a region traditionally associated with religious Dissent. Dissenters were Protestants who refused to follow the rules of the Church of England after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, and when Newton settled in Olney the village still supported two Dissenting chapels. Notable local Dissenters included John Bunyan, of Bedford, author of the Pilgrim's Progress, and another important hymn writer, Philip Doddridge (1702–51), of Northampton. Newton, with his own associations with Dissenters (his mother was one) meant he was in a position to conciliate with, rather than confront, his parishioners, and he quickly achieved a reputation as a popular preacher. Within his first year at Olney a gallery was added to the church to increase its congregational capacity, and the weekly prayer-meetings were moved in 1769 to Lord Dartmouth's mansion, the Great House, to accommodate even greater numbers. 'Jesus where're thy people meet' was written for their first meeting at the Great House.