Father, Whatever of Earthly Bliss

Anne Steele

Short Name: Anne Steele
Full Name: Steele, Anne
Birth Year: 1717
Death Year: 1778

Anne Steele was an English Baptist hymn writer and poet. She was born in 1717 in Broughton, Hampshire, England, and spent her entire life there. She was the daughter of William Steele, a Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant who served the Baptist congregation at Broughton without salary.

Steele never married. In 1742, she declined a proposal from Baptist minister and hymn writer Benjamin Beddome. She devoted her life primarily to writing and to caring for her family, particularly her father, whom she cared for until his death in 1769. She experienced recurring health problems throughout her life, including symptoms consistent with malaria, and was bedridden for several years before her death.

Her hymns and devotional poems were first published in 1760 under the pseudonym Theodosia, in two volumes titled Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional. These volumes included hymns, metrical psalms, and devotional verse. After her death in November 1778, an expanded edition was published in 1780 as Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse and Prose, with a preface by Caleb Evans. Additional collections included Verses for Children published in 1788, with later editions in 1803 and 1806.

Steele’s hymns were widely adopted in early Baptist hymnals. Sixty two of her hymns appeared in A Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship edited by Caleb Evans and John Ash in 1769. Forty seven of her hymns were included in John Rippon’s A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors in 1787, making her one of the most represented authors in that collection.

Her most frequently published hymn is “When I Survey Life’s Varied Scene”, also known in shortened form as “Father, Whate’er of Earthly Bliss.” Her hymns cover a wide range of theological themes, including repentance, divine providence, redemption, assurance, suffering, and Christian hope. Her metrical psalms are considered among the most significant examples of Baptist psalmody of the eighteenth century.

Anne Steele died in 1778 and was buried in Broughton churchyard. Her hymns remained widely used in British and American hymnals throughout the nineteenth century and beyond.