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6 unusual facts about Percy Dearmer


Percy Dearmer

It is notable for the first appearance of the song Morning Has Broken, commissioned from noted children's author Eleanor Farjeon.

In 1916 he worked with the Young Men's Christian Association in France and, in 1916 and 1917, with the Mission of Help in India.

The elder, Geoffrey, lived to the age of 103, one of the oldest surviving war poets.

During World War I he served as chaplain to the British Red Cross ambulance unit in Serbia, where his wife died of enteric fever in 1915.

Thomas Geoffry Lucas

Lucas was associated with the Warham Guild following its formation in 1912 to provide church furnishings in the style favoured by Dearmer and he carried out further ecclesiastical work under its auspices.

By this date he had come under the influence of Percy Dearmer: the frontispiece to the 1907 edition of the latter's The Parson's Handbook was a pen-and-ink drawing by Lucas which showed an English altar of the type promoted by Sir Ninian Comper and Dearmer.


Altar candle

Percy Dearmer, author of The Parson's Handbook, states that English use supports no more than two lights on the altar.

English Hymnal

The English Hymnal was published in 1906 for the Church of England under the editorship of Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Stewart Headlam

The guild attracted a significant number of followers who went on to be important church figures, among them James Adderley, Percy Dearmer, Charles Marson, Conrad Noel and Frank Weston.

The Parson's Handbook

The Parson's Handbook is a book by Percy Dearmer, first published in 1899, that was fundamental to the development of liturgy in the Church of England and throughout the Anglican Communion.


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