The Pratt Green Collection (hymns and hymnology) was founded in 1987, with the gift, via the Pratt Green Trustees, of the collection of hymn books and related works formed by the distinguished hymn writer, Fred Pratt Green. The purpose of the collection is to provide a corpus of material for the study of hymns and hymnology of all periods, but with particular emphasis on modern hymns.
Born at Roby, near Liverpool, in 1903, Fred Pratt Green was ordained into the Methodist ministry in 1928, and worked as a school chaplain and circuit minister until his retirement in the late 1960s. During these years he wrote several plays and numerous poems, but only a few hymns. His poems appeared in many periodicals, and three collections were published, This unlikely earth (1952), The skating parson (1963), and The old couple (in 1976, after his retirement).
In 1967 he was co-opted to a working party appointed to prepare a supplement to the 1933 edition of the Methodist Hymn Book, and it was this involvement which sparked off the intense burst of creativity which was to make him one of the foremost modern hymnwriters. From the late 1960s to the 1980s he produced some 300 hymns and Christian songs, and hymnals published in the last three decades of the 20th century have commonly included more of his hymns than those of any other modern writer. Much of his work is brought together in two collections, The Hymns and Ballads of Fred Pratt Green (1982) and Later Hymns and Ballads, and Fifty Poems (1989). Fred Pratt Green died on the 22 October 2000.
From the guide to the Pratt Green Collection, 18th-20th century, (Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections)
