William Simpson

William John Sparrow Simpson (20 June 1859 – 13 February 1952) was an English Anglican priest and writer. He wrote the libretto for John Stainer's oratorio The Crucifixion, several hymns, and more than fifty books. He was chaplain of Ilford Hospital Chapel from 1904 until his death.

Life Sparrow Simpson was born in London, the son of the Rev William Sparrow Simpson, a minor canon of St Paul's and rector of St Vedast, Foster Lane. He was educated at St Paul's School, London and, from 1878, Trinity College, Cambridge. As an undergraduate he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal for English verse in a competition judged by Robert Browning; he graduated with a first class degree in theology in 1882. He became a Doctor of Divinity in 1911 and an honorary canon of Chelmsford in 1919.

The Ilford post was not onerous, and gave him ample time for research and writing. He became an authority on the life and doctrines of St Augustine of Hippo. He was a strong proponent of Anglo-Catholicism and was editor of the high-church English Church Review in the years before the First World War.

Sparrow Simpson died in Ilford at the age of 92.

Books The books Sparrow Simpson chose to mention in his Who's Who article were: The Catholic Conception of the Church, 1914 Reconciliation and Atonement, 1916 Reconciliation between God and Man, 1917 The Prayer of Consecration, 1917 French Catholics in the Nineteenth Century, 1918 Broad Church Theology, 1919 South Indian Schemes, 1930 The History of the Anglo-Catholic Revival from 1845 to 1932 Dispensations, 1936. Source: Who's Who