Eternal Father, strong to save

William Whiting (1825-1878), a merchant’s son, wrote the words of this hymn.  Born in Kensington and brought up in Clapham, where he may have attended Clapham Grammar School, he enrolled in the Winchester Diocesan Training Institute (later absorbed into King Alfred’s College, now the University of Winchester) in1841, and the next year he was appointed Master of the Winchester Quiristers’ School, where he remained until his death.  Whiting published a book of poems, Rural Thoughts and Scenes (1851), and a verse narrative, Edgar Thorpe, or The Warfare of Life(1867), dedicated to John Keble.  He also wrote a number of other hymns, but none has remained in wide use.  “Eternal Father,” written in 1860, was included in A&M in 1861 with significant revisions by the editors; in the first stanza, for example, they exchanged lines 3-4 with lines 1-2.  Whiting later revised the text himself, using some, but not all, of A&M’s revisions.  His final text was published in Church Hymns with Tunes (1872), compiled by Arthur Sullivan.  

 

In 1879 Lieutenant Commander (later Rear Admiral) Charles Jackson Train, the Master of the Midshipman Choir at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, began using a verse of the 1861 version of this hymn to conclude chapel services.  That practice led to its becoming the hymn of the Academy and of the U.S. military branch, and led to the name The Navy Hymn.  There are no clear records about early use of the hymn in the Royal Navy, though it appears to have been common by the late 19th century.  Use of the hymn on official occasions, however, has given it quasi-official status.  As he wrote it, Whiting’s hymn had no military connection, but was a prayer for safe travel by what was then a major mode of transportation.  Thus in Church Hymns with tunes it is labeled, “For those travelling by sea” and “Intercession for those at sea.”  Stories linking the hymn’s genesis to Whiting himself having had a bad seafaring experience or his reassurance of a student fearing an upcoming sea voyage seem to be inventions of later imaginations.

 

John Bacchus Dykes (1823-1876) composed the tune “Melita” for this hymn for the newly published Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861).  Dykes, educated at Katharine Hall (now St Catherine’s College), Cambridge, where he had lessons from Thomas Attwood Walmisley, was a minor Canon and Precentor of Durham Cathedral  at this time.  He sent this hymn, with six others, to William Henry Monk, the musical editor of the new hymn book, who accepted them all.  Eventually, the book contained several scores of Dykes’ hymns.

 

The tune’s name is a form of Melite, the name of the Roman capital of Malta (now Mdina), and later used for the island itself.  Dykes had in mind the account in the book of Acts of the fourteen-day storm that drove the ship carrying Paul and others aground on the island of Malta.  Chapter 28:1 in KJV reads, “And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita.”   It is often thought that the tune seems to reflect the movement of ocean water.  One music scholar has noted that the ascents and descents of the tune, along with the dotted rhythms, create a wave-like feeling which supports the text.