Full Name Mary Anne Hearn Children no Nationality British Name Marianne Farningham | Other names Eva Hope Role Writer Known for writing | |
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Born 17 December 1834 Farningham Died March 16, 1909, Barmouth, United Kingdom Books A Working Woman's Life: An Autobiography | ||
Marianne Farningham or Mary Anne Hearn (17 December 1834 – 16 March 1909) was a British religious writer of poetry, biographies, prose and hymns.
Contents
Life
Mary Anne Hearn was born in Farningham in Kent in 1834 to a religious Baptist family. She was home schooled as her family did not agree with the National School. Her further education was possible when the British and Foreign Bible Society opened a British School.
She became a teacher at the British Schools in Bristol then Gravesend and finally Northampton. In 1866 she decided to become a full-time writer and the following year she joined the staff of "'Christian World". Hearn was to write for this publication for the rest of her life and her contributions were the basis for nearly forty other works of poems etc. These works were published under the nom de plume of Marianne Farningham which was a name derived from her birthplace and her forenames. This name was suggested by the Rev Jonathan Whittemore who started "Christian World". She also wrote some (poor) biographies of contemporary heroes Grace Darling, David Livingstone, General Gordon and Queen Victoria under the name, Eva Hope.
In 1885 she became the editor of the Sunday School Times after contributing some work.
She wrote a number of hymns of which "Just as I am, Thine Own to Be" is possibly the best remembered, although it is said to be a reworking of another hymn Just As I Am written by Charlotte Elliott in 1835.
Farningham died in Barmouth in 1909.
Works
Hymns include
Poems
Some of her poems were fashionable as recitations including The Last Hymn, A Goodbye at the Door, and ' 'A Blind Man's Story,'.
About her
In 2009 a book was published to celebrate the centenary of her death.[