Fred Pratt Green

Who was Fred Pratt Green?

The Reverend Fred Pratt Green CBE was a British Methodist minister and hymnwriter.

Born in Roby, Lancashire, England, he began his ministry in the Filey circuit. He was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1928 and served circuits in the north and south of England until 1969. During his career as a minister he wrote numerous plays and hymns. It was not until he retired, however, that he began writing prolifically.

His hymns reflect his rejection of fundamentalism and show his concern with social issues. They include many that were written to supply obvious liturgical needs of the modern church, speaking to topics or appropriate for events for which there were few traditional hymns available.

His hymns appear in hymn books of various denominations, but most notably in Hymns and Psalms, the hymn book of the Methodist Church of Great Britain, and the United Methodist Hymnal used in the United States.

Hymnal indexes vary in alphabetizing him under 'G' or 'P'.

As well as writing his own hymns, Green produced translations, notably translating one of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's late poems as the hymn, "By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered".

Green also wrote poetry and his poem The Old Couple was included by Philip Larkin in 'The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse'.