Born: De­cem­ber 4, 1779, Can­nock, Staf­ford­shire, Eng­land.

Died: De­cem­ber 29, 1823, Shef­field, Eng­land (Ju­li­an says the Gen­tle­men’s Mag­a­zine in­cor­rect­ly pub­lished Cot­ter­ill’s death date as Jan­u­a­ry 5, 1824).

After at­tend­ing the lo­cal board­ing school of Rev. J. Lo­max, Cot­ter­ill went the Free School in Birm­ing­ham. He gra­du­a­ted from St. John’s Coll­ege, Cam­bridge (BA 1801, MA 1805), of which he be­came a Fel­low. Tak­ing Ho­ly Or­ders, he be­came Cur­ate of Tut­bu­ry in June 1803. Sub­se­quen­tly, he was In­cum­bent of Lane End, Staf­ford­shire (1808-17), and Per­pe­tu­al Cur­ate of St. Paul’s Shef­field (1817-23).

Cotterill pub­lished his Fam­i­ly Pray­ers in six edi­tions. Though he wrote some orig­in­al hymns, he is bet­ter known as the com­pil­er of Se­lect­ion of Psalms and Hymns, Adapt­ed to the Fes­tiv­als of the Church of Eng­land, which had a marked ef­fect on mo­dern hymn­als (first edi­tion 1810, ninth edi­tion 1820). Cot­ter­ill him­self con­trib­ut­ed 25 orig­in­al hymns and ver­sions of in­di­vid­u­al psalms to the Se­lect­ion.

Sources

Lyrics

1. Awake, O Sword, the Fa­ther Cried
2. Before Thy Throne of Grace, O Lord
3. Blessed Are They Who Mourn for Sin
4. Dread Je­ho­vah, God of Na­tions
5. Eternal Spir­it, God of Truth
6. Father of Mer­cies, Let Our Songs
7. From Si­nai’s Mount, in Might Ar­rayed
8. From Thine All See­ing Spir­it, Lord
9. God, in the Gos­pel of His Son
10. Great God of Abra­ham!
11. Help Us, O Lord, Thy Yoke to Wear
12. I Love the Lord, for He Hath Heard
13. I Was Alive With­out the Law
14. In All the Ways and Works of God
15. In Mem­o­ry of the Sav­ior’s Love
16. Jesus Ex­alt­ed Far on High
17. Let Songs of Prais­es Fill the Sky
18. Lo in the East a Star Ap­pears
19. Lord, Cause Thy Face on Us to Shine
20. Lord, Who Once on Cal­va­ry, The
21. Lord of the Sab­bath, ’Tis Thy Day
22. O’er the Realms of Pa­gan Dark­ness
23. Out of the Deeps, O Lord, We Call
24. When Christ, Vic­tor­i­ous from the Grave