Once In Royal David's City: A Song History
Cecil Frances Humphreys, who became Mrs. Alexander on her marriage in 1850, wrote "Once in Royal David's City" for her 1848 collection Hymns for Little Children, where it appeared in six six-line stanzas.[1] It is one of thirteen hymns in that book that walk children through the Apostles' Creed, and it takes up the article on Christ's conception by the Holy Ghost and birth of the Virgin Mary.[2][1] "There Is a Green Hill Far Away" and "All Things Bright and Beautiful" come from the same creedal series.[2]
Gerard David, The Nativity, oil on wood, early 1480s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its subject.
The tune now called IRBY was written for this text by Henry Gauntlett (1805–1876).[2][1] Sources differ on its first printing: the Hymnology Archive dates it to 1849, in No. 1 of a small Joseph Masters series titled Christmas Carols, where the hymn is the first of four carols, while a Hymnary.org note says it was composed in 1849 and first published in an 1850 London pamphlet.[2][1] Gauntlett made a four-part harmonization for the 1868 Appendix to Hymns Ancient and Modern, where the index named the tune IRBY.[2][3]
The hymn is widely known through King's College, Cambridge, where A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has been held on Christmas Eve since 1918 and always opens with this carol.[2][4][1] The King's arrangement is by Arthur Henry Mann (1850–1929), organist of the college; it was published by Novello in 1957 and later included in Carols for Choirs (1961).[2][1] Many churches follow the King's example, with a lone unaccompanied voice taking the first stanza before the choir and then the congregation join as the procession moves forward.[1][3] One hymnologist calls that solo opening "a moment of remarkable beauty."[3]
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