Two from the 'hers' now for the Hymns...
" SIR - The choice of hymns for Baroness Thatcher's funeral cannot fail to raise a smile. Cecil Spring-Rice, the author of I vow to thee my country, was the son of a Liberal MP. Gustav Holst, who wrote the music to the poem, was a lifelong socialist. His great friend, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, was also a socialist despite his privileged background, and both men refused honours and knighthoods.
Vaughan Williams adapted a Sussex folk song he had collected from a farm worker in Horsham to words rewritten from John Bunyan by Rev Percy Dearmer - He who would valiant be. Dearmer, an energetic vicar in Primrose Hill, was passionate about socialism. He and Vaughan Williams were editors of the fine hymn book The English Hymnal which appeared in 1906. Both men were denounced from the pulpit of Canterbury Cathedral by the conservative archbishop of the day for, among other things, using folk tunes.
Little is known about William P Rowlands, a much respected Welsh church musician who composed the tune for Love divine, all loves excelling. As for Charles Wesley, who wrote the words - he was a social reformer way before his time.
Philip Spratley
Deeping St James, Lincolnshire "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/9998930/The-surprising-associations-of-Lady-Thatchers-funeral-hymns.html