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James Montgomery was born November 4, 1771 in Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland where his father John was a minister in the Moravian Church. When Montgomery was five years old, his family moved to the Moravian settlement at Gracehill, near Ballymena, County Antrim. In 1783, his parents were sent off to the West Indies as missionaries leaving him at the Moravian settlement at Bracehill near Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland where his education started.
He wrote 400 hymns in his career, approximately 100 are still in use; the more recognizable, in addition to Hail To the Lord's Anointed might be Angels From the Realms of Glory, Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain,. Go to Dark Gethsemane, Prayer is the Souls' Sincere Desire, In the Hour of Trial, Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Gates of Brass and For Ever with the Lord.
Montgomery also wrote secular poetry, lecturing at the Royal Institution. The lectures were then published under the title Lectures on Poetry and General Literature in 1833; later in life, 1883, he was awarded a Royal Pension of £200 per annum [one source gives the figure of $1,000 per year], presumably to atone for his earlier imprisonments. Montgomery also published a volume of poems, many of which denounced the practice of slavery.
His poems brought him considerable popularity, especially his Wanderer of Switzerland, which contains one of his finished productions: The Grave. The Edinburgh Review severely criticized it, but Blackwood gave it a favorable review, as did the poet Byron.
He was once asked which of his poems would live. He replied: "None, sir, nothing except perhaps a few of my hymns."
