Steele, Anne

(1717-1778)

   The daughter of William Steele (1689-1769), timber merchant and lay Baptist preacher, was born at Broughton, Hampshire. Her mother died when Anne was just three, and an accident at 19 caused a hip injury that left her a semi-invalid. Her fiancé died in a drowning accident a few hours before the wedding; she never married and died at Broughton. She published many poems and hymns under the pseudonym "Theodosia." Her complete works were published in one volume in 1863 by the hymnologist Daniel Sedgwick (1814-1879) under the title Hymns, Psalms, and Poems by Anne Steele, with Memoir by John Sheppard. The collection includes 144 hymns, 34 metrical psalms, and about 50 poems on moral subjects. Her poems were reprinted in America in 1808, and her hymns were popular there and among Baptists elsewhere. Some of her hymns/ poems: "Absence from God," "An Evening Hymn," "Aspiring Towards Heaven," "Bidding Adieu to Earthly Pleasures," "Christ Dying and Rising," "Life a Journey," "Messiah, an Ode," "On Children's Play," "The Absent Muse," "The Happy Man."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Miscellaneous Pieces, in Verse and Prose by Anne Steele. 1780 (http://gandhara.usc.edu/data/a7f4/10/06/97/86/40.html). Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional, Vol. 1, by Anne Steele (No publisher), 1780. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Cyber Hymnal (http://www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm).