George Rundle Prynne

George Rundle Prynne (1818–1903) was a British Anglo-Catholic cleric in south-west England, known for his Tractarian and ritualist views.

He is also notable as a hymn-writer: his "Jesu(s), Meek and Gentle" ranked with "Jesus Loves Me" and "Near the Cross" for American Protestants in the later 19th century".

[1] Born at West Looe, Cornwall, on 23 August 1818, he was a younger son in the family of eight children of John Allen Prynn from Newlyn and his wife Susanna, daughter of John and Mary Rundle of Looe: he later changed the spelling of his surname - (a)'pRynn being Cornish for 'Rynn's son'.

[2] From 16 August 1848 until his death, Prynne was the incumbent of the new parish of St Peter's Church, Plymouth, which had been Eldad Chapel.

[2] The chapel was built from 1828, in the Five Fields area next to the Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse, for John Hawker (1773–1846), a priest who had left the Church of England over the issue of Catholic emancipation.

[5][6] The Five Fields area as drawn by J. M. W. Turner in 1813 was open land; it is now the location of Wantage Gardens, East Stonehouse.

Prynne was a supporter of Priscilla Lydia Sellon and her Devonport community of Anglican Sisters of Mercy.

[11][12][13] Prynne himself later wrote: On S. Peter's parish, comprising as it does some of the lowest and most densely-populated parts of Plymouth, the pestilence raged with special severity.

[15] In 1850 Prynne brought a charge of criminal libel against Isaac Latimer, owner and editor of the Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Journal, over an article prompted by religious differences which seemed to reflect badly on him (24 January 1850).

The jury found the defendant not guilty, and the costs which Prynne incurred caused him financial troubles.

In 1852, Prynne's support of Lydia Sellon, together with his advocacy of auricular confession and penance, provoked a pamphlet war with the Rev.

Much of the content of the confessions was of a sexual or obscene nature, including an alleged incest with an older brother, and was not made public.

Although he remained a Tractarian to the end, he was chosen with Prebendary Sadler proctor in convocation for the clergy of the Exeter diocese from 1885 to 1892, and despite their divergence of opinion he was on friendly terms with his diocesans, Frederick Temple and Edward Bickersteth.

A Hymnal compiled by him in 1875 contains his well-known "Jesu, meek and gentle", written in 1856, and some translations of Latin hymns.