James Montgomery (4 November 1771 – 30 April 1854) was a Scottish-born hymn writer, poet and editor, who eventually settled in Sheffield.

He was raised in the Moravian Church and theologically trained there, so that his writings often reflect concern for humanitarian causes, such as the abolition of slavery and the exploitation of child chimney sweeps.

He was sent to be trained for the ministry at the Moravian School at Fulneck, near Leeds, while his parents left for the West Indies, where both died within a year of each other.

At Fulneck, secular studies were banned, but James still found means of borrowing and reading a good deal of poetry and made ambitious plans to write epics of his own.

[2] In 1794, Gales left England to avoid political prosecution and Montgomery took the paper in hand, changing its name to the Sheffield Iris.

Montgomery was twice imprisoned on charges of sedition, first in 1795 for printing a poem to celebrate the fall of the Bastille in revolutionary France, and secondly in 1796 for criticising a magistrate for forcibly dispersing a political protest in Sheffield.

The poem was noted for the beauty of its descriptions: The moon is watching in the sky; the stars Are swiftly wheeling on their golden cars; Ocean, outstretcht with infinite expanse, Serenely slumbers in a glorious trance; The tide, o'er which no troubled spirits breathe, Reflects a cloudless firmament beneath, Where poised as in the centre of a sphere A ship above and ship below appear; A double image pictured on the deep, The vessel o’er its shadow seems to sleep; Yet, like the host of heaven, that never rest, With evanescent motion to the west, The pageant glides through loneliness and night, And leaves behind a rippling wake of light.

Cotterill had compiled and published A Selection of Psalms and Hymns Adapted to the Services of the Church of England in 1810, but to his disappointment and concern he found that his new parishioners did not take kindly to using it.

This new edition, meeting with the approval of the Archbishop of York (and eventually of the parishioners at St Paul's), was finally published in 1820.

Wherever poetry is read, or Christian hymns sung, in the English language, 'he being dead, yet speaketh' by the genius, piety and taste embodied in his writings."

Elsewhere, Wath-upon-Dearne, flattered by being called "the queen of villages" in his work, has repaid the compliment by naming after him a community hall, a street and a square.