Jessie Seymour Irvine

While Rev Irvine was serving at Crimond Church, his teenage daughter Jessie was undertaking training as an organist at the nearby town of Banff.

[1][2][3] At the time, Grant was collaborating with a group of associates compiling hymns and metrical psalms from across the North of Scotland with the intention of publishing them in a new hymnal.

In the 1940s, a rival claim emerged in form of a letter written in 1911 by Jessie's sister, Anna Irvine, to the Rev Robert Monteith, then the minister of Crimond Church.

Anna's account was contested by the editors of The Northern Psalter, who wrote to Monteith claiming that she had confused the tune with another entitled Ballantine that Jessie had composed and submitted to them for publication.

[12][13] It was again sung at the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey on 19 September 2022; the setting was attributed to Jessie Irvine, the harmony credited to David Grant and the descant to William Baird Ross.