[2] A selection of hymns she wrote, published by William Johnson Fox, included her best-known one, "Nearer, My God, to Thee", reportedly played by the band as the RMS Titanic sank in 1912.

Sarah Fuller Flower was born 22 February 1805, at Old Harlow, Essex,[3] and baptised in September 1806 at the Water Lane Independent Chapel in Bishops Stortford.

[2][6] Her uncles included Richard Flower, who emigrated to the United States in 1822 and was a founder of the town of Albion, Illinois;[7] and the nonconformist minister John Clayton.

In 1823, on a holiday in Scotland with friends of the radical preacher William Johnson Fox, the minister of South Place Unitarian Chapel, London, who was a frequent visitor to their home, Adams broke the female record for climbing up Ben Lomond.

She contributed to the Westminster Review, including a critique of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry, and wrote political verses, some for the Anti-Corn Law League.

[7] A selection of hymns she wrote, published by Fox, included her best-known piece, "Nearer, My God, to Thee", reportedly played by the band as the RMS Titanic sank in 1912.

Eliza, after a lingering illness, died in December 1846 and, worn down by caring for her invalid sister, Adams' health gradually declined.

Richard Garnett wrote of her: "All who knew Mrs. Adams personally speak of her with enthusiasm; she is described as a woman of singular beauty and attractiveness, delicate and truly feminine, high-minded, and in her days of health playful and high-spirited.