Walter Russell Bowie (October 8, 1882 – April 23, 1969), was a priest, author, editor, educator, hymn writer, and lecturer in the Episcopal Church.
His initial service was at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Albemarle County, Virginia.
[3] While in New York, particularly in the 1920s, Bowie joined the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born, The Church League for Industrial Democracy, the Citizens’ Committee to Free Earl Browder, and the Civil Rights Congress.
Bowie remained in Alexandria, where he outlived his wife by six years; both were buried at the Virginia Theological Seminary (which also remembers the former student and professor in the periodical room of its library).
[6] His most popular hymns were "O Holy City, seen of John" (in the Hymnal 1982), "Lord Christ, When First thou Cam'st to men", and "God of Nations, who from dawn of days".