How ‘Amazing Grace’ became the world’s most famous hymn

As ‘Amazing Grace’ turns 250 years old, historian James Walvin charts it’s unlikely journey from a humble parish church in England to becoming a global recording phenomenon, even adopted by the communities that the hymn’s author was once complicit in enslaving

‘Amazing grace’ is perhaps the world’s best-known and most popular hymn. It is sung in all corners of the globe, by choirs and soloists, in churches, in major concert halls and at large public gatherings. It has been performed and recorded by every conceivable type of singer and musician, from concert orchestras to steel bands. It’s music accompanies funerals and state occasions, while its words soothe and reassure. Yet this simple hymn has a complex history.

It was written in the late 18^th century for humble parishioners in an English rural church. More startling still, it was written by a former slave ship captain, John Newton. Alongside his other hymns, ‘Amazing grace’ marks the author’s gradual transition from the brutality of slavery to being an advocate for abolition.

When the hymn travelled across the Atlantic in the 1790s, it’s haunting, soothing refrains took root in the slave communities of the US South, and later became an anthem for African-American life, in freedom as it had in slavery.