Born: Ju­ly 23, 1803, Strat­ford, West Ham, Ess­ex, Eng­land.

Died: Jan­u­ary 22, 1877, Strat­ford, West Ham, Ess­ex, Eng­land.

Pseudonym: J. B. Es­sex.

A pop­u­lar hymn writ­er for child­ren, Bur­ton worked as a coop­er in Strat­ford for about 50 years, and served as a dea­con at the Con­gre­ga­tion­al­ist cha­pel he at­tend­ed. His con­tri­bu­tions to hymn­o­dy be­gan in 1822, when he sent his first ef­fort to the Evan­gel­i­cal Mag­a­zine. He con­tin­ued to con­trib­ute to that and other per­i­o­di­cals for ma­ny years. His works in­clude:

• One Hun­dred Orig­in­al Hymns for the Young, 1850
• Hymns for Little Child­ren, 1851
• The Child-Life of Da­vid
• The Book of Psalms in Eng­lish Verse, 1871
• Scripture Char­ac­ters in Verse

Sources

Lyrics

1. Children Who Are Gone to Glory
2. Children, You Have Gone Astray
3. Come, Let Us Sing Our Maker’s Praise
4. Father of Mercies, Hear
5. God Is Love, Delightful Truth
6. Happy Would It Be for Me
7. Hark! A Still Small Voice Is Heard
8. Heavenly Father, We Draw Near Thee
9. I Often Say My Pray­ers
10. Lord Attends When Children Pray, The
11. None Is Like God
12. O Thou That Hearest Prayer
13. Pilgrims We Are and Strangers
14. Remem­ber Thy Creator Now
15. Savior, While My Heart Is Tender
16. That Kind Eye Which Cannot Sleep
17. Though We Are Young, Our Sins Are Great
18. We Do Not Love Thee As We Ought
19. Why Did Jesus Come from Heaven?
20. Why Should We Spend Our Youthful Days?