Born: Feb­ru­a­ry 20, 1809, Thet­ford, Eng­land.

Died: Feb­ru­a­ry 1, 1865, Wash­ing­ton, DC.

West em­i­grat­ed to New York in 1835, then moved to Wash­ing­ton, DC, in 1843. In 1844, he be­came the of­fi­cial re­port­er of the Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence of the Meth­od­ist Epis­co­pal Church. He was al­so on the com­mit­tee ap­point­ed by that con­fer­ence to pre­pare a stand­ard edi­tion of the Meth­od­ist hymn­al. That col­lect­ion ap­peared as Hymns for the Use of the Meth­od­ist Epis­co­pal Church in 1849. He al­so ed­it­ed the Co­lum­bia Mag­a­zine (1846-1849) and the New York Com­mer­cial Ad­ver­tis­er (from 1858). His works in­clude:

• Sketches of Meth­od­ist Preach­ers, 1848
• A Father’s Let­ters to His Daugh­ter, 1865

Sources

Hymns

1. Come, Let Us Tune Our Lof­ti­est Song
2. Now, Lord, Ful­fill Thy Faith­ful Word