Anna Letitia Waring was a Welsh poet and hymn-writer. Her philanthropic work included support for the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society.
Early life and education
She was born at Plas-y-Felin, Neath, third of the seven children of Elijah Waring and his wife, Deborah. Her family were Quakers, but she became an Anglican and was baptised into the Church of England in 1842, at St Martin Church, Winnall, Winchester. Several members of her family had literary interests. Her uncle, Samuel Miller Waring, published a hymn collection, Sacred melodies. Elijah Waring wrote verse, plus a literary memoir, Recollections and Anecdotes of Edward Williams, the Bard of Glamorgan. Following in her family's footsteps, it seems natural that "verse-writing was always a pleasant diversion to her." She learned Hebrew in order to study the Old Testament in the original.
Career
In 1850, Waring published her first work, Hymns and Meditations. This was to be reprinted and extended many times. Additional Hymns was integrated into later editions of Hymns and Meditations, and Mary S. Talbot's memoir In Remembrance of Anna Letitia Waring was added to its 1911 final edition. This posthumous publication collected previously unpublished material, secular as well as religious. Domestic topics are in evidence, including a light-hearted piece on her cat. Scott describes the final collection as projecting a compassionate, reflective personality, with a sense of humour. Anna's best-known hymns include "Father, I know that all my life", "Go not far from me, O my Strength", "In heavenly love abiding" and "My heart is resting, O my God". Scott describes Waring as typifying a conventional Victorian view of womanhood, pious, reserved, and given to "good works". Anna became involved in philanthropic work, particularly as a supporter of the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society. According to her friend Mary S. Talbot, Waring "visited in the prisons of Bridewell, and at Horfield, Bristol, for many years. To one who spoke to her of the painfulness of such work she answered, 'It is like watching by a filthy gutter to pick out a jewelhere and there, as the foul stream flows by.'" Waring died unmarried at her home in Clifton, Bristol on 10 May 1910. Her most often reprinted hymn "Father, I know that all my life" was sung at her funeral. Her burial service, at Arnos Vale Cemetery, was led by Canon Talbot, the husband of one of her nieces.
