Indelible Grace Hymnbook

Born: Ju­ly 13, 1769, Kel­ly­ville, Strad­bal­ly, Queens Coun­ty, Ire­land.

Died: May 14, 1855, Dub­lin, Ire­land.

Buried: Near the Kel­ly fam­i­ly home at Kel­ly­ville, Bal­ly­ad­ams, Queens Coun­ty (now known as Coun­ty Laois).

Son of a judge, Kel­ly at­tend­ed Trin­i­ty Coll­ege (BA 1789) and planned to be a law­yer. Af­ter con­vert­ing to Christ, though, his ca­reer plans changed to the min­is­try. He be­came an Ang­li­can priest in 1792, but event­u­al­ly be­came one of the fa­mous dis­sent­ing min­is­ters. He wrote over 760 hymns. Mil­ler’s Sing­ers of the Church (1869) says of him:

Mr. Kelly was a man of great and var­ied learn­ing, skilled in the Or­i­ent­al tongues, and an ex­cel­lent Bi­ble cri­tic. He was pos­sessed al­so of mu­sic­al tal­ent, and com­posed and pub­lished a work that was re­ceived with fa­vour, con­sist­ing of mu­sic adapt­ed to ev­ery form of me­tre in his hymn-book. Na­tur­al­ly of an am­i­a­ble dis­po­si­tion and tho­rough in his Chris­tian pi­e­ty, Mr. Kel­ly be­came the friend of good men, and the ad­vo­cate of ev­ery worthy, be­ne­vo­lent, and re­li­gious cause. He was ad­mired alike for his zeal and his hu­mil­i­ty; and his lib­er­al­ity found am­ple scope in Ire­land, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the year of fam­ine.

Kelly’s works in­clude:

A Col­lect­ion of Psalms and Hymns Ex­tract­ed from Var­i­ous Au­thors, 1802
Hymns on Var­i­ous Pass­ag­es of Scrip­tures, 1804, 1806
Hymns of Tho­mas Kel­ly, Not Be­fore Pub­lished, 1815

Source: The Cyber Hymnal