Henry Francis Lyte wrote “Abide With Me” as he was dying. Football crowds have sung it at the FA Cup final since 1927

In September 1847, a sick vicar preached his last sermon to his congregation in a Devon fishing town. He left soon after for the warmer climate of the south of France, and he never returned. He left behind a hymn.

Henry Francis Lyte was the vicar of Lower Brixham, a fishing community on the Devon coast, for more than twenty years. He suffered from tuberculosis for much of his life. By 1847 he was very ill, and he knew he might not survive.

The hymn

“Abide With Me” is a prayer for God’s presence at the end of life. The opening lines draw on the story in Luke 24, where two disciples on the road to Emmaus ask the risen Jesus, whom they have not yet recognised, to stay with them, “for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.”

Lyte wrote the words around the time of his final sermon. He died in Nice in November 1847.

The tune

Lyte had written his own melody, but the hymn is almost always sung to Eventide, a tune composed by William Henry Monk and published in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861. The combination of Lyte’s words and Monk’s slow, rising melody made the hymn a favourite at funerals and evening services.

At Wembley

“Abide With Me” was first sung before the FA Cup final in 1927, and it has been sung before the final almost every year since. The tradition is often said to have been encouraged by King George V and Queen Mary, who were fond of the hymn. Tens of thousands of football fans standing to sing a Victorian hymn about death is one of the odder and more moving traditions in sport.

It is also sung at the rugby league Challenge Cup final and at Remembrance services.

In Ghana and Nigeria

The hymn travelled with missionaries to West Africa. It is sung at funerals and wake-keepings in Methodist, Anglican and Presbyterian churches in Ghana and Nigeria, often in English and local-language versions. Military bands play it at state funerals.

The words

The best-known verse asks: “I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness. Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.”

Lyte wrote those lines for himself. Almost two centuries later, they are still sung at the graveside by people who have never heard of Brixham.