HEBER, REGINALD (1783-1826), English bishop and hymn-writer, was born at Malpas, Cheshire, on April 21. 1783. He studied at Brasenose college, Oxford, where he won prizes for a Latin poem entitled Carmen seculare, an English poem on Pal estine, and a prose essay on The Sense of Honour. He was elected a fellow of All Souls' (1804), admitted to holy orders (1807) and presented to the family living of Hodnet in Shropshire. Heber became prebendary of St. Asaph in 1812, was appointed Bamp ton lecturer for 1815, preacher at Lincoln's Inn in 1822, and bishop of Calcutta in Jan. 1823. His devotion to his work in the trying Indian climate told severely on his health. He died at Trichinopoly on April 3, 1826.
Heber's fame rests mainly on his hymns, such as : "Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning"; "God, that Madest Earth and Heaven"; "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty"; "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" ; "The Son of God Goes Forth to War." He edited (1822) the works of Jeremy Taylor.
See the Life of Reginald Heber, D.D. ... , by his widow, Amelia Heber (1830), which also contains a number of Heber's miscellaneous writings.