Do You Know "Once In Royal David's City" Quiz

Answer:

The popular Christmas Carol was originally written as a poem by the Dublin-born writer Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895) and published in 1848 in her collection "Hymns For Little Children". In 1949 the English organist Henry Gauntlett (1805-1876) set it to music, to the tune he called "Irby".

Cecil Frances Alexander wrote many hymns and religious verses during her lifetime. The best of these, such as "All Things Bright and Beautiful" and "There is a Green Hill Far Away" are still popular today, and included in collections of hymns. In October 1950 she married the Reverend William Alexander, who went on to become Bishop of Derry and Archbishop of Armagh, and became renowned for her charitable work as well as her writing.

Henry Gauntlett was born in Wellington, Shropshire, and learnt the organ at a young age. He trained as a lawyer, and practised in London for a number of years, while also acting as organist at churches including St Olave's Southwark and All Saints Notting Hill. Eventually he gave up the law and devoted himself to music, writing the music to over a thousand hymns, although his setting of "Once in Royal David's City" remains his best-known work.

The carol is perhaps best known for being performed at the beginning of the world-renowned "Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols" at King's College Cambridge, where the first verse is sung by a solo boy chorister without accompaniment. This practice began in 1919, and the Christmas Eve service is now broadcast annually around the world.