David Bradberry

Bradberry, David, a Congregational minister, born at Reeth Richmond, Yorkshire, Nov. 12, 1735. At 23 he entered the Mile End Academy as a student for the Congregational Ministry, and subsequently became pastor of a congregation at Alnwick (1762); Wellingborough (1764); Ramsgate (1767); Manchester (1787); and Kennington, London (1797). He died Jan. 13, 1803.
In 1794 he published Tetelestai; the Final Close, & poem on the Judgment; and also contributed to A Supplement to the Version of the Psalms and Hymns of Dr. Watts, partly collected, altered, or transformed, in proper, peculiar, or broken metres, Manchester, C. Wheeler, 1787 (Preface dated, Feb. 27,1787.) Of the 42 hymns in this Supplement, 11 are by Bradberry. He is best known by his hymn for children, "Now let each heart [our hearts] conspire to raise" (Sunday Schools) in the Wesleyan Reform Hymn Book, No. 787, and others. It is the third of four hymns for children at the end of the Supplement, 1787. In its altered form of "Now let our hearts conspire to raise," it was given in Rippon's Selection 1787, No. 522.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)