JESUS LOVES ME (Bradbury)

Composer: William B. Bradbury

William Bachelder Bradbury USA 1816-1868. Born at York, ME, he was raised on his father's farm, with rainy days spent in a shoe-shop, the custom in those days. He loved music and spent spare hours practicing any music he could find. In 1830 the family moved to Boston, where he first saw and heard an organ and piano, and other instruments. He became an organist at 15. He attended Dr. Lowell Mason's singing classes, and later sang in the Bowdoin Street church choir. Dr. Mason became a good friend. He made $100/yr playing the organ, and was still in Dr. Mason's choir. Dr. Mason gave him a chance to teach singing in Machias, ME, which he accepted. He returned to Boston the following year to marry Adra Esther Fessenden in 1838, then rel… Go to person page >

William B. Bradbury (PHH 114) added a refrain line to Warner's stanzas and wrote the tune JESUS LOVES ME in 1861. The hymn was published in Bradbury's church school collection The Golden Shower (1862). The tune is also known as CHINA in some hymnals, presumably because of its popularity among missionaries to that land.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1988