SIMONSIDE

Composer: J. Harker

Joseph Harker, Jr., was born on March 6, 1880, in Alnwick, Northumberland, England, into a musical Methodist family. They moved to the Newcastle-upon-Tyne area in 1900. He taught music for several years in his home in Simonside Street in Wallsend, commemorating this name in one of his hymn tunes (No. 543 in the 1985 Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal). He evidently inherited musical talent from his father, Joseph Harker, Sr., who at one time owned a music shop in the coastal port of Amble. Joseph, Jr., married in 1905, and soon after joined the Seventh-day Adventist church. In 1916 he was invited to work part-time in the North England Conference. Two years later he was appointed president of the Irish Mission, holding that office for the quadr… Go to person page >