I don’t doubt that many of you have sung the hymn Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind at some point. It’s a top ten hit at funerals; not because the words are especially funereal, but there’s something calm and comforting about Hubert Parry’s tune.

I only caution that it’s crucial to embark in the right key. There’s a tricky low note near the beginning and a high one close to the end, sufficient to elicit either a guttural growl or a strangled squeak.

Anyway, there’s an interesting Birmingham connection to this much-loved hymn.

The lyric is by John Greenleaf Whittier, the 19th-century American poet. Whittier is often referred to as one of the ‘Fireside Poets’. More importantly, he was a Quaker and an Abolitionist, engaged in the campaign against slavery in the United States.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that the American poet shook hands across the water with Joseph Sturge, the Birmingham industrialist, who happened to tick the same two boxes. More than that, Whittier accompanied Sturge on a tour of slave plantations during the latter’s visit to the US in 1841.

Whittier’s works include a poem addressed to Sturge on the death of his sister, Sophia, and another to mark Joseph’s own death in 1859. There’s an interesting description of Birmingham in it, despite the fact that Whittier never came to England.

Whittier’s letters, however, reveal that the links with the Midlands went even deeper. In 1846 he received an address “to the American people”, which he dutifully forwarded, from the Birmingham Peace Society. The society was, at that juncture, alarmed at the prospect of war between the two nations, and had just held a large rally at the Town Hall.

Although this is the largest manufacturer of firearms in the world, went the letter, we have no wish to engage in conflict. War between Great Britain and the US did not transpire; instead the Americans were drawn into an even bloodier civil war.

It was a reassurance to John Greenleaf Whittier, as his letters show, that there were some, even in the Midland city of weapons, who shared his yearning for peace.

* Dr Chris Upton is Reader in Public History at Newman University Birmingham