Children's hymn singing in Victorian culture and scholarship

Abstract Children's lives in nineteenth‐century Britain were filled with hymn‐singing, whether at church, school, home, or Sunday schools. Yet this dimension to Victorian culture has rarely been studied either by Hymn Studies or Childhood Studies. This article explores the ways that children's hymns are central to our understanding of hymns and of children, urging crosspollination of these two important disciplines. It will explore ways that hymns empowered children throughout the century, breaking down the perceived child‐adult binary of Victorian society.