Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Luke, Jemima
LUKE, Mrs. JEMIMA (1813–1906), hymn-writer, daughter of Thomas Thompson, was born at Islington, London, on 19 Aug. 1813. Her father was one of the pioneers of the Bible Society, assisted is the formation of the Sunday School Union, and helped to support the first floating chapel for sailors. In 1843 she married Samuel Luke, a congregational minister, who died in 1873. After his death she resided at Newport, Isle of Wight, where she died on 2 Feb. 1906. An ardent nonconformist, she was an active opponent of the Education Act of 1902, and was summoned among the Isle of Wight 'passive resisters' in September 1904— the oldest 'passive resister' in the country.
Mrs. Luke, who edited 'The Missionary Repository,' published among other books: 'The Female Jesuit' (1851), 'A Memoir of Eliza Ann Harris of Clifton' (1860), and 'Early Years of my Life' (1900), an autobiography. She is best known by her children's hymn, 'I think when I read that sweet story of old,' which became became classical. It was written in 1841 while Mrs. Luke was travelling in a stage-coach between Wellington and Taunton, prompted by a previous hearing at the Normal Infant School in Gray's Inn Road, London, of the time associated with it. The hymn was printed first in the 'Sunday School Teachers' Magazine' (1841); in 1863 it appeared, anonymously, in 'The Leeds Hymn Book,' and has since been admitted to all hymn-books of repute.
[Private information; Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology; British Weekly, 8 Feb. 1906; Musical Times, February 1905.]