Isaac Watts Statue, Southampton

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Tue, 23/06/2026 - 00:00

I travelled down to the south coast yesterday. I wondered why I did not make the journey more often, until I recalled that I had caught the 6.15am bus to Preston station but did not arrive at my hotel room till 3pm. Still, there was time enough to go wandering about Southampton, superficially admiring its sights till the weather struck me. I was greeted by 30 degrees of heat when I alighted from the train; tomorrow, it is forecast to climb to 36. I have no idea how these southern folk tolerate these conditions; this Northman had to spend an hour on the bed while two fans blew around the hot air before venturing out again. The attractions of a cool bath beckoned that evening.

I like what I have seen of Southampton, though if “diversity is our strength” it must be a very strong city. I also pondered why Northampton sits in Northamptonshire but Southampton makes do with a contracted ‘Hampshire’. Nevertheless, on my second tour of the centre, I found the wonderful Isaac Watts statue, standing in its own park, surrounded by freshly painted railings. Online news sites report that his fingers were replaced in 2024, doubtless commemorating his birth in this city back in 1674. Watts was a pastor, but more famously a hymn writer. Although Charles Wesley wrote more hymns and in a more poetic style, it was Watts who first introduced reformed English Christianity to hymns in the first place, with Anglican and dissenter making do with metrical psalms until that time. I reflected that I once gave a historical talk on him at Salem Chapel to which most current members would not have been present. As I pondered, a rendition of St Anne was being chimed on a ring of church or civic bells, which is the tune to which Watts’ O God Our Help is invariably sung.

I might have been hot and bothered (do not let those dull skies above fool you; in Lancashire, clouds mean rain, down here, they just insulate the land), but it was still a pleasure to see the great man duly honoured. I daresay that most of Southampton’s ‘communities’ are largely ignorant of the great one who was born in their midst and who, even now, is shining like the stars. His more famous songs include When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Alas! And Did My Saviour Bleed, Come let us Join, and, of course, Jesus Shall Reign set to our very own tune of Rimington, but I leave you with some of his more obscure, but no less worthy, lyrics. They reminded me of some considerably less 'diverse' societies in the Middle East, where Christians suffer under the heavy sandals of oppression and injustice:

1 Are sinners now so senseless grown

That they the saints devour?

And never worship at thy throne,

Nor fear thine awful pow'r?

2 Great God, appear to their surprise;

Reveal thy dreadful name;

Let them no more thy wrath despise,

Nor turn our hope to shame.

3 Dost thou not dwell among the just?

And yet our foes deride,

That we should make thy name our trust;

Great God, confound their pride.