Hatch, Edwin, a Church of England clergyman, was born at Derby September 4, 1835. He graduated at Oxford in 1857. After spending some years in Canada, he returned to England and became in 1867 vice principal of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford. He delivered the Bampton Lectures in 1881 on "The Origin of Early Christian Churches." He was rector of Purleigh from 1883 till his death, November 10, 1889. His hymns and other poems were published in a posthumous volume titled Towards Fields of Light, 1890.