Hymnary.org has excellent information about the history of hymns and their melodies. It says the lyrics for "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say" were written by Horatius Bonar in 1846. The melody most often used for the song is called KINGSFOLD.
Here's what hymnary.org says about the melody:Thought by some scholars to date back to the Middle Ages, KINGSFOLD is a folk tune set to a variety of texts in England and Ireland. The tune was published in English Country Songs (1893), an anthology compiled by Lucy E. Broadwood and J. A. Fuller Maitland. After having heard the tune in Kingsfold, Sussex, England (thus its name), Ralph Vaughan Williams (PHH 316) introduced it as a hymn tune in The English Hymnal (1906) as a setting for Horatius Bonar's "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say" (488).
Shaped in classic rounded bar form (AABA), KINGSFOLD has modal character and is both dignified and strong. It is well suited to either unison or harmony singing. Use bright organ tone. Try playing on two manuals and pedal on the middle stanzas.
--Psalter Hymnal Handbook
There's background information about Bonar and his hymn here:
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