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The Foundation of The College of Organists: Personalities, Proceedings And Early Actions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 June 2015
Abstract
The coming about of a ‘college of organists’ in 1864 reflected a growing desire on the part of a small, but quickly expanding, cohort of organists to be viewed collectively as one of the ‘respectable professions’ such as law or medicine and thereby enjoy the social and material benefits normally accorded to such professional groups. Writing around 1910, Charles W. Pearce captured the dynamic of the 1860s when he observed that the foundation of an association for organists was a manifestation of the ‘desire on the part of the musical profession for some self-established, self-supporting system of self-organization, self-government, and self-examination’. Underlying – and stimulating – the College's search for identity and mission in its early years was a complex and dynamic environment in which new national consensuses were emerging with respect to professional standing, academic status, churchmanship, innovation in organ-building and, more generally, with respect to standards in music making.Following comments on British organists and the environment in which they were working by the 1860s (often characterized by poor pay, insecurity and the perception of low status), this article draws on (1) archival records that have been little scrutinized and (2) relevant periodical literature – in particular The Musical Standard, a newly founded journal edited by figures intimately associated with the fledgling College – to establish the schedule and mechanism of the College's formation and how the institution attempted to organize itself and gain patronage. The article also casts contextual light on this project of professionalization by considering the individuals involved – their backgrounds, connections and motivations – and some of the early activities and the reasons behind them.
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References
1 ‘Inauguration of the New Building of the Royal College of Organists’, Calendar of the Royal College of Organists 1904–5, 56–7. Edmund Turpin was the second person to hold the post of Honorary Secretary, from 1875 until his death in 1907.
2 Calendar … 1904–5, 56.
3 ‘Annual General Meeting’, Calendar of the Royal College of Organists 1904–5, 52–3. Donations of portraits of notable musicians were welcomed for display in the new building. Sir Frederick Bridge, the President, related his own success in gathering together portraits of many of his predecessors at Westminster Abbey, and expressed the hope that organists across the country would do the same in their own churches.
4 By 1904, the College could count in its ledgers just over 1,400 subscribing members, divided more or less equally across three membership categories: Fellows, Associates and Members. This number represented a tenfold increase on the first year of operation. The College's patrons were the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishop of London; its cohort of Vice-Presidents, in addition to individuals who had served as President, comprised peers, Members of Parliament, philanthropists and leading figures in (mainstream) British music. In terms of presidential imprimatur, the College's recent business had been overseen by a sequence of Oxbridge and London conservatoire men.
5 Pearce, C.W., A Biographical Sketch of Edmund Hart Turpin (London: The Vincent Music Company, n.d. [c. 1910])Google Scholar: 21. Pearce's emphases have been retained.
6 The RCO Library and Archive is held at the Records Centre, Birmingham City University.
7 Rohr, Deborah, The Careers of British Musicians, 1750–1850: A Profession of Artisans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: 88. Rohr explains the composition of her catalogue of musicians (which features much evidence from the 1850s) in her introductory chapter (pp. 1–5).
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9 The Musical Times 5 (15 March 1854): 389. In this example, Worthing Chapel of Ease required an organist who would also instruct the choir (£40 p.a.); the advertisement points out that the appointee would have an opportunity to find singing pupils as there was no singing master in the vicinity. This reference and several further points are taken from Golding, Rosemary, ‘The Profession of Organist in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, The Journal of the Royal College of Organists 8 (2014): 25–30Google Scholar. Several articles from this publication will be cited; it comprises the proceedings (edited by the current author) of a conference on the foundation of the College of Organists held at Somerville and Keble Colleges, Oxford in April 2014.
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12 RCO membership archives and the author's correspondence with his family (January 2014).
13 S.S. Wesley claimed (optimistically?) that cathedral organists received £200 in 1849, a figure higher than the above-quoted average salary of £150 (Rohr, , The Careers of British Musicians, 91Google Scholar). Examples of lower pay can be found in this sector: see Golding, ‘The Profession of Organist’, 26–7.
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16 For instance, ‘Sir George Grove on the College of Organists and its Work’, The Musical World 65 (1887): 715. Grove, as President, delivered his speech at the College's annual dinner. Essentially, the organist is a ‘definite individual’, has a position, is as necessary as the clergyman and ‘deals with the imagination’.
17 See Clarke, Martin, ‘“Loud organs, his glory forth tell in deep tone”: the Interaction of Music, Liturgy, and Theology in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain’, The Journal of the Royal College of Organists 8 (2014): 72–81Google Scholar.
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20 ‘The Royal College of Organists, its Work and its Influence, 1864–1914’, Calendar of the Royal College of Organists, 1931–32, 125–50. This text first appeared in a jubilee booklet printed for the fiftieth anniversary in 1914.
21 For an overview of the assimilation of High Church principles and how they relate to Victorian church music, in particular the growing approbation of the choral service, see Gatens, William J., Victorian Cathedral Music in Theory and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar, Introduction.
22 See Limpus's entry in Brown, James D. and Stratton, Stephen S., British Musical Biography (Birmingham: S.S. Stratton, 1897)Google Scholar: 247, and in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 33 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004): 803. The Limpuses had business concerns in Isleworth, including an omnibus service to central London. With thanks to Ann Greene, Hounslow Library, for copies of various archival materials about, and for her research notes on, the Limpus family.
23 Dawe, Donavan, Organists of the City of London, 1666–1850 (Padstow: The Author, 1983)Google Scholar: 121. Limpus was, it seems, appointed on an umpire's recommendation. Dawe's introductory essays provide helpful background on the appointment of City organists.
24 Dawe, Organists of the City of London, 121 and additionally 66.
25 Hughes, Peter, St Michael's, Cornhill ([London?]: The Author, 2007)Google Scholar: 75–7, and 84. Also, see Rennert, Jonathan, Music, Musicians and Organs of St Michael's Cornhill (London: St Michael's, Cornhill, 2010)Google Scholar: 21–3.
26 ‘Musical Table Talk’, The Musical Standard 1 (15 September 1862): 43. The following page carries an advertisement for the recruitment of choir boys to St Michael's.
27 The Musical Times 11 (1 January 1865): 442. For a discussion of this topic, see Clarke, ‘Loud organs, his glory forth tell in deep tone’, 75–8.
28 Rennert, , Music, Musicians and Organs, 21–22Google Scholar.
29 Mentioned in a press notice (from The Churchman, 6 July 1865) quoted in The College of Organists Prospectus and Sixth Annual Report 1869–70, 49.
30 Calendar … 1931–32, 129.
31 Horton, Peter, ‘Edward John Hopkins: an Organist and Choirmaster Re-examined (I)’, The Journal of the Royal College of Organists 3 (second series) (2009)Google Scholar, 71–91; the second and final part of this study appears in vol. 4 (2010), 23–44.
32 See Stratton, Brown and, British Musical Biography, 254Google Scholar.
33 With thanks to Peter Aitkenhead, Assistant Librarian of The Library and Museum of Freemasonry for his help in tracing the masonic careers of a number of the founders. It may be noted that Bro. Richard Limpus collaborated with Bro. Edwin Crow, an early member of the College, on the publication of a masonic choral collection, Music for Masonic Ceremonies [Part II] (London: George Kenning, n.d.).
34 Andrew Prescott, ‘A History of British Freemasonry 1425–2000’, at http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/prescott16.html, accessed 17 December 2013; see sections on 1856–1874 and 1874–1967. Also, for freemasonry and organs, see Pink, Andrew, ‘English Masonic Lodges, Pipe Organs and National Heritage’, BIOS Reporter 31/2 (April 2007), 14–21Google Scholar.
35 Minute Book [No. 1]/November 1863: 23 November 1863.
36 Wesley, Samuel Sebastian, A Few Words on Cathedral Music and the Musical System of the Church with a Plan of Reform (London & Leeds: Rivington/Chappell/Slocombe, 1849)Google Scholar. This is available in a facsimile reprint with an introduction and historical notes (London: Hinrichsen, 1961).
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39 Horton, Peter, Samuel Sebastian Wesley: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar: 167.
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41 Horton, , Samuel Sebastian Wesley, 169Google Scholar. See also Gatens, , Victorian Cathedral Music, 9–11Google Scholar.
42 Limpus appears to have maintained good connections with the Wesley family. Samuel Sebastian's younger brother Matthias Erasmus Wesley was referred to as Limpus's devoted friend: see The College of Organists: Eleventh Annual Report (1874–1875), 12. Matthias Erasmus became the College's Treasurer on the death of Limpus.
43 See his entry in Stratton, Brown and, British Musical Biography, 50Google Scholar. Bishop was active for the publisher Robert Cocks, editing amongst other items volumes by Rinck for that house's catalogue.
44 Bishop, John, Remarks on the Causes of the Present Generally Degraded State of Music in our Churches (Cheltenham: The Author, 1860)Google Scholar: 4–5.
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46 Bishop's pamphlet is listed amongst the holdings of the College's library in the first known catalogue (1869–1870).
47 Kilner, Thomas, Jottings about Church of England ‘Choral and Congregational Services’, ‘Piebald Services’, ‘Cold, Frozen, or Petrified Services’, … and Sundry Matters Concerning Organs and Organists (London: Reeves & Turner, [c. 1872])Google Scholar.
48 Kilner, , Jottings, 15–18Google Scholar. For the centrality of hymnody in this period and how it attested to the ecclesiological status of the Church of England, see Clarke, , ‘Loud organs, his glory forth tell in deep tone’, 72–75Google Scholar.
49 For an appreciation of Steggall, see Blackall, Allen, ‘Charles Steggall’, Bulletin of the Hymn Society 4 (1960): 220–230Google Scholar.
50 ‘The Annual Dinner’, Calendar of the Royal College of Organists 1905–6, 68–72.
51 ‘The Annual Dinner’, Calendar of the Royal College of Organists 1906–7, 115–16.
52 Ibid.
53 Pearce provided an obituary for Walter Bond Gilbert (1829–1910) in the Calendar of the Royal College of Organists 1910–11, 62. Further reference can be made to the entry on Gilbert in Brown and Stratton, British Musical Biography, 162.
54 See Horton, , ‘Edward John Hopkins … (I)’, 73–75Google Scholar. The Temple Church offered an early and influential model of liturgical re-organization; led by the bencher William Burge QC, who published deliberations on the choral service in the Anglo-Catholic Church, this ecclesiological transformation came soon after the church's restoration. For the Temple Church in context, see Gatens, , Victorian Cathedral Music, 9Google Scholar.
55 Published in instalments in the summer of 1865 in The Choir and Musical Record 4 (1865–66), 4, 14, 28 and 39, and as a pamphlet. A synopsis of the lecture appears in the First Record of the Transactions of the College of Organists 1864–1865, 14–15.
56 Minute Book [No. 1]/November 1863: 25 February 1864.
57 The printed report of this meeting is pasted into Minute Book [No. 2]/March 1864–June 1865.
58 Wright, , The Associated Board, 35–36Google Scholar. Also see the same author's ‘“Middle-Classing” the Music Profession in Victorian Britain’, The Journal of the Royal College of Organists 8 (2014): 31–9.
59 ‘A College of Organists’, The Musical Standard 2 (12 March 1864): 245–6.
60 Diana Snigurowicz, ‘Introduction’, Musical Standard (First Series, 1862–1871), <www.ripm.org>, accessed 1 December 2013. The Musical Standard claimed at its inception independence from cliques, party bias, and particular ‘houses of trade’; the professional coverage was much geared to the provision of music in churches: liturgy, organ music, organ-building, the employment of organists, choral festivals and the like.
61 Westbrook's obituary of 31 March 1894 in The Musical Standard names all three as founders. The author wishes to thank Mr David Watson (Grimsby), a descendant of Westbrook, for sight of archival and family research materials.
62 The College of Preceptors was set up in 1846 to create and maintain professional standards in teaching, an activity at the time with a poor reputation. Westbrook reported in committee on 23 April 1864 that he had enquired about the use of the Preceptors’ premises at 42 Queen Square by the new College, though nothing came of this as a charge would have been made and free accommodation (pro tem) had by that stage been secured at the Freemasons’ Tavern, as noted above a focal point for much of the College's early business.
63 ‘The College of Organists’, The Musical Standard 2 (12 March 1864): 245. The Musical Standard promised a special edition in the coming week to report on the meeting that was about to take place at Exeter Hall: ‘The College of Organists’, The Musical Standard 2 (16 March 1864): 261–3.
64 Minute Book [No. 2]/March 1864–June 1865: 2 April 1864.
65 Preface (dated 1868) to the first issue. The Journal was published by William Reeves of London.
66 Spark's further observations reveal his reservations about the playing of orchestral arrangements, which had proliferated during the previous decades and had led organists astray (an increasingly common theme): organists had been alienated from ‘their true allegiance to the more solid and sublime inspirations of Bach, Handel, and Mendelssohn, whose organ compositions require for their proper performance not only dignity of style, but manipulation of the highest order, and above all, a feeling heart and cultivated mind’. As a stylistic and technical manifesto of the period, Spark's Journal is informative and insightful. As a Wesley pupil (and later his assistant) and eventually a close associate of Henry Smart, Spark fused in some ways two elemental forces of the mid-century organ scene, and played his part in moulding the shape of what was to come: an elevated and tasteful environment for organ music. For an overview of original organ composition in this period, see Barber, Graham, ‘“What the crowd requires is mediocrity of the highest order”: Original Composition for Organ in England Before and After 1864’, The Journal of the Royal College of Organists 8 (2014), 40–53Google Scholar.
67 See the list of prizes awarded under this scheme in the Calendar … 1904–5, 170. Hiles won prizes in subsequent organ music competitions run by the College (for a Prelude and Fugue, and for a Sonata) and some of his compositions later featured in Spark's Journal.
68 A comprehensive assessment of Smart's influence is to be found in John Carnelley, Sir George Smart and the Evolution of British Musical Culture, 1800–1840, PhD dissertation, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2008. In particular, see 283–9.
69 Minute Book [No. 3]/July 1865–May 1869: 17 February 1866.
70 Minute Book [No. 2]/March 1864–June 1865: 5 July 1864.
71 See ‘College of Organists’, The Choir and Musical Record 2 (26 March 1864): 142, and 177–8 (the issue for 16 April), and also ‘Amateurs and the College of Organists’, The Musical Standard 2 (23 April 1864): 298–9. The Standard looked to the future of accreditation and took the stance that it would be an error on the part of the College to deprive non-professional musicians of the means ‘of proving to their friends and contemporaries their ability to “go in for” and obtain a “diploma” or worthy testimonial, wherewith to distinguish themselves from that numerous family, “the herd of many duffers”’.
72 The Musical World 42 (9 July 1864): 443.
73 ‘The interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury’, First Record of the Transactions of the College of Organists, 1864–1865 (1865): 7. This quotation is taken from the address Limpus read to Longley. The remaining references in this section are taken from this report. Smart had paved the way for this delegation. The Bishop of London, Dr Tait, subsequently agreed to become the College's Vice-President – again as a result of Smart's diplomacy.
74 Details of the inaugural lectures of 1864–1865 (synopses and other sources survive for these) and the lectures given by the College until 1903 are given in McCrea, Andrew, ‘Lectures Given at the (Royal) College of Organists, 1864–1903: an Introduction and Checklist’, The Journal of the Royal College of Organists 4 (second series) (2010)Google Scholar: 57–78.
75 First Record of the Transactions … 1864–1865, 10.
76 Whittingham was elected a subscribing member of the College on 2 April 1864.
77 It was Limpus who took the initiative for establishing a ‘strict examinatory test for acquiring Fellowship’ at the meeting of Council on 7 October 1865 (Minute Book [No. 3]/July 1865–May 1869). Laws had first to be revised. A board of examiners was established in February 1866.
78 This concept is posited by Magali Sarfatti Larson in The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977): 15. For how Larson provides relevant models for understanding the ‘professionalising’ of musicians, see Deborah Rohr, The Careers of British Musicians, 8 and 74.
79 The College of Organists Prospectus and Sixth Annual Report 1869–70, 49–56.
80 Including Limpus's own home at 41 Queen Square.
81 Edmund Hart Turpin was instrumental in this process. See Pearce, , A Biographical Sketch, 28–37Google Scholar.