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The Lock Hospital Chapel and its Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Nicholas Temperley
Nicholas Temperley*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
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Extract

It has been generally recognized that the music of the Lock Hospital chapel was an important new influence in English and American church music during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The chapel attracted fashionable congregations and thereby disseminated an elegant, theatrical type of hymnody that was far removed from the norms of church music, whether in cathedral, town church, village parish or dissenting meeting-house. Many hymn tunes first used at the Lock Hospital became enormously popular; some still remain in common use; and their style became the model for a ‘school’ of hymn tunes that remained in vogue for several decades.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 118 , Issue 1 , 1993 , pp. 44 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 Royal Musical Association

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References

I am grateful to the librarian of the Royal College of Surgeons for kindly allowing me unrestricted access to the archives of the Lock HospitalGoogle Scholar

1 See, for example, Louis F Benson, The English Hymn Its Development and Use in Worship (London, 1915), 329–30 Historical Companion to Hymns Ancient & Modern, ed Maurice Frost (London, 1962), 100–1, Irving Lowens, Music and Musicians in Early America (New York, 1964), 154–5, Erik Routley, The Music of Christian Hymns (Chicago, 1981), 75–6 and Examples 264–6Google Scholar

2 For instance, Simon McVeigh wrote ‘Unfortunately the Minute Books seem to have disappeared’ (‘Music and the Lock Hospital in the 18th Century’, The Musical Times, 129 (1988), 235–40 (p 236)) McVeigh relied on the anonymous Short History of the London Lock Hospital and Rescue Home, 1746–1906 (London, 1906) Falconer Madan, in his exhaustive book The Madan Family and Maddens in Ireland and England A Historical Account (Oxford, 1933), did not list the Lock Hospital records among the manuscript sources he used, and he, too, relied on the 1906 Short History for information about Martin Madan's work at the hospital Most library catalogues assign the first edition of the Collection to the year 1769, on the basis of Madan's dedication, but in fact much of it had appeared earlier in separate numbers, as Maurice Frost realized see his letter in the Bulletin of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 24 (July 1943), 8, and his typescript notes in his copy of edition A/e, now at the Royal College of Music, shelfmark B.III 28.Google Scholar

3 The Hymn Tune Index is a computerized index of all hymn tunes associated with English-language texts found in printed sources published before the year 1821 It is housed at the University of Illinois at Urbana, Illinois, and is to be published in book form by Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar

4 I discuss the music of two of these charities in some detail in my forthcoming article ‘The Hymn Books of the Foundling and Magdalen Chapels’Google Scholar

5 The name simply means a place where people are locked away to prevent contagion The medieval Lock Hospital in Southwark had been a leper house With the decline and eventual extinction in England of leprosy it came to be used instead for venereal patients, but it was now moribund, and closed in 1760Google Scholar

6 It is already visible in John Rocque's Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster (1746) See Felix Barker and Peter Jackson, The History of London in Maps (London, 1990), 54. The first patients were admitted on 31 January 1747, according to Short History, 4Google Scholar

7 One guinea = 21 shillings (s), 1 pound (£) = 20 shillings, 1 shilling = 12 pence (d)Google Scholar

8 This passage is taken from an anonymous typescript headed ‘Casual Club Some points in the history of a London hospital’ (c 1910), Royal College of Surgeons, TRACTS D-LOC, p 13 Handel did not in fact write an oratorio for the hospital, but he gave a performance of Judas Maccabaeus for its benefit in 1753 ‘Pelligrini’ is perhaps a misapprehension of the title of Hasse's oratorio I pellegrini, which was performed for the hospital in 1757 (McVeigh, ‘Music and the Lock Hospital’, 240) Most of the others in this list of musicians, theatrical artists and entrepreneurs are mentioned in the minutes as having given their services for the hospital's benefitGoogle Scholar

9 McVeigh, ‘Music and the Lock Hospital‘Google Scholar

10 Committee minutes, Board 1, 15 November 1755 (see also The Public Advertiser, 17 November 1755) The governing body of the hospital was the General Court, which met quarterly and sometimes for additional special meetings. The ordinary administration was carried on by the (Weekly) Committee or Board The minutes at the Royal College of Surgeons begin in 1755, they are found in a series of books labelled ‘Court 1’, ‘Board 1’, etc Some but not all volumes are paginated Minutes of the General Court are partly in separate volumes and partly interspersed with the committee minutes There are two volumes numbered ‘Board 2’, the second is distinguished by a diagonal line through the ‘2’Google Scholar

11 Board 2, 30 September 1758 On 13 February 1762, ‘A L[ett]er being received from the Magdalene House desiring the readmission of Eliz Brown as she still has Venereal Symptoms upon her’, the committee ordered that she be readmitted But on 13 December 1764 the committee informed the Magdalen Hospital that they could accept no more patients from them, ‘as this Charity is greatly in debt‘Google Scholar

12 Board 2, 24 March 1759, see also Foundling Hospital records, Greater London Record Office, A/FH/A/3/2/6, 21 March 1759Google Scholar

13 Frost, Historical Companion, 100; Routley, The Music of Christian Hymns, 75Google Scholar

14 This was one of the duties laid down by the General Committee on 19 May 1780 (Board 9, p 339) Morning and Evening Prayer were read in the wards every day; see [Martin Madan], Every Man Our Neighbour. A Sermon Preached at the Opening of the Chapel, of the Lock Hospital March 28, MDCCLXI1 (London, [1762]), 26.Google Scholar

15 Royal College of Surgeons, TRACTS D-LOC, 8.Google Scholar

16 Board 2, p 184, 25 September 1762Google Scholar

17 An Account of the Lock Hospital (London, 1802), 9Google Scholar

18 Board 2, p 251, 26 May 1763, Board 8, p 291, 27 June 1776 The 1906 Short History states (p 11) that ‘The patients, both male and female, had to attend’, implying that they attended the main chapel, but clearly this was true only for those who were able-bodiedGoogle Scholar

19 This was apparently still true in 1849, when a collection of Hymns for the Use of the Congregation of the Lock Chapel, West bourne Green, compiled by the Revd Thomas Garner, was published The hospital had moved in 1842 to a site in Westbourne Green now occupied by part of the buildings of St Mary's Hospital, Paddington The Grosvenor Place buildings were demolished in 1846Google Scholar

20 The name is pronounced ‘Madden’ See F Madan, The Madan Family, 10, n 2Google Scholar

21 His private income was about £1,800 a year, rising later as his estates became more profitable Ibid., 104–17Google Scholar

22 Board 2, 24 March 1759. On 21 May 1761 he was made a ‘perpetual governor’ in recognition of ‘repeated Benefactions arising from the Chapel &ca’ (Court 1, p 268) His predecessor had been paid 20 guineas a yearGoogle Scholar

23 Board 2A, 29 March, 5 April 1760Google Scholar

24 On 22 May 1766 the committee was informed that a Mr Peirce had purchased ‘the little Organ in the Old Chapel’ for 40 guineasGoogle Scholar

25 Court 2, p. 33, 11 October 1764; Board 3. p. 248, 27 December 1764.Google Scholar

26 Board 2 p. 75, fi March 1762, Court 1, p. 286, 29 May 1762; Court 2. p. 33, 11 October 1764.Google Scholar

27 Court 2, pp. 44, 45, 94; Board 6, 11 May 1769.Google Scholar

28 It is not known how he acquired his musical competence At Oxford, to his father's annoyance, he had ‘fiddled and shot partridges’.Google Scholar

29 Board 9, pp 182, 184 15, 22 October 1778Google Scholar

30 Court 3, p 52, 14 January 1779Google Scholar

31 Board 9, p 270, 16 September 1779Google Scholar

32 Court 3, p 363, 7 May 1789 In 1783 the Select Committee reported that they had ordered a practice every Wednesday evening before service, which they said was ‘very well attended by the Congregation, and is likely to be productive of a considerable improvement’ (Court 3, p 148, 16 January 1783), but two years later they noted a ‘very great declension in the Congregation of the Chapel’ (p 184, 27 January 1785)Google Scholar

33 McVeigh, ‘Music and the Lock Hospital’, 237 On 22 February 1781 the committee decided to ‘postpone’ the usual performance of Giardini's Ruth and instead to have two special sermons preached by William Romaine and John Berridge, both prominent EvangelicalsGoogle Scholar

34 There is a gap in the Select Committee minutes from 1791 to 1800 and another from 1804 to 1806. After that the committee met only occasionallyGoogle Scholar

35 Select Committee Book (C 1), 20 May 1790Google Scholar

36 ‘Book 75’, 10 June 1790Google Scholar

37 Court 4, 26 July 1792Google Scholar

38 Court 4, 2 May 1793 The precise action taken by the Select [Chapel] Committee is not on record because of a ten-year gap in the minutesGoogle Scholar

39 Board 15, 25 May, 1 June 1797Google Scholar

40 Board 15, 6, 13 July, 2 November 1797Google Scholar

41 Board 15, 3, 10 January 1799, 9, 16, 23 October 1800Google Scholar

42 Court 4, 22 January 1801, Board 16, 12 February 1801, Board 17, 11 February 1808Google Scholar

43 Chapel Committee Book C.1, 3 April 1806, Board 17, 8 January 1807.Google Scholar

44 Board 17, 26 February 1807Google Scholar

45 Board 17, 29 March 1810Google Scholar

46 Board 6, p 309, 19 July 1770, Board 8, p 146, 8 December 1774, Board 9, p 217, 4 March 1779, J. Preston, Catalogue of Music, British Library, Hirsch IV.1113.(8), dated 1790Google Scholar

47 Board 8, p 70, 10, 24 March 1774Google Scholar

48 See Hunter, David, ‘Music Copyright in Great Britain to 1800’, Music and Letters, 67 (1986), 269–82 (p. 278)Google Scholar

49 Court 2, pp 44, 45Google Scholar

50 Frost, Bulletin, 24, p 8 He describes this copy as being printed from ‘different plates’ from the 1769 edition, which is not the case with the Los Angeles exemplar of edition A/aGoogle Scholar

51 John Caulfield had also engraved the first edition of the Foundling Hospital hymnbook in 1760 See Temperley, “The Hymn Books'Google Scholar

52 Frost comes to a similar conclusion (c 1763), although it is based on a wrong date for edition (b) of Thomas Butts's Harmonia sacra See Frost, ‘Harmonia sacra, by Thomas Butts’, Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Bulletin, 61–2 (1952–3), 66–71, 73–9 (pp 77–8)Google Scholar

53 There is clear evidence that further numbers had been issued some time before the publication of edition A/c in 1769 Ten tunes, ranging from p 44 to p 88, are found also in a certain edition of Thomas Knibb's The Psalm Singer's Help and in no earlier book All editions of Knibb's book are undated, but this one (edition c) cannot have been later than 1767 a letter from Knibb to the Revd Wheelock Prest, a missionary in New England, dated 30 March 1767, has the following postscript ‘I have cald a New tune, in page 72 Lebanon, out of respect to you’ (Hanover, New Hampshire, Dartmouth College Archives, no 76, 7230 1) The only edition with a tune called ‘Lebanon’ on p 72 is the one in question – edition c, with 164 pages Now it is in general more likely that Knibb copied from the Lock Collection than the reverse, because the latter has attributions to composers, whose help Madan later acknowledged But in this case there is additional evidence to that effect Of the ten tunes, eight have the same name in both books, but the tunes named ‘Nativity’ and ‘Feversham’ in the Lock Collection are named ‘America’ and ‘West St’ in Knibb's book It is easy to see why Knibb would rename a tune ‘America’ the Dartmouth archive reveals that he was selling quantities of his books to American colonists And in the case of ‘Feversham’ the change is explained by the fact that he already had another tune with that name in his book There is no apparent reason why Madan should have renamed either tune I conclude from this that the cumulatively printed Lock Collection must have reached at least p 88 by early 1767 (The Dartmouth archive was brought to my attention by Dr Ruth Mack Wilson, I am grateful to her for this assistance)Google Scholar

54 By this time, some hymns were taking up more than one page, and pp 85, 97 and 109 do not coincide with the beginning of a hymnGoogle Scholar

55 For one thing, the separate title-page of the second added section (Table 3, title-page (5)) refers to ‘Two Hymns’, not three Corroborative evidence lies in the gradual changeover from the upright lower-case ‘s’ similar to an ‘f’, to the modern form On pp 1–42 (see Table 3) the modern ‘s’ is used only at the ends of words, as was traditional. On pp. 143–77 it is used consistently in tune names and Italian tempo indications, but still only at the ends of words in the hymn texts. On p 178, as on pp. 179-93, it is used everywhere, except as the first of a pair of adjacent 's's in the hymn texts Thus it is likely that p. 178 was engraved some years after pp 175–7, and near the time when pp 179–93 were engraved.Google Scholar

56 Board 14, 2 May 1793 Unfortunately, the more detailed proceedings that doubtless took place at the meeting of the Select (Chapel) Committee are unrecorded owing to a gap in book C.1.Google Scholar

57 Board 14, 6 February 1794Google Scholar

58 This edition is dated c 1807 in the British Library catalogue, on unknown grounds It is here numbered A/f The firm Broderip & Wilkinson was in business from 1798 to 1808Google Scholar

59 Board 16, 26 February 1801Google Scholar

60 British Library, E 1429; Royal College of Music, B III 28, Manchester Public LibraryGoogle Scholar

61 Copy. British Library, F.1122 mGoogle Scholar

62 Shaw-Shoemaker 17967; reproduced under that number in the American Antiquarian Society's Readex microcard series For a full description see Britton, Allen Perdue, Irving Lowens and Richard Crawford, American Sacred Imprints 1698–1810 A Bibliography (Worcester, Mass, 1990), 234–5Google Scholar

63 Chapel Committee Book C 1, 30 June 1803 Nicholson's printing bill for £65 4s. was submitted on 25 October 1803, the secretary was reimbursed £110 16s 6d for ‘printing paper &c’ for 1803, compared with a normal annual expenditure on stationery of some £10–15 (Board 17, 28 June 1804) The book's title (cf Table 1) was A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, Extracted from Various Authors, for the Use of the Lock Chapel A New Edition London Printed by W Nicholson, Warner Street And sold at the Lock Hospital, near Hyde-Park-Corner 1803 (12mo, 241 pp. British Library, 3436 h 16; 32mo, 273 pp., British Library, 3434.a 30.) This book was reprinted without change of content in 1810 and 1826Google Scholar

64 Board 17, 29 October 1807, 21 January 1808Google Scholar

65 Copy British Library, B 370 g.(1)Google Scholar

66 In the 1760s and 70s both groups considered themselves part of the Church of England, though they were treated with hostility by the church authorities When the split came, those that remained in the church were predominantly though not exclusively Calviniste rather than (like Wesley) Arminians, and became generally known as Evangelicals, those who left the church became Calvinistic Methodists Before that time, however, there was no clear distinction between Evangelicals and Methodists (For further discussion see Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1979), i, 204–7)Google Scholar

67 The three new ones are ‘Our little bark on boist'rous seas’ (by Zinzendorf, in an unidentified translation), ‘Hail, great Immanuel’ (anonymous); and ‘Dear object of our strong desire’ (Walter Shirley) Statistics of the authorship of the texts in Madan's Hymns may be found in F Madan, The Madan Family, 275, 278 The most heavily represented authors are Charles Wesley, with 92 hymns, Isaac Watts, with 63, and John Cennick, with 15Google Scholar

68 Balleine, George Reginald, A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England (London, 1908), 109.Google Scholar

69 Benson, The English Hymn, 330.Google Scholar

70 Julian, John, A Dictionary of Hymnology (2nd edn, London, 1907), 332–3Google Scholar

71 Madan's conversion may have been influenced by his mother's religious views Judith Madan (1702–81), née Cowper (she was an aunt of the poet), came under the influence of both Wesley and Lady Huntingdon in about 1749, and more so after the death of her husband in 1756 As a known Methodist, Madan had difficulty in obtaining ordination, and succeeded only through the influence of Lady Huntingdon He was ordained deacon in 1757 (by Benjamin Hoadly, bishop of Winchester), priest in 1758 In 1757 he became domestic chaplain to the Hon Henry Bathurst, later Earl Bathurst, another link with the court of Frederick, Prince of Wales Between 1755 and 1768 he ‘itinerated’ as a Calvinistic Methodist preacher, his assistants, Haweis and later de Coetlogon, were also Calviniste He was a close friend of Romaine (Information from F. Madan, The Madan Family, and the DNB articles on de Coetlogon and Haweis)Google Scholar

72 See Curwen, John Spencer, ‘Methodist Psalmody’, Curwen, Studies in Worship-Music, 1st ser (London, 1880), 24–40Google Scholar

73 There are no accompaniments in John Wesley's Collection of Tunes, Set to Music, as they are Commonly Sung at the Foundery (London, 1742) or his Select Hymns, with Tunes Annext (London, 1761) But the title-page of Butts's Harmonia sacra says it is ‘for Voice, Harpsichord and Organ’ and provides figured basses, Wesley himself specifically approved this feature of the book. Knibb's A Collection of Tunes in Three Parts (London, [1755?]) and The Psalm Singer's Help (4 edns, London, [1765?]–[1775?]) have figures as well as text for the bass line, and The Divine Musical Miscellany (London, 1754), associated with Whitefield's Hymns for Social Worship (London, 1753), is scored for a single voice line with figured bass. These features may have been for home use- domestic organs were not uncommon It is a fact, however, that organs were a feature of the Countess of Huntingdon's larger chapels by the time her Connection officially separated from the Church of England in 1782, and it is possible that the Calvinistic Methodists disagreed with the Wesleyans on this matter. I am grateful to Margo Chaney for her assistance on this point.Google Scholar

74 In 1768 Madan was stigmatized by the Wesleyans as one of the ‘genteel Methodists of Lady Huntingdon's connexion’ (F. Madan, The Madan Family, 109) Wesley, though highly cultivated and a descendant of Anglican and Dissenting clergy of several generations, confessed to his brother in 1781 ‘I was a little out of my element among lords and ladies. I love plain music and plain company best’ (Curwen, Studies, 39)Google Scholar

75 Such a practice was specifically opposed in orthodox Anglican circles A sermon preached at the Three Choirs Festival in 1753 warned the ‘sacred musician’ to avoid ‘levity of notes’ Let him carefully decline the introduction of all such addresses to the passions in his notes, all such complications of sounds, as, having once been connected with words of levity, may naturally recall into light minds the remembrance of those words or their ideas again ’ If church music transgressed in this regard, the hearer should try to avoid secular associations ‘Let him rather study to adapt good ideas to the sound, and thereby correct the judgment of the musician ’ William Parker, The Pleasures of Gratitude and Benevolence Improved by Church-Musick A Sermon Preached at Hereford, On Wednesday, Sept 12, 1753 (London, 1753), 24–5 See also William Riley, Parochial Music Corrected (London, 1762), prefaceGoogle Scholar

76 Burney, Charles, The Present State of Music in France and Italy (2nd edn, London, 1773), 145–93; the quoted passage occurs at p 156 One of the four ospedali, the Incurabili, founded in 1517, was for venereal patients and penitent prostitutesGoogle Scholar

77 120 out of 127 There are two solos and five triosGoogle Scholar

78 For a full discussion see Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, 1, 184–90Google Scholar

79 In one place, however (p 68), the second voice would be higher than the melody even when transposed down an octave.Google Scholar

80 There is little possibility that this danger was avoided by means of a ‘double bass’ an octave below the written bass notes Organs with independent pedals were virtually unknown in England at that time, as were 16-foot manual stops See Thistlethwaite, Nicholas, The Making of the Victorian Organ (Cambridge, 1990), 14–15, 105.Google Scholar

81 Pp 96, 134 This custom seems to have originated in ‘dialogue hymns’ specially written for the purpose by John Cennick, some of which were included in Whitefield's Hymns for Social Worship One of the two men/women tunes in the Lock Collection is a dialogue hymn, ‘Tell us, O women, we would know Whither so fast ye move?‘.Google Scholar

82 See Temperley, , The Music of the English Parish Church, 1, 212, Curwen, Studies, 27 The custom survives in a ‘repeating’ tune of Catholic origin, ‘Adeste Fideles’ It is also possible that the dynamic mark p meant that women were to sing alone Stephen Addington's Collection of Psalm Tunes (3rd edn, Market Harborough, 1780) laid down that ‘where Pia is over a line it is to be sung soft, or only in women's voices’, but this book was primarily for the use of Congregationalists rather than Methodists. John Beaumont, a Wesleyan Methodist, wrote in the preface to his Select Hymns, Odes, Poems, and Other Choice Pieces Proper to be Sung in Public Worship (Leeds, 1800) ‘Let the Women always take their Parts alone, in the Repeats’, a gloss on one of Wesley's own rulesGoogle Scholar

83 The only possible exception is the famous tune ‘Helmsley’, which some authorities have derived from a theatre tune, see, for instance, The New Oxford Book of Carols, ed Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott (Oxford, 1992), 252 But the resemblance is slight, is unsupported by evidence, and is made the more unlikely by the fact that no secular source has been found for any other tune in the bookGoogle Scholar

84 ‘An Account of the Proceedings of the Governors of the Lock Hospital 1776’, Charles de Coetlogon, A Sermon Preached on Friday, December 13, 1776 (London, 1777), 54–5 Evidence of the family relationships is to be found in Court 1, p 247, and Court 2, p 137 Capital I and J were still interchangeable at this date, so it is possible that all four tunes labelled ‘I B ’ or ‘J B ’ are by the same personGoogle Scholar

85 The code ‘Dr. H.’ occurs only in a hymn headed ‘Altered from Dr H’Google Scholar

86 There are occasional examples of parallel fifths or octaves, but apart from that the music conforms to professional standards of harmonic progression and voice-leadingGoogle Scholar

87 I discussed it in detail in The Music of the English Parish Church, 1, 212, and reprinted it there (ii, Example 45)Google Scholar

88 Three of his later set pieces, however (‘Brunswick’, ‘Worcester’, ‘Alton‘), are more enterprising in their treatment of musical formGoogle Scholar

89 The Core Repertory of Early American Psalmody, ed Richard A Crawford, Recent Researches in American Music, 12–13 (Madison, Wis, 1984), xxxiii Three other tunes from the Lock Hospital Collection are on the list of 100, all by Madan ‘Christmas’, ‘Dunstan’ and ‘Hotham’ Only two composers, the Americans William Billings and Daniel Read, exceed Madan's total on this listGoogle Scholar

90 These are Andrew Law, The Musical Primer (Cheshire, Conn., 1793), Andrew Law, The Art of Singing (Cheshire, Conn, 1800), The Beauties of Psalmody (Baltimore, 1804), and The Suffolk Collection of Church Musick (Boston, 1807) The relevant passages are reproduced in Britton, Lowens and Crawford, American Sacred Imprints, 421, 401, 224, 571 respectivelyGoogle Scholar

91 Another version of ‘Helmsley’ appeared, under the name ‘Olivers’, at about the same time in the collection entitled Sacred Melody attached to some copies of John Wesley's Select Hymns with Tunes Annext (2nd edn, 1765) I am preparing an article to sort out the origins of this famous tune, long a subject of controversy, for a recent summary see The New Oxford Book of Carols, 256–7Google Scholar

92 The texts of some eighteenth-century charity hymns come close to suggesting that alms-giving is an investment whose profits will be reaped in the afterlifeGoogle Scholar