In some places, however, the High Church tradition, associated with the reforms initiated by Archbishop Laud in the early part of the previous century, survived and retained dignified liturgical worship. From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, and as a reaction against the Church of England’s neglectfulness, Methodism also provided a warmer alternative, albeit outside the walls of parish churches. And by the end of the century an evangelical revival within the Church of England was beginning to change its worship for the better in some places, not least by the introduction of hymns. The replacement of the bands by organs or harmoniums proved, however, to be highly controversial in most villages, and in his preface to Under the Greenwood Tree, based on such a controversy, Thomas Hardy alleged that a direct result of this change had been ‘to curtail and extinguish the interest of parishioners in such doings’.
Whether or not this be true, it is indisputable that by 1830, on the eve of the great reform movement that was to galvanize and change virtually every aspect of life in Victorian England, the worship offered in most parish churches and cathedrals remained at a shockingly low ebb.
3. The Last of the Old Wine – John Goss
When John Goss became organist of St Paul’s in 1838 he found the music of the great cathedral, as well as almost every other aspect of its life, appalling. This could hardly have surprised him, since he had been involved in the capital’s musical life from an early age. What is more, only a slight acquaintance with other English cathedrals would have made him aware that the situation at St Paul’s was commonplace. There it was more deplorable than most, however, inasmuch as it had huge resources of money and manpower that a corrupt capitular regime had directed from the furtherance of the cathedral’s worship and witness to the pockets of a number of privileged clergymen.
Goss found a community that consisted of a dean, three residentiary canons, 30 prebendaries, 12 minor canons, six vicars choral, eight singing boys and a large complement of vergers and other minor functionaries. The deans of St Paul’s, who received a stipend of £5,000 per annum, had for many years also been diocesan bishops. The residential canons, who had £2,000 per annum, also held one or more other appointments in the church, while the 30 prebendaries, all appointed by the Bishop of London from among his relations and friends, received an income of varying amounts from the land allocated to their stalls; these also held one or more other appointments.
The minor canons, who were responsible for the ordering and conducting of worship on Sundays and weekdays, formed a college with its own legal identity, and its own endowments. They, too, held other appointments, usually livings in the City of London, and whenever vacancies occurred in the college, they recruited the replacements, nearly always from clergymen who were professional musicians. The vicars choral were laymen and professional musicians who also sang at Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal. One of their number was the organist, who employed a permanent deputy to sing in his place, another was the master of the choristers. All the appointments at St Paul’s were to freehold offices, tenable until death, and as at other cathedrals they continued to be held even when their occupants were incapable of performing their duties.
What should have been an impressive great church was, moreover, fatally flawed by persistent absenteeism. The dean put in an appearance only infrequently, he being preoccupied with his bishopric. The canons residentiary were required by the statutes to occupy houses in Amen Court for four months of the year and during this time to attend the daily services. Since they were answerable only to their apparently untutored consciences, they were often absent. One of their number, who held with his canonry the sinecure office of precentor, appeared so infrequently that on one occasion when he did turn up for a service the dean’s verger failed to recognize him and refused him admission to his stall. Sydney Smith, a fellow canon, referred to him as ‘the Absenter’. The minor canons were not much better than their superiors. In theory they should have been present and involved in the daily services, augmenting the choir, but they were frequently absent and there was rarely anyone in authority to hold them to account. They were a law unto themselves.
Morning Prayer was said on weekdays at 7 a.m. (8 a.m. in the winter), sung at 9.45 a.m., and Evening Prayer was sung at 3.15 p.m. The same pattern was observed on Sundays, except that Holy Communion was celebrated after 9.45 a.m. Morning Prayer, as it was also on saints’ days falling in the week. The east end of the building, which housed the choir stalls, was separated from the nave by the huge organ screen, and the mostly unrehearsed performance of the eight singing boys and as many of the vicars choral and minor canons as chose to turn up was poor – very much worse than that achieved in the best of the nearby City churches. The choice of anthems was determined, and generally limited, by the number of vicars choral likely to be available and sometimes had to be changed at the last minute. They tended therefore to be kept short and simple, though on one occasion Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus was attempted with only two men present.
Yet, in spite of this, the congregations at the daily services were often fairly large – as many as 150 at Evening Prayer – and on a Sunday, after the organ screen had been removed, the nave could be crowded with, it was reputed, ‘not a seat to be had except in the gallery and that by slipping half a crown to the verger’. Part of the explanation of this was that the canons were all distinguished scholars and, whatever their other shortcomings, they were fine preachers whom thoughtful people wanted to hear. It is also the case that sometimes, and especially on great occasions when everyone reported for duty, the worship could be of a very high quality and win praise.
By 1838 it was evident that the situation of the English cathedrals could not be tolerated for much longer. Reform was in the air and eleven years earlier there had been a faint, very faint, indication of change at St Paul’s when Dean Copleston, who stayed until 1849, chose to neglect the bishopric of Llandaff, to which he had also been appointed, and instead resided in the Deanery for most of the year. In response to the badgering of Miss Maria Hackett, ‘the choristers’ friend’, he appointed a master to teach and generally care for the singing boys. At the national level the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, appointed a Commission of Enquiry in 1834 to investigate the substantial finances of the Church of England’s bishoprics and cathedrals. This led in 1836 to a permanent Ecclesiastical Commission, which was given responsibility, with increasing power, for the administration of the church’s financial assets.
An Act of Parliament in 1840 required the dean and canons residential of cathedrals to be full-time appointments. Prebendaries were to be honorary rather than stipendiary posts. At St Paul’s, the college of minor canons was reduced from twelve to six, those remaining being required to undertake pastoral and educational work in the City and to live in the cathedral’s precincts rather than hold City livings. But the effects of these reforms on the music was for many years minimal, mainly because the freeholders remained in their offices, normally until death. When H. H. Milman, a poet as well as a church historian (he was the author of the hymn ‘Ride on, Ride on in majesty’), succeeded Copleston in 1849 and became the first full-time dean for more than 100 years, he and the chapter resolved to increase the choir to a size appropriate to the huge building. By this time, however, the capitular revenues had been so depleted by the 1840 reforms that expansion could not be afforded It was not until 1871, when the saintly R. W. Church became dean and acquired an outstandingly able chapter, that significant progress became possible. By this time Goss was within 12 months of retirement, his health having declined.
John Goss was born in 1800 at Fareham, Hampshire, where his father was the highly regarded organist of the parish church. By the age of eleven he was a chorister at the Chapel Royal in London, joining his uncle, an alto, who also sang at Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s. Young John boarded with the other choristers