reproduced from the ‘Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions’ Volume XXI 1978-1980, pp25-33.
John Alcock (1715-1806),
Vicar Choral and
Organist and Lichfield Cathedral:
A Frustrated Reformer
by Peter Marr
During the 18th century, there were at Lichfield many talented and colourful personalities. Not least amongst them was John Alcock, lay vicar and organist of the cathedral, a man whose perversity in personal relationships and talent for upsetting the status quo have left a tale well-worth relating, a host of facts for the historian of church music and a few moral cautions on the way.
Alcock was born on 11 April 1715 in Crane Court, St Peter’s Hill, London,’[1] and in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. Baptized at St Benet’s, Paul’s Wharf, he was the third of eight children of Daniel and Mary Alcock, a family of whose background little is known save that Daniel Alcock’s connections with that part of the City went back a couple of generations.[2] John Alcock entered the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1722[3] and was put under Charles King, Almoner and Master of the Boys. King, a former pupil of John Blow and Jeremiah Clarke, was in his younger years an able mentor and, after seven years under him, the young Alcock had acquitted himself sufficiently well to become amanuensis to the talented young organist, John Stanley, by then almost blind after a childhood accident. In due course, Alcock was apprenticed to him.[4]
Exactly how precocious Alcock himself was remains a mystery. Many years later, he claimed that during his pupilage he had composed a considerable quantity of music,[5] but an examination of it (or as much as has survived) suggests that, unless he was a youth of rare talent, the bulk of it was subsequently extensively revised. Alcock deputized for Stanley at St Andrew’s, Holborn, (and, from 1734, at the Temple Church, which post Stanley held in plurality) but, after the statutory seven years, then searched for a position himself. Unsuccessful attempts in the City[6] were followed by his marriage on 20 May 1737 at All Hallows’, London Wall, to Margaret Beaumont of Brompton, Kent,[7] and by his appointment as organist of St Andrew’s, Plymouth, soon after. Here, the Rev Zachariah Mudge, a conscientious pastor, friend of Dr Samuel Johnson and no mean scholar, was rector. Up to this time, Alcock had composed plenty of music but only a few separate songs had appeared in print; indeed, the first of these was written when he was 13 and published in 1730 by the pirate-printer, Daniel Wright, junior. Whilst he was at Plymouth, Alcock published his Six Suites of Lessons (1741) for harpsichord but, the next year, moved to Reading where, at a newly-built organ at St Laurence’s Church, he presided for seven years.
During his stay there, the highly successful collection, Twelve English Songs (1743), enhanced his reputation and he followed it by a selection of metrical psalm texts, Fifty Select Portions (1748) and a book of metrical psalm-tunes, Psalmody (?1749). Revision of his six fine concerti grossi for strings with flutes, oboes and bassoons, written nearly twenty years previously, occupied his last months in the town but publication was delayed until the end of 1750, by which time he had taken the last step on his career ladder, his appointment as vicar choral and organist of Lichfield Cathedral.
The previous organist, George Lamb, had been organist for many years but commanded little respect from the other vicars; eventually he became an alcoholic.[8] Alcock’s appointment, it seems, was planned before Lamb’s death for it was finalized within three days of Lamb’s burial;[9] with high hopes for the future, the Alcock family arrived in the city towards the end of January 1750. There is no doubt that musical standards were far from satisfactory when Alcock arrived to work at the cathedral. Performances needed to be improved and this the 35-year-old organist had every intention of doing. Once installed as a Vicar Choral,[10] and subsequently organist (at a miserly £4 per annum extra)[11] with the additional post of Master of the Boys (another £10), he had, in theory, some control over the situation but his intentions were frustrated by the unruly choristers and gross absences by the self-interested vicars. The publication of fifty new chants[12] with a none-too-complimentary preface about standards of psalm-chanting, was among the first results of his early years at the cathedral but, by 1753, friction between him and the other vicars had grown sufficiently for it to be mentioned in the cathedral records.[13] Soon, the incessant absence of singers and the clash of personality between Alcock and the subchanter, John White, led to a breakdown of relationships between Alcock and most of those with whom he worked. It came about as follows:
In each volume of the collection of chants just mentioned, Alcock had included proposals to publish in quarterly instalments an historical anthology of scores of cathedral music in an attempt to correct the inaccuracies that had accumulated by copyists working from part-books[14] a project whose need had been pointed out by William Croft many years before. Since his teens, Alcock had been a collector of manuscripts and a ceaseless copyist; indeed, by this time, his own library seems to have been quite extensive. However, Maurice Greene, organist of St Paul’s, had formulated a similar scheme on rather more attractive financial terms and, in due course, his accumulated material (including some of Alcock’s) passed to William Boyce and was later published as Boyce’s Cathedral Music (1760-78).[15] Meanwhile, Alcock had been forced to withdraw his scheme but not before the first service, “By Way of Specimen”, was already in the press. This was not an old service but his own Morning and Evening Service, originally composed in the 1730s and now finally appearing in print in November 1753.[16] It was the only service-setting that appeared separately in print during the century and the Dedication contained in it, a letter to Dean Addenbrooke, attacks in the most vitriolic terms the musical arrangements at the cathedral:
...no Choir in the Kingdom is so much neglected by the Members thereof as
this; one of them attending no more than five Weeks in a Year, another five
Months, some seven, and few of them so often as they might do; sometimes only
one Priest-Vicar at Church, and at
other Times, but one Lay-Vicar, both on Sundays
as well as the Week-Days, tho’ there are Eleven of them, which has occasion’d
some People of the Town to write upon the Church
Doors, My House shall be called the House
of Prayer, but ye have made it a Den of Thieves …
There was, it must be admitted, an attempt to improve the attendances of recalcitrant vicars later that year, but the irascible organist’s round of copying and composition did not change; suffering from the same recurring problems and living with his own intolerances, his worst enemy was himself. Publication of The Pious Soul’s Heavenly Exercise (1756), a set of ornately harmonized psalm-tunes[17] was not entirely boycotted by the other vicars but, by 1758, it seems that relationships with them had become so strained that something had to give way. Alcock ceased being Master of the Boys in August 1758[18] and was succeeded by a fellow singer, Francis Bird; together they ran the boys’ choir until Bird took complete charge. But, by and large, as Alcock observes, the vicars ‘hanged together’,[19] becoming so exasperated with the ways of their young organist that they petitioned the Dean and Chapter against him, saying that:
Whereas frequent Complaints have
been made to the Dean and Chapter, by the Subchanter and Vicars, of Mr John
Alcock, Organist and Vicar Choral of the said Church; whose Behaviour in Time
of Divine Service has given great and just Offence, not only to us, but to
those too who attend Divine Service in this Church, as well Strangers as
Neighbours; and whereas those complaints have not hitherto been attended with
the desir’d Reformation; so far from that, the said John Alcock is become more
and more scandalous and indecent in his Behaviour, to the great Grief and
Disturbance of the Congregation; We therefore the Subchanter and Vicars-Choral
whose Names are here unto Subscrib’d, make it our unanimous Request and
Petition, that the said John Alcock may be regularly and formally admonished in
Chapter, and the said Admonition be registered (in terrorem) to the Intent He
may not hereafter offend in a manner so audacious and irreverent. That if the
Subchanter shall think it his Duty to entreat him (as heretofore) to play
Slower or Faster, as Occasion may require, He may not show his Contempt or
Indignation by playing the Chants, Services, or Anthems so fast that the Choir
cannot sometimes articulate half the words; or else so slow that their Breath
will not serve to hold out the long, loitering, dragging Notes. That He may not
hereafter mock, and mimick with his Voice any of the Vicars, as He frequently
has done, in the Responses, and even in the Confession. That He may not show
his Splenetic Tricks upon the Organ to expose or confound the Performers, or
burlesque their manner of Singing. That He may not play Full where He ought
not; or so Loud (in the Verses especially) that the softer Voices cannot be
heard at all; no Voices distinctly. That He may have some Regard to the
Sacredness of the Place, and the Solemnity of the Worship; that we may perform
all things decently and in Order, and may attend on the Service of God without
Distraction.[20]
Curiously, nothing came of this for a while. But in 1760, Alcock was formally admonished and told to behave himself in future.[21] But he was no fool; his resignation from the post of Master of the Boys caused little more than temporary inconvenience and his trump card was yet to be played. By resigning his post as organist,[22] with the consequent loss of only a year, he could still have a house and income as Vicar Choral, and this for life. Until another vicar died, the Dean and Chapter had to find another organist from amongst the vicars. This they did in the person of Thomas Edmonds who played until Thomas Wood died in October 1764,[23] and William Brown of Worcester was then appointed Vicar Choral and organist. That the Dean and Chapter found themselves in this dilemma on Alcock’s resignation is indicated by their making Brown sign a special £500 bond that he would not resign his place as organist without that of Vicar.[24]
In spite of this breakdown of relationships, Alcock had gained his BMus degree at Oxford in 1755 with a setting (and performance) of Addison’s words, ‘Attend, harmonious saint’.[25] Meanwhile, at Lichfield, instead of seeking the company of his fellows, he chose to remain aloof and eventually alienated himself from them, as we have seen from the tenor of the petition. But this, and his eventual resignation as organist, was not the end of the story by any means. For some years he had been working on a story for the amusement (and moral instruction) of his children; by the time the disagreements had come to a head, he had expanded it to include a series of accounts of various cathedrals, their music and historical associations, together with a hundred-page section on Lichfield itself. This work he entitled The Life of Miss Fanny Brown; it has been mentioned frequently in accounts of Alcock’s life but only recently has it been possible to identify the author as Alcock, who wrote it under the pseudonym, John Piper.[26]
Alcock’s prose is turgid at the best of times and the four-hundred page novel, with expansive footnotes, is difficult to summarize. Fanny, an orphan from Lancashire and the youngest daughter of an unbeneficed clergyman, is apprenticed to a milliner, Mrs Lawn, in Paternoster Row. She falls in love with Andrew Shoot, wealthy son of Captain Shoot, who consents to their marriage. Fanny’s three brothers, John, Henry and Thomas, come to visit her in London and to attend the wedding; during their journey, John and Henry’s experiences and the letters of the Oxford-bred Thomas tell us of musical and other happenings in London and the south-west of England. Accounts of parochial music and of various cathedrals provide a great deal of information and, in some cases, misinformation. The descriptions move round to a city that clearly may be recognized as Lichfield and Alcock’s bitter experiences are related through letters from Thomas to his mother. Few names are mentioned but we can infer that Alcock’s nickname was ‘Mr Study-Page’,[27] that he was falsely accused of the most outrageous behaviour in church,[28] and that the rest of the vicars lived a life of irresponsible insobriety. This long digression is set in the middle of Fanny’s preparations for her wedding, shortly before which she is waylaid by a bawd (Mrs Mar-Maid) and conveniently rescued by her brothers. Her advantageous marriage to Andrew finally takes place in St Paul’s Cathedral and, with the death of Captain Shoot, it devolves upon them to run the family estate in Devonshire. This they do with exemplary kindness to their tenants. After 18 years of marriage, Andrew dies and later, Fanny too (‘within these last few Months’), leaving their family well provided for.
The results of the publication of Fanny Brown were awaited by its author with characteristic stoicism:
if it does no Good, it can do no Harm . . . (and) amongst the Prejudic’d, Ignorant, and Malicious,
their Censure will give me no Concern in the least [p.xix].
Alcock’s stubborness over political matters is also reflected in the novel;[29] although he states that the other vicars voted differently from himself (if we may read his comments in Fanny Brown aright), an examination of the voting lists for elections held at Lichfield while he was organist there are revealing. They show that Francis Bird, who succeeded Alcock as Master of the Boys, and Henry Wood, another fellow vicar, were, like Alcock, Tory supporters;[30] the rest of the vicars were Whigs as were so many other inhabitants of the Close. The Tory gentry in the surrounding parts of southern Staffordshire did not succumb to the intrigues of the electoral corruption mounted by the combined families of Gower and Anson and which controlled the political fortunes of the city virtually until the Reform Bill of 1832.[31] But it was a common political colour that must have determined Alcock’s appointment as organist to the Earl of Donegall about 1760. The composition of a wedding ode and the arrangement of a couple of anthems seem to have been the only musical outcome and the connection fades later in the decade about the time the family seat, Fisherwick Hall, was rebuilt.
By then, as an organist, Alcock had extended his activities to Sutton Coldfield (where he was organist from 1761 to 1786) and Tamworth at whose organ he presided from 1766 until 1790. Both of these churches installed new organs on his appointment to them and this fact, together with the extra income, provided the incentive to make the weekly journey to one or both places. Little has survived to document Alcock’s work at Sutton except a long letter to the Rev R Bisse Riland complaining about discrepancies in his salary and detailing his own misfortunes and unfair treatment from all and sundry.[32] At Tamworth, the Commissioners, who were trustees for the organ and responsible for the appointment (and dismissal) of the organist[33] seem to have suffered him gladly and, in turn, entertained him each week to Sunday dinner[34]
Here at Tamworth his duties were, on occasion, performed by two of his sons and perhaps it is a convenient moment to look briefly at the younger members of his large family. By Margaret Alcock, John had twelve children although there is detailed evidence of only eleven. Three were born at Plymouth: Anna-Maria (born and died in 1738), John (baptized 28 January 1740) and Jinny (born 1741)[35] five were born at Reading: Peggy (1742 and dying the following year), Daniel (i) (1743-4), Mary (born 1745), Sarah (born 1747) and Daniel (ii) (born and died in 1749).[36] His time at Lichfield saw the birth of three more: Margaret (born 1751), Theresa (born 1753) and William (baptized on 6 December 1756).[37] One of the girls remained at Lichfield and later kept a boarding school in the Close and two of the others went to London, one marrying H Cooper, an attorney, of Castle Street, Holborn.
The younger John Alcock became a chorister at Lichfield Cathedral soon after the family’s arrival but in December 1755[38] he was dismissed by Thomas Smalbroke, the Precentor, partly, it would seem, because he deputized for his father when he was absent teaching or when it was his turn as vicar to read the lessons and take part in services in choir.[39] At the tender age of 17, he was appointed organist of Newark-on-Trent and was soon married. By 1768 when he left, he had obtained the Oxford BMus degree and, about 1773 moved to Walsall where, at St Matthew’s, his father had opened the new organ.[40] Apparently widowed, he married again but died shortly afterwards in 1791.[41] His music reflects a later generation than that of his father and, by and large, is of little interest. Inheriting a literary bent, he published in 1779 a motley collection of anecdotes entitled The Entertaining and Instructive Companion.[42]
The Alcocks’ youngest son, William, deputized for his father at Sutton Coldfield and finally became organist of Newcastle-under-Lyme where he stayed until the early 1800s. Nothing is heard of him for a few years although he may have moved to Derby, the home of his second wife, for like his brother, he married twice. By the 1830s he had gone to Liverpool, dying in 1833, ‘the last son of the celebrated Dr Alcock of Lichfield’.[43]
John Alcock’s doctorate was gained at Oxford in 1766, almost certainly through the good offices of William Hayes whom he had known for many years. In the summer of 1766 we have the unusual situation of the two John Alcocks setting off from Lichfield for Oxford degrees in music, the father for his DMus, the son for his BMus.[44] The music of the elder Alcock’s exercise has not survived but it was probably a setting of An Ode in Praise of Church-Musick, with words by Dr John Merrick.[45]
The irascibility of Alcock, as pertinently noticed by John Bumpus,[46] had not waned by the late 1760x and neither had his energies been sapped. Nevertheless, perhaps feeling the onset of middle age, he assembled his cathedral anthems (a collection dating back to his apprenticeship days) and published a selection of them under the title, Six and Twenty Select Anthems (1771). It is a revealing musical biography but perhaps better known for its preface, informative as to the contents of the volume and full of bitter comments on his lot, particularly during his time as organist of the cathedral. The volume was designed originally as Twenty Select Anthems, and at first advertised as such, but miscalculations over its length, disputes with the engraver and a few revisions caused him to recast the last few items, finally including some chants, a setting of the Burial Service and some newly-composed anthems. Among omitted material was a setting of the Miserere, a fine piece which he published separately about the same time.
Meanwhile, Alcock had been busy in another area of musical composition, orchestrally-accompanied anthems designed for special occasions rather than for regular use in cathedral services. Among these lengthy compositions, We Will Rejoice,[47] an adaptation of Laudate Dominum (1754) was performed at the meeting of the Three Choirs at Worcester in 1773. But, with one exception, Alcock’s days as a composer were as good as over. His collection of Ten Voluntaries for Organ or Harpsichord was published in 1774 but most of these bear the stamp of former years; his songs, anthems e.g. those in Six New Anthems (c. 1790) and metrical psalm-tunes written between the late 1770s and his death reflect industry rather than inventiveness. It was the annual competitions of the Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Catch Club in London that gave him the impetus to turn away from church music towards convivial pieces, with the chance and hope of winning one of the four annual prizes of a gold medal worth £10. Thus he submitted a catch, a canon and a couple of glees each year from 1769 until 1782, and continued to enter canons until 1786. He was successful in winning a medal for glees in 1770 and 1774 and for canons in 1772 and 1778. Acquiring a moderate reputation for such music, he published by subscription a selection in Harmonia Festi (1791), although omitting some of his settings of risque texts. The bulk of his convivial music remains in manuscript in the collection of the Catch Club but, as with his songs, a number of his compositions appeared in the popular anthologies of the day. It is in Harmonia Festi that we find his own epitaph to himself, in the form of a catch:
Here lies Old John, honest, most
thought, tho’ others oft cry’d sad on’ yet a good bargain he ne’er bought or ever
sold a bad one.
Although his wife died the next year,[48]
the gout-ridden widower lived another fifteen years after the publication of
this all-too-true likeness. Perhaps his most important work during the 1790s
was in assisting Samuel Arnold in the preparation of his collection, Cathedral
Music (1790); in addition, visits to London during the winter (made excusable
by the closure of Lichfield Cathedral during its restoration) allowed him to
press his own compositions upon old friends. But, at Lichfield, the cathedral
authorities found him an increasing embarrassment, not least because of his
gout which, by this time, was considerably more severe. Nevertheless, he kept
an active interest in the treasures of English church music and was annotating
his copy of Byrd and Tallis’ Cantiones
Sacrae as late as 1801.[49] His
library had been built up over a period of seventy years and consisted not only
of his own transcriptions of cathedral music, with which his name is so often
linked, but also much Italian vocal music of the 17th century and a few gems
such as the ‘Sambroke Manuscript’.[50]
Nor should it be forgotten that Alcock published an edition of Byrd’s Diliges Dominum in 1770—a pioneering
venture for those years but one that, nevertheless, reflects the growing antiquarian
interest during the century.
John Alcock died on Sunday evening, 23 February 1806.[51] Aged nearly 91 and with few friends of his own generation, his memory and his music soon passed into oblivion. What of his extensive collection of books and manuscripts? Its immediate fate is unknown, but not so long after his death, the library passed into the possession of the Rev John Parker, a London rector, Lichfield Prebendary and ardent antiquarian. It is through the catalogue of the sale of Parker’s library that the extent of Alcock’s collection becomes clearer,[52] and his standing as a musical antiquary thus clarified.
Alcock’s frustrations were, of course, to a great extent self-generated. But his attempts to improve musical matters at Lichfield Cathedral cannot go unnoticed, neither can his thwarted plan to publish cathedral music. That he lent some of this material to Greene, organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, indicates that he did not bear him malice. Even after the commercial failure of Boyce’s Cathedral Music, he was only too eager to help Arnold in a similar undertaking, a project that he must have realised would be unlikely to be successful. But Alcock possessed much tenacity of purpose (Fanny Brown alone shows that) and, had he been born a century later, he would have made his influence felt to much greater effect. Although he probably would not have had it otherwise, his strongly held convictions cost him his happiness; we know him to have been a man of asthenic build and, significantly, born under the sign of Aries.[53] The resulting approach to reform brought its own reward.
[1] London,
Guildhall Library MS.5721/2 (unfoliated), General Register of St Benet and St
Peter’s, Paul’s Wharf; see also ‘Eugenius’, ‘A Biographical Sketch of Dr Alcock’
in Monthly Mirror, iv (1797), p.137.
[2] His
grandfather was from the parish of St Gregory, near St Paul’s.
[3] St
Paul’s Cathedral MS.38 F 24; see also K I Garrett, ‘A List of some of St Paul’s
Cathedral Choristers before 1873’ in Guildhall
Studies in London History, i (1974), p82.
[4] Probably
in 1730, but no indentures survive; see also Alcock’s memoir of Stanley in European Magazine, x (1786), p80.
[5] John
Alcock, Six and Twenty Select Anthems
(1771), preface.
[6] At
St Antholin’s, Budge Row, in February 1736 and St Giles’, Cripplegate, in the
following May.
[7] Guildhall
Library, MS.5088.
[8] John
Piper, The Life of Miss Fanny Brown
(Birmingham, 1760), p255
[9] As
testified by Alcock’s deed of appointment, Lichfield Joint Record Office, (LJRO.),
Dean and Chapter, D 6; he submitted a testimonial prepared in 1746 when he
applied unsuccessfully for a post at Salisbury Cathedral.
[10] LJRO,
Chapter Acts viii, ff, 6v-7, 22 January 1750.
[11] ibid. x, entry dated 23 February 1750.
[12] Divine Harmony (Michael Broome,
Birmingham, 1752), published in October 1752.
[13] LJRO,
MS.BB.11, pleading for more harmony between organist and choir.
[14] The
proposals appeared in the London and Birmingham press; copies were also
inserted in Divine Harmony.
[15] see
H D Johnstone, ‘The Genesis of Boyce’s Cathedral
Music’ in Music and Letters, lvi
(1975), pp26-41.
[16] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette for 12
November 1753 confirms the publication date.
[17] Also
subtitled Divine Harmony and A Choice Collection of . . . Psalm Tunes
[18] LJRO,
box 18.8/2, a letter from the Precentor to the Chapter Clerk.
[19] Fanny Brown, p256.
[20] LJRO,
MS.P 6, dated 1758.
[21] LJRO,
Chapter Acts viii, f.41a(v)
[22] Although
there is no direct evidence for this and the salary books are incomplete, subsequent
events indicate that he must have resigned.
[23] Edmonds
was given a gratuity for playing during the interregnum as well as being paid
the organist’s salary.
[24] LJRO,
Chapter Acts viii, f 50 and box 3.2/1.
[25] The
music is in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS.Mus.Sch.0 149; its performance is
mentioned in Aris’s Gazette for 9
June 1755.
[26] see
Peter Marr, ‘John Alcock and Fanny Brown’ in Musical Times, cxviii (1977) pp118-120.
[27] Fanny Brown, pp242-3.
[28] ibid. p244, in words similar to the 1758
petition.
[29] ibid. p101.
[30] Staffordshire
Record Office, D.661/19/4/1(1747), D.593/F/3/12/3/1(1753/5), and
D.593/F/3/12/3/2(1761); also Birmingham Public Library, MS.379751(1755).
[31] see
Ann J Kettle, ‘The Struggle for the Lichfield Interest, 1747-68’ in Staffordshire Historical Collections,
4th ser., vi (1970), pp115-35.
[32] Now
lost, but transcribed in W K Riland Bedford, Three Hundred Years of a Family Living (Birmingham, 1889), pp48-52;
the original is dated October 1784.
[33] Tamworth
Parish Church, Organ Commissioners’ Minute Book.
[34] According
to Alcock’s letter; see note 32.
[35] West
Devon Record Office, Plymouth, Register of St Andrew’s Church, P 1442 A/3/B/12,
pp314 and 302.
[36] Berkshire
Record Office, Reading, Register of St Laurence’s Church, DP 97/1/4.
[37] LJRO,
Cathedral Register transcript; ‘Eugenius’ (note 1 above), a generally reliable
account, mentions twelve children.
[38] LJRO,
box 18.8/2, Chapter Clerk’s Receipt Book.
[39] ‘Eugenius’,
(note 1), also Alcock’s acid comments in the 1771 preface (note 5).
[40] Gentleman’s Magazine, 70(i) (1800), pp124-5.
[41] .St.
Matthew’s, Walsall, register states 27 March; later printed sources rely on Gentleman’s Magazine 51(i) (1791), p383,
which has 30 March.
[42] The
only copy known to me is in the University Library, Urbana, Ill., USA; the work
was published by J Smart of Wolverhampton
[43] Staffordshire Advertiser, 28 December
1833.
[44] Bodleian
Library, Oxford, Records of the University of Oxford, Register of Congregation
(1758-69), BLL*26, p248.
[45] A
word-sheet is contained in Royal College of Music Library, XXI.A.6.(8.); Dr
John Merrick, the father of the poet, James Merrick, had been known to Alcock
in the 1740s.
[46] A History of English Cathedral Music
1549-1889 (1908), i, p257.
[47] Lichfield
Cathedral Library, MS.Mus.5.
[48] LJRO,
Cathedral Register transcript.
[49] His
copy is now British Library, MS.Add. 23624.
[50] Now
New York Public Library, MS.Drexel 4302.
[51] LJRO,
Cathedral Register transcript; also Aris’s
Gazette, 3 March 1806.
[52] A Catalogue of the Select and Entire Library
. . . of the Rev John Parker . . . sold by Mr White (1813).
[53] Further
details of Alcock’s musical works will be found in the 6th edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians
(forthcoming); see also, Peter Marr, ‘The Life and Works of John Alcock (1715-1806)’,
unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, 1978, Reading University.
There are two portraits of Alcock. one an oil painting
depicting him in his doctorate robes in 1768. This portrait, in the possession
of the Royal College of Music, London, is at present awaiting restoration; at
the National Portrait Gallery there is a reference negative of it taken in
1932. It was reproduced on the cover of the Musical
Times of February 1977.
‘Eugenius’ (see note 1 above) included a print by W
Newman, engraved from a portrait by R Cooper. Now lost, the original was owned
by H Cooper who apparently was Alcock’s son-in-law and a London attorney.
