Archive Item of the Month – May 2021
Sons of the Clergy Festivals
The Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy (www.clergysupport.org.uk) was founded in 1655 to provide support for the Anglican clergy, widows, children and orphans of those clergy, either serving or retired. From the time of the establishment of the Commonwealth in 1649, a good deal of the clergy lost their livings and those loyal to the monarchy were displaced. The founders of the charity were either merchants in the City of London or priests, and the latter were all sons of clergymen. In 1678, the charity was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II in which the administration of the charity was to be run by a Court of Assistants comprising a President, Vice-President, three Treasurers and up to forty-two Assistants; when the Society of Musicians was founded six decades later its Deed of Trust outlined a “Court of Assistants” comprising fifty people.
Commonly known as “Sons of the Clergy”, the charity held its first Annual Festival Service on 8 November 1655 at St Paul’s Cathedral where it has continued since. In the year following the founding of the Society of Musicians, it appears that the Society provided musicians for the regular Sons of the Clergy Festival: the Governors resolved that the Society would supply
“an able Band of Music at the Rehearsal and Anniversary of the Sons of the Clergy for the sum of £50 and, upon payment of that Sum annually to their Charitable Fund, that they would never increase the Demand upon any future Occasion”
(E.H. Pearce, The Sons of the Clergy 1655-1904, London, 1904, p.238).
It seems that the likely link between the two charities was the composer and organist Maurice Greene (1696-1755) who had organised the music for the Festivals in 1727 and 1728. The agreement that the Society provided the instrumental musicians for the orchestral accompaniment (the choir being from St Paul’s Cathedral) was useful to the Sons of the Clergy and financially beneficial to the Society. It was part of the social calendar of the season at that time, and tickets were also sold for the rehearsal in advance of the Service. In 1751, the Society had to remind Members that there was an obligation to this Festival and those selected to perform in a given year were expected to attend without fail and without sending a deputy (or sending a deputy for the rehearsal). In 1753, this was strongly reinforced with a resolution.
“upon a Motion made by Dr. Greene from the Chair, That all Persons appointed … to perform at St. Pauls … that shall refuse or neglect giving their attendance after due Notice given them in Writing, without giving satisfactory Reasons … shall be excluded the Society”.
The directive was enforced and some entries in the admission register show that Members were expelled from the Society for ignoring this commitment: “John Peter Dünnewald … expelled for non-attendance at St. Paul’s 1776”.
In the month before the Sons of the Clergy Festival, the Governors of the RSM detailed the musicians to perform at the event. This image of the Minutes of April 1795 show the members selected for the Rehearsal and Performance on 5 and 7 May.
After the list was drawn up, the Members were written to and occasionally, in the following month’s minutes an amendment was made to allow a Member or Members to send a deputy or remove themselves from the commitment. Acceptable reasons were allowed such as in this year when the horn player brothers Vincent Thomas Leander (b.1770) and Lewis Henry Leander (1769-1830), here listed as violinists (most musicians of this period being proficient on at least two instruments) might have lost a period of work:
“Messrs Leander having urged as a reason for their non-attendance at St. Paul’s on the rehearsal day, that it might have been attended with the loss of a summers engagement it was admitted as an excuse for that omission”.
