Account of life as a chorister in the nineteenth century

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

4

text excerpt

After the death of Mr French we had the Revd George Pearson for our Master, he was a young man, very bumptious, & not at all liked by any of the Boys altho’ he gave us a much better education & longer hours. We went to School under him 7 am to 8, 9 till 10.15, 11.30 till 1, & 2 till 3. Chapel was from 10.15 till about 11 & 4.15 till about 5. The rest of the day was spent in practising & learning to sing & I think on three days a week the schooling was dispensed with & we were drilled in singing. In learning to do a shake I remember Sir George used to keep our tongues down with a paper knife & if we would not open our mouths well, when singing, our punishment was having an ordinary cotton reel put in our mouth. Sir George very rarely punished us & we all very much liked him. The principal cause for being punished was our singing carelessly or out of tune in Chapel which generally seemed to happen at the afternoon service. I don’t remember it ever happening at the morning service. After service we were summoned to his house in the Horseshoe Cloisters, told to stand in a row & he then walked in front of the row boxing one ear of each Boy & as he returned he boxed the other ear. He had rather a large hand tho’ beautifully soft but those were smacks & left an unpleasant singing sensation in my ears.

After the death of Mr French we had the Revd George Pearson for our Master, he was a young man, very bumptious, & not at all liked by any of the Boys altho’ he gave us a much better education & longer hours. We went to School under him 7 am to 8, 9 till 10.15, 11.30 till 1, & 2 till 3. Chapel was from 10.15 till about 11 & 4.15 till about 5. The rest of the day was spent in practising & learning to sing & I think on three days a week the schooling was dispensed with & we were drilled in singing. In learning to do a shake I remember Sir George used to keep our tongues down with a paper knife & if we would not open our mouths well, when singing, our punishment was having an ordinary cotton reel put in our mouth. Sir George very rarely punished us & we all very much liked him. The principal cause for being punished was our singing carelessly or out of tune in Chapel which generally seemed to happen at the afternoon service. I don’t remember it ever happening at the morning service. After service we were summoned to his house in the Horseshoe Cloisters, told to stand in a row & he then walked in front of the row boxing one ear of each Boy & as he returned he boxed the other ear. He had rather a large hand tho’ beautifully soft but those were smacks & left an unpleasant singing sensation in my ears.

excerpt from 'Account of life as a chorister in the nineteenth century' pp. 4 (242 words)

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1524215137683