Henry Croswell et al. in St Luke's Church, Nutford Place, Edgware Road, Marylebone, London - late September, 1882, 07:00 PM
from Transcript of the diaries of Henry Croswell, page 300:
O[rgan]. – Nice and large at the East end.
H[ymns]. – Church Hymns, but both were in Hymns A. & M. The tunes were not well known by any. The Psalms were beautifully sung.
C[hoir]. – Ten men and twelve boys, not very good.
[…]
[The congregation numbered] 200 […]
S[ermon]. – […] we didn't stop.
[…]
M[iscellaneous]. – Everything was done 'decently and in order'. It is all very Broad Church and not very successful.
Henry Croswell, Transcript of the diaries of Henry Croswell. In British Library, number 000826807, C.194.c.113 , p. 300. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1552394457815 accessed: 27 December, 2024 (By permission of the British Library.)
Listeners
Listening to
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| Date/Time | late September, 1882, 07:00 PM |
| Duration | 45 minutes |
| Medium | live |
| Listening Environment | in the company of others, indoors, in public |
Notes
Henry Croswell (1840–93) kept a record of his visits to churches in London over a period of more than twelve years (1872–85). He made methodical notes about the number of clergy, the churchmanship, the congregation, the sermon and the church architecture, as well as commenting on the music that he heard (the organ, the hymns and the choir). The above listening experience has been extracted from one of these records. In the transcript, the record is dated as 25 September 1882, which was a Monday. Given that Croswell usually mentions if he has visited a church on a weekday, it is more likely that the date of the visit was Sunday 24 September. ‘Church Hymns’ (1871) and ‘Church Hymns with Tunes’ (1874) were publications of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (S.P.C.K.), under the musical editorship of Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900). This collection was the most successful of the competitors to ‘Hymns Ancient and Modern’ in the late nineteenth century, containing a larger number of hymns overall, and more hymns specifically intended for children and young people.