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| Frederick Ouseley (1825-1889)
TRANSCRIPTION
June 24, 1865 My dear Wood1, NOTES:
ABOUT THE COMPOSER
Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley was born August 12, 1825 in London to an English aristocratic family. His father, SIr Gore Ouseley served as ambassador to Persia. Frederick was well educated having attended Oxford University and earning 3 degrees (B.A., 1846; M.A., 1849 and D.Mus., 1854). His choice of a career probably made his family gasp with consternation. He was ordained into the Church of England in 1849 serving first as assistant curate of St. Barnabas in Pimlico. He found immense joy in channeling part of his and his family’s fortune into church music in various ways. He began his philanthropy by funding a new organ for St. Barnabas and supporting its choir financially. Sadly, controversy, referred to by Grove's 6th, Vol. 14, pg. 30, as the "no-popery riots of 1850," arose at that church and Ouseley left, but not before providing a grant to fund the continued training of the choir. He later (1855) became a professor of music at Oxford where he succeeded Sir Henry Bishop. The St. Barnabas episode provided Ouseley with a quest and his life’s challenge. He founded a college for training choir. St. Michael’s College was consecrated September 29, 1856. The goal of St. Michael’s was to “promise a course of training, and to form a model, for the daily choral services of the Church in these realms, and, for the furtherance of this object, to receive, educate and train boys in religious, secular and musical knowledge” (source: (http://www.smcsociety.co.uk/thecollege.htm). The church and college buildings he raised were located on some remote property he purchased near Tenbury, on the border between Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. He was the Vicar of the new parish. He also at the time was professor of music at Oxford, and Precentor of Hereford Cathedral. Ouseley had known Mendelssohn and Elvey, and employed John Stainer (“God So Loved the World”) as organist at St. Michael’s. St. Michael's College was forced to permanently close in 1985. A book by Watkins Shaw has been written about Ouseley and St. Michael’s College. As Warden of St. Michael's College and Vicar of St. Michael's Parish Church, Ouseley began an obsession for accumulating antiquarian music and books. As a result, he amassed an extraordinary collection of 3,000 books. Ouseley died in Hereford on April 6, 1889. Ouseley also composed a large body of now mostly forgotten anthems, canticle settings, etc. A list of Ouseley’s works and editions includes:
O Saviour of the world (Source of works list: http://www.geocities.com/vienna/2820/othe.html)
REV. 08/24/2006
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