How Gallery Music began in Cosgrove

In the porch is a board from the 1770s listing alterations that were made at the time. The Rector of Cosgrove was Pulter Forrester, who was an energetic and clever man with a lot of money, and he set about repairing and refitting the whole Church and Rectory, covering up the old ceiling and plastering the walls.

After Pulter Forrester, the Rector was Charles Walker, who was given the post by Lord Maynard, who owned the living. During this time the Church records were either not kept, or must have been kept from the usual parish wardens, as there is a gap in the accounts for almost all Charles Walker’s time at Cosgrove from 1969 to 1793.

Fortunately very early in the 19^th century the Mansel family, living next door at Cosgrove Hall, took over the advowson of the Church and proper records and accounts resumed. Henry Longueville Mansel was presented as Rector by his brother in 1810.

From 1793 tantalising glimpses of the music in this Church appear in the church accounts. They bought reeds for musical instruments, named as Bassoons, which cost 1s each and were replaced often. The first mention of buying “Candels” appears, as though evening practices or close reading work may have begun, but these may have been ceremonial candles. In 1809 there is an entry “For Music Books &c 13s 10½d”

The first mention of an organ at the Church is in the Churchwardens' Accounts of 1814, when William Jones was paid £4 for a year's work "winden the Clocke up & organ". Jones, who was the organist, was paid £2 each year thereafter to play.

Evidently Rev Mansel felt by 1816 that a proper Singers group was required at Cosgrove and Charles Burral was paid £1 8s 0d for “teaching the Singers to chant.” The Singers group must have improved a lot as by 1818 they were rewarded by a payment of a guinea a year – as opposed to the Ringers, who got 12s 6d.

We have not yet tracked down the documents for the building of galleries at Cosgrove but between 1822 and 1841 Baker records "a north gallery and another across the west end in which is a small organ".

New Strings to Base Vile    2s

We know that in 1825 there were organs but also other instruments, such as a “Base Vile” – Bass Violin, “Clarnetts” or clarinets, and at least one Bassoon. In those days most people in the village would hear no other music. They must have been valued by Cosgrove people as the accounts show relatively large amounts of money being spent on repairs and replacements.

In the 1820s new books of music for the Singers were bought, and their annual payment was now used to provide a “Singer’s Supper” – presumably at the Barley Mow. We don’t have names for the Singers, but they probably included both men and women.

In 1826 we have the only definite reference for the building of a gallery at Cosgrove – music here had obviously become a lot more professional, as “Edward Jones & George Arnol for Bilding New Gallerey By Contract £117 0s 0d”. This was in the North Aisle.

Once the gallery was finished the Singers clearly became more influential and possibly stroppy, as in 1827 the Church “1827 Pd Edward Jones for Puting up Stove Case into the Singers Gallery,” and they paid 1s “To Painting Letters for the Singers Board”. Maybe this is why the allowance for the Singers at Christmas for their Supper was reduced to a round pound, the Ringers being promoted to 15s.

In 1830 the Churchwardens “Paid Mr Buckinger For Reparing Organ” at a cost of £4 9s, and we know that there was a travelling organ-builder called Alexander Buckingham, based in London, working for Thomas Elliott, an organ builder famous enough to have built for Westminster Abbey and York Minster. This seems unlikely in a small place like Cosgrove, but our clergy here had high aspirations, as we know from the fact that the Rector’s son, aged 10 at this time, grew up to be a leading churchman – Dean of St Paul’s.

People were paid for “attending the Organ”, which might have meant pumping the bellows, or some kind of cleaning or oiling service. For several years in the 1820s and 1830s “attending the Organs” appears, implying that both the small organ in the West gallery and another in an organ loft in the North gallery existed at the same time.

Mr Lincoln, also from London, probably built the second organ, and is recorded as attending and “tuneing” the organ in the 1840s and 1850s for a guinea a time. He may have been Henry Cephas Lincoln, an organ builder working from High Holborn, who is reputed to have attended the Buckingham Palace Ballroom organ, or perhaps a lesser member of this family business. “Our” Mr Lincoln makes his final appearance in the Cosgrove records in 1857 when “the Late Mr Lincoln” is paid only 10/6 for half a year’s service.

By 1834 the attention to the two organs was costly – the Singers still got £1 for their annual Supper, and the Ringers had been put back to their 12s 6d fee. This was paid in half crown amounts at five points in the year when the Crown still demanded that bells be rung in England, such as Coronation anniversaries, Christmas, Sovereign’s birthdays, and even Gunpowder Treason Day.

1887 Cosgrove Faculty for removing the Gallery in the North Aisle of the Parish Church

William Connor by Divine permission Bishop of Peterborough To all whom it may concern more especially to the Rector Churchwardens Parishioners and Inhabitants of the Parish of Cosgrove in the County of Northampton and within our Diocese and Jurisdiction.

Whereas it hath been represented unto the Reverend and Worshipful William Miles Clerk M A our Vicar General by a petition under the hands of the reverend Patrick George McDouall the Rector and Francis D Bull and J Henson Pike the Churchwardens of the Parish of Cosgrove aforesaid that it was desirable that the Gallery in the North Aisle of the Parish Church of Cosgrove aforesaid should be removed for the following reasons: That it was occupied by very few persons other than the boys attending the Sunday School. That it was an eye sore and interfered with the light on that side of the Church. That the parishioners generally objected to sit under it or in it by reason of the Ceiling being so close to them in either case. That it also interfered with the Organ affecting the Music and the singing. That it was wished to have the work done before the new Organ was erected on the site of the old one which was close to the end of the Gallery under which the Choir sat. That the entrance to the Gallery being on the outside enabled idle lads and strangers to go in during Divine Service to the annoyance of the Congregation. That the removal of the Gallery would also permit the Windows in the North Aisle to be opened and thus help to keep the North wall dry. That there was sufficient accommodation for the Congregation without it in the body of the Church. That the number of sittings exclusive of the Gallery was about two hundred the population of the village a little over four hundred. That the front of the Gallery was supported on pillars and did not interfere with any other part of the building except where it is let into the North wall. That a Vestry meeting of which due notice was given was held in the usual place of Meeting on the eighteenth day of March last, that at such Vestry Meeting resolutions were passed of which the foregoing is a true copy. And whereas the said Petitioners have prayed that a license or Faculty might issue for the purposes aforesaid And whereas by direction of our said Vicar General a notice or Citation was duly served on the Church door citing all persons having or pretending to have any interest in the premises to shew cause why a license or Faculty should not issue for the purposes aforesaid. And whereas our said Vicar General rightly and duly proceeding hath on the due execution and return of the said notice or Citation no appearance having been entered within the time therein stated decreed a license or Faculty to be granted to the said Rector and Churchwardens for the purposes aforesaid. Therefore we the Bishop of Peterborough will weighing and considering the premises do by virtue of our Authority Ordinary and Episcopal and as far as by law we may or can ratify and confirm such decree of our said Vicar General

And do hereby give and grant unto the said Rector and Churchwardens our leave license or Faculty for the purpose of removing the Gallery in the North Aisle of the Parish Church of Cosgrove in manner aforesaid.

In Testimony whereof we have caused the Seal of our said Vicar General (which we use in this behalf) to be affixed to these presents Given at Peterborough the eighteenth day of April in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and eighty seven and of our consecration the nineteenth.

Henry Pearson Gates N P Registrar (LS)

How Gallery Music ended in Cosgrove

1837 was a year in which a general change in Church music began to affect Cosgrove. Ken’s booklet describes how “The Oxford Movement” pressed for more formality in church services. The Cosgrove accounts record that we paid £1 for Mr Sleath to provide 6 Singers “Suplaces” and 6s bought a “Psalm Book for the Use of the Singers”.

Obviously the Surplices did not provide much protection against the exceptionally cold Spring of that year, and in 1838 Cosgrove raised “A Subscription for a Stove And Fuel for warming of Cosgrove Church £15 8s” and “Paid Mr Revill for putting the Stove Compleat £10 4s 6d and paid Mr Warren for fuel”.

Ten years later education became a main focus for change in Cosgrove. A Church or Sunday School was formed, as well as a day school for the children of the poor, endowed by Mrs Graham, the Rector’s wife, and the children may have become part of the music in Church, as the Singers, Supper was abandoned and the money used for the schoolchildren, who benefited by £1 a year. The Ringers still got 12s 6d.

In 1865 under the Rev Graham, "the Organ loft [was] taken away and the Organ removed to the ground Floor."  The old seats were removed and the new Stained deal seats substituted. Four new Windows with stone Mullions and Tracery were put in. A New Heating Apparatus placed in the Aisle. A new entrance door made to the Gallery the Stone work cleansed and repaired and the whole Interior renovated at a Cost of £421 9s 11d which Cost was defrayed by Voluntary Contributions as under Thomas T Dawson and William Clarke Churchwardens.

However, in 1887 the good people of Cosgrove applied to the Bishop of Peterborough for a faculty to have the gallery removed as "an Eye Sore" and also on the grounds that the entrance being outside enabled "idle lads and strangers to go in during Divine Service to the annoyance of the congregation". It is amusing to speculate on just what they did to annoy the people at prayer below.

In 1887 the Gallery in the North Aisle was removed by a Faculty on the grounds that it "interfered with the Organ affecting the Music and the singing. That it was wished to have the work done before the new Organ was erected on the site of the old one which was close to the end of the Gallery under which the Choir sat."

The present Church organ was built in 1887 by a company called S. Allerton, of Leighton Buzzard at a cost of 100 guineas. People in Cosgrove can still remember pumping the organ as children, before it was electrified.