was attempted with only two men present.
Yet, in spite of this, the congregations at the daily services were often fairly large – as many as 150 at Evening Prayer – and on a Sunday, after the organ screen had been removed, the nave could be crowded with, it was reputed, ‘not a seat to be had except in the gallery and that by slipping half a crown to the verger’. Part of the explanation of this was that the canons were all distinguished scholars and, whatever their other shortcomings, they were fine preachers whom thoughtful people wanted to hear. It is also the case that sometimes, and especially on great occasions when everyone reported for duty, the worship could be of a very high quality and win praise.
By 1838 it was evident that the situation of the English cathedrals could not be tolerated for much longer. Reform was in the air and eleven years earlier there had been a faint, very faint, indication of change at St Paul’s when Dean Copleston, who stayed until 1849, chose to neglect the bishopric of Llandaff, to which he had also been appointed, and instead resided in the Deanery for most of the year. In response to the badgering of Miss Maria Hackett, ‘the choristers’ friend’, he appointed a master to teach and generally care for the singing boys. At the national level the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, appointed a Commission of Enquiry in 1834 to investigate the substantial finances of the Church of England’s bishoprics and cathedrals. This led in 1836 to a permanent Ecclesiastical Commission, which was given responsibility, with increasing power, for the administration of the church’s financial assets.
An Act of Parliament in 1840 required the dean and canons residential of cathedrals to be full-time appointments. Prebendaries were to be honorary rather than stipendiary posts. At St Paul’s, the college of minor canons was reduced from twelve to six, those remaining being required to undertake pastoral and educational work in the City and to live in the cathedral’s precincts rather than hold City livings. But the effects of these reforms on the music was for many years minimal, mainly because the freeholders remained in their offices, normally until death. When H. H. Milman, a poet as well as a church historian (he was the author of the hymn ‘Ride on, Ride on in majesty’), succeeded Copleston in 1849 and became the first full-time dean for more than 100 years, he and the chapter resolved to increase the choir to a size appropriate to the huge building. By this time, however, the capitular revenues had been so depleted by the 1840 reforms that expansion could not be afforded It was not until 1871, when the saintly R. W. Church became dean and acquired an outstandingly able chapter, that significant progress became possible. By this time Goss was within 12 months of retirement, his health having declined.
John Goss was born in 1800 at Fareham, Hampshire, where his father was the highly regarded organist of the parish church. By the age of eleven he was a chorister at the Chapel Royal in London, joining his uncle, an alto, who also sang at Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s. Young John boarded with the other choristers in a house near Westminster Abbey where the regime was strict and general education confined to one and a half hours on Wednesdays and Saturdays when a ‘writing master’ taught reading, writing and arithmetic and a little English grammar. If a boy wished to learn an instrument, he had to teach himself and this was not encouraged. Goss recalled:
Walking across the schoolroom one day with Handel’s Organ Concertos under my arm, Mr. Stafford Smith (the Choir Master and a son-in-law of William Boyce) met me and asked me what I had there. ‘If you please, Sir, it’s only Handel’s Organ Concertos; I thought I should like to learn to play them.’ ‘Oh! Only Handel’s Concertos’ replied my Master; ‘and pray, Sir, did you come here to learn to learn to play or to sing?’ Mr. Stafford Smith then seized the book and crowned the argument by hitting me on the head with it. I had bought it out of my hardly saved pocket money, and never saw it again.
Sometime later Stafford Smith advised Goss:
Remember, my child, that melody is the one power of music which all men can delight in. If you wish to make those for whom you write love you, if you wish to make what you write amiable, turn your heart to melody; your thoughts will follow the inclinations of your heart.
This precept was followed by a mild beating, designed to ensure that it would always be remembered. He left the choir when his voice broke and studied composition, with special attention to Mozart’s symphonies, under Thomas Attwood, the then organist of St Paul’s who had been a pupil of Mozart. He financed this by singing in the chorus at the opera – he was a fine tenor – and published a few secular part-songs.
In 1821 he was appointed organist of Stockwell Chapel, which became St Andrew’s Church in Lambeth, and three years later moved to a more prestigious and better paid post at the newly built St Luke’s Church, Chelsea, where he remained until 1838. Shortly before his twenty-seventh birthday he became Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music – a chair he occupied for the next 47 years, retiring on health grounds in 1874. He proved to be a gifted teacher as well as a virtuoso organist, though he was unwilling to use a pedalboard, then starting to be added to English organs, and once advised a young organist, ‘Charm with your fingers, not with your feet.’ This excluded from his repertory the great works of J. S. Bach, which were just becoming known in Britain, so eventually he came to be regarded as an organist from another era. In 1833 he won a prize for an anthem, ‘Have mercy upon me, O Lord’, and in the secular field he continued to compose part-songs that were popular with the Glee Clubs of that time.
Not long after the death of Thomas Attwood in 1838 Goss wondered whether he might apply to succeed him at St Paul’s, and sought a meeting with Sydney Smith the legendary wit, who had become a canon in 1831 and, contrary to all expectations, proved to be an industrious administrator.
‘I suppose Mr Goss, you are aware what the statutory salary is?’ ‘Not exactly.’ ‘Well, it is about £34 per annum.’ ‘Oh indeed, is that all? Well, as I am receiving about £100 at Chelsea, I think I will, if you will allow me, consider the matter a little further before I leave my name.’ As he was about to leave, Smith said, ‘Perhaps Mr Goss, before you go, you would like to know whether any other appointment or any other perquisite appertain to the office of Organist.’ He then gave details of these, which were not inconsiderable, and Goss immediately made his application. A long delay followed and Goss, anxious to know whether or not he had been successful, chanced to meet Smith at a large dinner party. He felt unable to enquire about the situation but Smith, who had been entrusted with carving a fine salmon, said on handing to Goss a generous slice, ‘I trust Sydney Smith will always be ready to assist Mr Goss through thick and thin.’ On his return home Goss found a letter offering him the post.
Appointment to St Paul’s was an honour, but was in many ways a poisoned chalice. For one thing, he was contracted only to play the organ. The choice of music for the services was in the hands of the succentor, and the training of the choristers, who often stayed long after their voices had broken, was delegated to one of the vicars choral – a tradition that remained throughout Goss’s time in office. A major reconstruction of the entire choral foundation was urgently needed but, in the circumstances of the time, this was impossible. Sydney Smith, being a Whig, favoured reform – at least up to the point where it might adversely affect his own income – and he was joined in 1840 by the appointment of Archdeacon Hale to an additional canonry, and he, too, was a reformer. The problems were, however, too deeply rooted for them to be solved overnight.
In any case, Smith was no lover of cathedral music and although he had promised to assist Goss ‘though thick and thin’, his help proved to be severely limited. Not long after he became organist, Goss drew his attention one day after Evensong to the organ’s limitations. Smith responded, ‘Mr. Goss, what a strange set of creatures you organists are. First you want the bull stop, then you want the tom tit stop; in fact you are like a jaded cab-horse, always longing for another stop. However, I will ascertain what may be done in this matter.’ Goss got his new stop. But he was not so lucky when he asked for an increase in the number of boys in the choir. Smith declared, ‘It is a matter of perfect indifference to me whether Westminster bawls louder than St Paul’s. We are there to pray
