Francis William Galpin (December 25, 1858 December 30, 1945) was an English cleric and antiquarian

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

. He was known as a collector of old musical instruments.

Life

Born in

Dorchester, Dorset Dorchester ( ) is the county town of Dorset, England. It is situated between Poole and Bridport on the A35 trunk route. A historic market town, Dorchester is on the banks of the River Frome, Dorset, River Frome to the south of the Dorset Dow ...

, Galpin was educated at

Sherborne Sherborne is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in north west Dorset, in South West England. It is sited on the River Yeo (South Somerset), River Yeo, on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, east of Yeovil. The parish include ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, where he studied organ under

Sterndale Bennett Sir William Sterndale Bennett (13 April 18161 February 1875) was an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. At the age of ten Bennett was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he remained for ten years. B ...

. He was ordained in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

in 1883, became as a recent graduate of that year curate at

Redenhall with Harleston Redenhall with Harleston is a civil parish in the South Norfolk, South Norfolk district of the English county of Norfolk, comprising the town of Harleston, Norfolk, Harleston and the neighbouring village of Redenhall. It covers an area of , and ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

; and went on to be a curate at

St Giles in the Fields St Giles in the Fields is the Anglican parish church of the St Giles district of London. The parish stands within the London Borough of Camden and forms part of the Diocese of London. The church, named for St Giles the Hermit, began as the c ...

, London. As vicar of Hatfield Regis in

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

during the 1890s, Galpin organised concerts with instruments from his collection, including

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a newsp ...

lutes A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" commonly r ...

and serpents. Subsequently, he was vicar at

Witham Witham () is a town and civil parish in the Braintree district, in the county of Essex, England. In the 2011 census, it had a population of 25,353. It is twinned with the town of Waldbröl, Germany. Witham stands on the Roman road between the ...

, and then Faulkbourne. Galpin also served as President of the Essex Archaeological Society. His students included

Geneviève Thibault de Chambure Geneviève, comtesse Hubert de Chambure Thibault (20 June 1902, Neuilly-sur-Seine – 31 August 1975, Strasbourg) was a French musicologist associated with the revival of interest in early music. Life and career She graduated from the Universi ...

. In 1946 the

Galpin Society The Galpin Society was formed in October 1946 to further research into the branch of musicology known as organology, that is the history, construction, development and use of musical instruments. Based in the United Kingdom, it is named after the B ...

was formed to further his work on musical instruments.

Collection

In 1916, Galpin sold his collection of over 500 antique musical instruments to William Lindsey, who donated them to the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

in memory of his daughter Leslie Lindsey Mason.

Works

Galpin wrote: *''Descriptive Catalogue of the European Instruments in the Modern Museum of Art'' (1902) *''The Musical Instruments of the American Indians'' (1903) *''Notes on the Roman Hydraulus'' (1904) *''The Sackbut'' (1907) *''Old English Instruments of Music'' (1910) *''A Textbook of European Musical Instruments'' (1937) *''The Music of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians'' (1937)

References

1858 births 1945 deaths English antiquarians English musicologists People educated at Sherborne School People from Dorchester, Dorset 19th-century English Anglican priests 20th-century English Anglican priests {{ChurchofEngland-clergy-stub