Joseph Williams (c. 1800–1834) was an English coal-miner and composer of sacred music, known today as

West gallery music __NOTOC__ West gallery music, also known as Georgian psalmody, refers to the sacred music (metrical psalms, with a few hymns and anthems) sung and played in English parish churches, as well as nonconformist chapels, from 1700 to around 1850. In ...

. Very little is known about his life, other than he lived in Watery Lane,

Tipton Tipton is an industrial town in the West Midlands in England with a population of around 38,777 at the 2011 UK Census. It is located northwest of Birmingham. Tipton was once one of the most heavily industrialised towns in the Black Country, w ...

, Staffordshire. During his short lifetime he published a collection of his compositions, ''Sacred Music'' (Tipton: for the Author, c. 1830), containing 20

hymn tunes A hymn tune is the melody of a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Musically speaking, a hymn is generally understood to have four-part (or more) harmony, a fast harmonic rhythm (chords change frequently), with or without refrai ...

. He met an unfortunate death in a mining-related accident on the

Himley Himley is a small village and civil parish in the English ceremonial county of Staffordshire, situated 4 miles west of Dudley and 5 miles southwest of Wolverhampton. At the time of the 2011 Census, Himley had a population of 802.It is most no ...

Road,

Dudley Dudley is a large market town and administrative centre in the county of West Midlands, England, southeast of Wolverhampton and northwest of Birmingham. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the ...

, on 14 April 1834. He was walking along the road near to a mine-pit, and an explosion taking place threw a large rock into the air which killed him instantly. The pit's owners, Messrs. Horton, were not penalised for the accident.''Berrow’s Worcester Journal'', 24 April 1834 A second collection of his music, ''The Celestial Chorister'' (London: Joseph Hart, c. 1835), was published posthumously, as the title page states, to raise money for his widow and 6 children. The collection is unusual in that 12 of the hymns take their titles from the 12 signs of the

Zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The p ...

References

External links

West Gallery Music Association
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Video clips

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Choir {{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Joseph 1800 births 1834 deaths People from Tipton English hymnwriters English miners Classical composers of church music 19th-century classical composers 19th-century English musicians