A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/May, Edward
MAY, Edward Collett, born October 29, 1806, at Greenwich, where his father was a shipbuilder. His first teacher was his brother Henry, an amateur musician and composer of considerable ability. When about fifteen years of age, Thomas Adams, then organist of St. Paul's, Deptford, and an intimate friend of the May family, struck by the promise and intelligence of Edward, offered to take him as a pupil. This offer was, of course, willingly accepted, and for several years he received regular instruction in composition and organ-playing from that admirable musician and then peerless executant. Subsequently he became a pupil of Cipriani Potter for the pianoforte, and of Crivelli for singing. In 1837 he was appointed organist of Greenwich Hospital, an office he held till the abolition of the institution in 1869. May's entry on the particular work to which his talents have now for so many years been so successfully devoted, grew out of his accidental attendance at one of many lectures on popular instruction in vocal music, given by the writer of this notice about the year 1841. From that time to the present (1879) he has devoted himself enthusiastically and exclusively to such teaching; and it may be safely asserted, that to no individual, of any age or country, have so many persons of all ages and of both sexes been indebted for their musical skill. At one institution alone, the National Society's Central School, more than a thousand teachers and many more children have been instructed by him. At Exeter Hall, the Apollonicon Rooms, and subsequently St. Martin's Hall, several thousand adults passed through his classes; while, for many years past, he has been the sole musical instructor at the Training Schools, Battersea, St. Mark's, Whitelands, Home and Colonial, and Hockerill; institutions from which upwards of 250 teachers are annually sent forth to elementary schools. After many years connection with the Institution, Mr. May has recently—wholly without solicitation on his part—been appointed Professor of Vocal Music in Queen's College, London. The words of Béranger, applied to Wilhem, may with equal propriety be applied to May,—not merely has he devoted the best years of his life and all his energies to public musical instruction, but sacrificed every other aim or object to it—'même sa gloire.' [App. p.715 "add date of death, Jan. 2, 1887"]
His daughter, Florence May, is known in London as a pianoforte player of considerable cultivation and power.