Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walmisley, Thomas Forbes

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732570Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 59 — Walmisley, Thomas Forbes1899Frederick George Edwards

WALMISLEY, THOMAS FORBES (1783–1866), glee composer and organist, third son of William Walmisley, clerk of the papers to the House of Lords, was born in Union (now St. Margaret's) Street, Westminster, 22 May 1783. He, like all his brothers, was a chorister in Westminster Abbey, and he was a scholar at Westminster school from 1793 to 1798. He studied music under the Hon. John Spencer and Thomas Attwood [q. v.], the pupil of Mozart, and was assistant organist to the Female Orphan Asylum from 1810 to 1814. In 1814 he succeeded Robert Cooke (fl. 1793–1814) [q. v.] as organist of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, which post he resigned, on a pension, in March 1854. He was secretary of the re-established Concentores Sodales, which was dissolved in 1847, the wine becoming his property, and was elected a professional member of the Catch Club in 1827. Walmisley died on 23 July 1866, and was buried in the family grave at Brompton cemetery. In 1810 he married the eldest daughter of William Capon (1757–1827) [q. v.], draughtsman to the Duke of York. His eldest son, Thomas Attwood Walmisley [q. v.], whose ‘Cathedral Music’ he edited in 1857, predeceased him.

Walmisley composed fifty-nine glees, four of which gained prizes (see Spectator, 28 Aug. 1830). He also composed ‘six anthems and a short morning and evening service’ (n.d.), and ‘Sacred Songs,’ London, 1841. As a teacher he was well known; his most distinguished pupil is perhaps Dr. Edward J. Hopkins. A portrait of him, painted by MacCaul, is in the possession of his son, Mr. Arthur Walmisley.

[Grove's Dict. of Music and Musicians; David Baptie's Sketches of the English Glee Composers; Barker and Stenning's Westminster School Reg.; private information supplied by his son, Mr. Arthur Walmisley.]

F. G. E.