which Mr. Greatorex brought, which do carry up the water with a great deal of ease.' On 24Oct.Pepys bought of Greatorex a drawing-pen, 'and he did show me the manner of the lamp-glasses which carry the light a great way, good to read in bed by, and I intend to have one of them. And we looked at his wooden jack in his chimney, that goes with the smoake, which indeed is very pretty.' On 9 June and 20 Sept, 1662 and 23 March 1663 ('this day Greatorex brought me a very pretty weather-glasse for heat and cold') Pepys met the inventor; the last entry, 23 May 1663, refers to his varnish, 'which appears every whit as good upon a stick which he hath done, as the Indian.' Among the wills of the commissary court of London is that of one Ralph Greatorex, gentleman, of the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, signed 1710, and proved 1713. It supplies, however, no direct evidence of the testator's identity with the mathematical instrument maker. Twenty pounds is left to Elizabeth Caron, widow, of the same parish (probably his landlady), and the residue to his 'loving friend, Sarah Fenton,' parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields.
[Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. viii. 284.]
GREATOREX, THOMAS (1758–1831), organist and conductor of music, was born at North Wingfield, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, 5 Oct. 1758: the pedigree compiled by Hayman in the ( Reliquary ' (iv. 220 et seq.) shows his descent from Anthony Greatrakes of Callow, of a family that has nourished for upwards of five centuries in the neighbourhood of Wirksworth, Derbyshire. Greatorex's father Anthony, by trade a nailer, was a self-taught musician, and became an organist. The doubtful story that the elder Greatorex constructed an organ with his own hands after he was seventy may refer to that built by John Strong, the blind weaver, and bequeathed to the elder Greatorex. Martha, the eldest daughter, was thirteen when chosen the first organist of St. Martin's, Leicester. She pursued her calling with so much success that her earnings bought her a little estate at Burton-on-Trent.
The family moved to Leicester when Thomas was eight years old. He was remarkably grave and studious, with a 'strong bias to mathematical pursuits, but, living in a musical family, his ear was imperceptibly drawn to the study of musical sounds ' (Gardiner). Greatorex studied music under Dr. Benjamin Cooke in 1772; two years later, after meeting the Earl of Sandwich and Joah Bates [q. v.], he was enabled to increase his knowledge of church music by attending the oratorio performances at Hinchinbrook. Afterwards he became an inmate of Lord Sandwich's household in town and country, and for a short time succeeded Bates as Sandwich's musical director. Greatorex sang in the Concerts of Ancient Music, established in 1776, but his health obliged him to seek a northern climate, and he accepted the post of organist of Carlisle Cathedral in 1780. Here in his leisure hours he studied science and music, and two evenings in each week enjoyed philosophical discussions with the dean of Carlisle (Dr. Percy), Dr. C. Law, Archdeacon Paley, and others. Greatorex left Carlisle for Newcastle in 1784. In 1786 he travelled abroad, provided with introductions, and was kindly received by English residents; among them Prince Charles Edward, who bequeathed to him his manuscript volume of music. While in Rome Greatorex had singing lessons from Santarelli. At Strasburg Pleyel was his master.
At the end of 1788 Greatorex settled in London, and, once launched as a professor, made large sums ('in one week he had given eighty-four singing lessons at a guinea'). Much of this lucrative business had to be renounced when, in 1793, he accepted the conductorship of the Ancient Concerts, in succession to Bates. His appointment as organist of Westminster Abbey, after the death of Williams in 1819, crowned his honourable career as a musician.
Accounted the head of the English school, Greatorex in 1801 revived the Vocal Concerts. He was a professional member of the Madrigal Society, the Catch Club (from 1789 to 1798), and of the Royal Society of Musicians (from 1791). He was also one of the board at the Royal Academy of Music on its establishment (1822), and was its chief professor of the organ and pianoforte. No important oratorio performance in town or country was thought complete without his co-operation as conductor or organist. Pohl records his accompanying on the Glockenspiel a chorus from 'Saul' as early as 1792 at the Little Haymarket. The fatigues of the provincial musical festivals in his latter years, when gout had attacked him, hastened his end. A cold caught while fishing was the immediate cause of his death at Hampton on 18 July 1831, in his seventy-fourth year. His body was laid near that of Dr. Cooke in Westminster Abbey; Croft's Burial Service and Greene's 'Lord let me know mine end' were sung during the ceremony, which was attended by a vast concourse of people. Greatorex was survived by his widow, six sons, and one daughter.
Greatorex's organ-playing was masterly.
