James Hawkins (1662 – 18 October 1729) was an English organist and composer of church music. He was for many years organist of

Ely Cathedral Ely Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, is an Anglican cathedral in the city of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. The cathedral has its origins in AD 672 when St Etheldreda built an abbey church. The presen ...

Life

Hawkins was a chorister of

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

, where he graduated Mus. Bac. in 1719. In the same year he dedicated his anthem "Behold, O God, our Defender" (a manuscript in the library of the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

), "to the Very Rev. Mr. Tomkinson, and the rest of the great, good, and just nonjurors of St. John's." Hawkins succeeded John Ferrabosco as organist of

in 1682. He remained at Ely for forty-six years. During that period he carefully arranged in volumes what fragments remained of the old manuscript choir books of the cathedral, many of which had been destroyed and many damaged in the civil war. With these he bound up in manuscript seventeen services and seventy-five anthems of his own composition. Some doggerel lines by Hawkins in praise of Handel, inscribed on one of two copies of Handel's "Jubilate", illustrate the "cheerfulness" recorded in Hawkins's epitaph. He died on 18 October 1729, in his sixty-seventh year, and was buried "among many of his relations" in the cathedral. Under the same black marble was laid in 1732 his wife Mary, "the tender mother of ten children".

Compositions

Vol. vii. of the music manuscripts in the Ely Cathedral library is lettered "Mr. Hawkins' Church Musick." It contains 532 pages of his compositions. These pieces, with others bound up in various volumes in the same library, comprise: Services in A (two: one in Tudway's Collection); A minor (full score); B minor; B minor (chanting); B flat; C; C minor (chanting, founded on a chant ascribed to William Croft, and generally sung in B minor); D (chanting); E minor (two); E flat (two); G (part of it in Tudway's Collection); F minor; "Burial Service"; "Gloria in excelsis". Of Hawkins's seventy-five anthems, sketches, and fragments, nine are in the collection of Tudway, who was in correspondence with Hawkins (Harl. MSS. 7341–2).

Family

His son, James Hawkins the younger, was organist of Peterborough Cathedral from 1714 to 1750. Manuscript copies of his anthem "O praise the Lord" are preserved both in Tudway's Collection and at Ely.

References

Attribution *

External links

James Hawkins
at

ChoralWiki The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) is a sheet music archive which focuses on choral and vocal music in the public domain or otherwise freely available for printing and performing (such as via permission from the copyright holder). It is a ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawkins, James 1662 births 1729 deaths Organists of Ely Cathedral English classical organists English male organists 18th-century keyboardists 17th-century keyboardists English classical composers of church music Burials at Ely Cathedral Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge