John Tomkins (1586 – 27 September 1638) was a Welsh-born organist and composer, a half-brother of the composer

Thomas Tomkins Thomas Tomkins (1572 – 9 June 1656) was a Welsh-born composer of the late Tudor and early Stuart period. In addition to being one of the prominent members of the English Madrigal School, he was a skilled composer of keyboard and consort mus ...

. He was organist at

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grad ...

in London from 1619.

Life

Tomkins was born in

St David's St Davids or St David's ( cy, Tyddewi, , "David's house”) is a city and a community (named St Davids and the Cathedral Close) with a cathedral in Pembrokeshire, Wales, lying on the River Alun. It is the resting place of Saint David, Wa ...

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...

in 1586. His father Thomas Tomkins, a

vicar choral A lay clerk, also known as a lay vicar, song man or a vicar choral, is a professional adult singer in an Anglican cathedral and often Roman Catholic Cathedrals in the UK, or (occasionally) collegiate choir in Britain and Ireland. The vicars chora ...

St David's Cathedral St Davids Cathedral ( cy, Eglwys Gadeiriol Tyddewi) is situated in St DavidsBritain's smallest city in the county of Pembrokeshire, near the most westerly point of Wales. Early history The monastic community was founded by Saint David, Abbot ...

, became a minor canon at

Gloucester Cathedral Gloucester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, in Gloucester, England, stands in the north of the city near the River Severn. It originated with the establishment of a minster dedicated to S ...

by 1594, and it is thought that John was a chorister there. In 1606 John Tomkins succeeded

Orlando Gibbons Orlando Gibbons ( bapt. 25 December 1583 – 5 June 1625) was an English composer and keyboard player who was one of the last masters of the English Virginalist School and English Madrigal School. The best known member of a musical famil ...

as organist of

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city ...

. After studying music there for ten years, he received the degree of Mus. Bac. in June 1608, on condition of composing a piece for performance at the graduation ceremony.

Phineas Fletcher Phineas Fletcher (8 April 1582 – 13 December 1650) was an English poet, elder son of Dr Giles Fletcher, and brother of Giles the Younger. He was born at Cranbrook, Kent, and was baptized on 8 April 1582. Life He was admitted a scholar of E ...

, a friend of Tomkins at King's College, made him an interlocutor (named Thomalin) in three of his eclogues. Tomkins left Cambridge and in 1619 became organist of

. Fletcher, then in Norfolk, addressed a poem to him on the occasion. In 1625 Tomkins became gentleman-extraordinary of the

Chapel Royal The Chapel Royal is an establishment in the Royal Household serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the British Royal Family. Historically it was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarch. The term is now also applie ...

, and gentlemen-in-ordinary in 1627. Tomkins died on 27 September 1638, and was buried in St Paul's;

William Lawes William Lawes (April 160224 September 1645) was an English composer and musician. Life and career Lawes was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire and was baptised on 1 May 1602. He was the son of Thomas Lawes, a vicar choral at Salisbury Cathedral, ...

composed an elegy on his death, printed by

Henry Lawes Henry Lawes (1596 – 1662) was the leading English songwriter of the mid-17th century. He was elder brother of fellow composer William Lawes. Life Henry Lawes (baptised 5 January 1596 – 21 October 1662),Ian Spink, "Lawes, Henry," ''Grove Musi ...

in ''Choice Psalms'' (1648). Tomkins's pupil

Albertus Bryne Albertus Bryne (variants: Albert Bryan; Albert Brian) (ca. 1621 – 2 December 1668) was an English organist and composer. Biography His teacher was John Tomkins, organist of St Paul's Cathedral, a role in which he succeeded his teacher in 1638. ...

succeeded him at St Paul's, and

Richard Portman Richard Portman (April 2, 1934 – January 28, 2017) was an American sound engineer. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound and was nominated for ten more in the same category. He worked on more than 160 films between 1963 and 2004. Portman ...

succeeded him at the Chapel Royal. His son

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

became chancellor and canon of Exeter Cathedral. Some anthems composed by John Tomkins are included in

Barnard Barnard is a version of the surname Bernard, which is a French and West Germanic masculine given name and surname. The surname means as tough as a bear, Bar(Bear)+nard/hard(hardy/tough) __NOTOC__ People Some of the people bearing the surname Ba ...

's manuscript collection. He composed a set of sixteen keyboard variations on "John, come kiss me now", which his brother Thomas copied in Additional MS. 29996 (at the British Museum)."John Tomkins"
''Here of a Sunday Morning''. Retrieved 21 November 2023.

References

External links

*
John Tomkins
at

Hymnary.org Hymnary.org is an online database of hymns, hymnodists and hymnals hosted by Calvin College's Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and Christian Classics Ethereal Library. The searchable database contains over one million hymn tunes and texts and ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tomkins, John 1586 births 1638 deaths Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Cathedral organists English classical organists British male organists 17th-century keyboardists Male classical organists Classical composers of church music Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal Burials at St Paul's Cathedral