A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Bishop, John (1817–?)

BISHOP, John, was born at Cheltenham July 31, 1817. When about six years of age he was placed at a boarding-school at Oxford, where he remained two years and a half, and learned music from Daniel Feldon, organist of St. Peter's-in-the-East in that city. His next master was Arnold Merrick, organist of the parish church of Cirencester, and translator of the theoretical works of Albrechtsberger, and several other valuable treatises. Returning to Cheltenham Bishop became a pupil of Thomas Woodward, organist of the parish church there, under whom he studied for about five or six years. On the opening of the new church of St. Paul, Cheltenham, in 1831 Bishop, then fourteen years of age, was appointed its organist. He subsequently completed his musical education under Migliorucci, a favourite pupil of Zingarelli. In 1838 he became organist at Blackburn, Lancashire, but in the following year returned to Cheltenham, where he has since resided, and where he has filled successively the post of organist at St. James's Church, the Roman Catholic Chapel, and St. John's Church, from the latter of which he withdrew at the end of 1852. Bishop has directed his attention much to the study of the theory and history of music, and has translated and edited many valuable theoretical and other works, besides arranging and editing a large number of the masterpieces of the great classical composers.

[ W. H. H. ]