the society, under Barnby, on 10 Nov. 1884, and repeated on 15 Nov. Another of his important conducting achievements was a performance with full orchestra and chorus—memorable in the history of church music in this country—of Bach's 'St. Matthew Passion' in Westminster Abbey, while Stanley was dean, on Maundy Thursday, 6 April 1871. He also conducted the daily concerts given by Messrs. Novello in the lioyal Albert Hall, 1874–5, the London Musical Society, 1878–86 (which produced Dvorak's 'Stabat Mater' on 10 March 1883), the Royal Academy of Music weekly rehearsals and concerts, 1886–8, and the Cardiff musical festivals of 1892 and 1895.
Barnby was appointed precentor of Eton—i.e. organist and music master to Eton College—in 1875, which office he held until 1892, when he became the second principal of the Guildhall School of Music in succession to Thomas Weist-Hill [q. v.]; this post he retained till his death, which took place suddenly at his residence, 20 St. George's Square, Pimlico, on 28 Jan. 1896. His remains, after a special funeral service in St. Paul's Cathedral, were interred in Norwood cemetery. A bronze bust by Hampton, subscribed for by members of the Royal Choral Society, is in the corridor of the Royal Albert Hall.
Barnby was knighted on 5 Aug. 1892, and was a fellow of the Royal Academy of Music. His compositions, which were almost exclusively vocal and mostly written for the church, include 'Rebekah' (a cantata), 1870, and 'The Lord is King' (Psalm 97), Leeds music festival, 1883. He composed forty-six anthems; several services (that in E he wrote at the age of seventeen); thirteen carols; offertory sentences; thirty-two four-part songs (his setting of Tennyson's 'Sweet and low,' first performed by Henry Leslie's choir on 14 Jan. 1863, has attained an extraordinary popularity); nineteen songs, and a series of Eton songs: five vocal trios; two pieces for organ and two for pianoforte. Barnby was a prolific composer of hymn-tunes, many of which have come into general use in English-speaking countries. These, to the number of 246, were published in one volume in 1897, He edited the music section of the 'Hymnary' (1872), the 'Congregational Mission Hymnal' (1890), the 'Congregational Sunday School Hymnal' (1891), and 'The Home and School Hymnal' (1893). He was one of the editors of the 'Cathedral Psalter' (1873).
[Musical Herald, May 1892 (p. 131), and March 1896 (p. 74); Musical Times, February and March 1896 (pp. 80, 153); James D. Brown and S. S. Stratton's British Musical Biography; Novello's Catalogue; Burke's Peerage &c. 1895.]
BARNES, WILLIAM (1801–1886), the Dorsetshire poet, born at Rushay (in the parish of Bagber) and baptised at the parish church of Sturminster-Newton, Dorset, on 20 March 1801, was the grandson of John Barnes, yeoman farmer of Gillingham, and the son of John Barnes, tenant farmer in the Vale of Blackmore, in the northern corner of his native county. He came of an old Dorsetshire family. A direct ancestor, John Barnes, was head-borough of Gillingham in 1604, and the head-borough's great-grandfather, William Barnes, obtained a grant of land in the same parish from Henry VIII in 1540. The poet's mother, Grace Scott (d. 1806) of Fifehead Neville, was a woman of some culture, with an inherent love of art and poetry.
William went to Mullett's school at Sturminster, and in 1815 his proficiency in handwriting procured his admission to a solicitor's office in the small town, whence in 1818 he removed to Dorchester. The rector there, John Henry Richman, gave him some lessons and lent him books. In 1820 there began to appear in the local 'Weekly Entertainer' a number of rhymes by Barnes, among them some 'Verses to Julia' (daughter of an excise officer at Dorchester named Miles), to whom he became betrothed in 1822, the year in which his first volume, 'Orra, a Lapland Tale,' was published. His versatility and intellectual energy at this time were remarkable. He set himself to learn wood-engraving, and produced eight blocks for Criswick's 'A Walk round Dorchester.' Simultaneously he worked hard at etymology and language, mastering French and studying Italian literature, especially Petrarch and his school. In 1823 he obtained the mastership of a small school at Mere in Wiltshire, and four years later he took the Chantry House at Mere, married, and began to take boarders. In 1829 a number of his woodcuts were included in Rutter's 'Delineations of Somerset.' About the same time he made his first visit to Wales, and got a strong hold of the idea of purity of language, which became almost a passion with him. He became an enthusiastic angler, wrote for some itinerant players an amusing farce, 'The Honest Thief,' began Welsh, and added to his other linguistic studies Russian, Hebrew, and Hindustani.
In 1833 he wrote for the 'County Chronicle' his first poems in the Dorset dialect, among them the two unrivalled eclogues, 'The 'Lotments' and 'A Bit o' Sly Coorten.'
