Simon Shreeve introduces the organists of Rochester Cathedral in post during the Great War: Bertram Luard-Selby, Charles Hylton Stuart and Hilda Milvain. Featured in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 2019.

At the start of the Great War in 1914 the Organist and Choirmaster at Rochester Cathedral was Bertram Luard-Selby, who had been in post since 1900. He was also an Assistant Master at King's School, Rochester, which was separate from the Cathedral Choir School.

Bertram Luard Selby

Selby was born on 12th February 1853 at Ightham Mote, Kent. He was educated at Tonbridge School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a Musical Scholar, and subsequently at Leipzig Conservatoire, obtaining a ist Class Diploma in 1876. He was organist at St Barnabas, Marylebone, Highgate School, Salisbury Cathedral (1881-84), St John's Torquay, and St Barnabas, Pimlico. He was appointed organist at Rochester Cathedral in 1900 on the death of the incumbent, John Hopkins. He resigned from the post in 1916 to become Music Master at Bradfield College.

Photograph of Bertram Luard Selby in the collections of the Cathedral.

He died in Brigg, Lincolnshire, on St Stephen's Day, 26th December 1918. A Memorial Service was held in Rochester Cathedral on 4th January 1919. There is a stone memorial tablet to him in the South Choir Aisle in the Cathedral and Bell No 7 in the Cathedral was recast in his memory and dedicated - together with other bells - by the Old Roffensian Dean, The Very Rev John Storrs, on 14th May 1921.

3D model of the memorial tablet to Luard-Selby in the South Quire Aisle.

Luard-Selby was the musical editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern, first published in 1904. He composed school cantatas, chamber music and many songs and part songs. His orchestral compositions included three operas and a comic opera, Weather or No, which was produced as a curtain-raiser for The Mikado in 1896. During the 1880s he gave chamber-music concerts in London. His noted contribution to King's School was the music for the school song, Carmen Roffense, with words by Canon William Parker, Headmaster, which first appeared in the summer of 1914. Parker, writing in the school magazine, The Roffensian, said that the song "went with a swing".

Luard-Selby, who had founded the Rochester Cathedral Old Choristers' Association in 1909, was succeeded in 1916 as Organist at Rochester and as an Assistant Master at King's by Charles Hylton Stewart.

Charles Hylton Stewart

Photograph of Bertram Luard Selby in the collections of the Cathedral.

He remained at Rochester until 1930, becoming Organist at Chester until 1932 when he was appointed to St George's Chapel, Windsor, residing at The Cloisters, Windsor Castle. He died on 14th November 1932. There is a brass memorial to him in Chester Cathedral and a stone memorial tablet above that for Luard-Selby in Rochester Cathedral.

Hylton Stewart composed church music and was Part-Editor of The Oxford Psalter and The Oxford Chant Book. He also composed the music for King's Commemoration Hymn with words by Canon William Parker, Headmaster. The music for the School Song, composed by Luard-Selby, appears to have been wrongly attributed to Hylton Stewart in The Roffensian on the occasion of the latter's departure from Rochester and again following his death. Hylton Stewart was succeeded as Organist and Choirmaster in 1930 by Harold Aubie Bennett, who served until 1956 and also as an Assistant Master and Director of Music at King's until 1955.

The Chatham, Rochester & Gillingham News [The News] reported on 21st July 1917 that a tribunal had allowed Hylton Stewart a period of two months to train a deputy organist. The South Eastern Gazette for 2ist July said that a Miss Milvain had been appointed as Cathedral Organist as "there is every likelihood that Mr C Hylton Stewart ... will be required to join up." This appointment was confirmed by the Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham Observer [The Observer] on 18 August. The Church Times for 7th December refers to Percy Whitlock, a Chorister at Rochester Cathedral from 1911 to 1918 (and later Assistant Organist), who was successfully playing the Cathedral organ. The News reported in January 1918 that Miss Milvain was indeed doing duty until the return of Hylon Stewart. She had played at a major service of prayer and intercession in the Cathedral, which had been attended by the mayor.

Finally The Observer for 29th June reported on a lecture on the New Hymnal given by Hylton Stewart at King's School.

Hilda Milvain

Hilda Milvain was born on 4th September 1898 at Wark (on the Border Counties Railway) in Northumberland, Hilda was residing with her parents in West Street, Scarborough, at the time of the 1911 census. Hilda was an organ pupil under Hylton Stewart during his time as Organist at St Martin's, Scarborough. Now known as St Martin's on the Hill the church was completed in 1863 and is Grade 1 listed. The present organ by Henry Willis of London was installed in 1890.

On and November 1918 The Kent Messenger & Sevenoaks Telegraph reported that Rochester Cathedral had a woman bell-ringer, a woman organist and a woman verger. The organist in question may have been Hilda Milvain. She did, however, return to Scarborough in due course. The National Register for 1939, compiled for the National Registration Act of that year, lists her as an "Organist and Teacher of Music" in Scarborough. Among her compositions was the music for the song, The Lenten Lily, words by A E Houseman, published in 1925. She died a spinster at a nursing home in Belgrave Crescent, Scarborough, on 13th March 1981.

The Roffensian Register for 1855 to 1936, 4th Edition, for Kings' School and Choristers of Rochester Cathedral, 2nd Edition, both state that Hylton Stewart was Organist at Rochester from 1916 to 1930, making no mention of Hilda Milvain. Until the new appointment of Francesca Massey from Durham Cathedral, where she was Sub-Organist, Hilda Milvain appears to be the only woman to have held the post, if only for some six months, although Claire Innes-Hopkins held the post of Assistant Organist at Rochester from 2014 to 2018.

Hylton Stewart was not the only Cathedral employee to serve during the Great War. The Headmaster of the Choir School from 1913 to 1918 was the Rev William Edgar Morgan (1891-1978), a Minor Canon and Sacrist of the Cathedral.

Simon Shreeve

Featured in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 2019

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the kind assistance of David Littlejohn, Ian Rouse, Tom Gurney, Colin Whyman, John Whyman, Geoff Ettridge, James Strike and Martin Stoneham during the preparation of these notes.

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