A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Gladstone, Francis

by W. Barclay Squire

GLADSTONE, Dr. Francis Edward, was born at Summertown, near Oxford, March 2,1845. When 14 he was articled to Dr. S. S. Wesley, with whom he remained at Winchester for five years. After being organist for two years at Holy Trinity Church, Weston-super-Mare, in 1866 he obtained the post of organist at Llandaff Cathedral. In March 1870 Mr. Gladstone was appointed organist at Chichester Cathedral, but three years later he moved to Brighton, where he remained until 1876, when after a short residence in London he accepted the post of organist at Norwich Cathedral, which he resigned in 1881. Dr. Gladstone then became organist to Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, London, a post which ill health compelled him to resign in 1886. He took the degree of Mus. B. Cantab, in 1876, and shortly after was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music. He took the degree of Mus. D. in 1879, and is also a Fellow of the College of Organists, a Member of the Board of Musical Studies at Cambridge, and a teacher of organ, etc., at the Royal College of Music. Having been lately received into the Roman Catholic Church, he has been recently appointed director of the choir at St. Mary of the Angels, Bayswater. Dr. Gladstone, who is one of the first of living English organists, has composed much music for his instrument, besides services, anthems, songs, a chorus (with orchestral accompaniment), 'A wet sheet and a flowing sea,' an overture (MS.), a piano trio (MS.), and two sacred cantatas—'Nicodemus' and 'Philippi, or, the Acts of Paul and Silas in Macedonia,'—the latter of which was written for the North-Eastern Choirs Association, and produced at Newcastle in July 1883. A cantata, 'Constance of Calais,' performed by the Highbury Philharmonic Society, a mass in E minor (MS.), written for the Brompton Oratory, and a short mass in E♭, are among Dr. Gladstone's most recent works.

[ W. B. S. ]