Thomas Helmore

Thomas Helmore (7 May 1811, in Kidderminster – 6 July 1890, in Westminster) was a choirmaster, writer about singing and author and editor of hymns and carols.

Helmore's father was a congregationalist minister (also called Thomas). During the boy's childhood, the family moved from Kidderminster to Stratford-upon-Avon, where Helmore later trained his father's choir and taught in a school which his father had founded.

Helmore was appointed as executor of the will of Chauncy Hare Townshend and, on the latter's death in 1868, together with co-executrix Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts, he undertook the responsibility of founding an elementary school in London, which was finally opened in Rochester Street, Westminster, in 1876.

His interest in plainsong led him to make several visits, in and after 1875, to the Abbey of Saint Gall in Switzerland, to examine an ancient manuscript supposed to be an accurate copy of a book on Gregorian chant written by Saint Gregory himself.

He died at his home in Pimlico on 6 July 1890 and was buried in Brompton Cemetery.

Some published works

A Manual of Plain Song; containing:- A Brief Directory of the Plain Song used in the Morning and Evening Prayer, Litany, and Holy Communion; together with The Canticles and Psalter Noted, 1850 Accompanying Harmonies to the Hymnal Noted (1852) Accompanying Harmonies To The Brief Directory Of The Plain Song: Used In The Morning And Evening Prayer, Litany, And Holy Communion, 1853 Carols for Christmas-Tide, 1853 (with John Mason Neale) Carols for Easter-Tide, 1854 (with John Mason Neale) The Hymnal Noted, 1854 The Ancient Plain-Song of the Church: Adapted to the American Book of Common Prayer, 1855 The Psalter Noted: Carefully Compared and Made to Agree with the Psalter of the Standard Prayer (with Edward M. Pecke) (1856) Christ Was Born on Christmas Day: A Carol (with J. M. Neale), illustrated edition 1864 Primer of Plainsong, 1877 Translation of Fétis’ Treatise on Choir and Chorus Singing, 1885