THOMAS JARMAN  (1776  - 1861)
 

·          The following is adapted from Hymn Tunes and their Story by James T Lightfoot, and amended by reference to Stephen J Weston's preface to a booklet of music containing his edited versions of two anthems by Thomas Jarman [1]:

The man and his background

Thomas Jarman was born on 21^st December 1776 in Clipston[2], a small village near the northern border of the County of Northampton[3]. His father was not only a Baptist lay preacher, but also a tailor, and Thomas was brought up in the same trade, although his brother, John, followed his father’s calling to become a minister.

His natural taste for music, however, considerably interfered with his work, and he was frequently reduced to dire straits, from which only the extreme liberality of his publishers relieved him. He was a man of fine, commanding presence, but self-willed, and endowed with a considerable gift of irony, as choirs frequently found to their cost. Weston quotes from Kant[4] that Jarman neglected his work and ‘this kept him poor and soured his temper’.

He joined the choir of the Baptist chapel in his native village when quite a youth, and soon became the choirmaster there. He adopted music as a profession (with occasional returns to his old trade), and was engaged as teacher of harmony and singing in many of the neighbouring villages. He was a successful choir-trainer, spending several years at Leamington, and conducted concerts as well as services, for which he was ‘constantly composing works’. The village choir festival held under his direction at Naseby, in 1837, is said to have been the talk of the district for long after. He spent some six or seven years at Leamington, during which time he enjoyed the friendship of C. Rider, a wealthy Methodist who did much good for the psalmody of Lancashire and elsewhere some fifty or sixty years ago.

Local quires and bands

Stephen Weston, who has carried out considerable research[5] into the quires and bands in the area at the time, comments that the village is in the centre of a highly concentrated area of 18^th and 19^th century Anglican choir bands, although it was Clipston Baptist chapel, opened 12^th October 1803, which was more important in that respect, even though the Parish church also had an active quire.  His competitor in the village was W Bonsor, who also arranged concerts, and built the church organ between 1817 and 1825. This succeeded a barrel-organ[6] with two barrels of 11 psalm tunes each, which in turn replaced an active church band comprising ‘first fiddle, bass viol, tenor fiddle, [possibly viola] serpent, clarinet and oboe’[7]. It would appear that stringed instruments were used together with the organ until 1867, but the choir was apparently abolished about the time the barrel-organ was installed (see below). Fisher[8] went on to confirm that the church quire sat in the gallery, and that the old people from the hospital in the lower gallery.

In contrast to this, Weston suggests that from the way Jarman wrote continuo parts with a running bass and two treble parts often in thirds, the Baptist chapel choir might possibly only have been accompanied by two fiddles and ’cello, or a similar arrangement for wind instruments.  The chapel organ was only installed in the 1940s, the previous accompaniment being a harmonium installed ‘towards the end of the 19^th century’.

All was not happy between church and chapel at Clipston, and it is worth quoting here the same illuminating passage from Kant[9] that Watson quotes:

The music and the harmony at Clipston was moiled by the arrival in 1820 of the Rev. John Bull[10], who was appointed master of the grammar school and curate of the parish. He took up residence in the rectory house and advertised for boarders. He had his own views about music in public worship and he promptly abolished the church choir. The affairs were in ferment. Jarman, who prided himself on his ability as a rhymester, though he hardly ever deserved he name, dipped his pen in gall and wrote doggerel against the cleric, and what was worse, set he words to music. Clipston youth eagerly caught the strains and delighted in lusty singing within earshot of the rectory.

It became unbearable. Several had to make an appearance before the magistrates and pay the fines imposed on them. Jarman escaped and wrote more verses and ore tunes. One set was about Josephus, the clerk, performing the offices of the church choir. The clergyman played the same game. He wrote verses himself and got them published in the Northampton Mercury, conscious that they were immensely better than any Jarman could produce.

Jarman retorted in scurrilous verse which the Mercury refused to publish. Consequently others were written and circulated in the village and district, finding fault with the curate’s theology in approved fashion. So the contest wore on until the combatants were worn out, and Mr Bull removed from the village. He died in London in 1852. 

The only comment here is that Jarman used several of Bull’s lyrics for his own purposes, including those of Bethlehem’s Star, the words and music of which we found in manuscript form set on foolscap music paper in a second-hand bookshop in Oxford, and which now forms part of Immanuel’s Ground’s[11] Christmas repertoire.

Thomas Jarman’s music

Jarman published an enormous quantity of music, including over six hundred hymn-tunes, besides anthems, services, and similar pieces. Temperley[12] records his pre-1820 publications as:

·         Jarman, Thomas, of Clipstone, Northamptonshire. Sacred Harmony, comprising select hymns . . . with two anthems. The last of which was expressly composed for the opening of Clipstone New Chapel. London: For the author by Henry Thompson, [1803-1805].  Copy in Northampton RO. 20 tunes (mostly in less than four parts), 2 set pieces. 1821 copy of this book in BL, Ref: A.666.b.(1)., which has additional music.
 

o        This contains NATIVITY (M. App. 7), a tune which Methodists not only sing, but sing with all their might and main, and feel all the better for it. It was originally set to – ‘Mortals, awake, with angels join, and chant the solemn lay’.[13]  This fuguing tune, probably the most popular of all Jarman’s hymn tunes, was included in the Baptist Church Hymnal. The later name of LYNGHAM has been used in many publications, he original having been forgotten.
 

·         Jarman, Thomas, of Clipstone. Second Book. Sacred Music, comprising thirty six select hymns, [etc.]. London: James Peck [bef.1812]. Also includes one motet and two set pieces. Copy in BL, Ref: A.666.b.(2).

·         Jarman, Thomas, of Clipstone. Sacred Music, consisting of a third set of psalms, hymns and anthems. London: J Peck, [bef.1813]. 43 tunes, 3 anthems. Copy in BL, Ref: A.666.b.(3).

·         Jarman, Tho[ma]s. Sacred Music. A Fourth Book, containing psalms, hymns and set pieces.  London: James Peck, [bef.1821]. Copy in Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, Ref: -VM 2040 C55

Other known works by Thomas Jarman include:
 

·         Northamptonshire Harmony.  This can be found in the Northamptonshire RO, and is considered to be his main work.
 

·         Devotional Melodist.
 

·         The Voice of Melody
 

·         Harp of Judah
 

·         The Wesleyan Melodist

Lightfoot comments further: Many of his anthems were very popular, and a correspondent at Wellingborough has called to mind a wonderfully effective rendering of a piece called EMANCIPATION, written to celebrate the emancipation of slaves. He says:
 

'How beautiful I thought it, as John Randall, one of our noted singers, gave out the recitative in sonorous tones, and then the united choirs of Cheese Lane, West End, and Salem flung themselves on the chorus:

Lo, Heaven at length has heard their cry,
This day shall chain and fetters fly.'

As noted above, amongst his many anthems written for special occasions there is one for the opening of the new Baptist chapel at Clipston.  Another is a MAGNIFICAT for Dr Marsh's Episcopal chapel at Leamington.

Thomas Jarman lived to the good old age of eighty, dying in 1861, and lies buried in the graveyard attached to the Baptist chapel at Clipston in Northants. His grave is marked by a stone, to the left of the chapel front, bearing the following inscription:

IMMANUEL'S GROUND
Warwick's West Gallery Quire