From: Music and Theatre in Handel’s World, The Family Papers of James Harris, 1732-1780, OUP 2002, by Donald Burrows, Rosemary Dunhill, and James Harris:
BARKER, Thomas (b. 1709), third son of John Barker, Minor Canon of Peterborough Cathedral. Thomas’s elder brother John (1707-1781), a chorister at the Chapel Royal, subsequently became organist of Holy Trinity, Coventry, and Vicar-choral at Lichfield Cathedral, was a music copyist and minor composer.
This book contains transcripts of a series of letters from a number of influential people in the world of music in England at that time, and the above extract at page 1093 is taken from a list of correspondents and diary writers quoted in the book, and a brief synopsis of their lives. It says more about John Barker than it does about his brother Thomas.
Another glimpse of his brother comes from a letter from Thomas to James Harris in the Close at Salisbury, dated c 1743. (Harris is described as a philosopher and musician):
Thomas Barker son of the late reverend Docter John Barker late Prebendary and Precentor of the Cathedrall Church of Peterborough and brother of Mr John Barker Organist of Coventry; humbly begs leave to present this my present & unhappy case to your great goodness which the present mean state of life I am unfortunately taken in for a soldier puts me to the greatest uneasyness & ill conveniences of life to think of the low station I’m now confind too. Sir I was brought up as a singing boy in the coire of Peterborough but to my grief and sorrow I never could have my desire & chief delight to practice it which is now fifteen ears since I left the coire, so that I’m intirely lost for want of practice. I have a desire to sing an anthem to morrow in the Evening Service if I can be admittd to try my voice & would fain gett my discharge but for want of friendly assistance to beg it for me I cant expect to have it. Sir I am quartered at the Half Moon by St Edmonds Church.
[P.S.] Sir I was with Mr Tompson & t{ried a]n anthem with him & was pleasd to speak to the Cannons about [me, but] has receivd no answer yet.
The footnote against this entry reads . . .
Barker had exaggerated his father’s status. John Barker senior was a minor canon of Peterborough Cathedral from 1704: he died in 1731, the same year in which Thomas’s elder brother became organist of Holy Trinity, Coventry. It is unlikely that Thomas Barker was considered seriously for a place at Salisbury, though several new Minor Canons and Lay-vicars were appointed in 1742-3.
which effectively confirms the date of John’s appointment at Coventry at 1731.
Barker is known to have published
- Twelve Songs, Three for Two Voices, with Symphonies for the Violin or German Flute,
published Coventry 1741, and
- A Select Number of the Best Psalm Tunes. Birmingham: Mich. Broome [for] John Barker, {c.1750]. 58p.: engraved. Birmingham Public Library Ref.: L,55.91. 27 tunes, 1 anthem, 1 set piece.
As with Michael Broom himself, Barker is thought to have compiled the contents of the book, as only one appears to have been composed by him, and that being air only, without any accompaniment. Temperley comments that he was a pupil of Dr. William Croft, several works by the latter being included in the book.
Barker is also thought to have been a printer by trade.