William Tans’ur
Taken from the frontispiece to Melodia Sacra.
[Picture courtesy of The Cyber Hymnal]
What We Know So Far About William Tans’ur:
As with many of these early church composers, we know very little about him. We believe he was born in 1700, probably in the village of Dunchurch in the north of Warwickshire, and that his parents were Edward Tanzer and Joan Alibone who were married …. He was baptised in the parish church in Dunchurch (on Dunsmore) on November 6th, 1706, the son of an agricultural labourer.
The name Tans’ur was William’s own invention; before then it had been Tanzer, Tanzur, Tansur, and Tanser, according to local pronunciation and the ability to spell.
The next record we have of him is when he married Elizabeth Butler in …. and we can trace his progress round England by reference to his books of Psalmody:
- A Compleat Melody: or, The Harmony of Sion, 1734
- The Melody of the Heart, 1735
- Heaven on Earth, or the Beauty of Holiness, 1738
- Sacred Mirth, or the Pious Soul’s Daily Delight, 1739
- Poetical Meditations, 1740
- The Universal Harmony, containing the Whole Book of the Psalms, 1743
- A New Musical Grammar, 1746
- The Royal Melody Compleat, 1754
- The Psalm Singer’s Jewel, or Useful Companion to the Book of the Psalms, 1760
- Melodia Sacra, or the Devout Psalmist’s Musical Companion, 1771
- The Elements of Music Displayed, 1772
By the time he had published The Melody of the Heart in 1735, he had moved to Ewell in Surrey (op sit: Preface) and he taught psalmody up and down the country, including Barnes, Cambridge, Stamford, Boston (Lincs.), and Leicester.
He eventually moved again to St Neots, Cambridgeshire, in the 1740s, where he became a bookseller, as well as being a music teacher. He died there on October 7th, 1783.