Sabine Baring-Gould | |
|---|---|
 Sabine Baring-Gould, engraving published inStrand Magazine, from a photograph by Downey (died 1881) | |
| Born | (1834-01-28)28 January 1834 St Sidwells,Exeter, England |
| Died | 2 January 1924(1924-01-02) (aged 89) Lew Trenchard,Devon, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Clare College, Cambridge |
| Occupation(s) | Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist, folk song collector and eclectic scholar |
Sabine Baring-Gould (/ˈseɪbɪnˈbɛərɪŋˈɡuːld/; 28 January 1834 – 2 January 1924) ofLew Trenchard in Devon, England, was anAnglican priest,hagiographer,antiquarian, novelist, folk song collector and eclectic scholar. His bibliography consists of more than 1,240 publications, though this list continues to grow.
He is remembered particularly as a writer ofhymns, the best-known being "Onward, Christian Soldiers",[1] and "Now the Day Is Over". He also translated the carols "Gabriel's Message", and "Sing Lullaby" fromBasque to English.
His family home, the Jacobeanmanor house of Lew Trenchard, nearOkehampton, Devon, has been preserved with the alterations he made and is a hotel.
Sabine Baring-Gould was born in the parish ofSt Sidwell, Exeter, on 28 January 1834.[3] He was the eldest son and heir of Edward Baring-Gould (1804–1872),lord of the manor ofLew Trenchard, aJustice of the Peace andDeputy Lieutenant of Devon, formerly a lieutenant in theMadras Light Cavalry (resigned 1830), by his first wife, Sophia Charlotte Bond, daughter of AdmiralFrancis Godolphin Bond,Royal Navy.[4]
Sabine's paternal grandfather was William Baring (died 1846), JP, DL, who in 1795 had assumed by royal licence the additional surname and arms of Gould, in accordance with the terms of his inheritance of the manor of Lew Trenchard from his mother Margaret Gould, daughter and eventual heiress in her issue of William Drake Gould (1719–1767) of Lew Trenchard.
The Gould family was descended from a certain John Gold, a crusader present at the siege ofDamietta in 1217 who for his valour, was granted in 1220 by Ralph de Vallibus, an estate at Seaborough in Somerset.[4] Margaret Gould was the wife of Charles Baring (1742–1829) of Courtland in the parish ofExmouth, Devon, whose monument survives in Lympstone Church. He was the 4th son ofJohann Baring (1697–1748), of Larkbeare House, Exeter, a German immigrant apprenticed to an Exeter wool merchant, and younger brother ofFrancis Baring (1740–1810), andJohn Baring (1730–1816) ofMount Radford, Exeter. The two brothers established the London merchant house ofJohn and Francis Baring Company, which eventually becameBarings Bank.
Sabine was named after the family of his grandmother, Diana Amelia Sabine (died 1858), wife of William Baring-Gould (died 1846), daughter of Joseph Sabine of Tewin, Hertfordshire and sister of the Arctic explorer General SirEdward Sabine.[5][6][7]
Because the family spent much of his childhood travelling round Europe, most of his education was by private tutors. He only spent about two years in formal schooling, first atKing's College School in London (then located inSomerset House) and then, for a few months, atKing's School, Warwick (now Warwick School). Here his time was ended by a bronchial disease of the kind that was to plague him throughout his long life. His father considered his ill-health as a good reason for another European tour.
In 1852, he was admitted toCambridge University, earning the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in 1857, thenMaster of Arts (an upgrade, not a new qualification) in 1860 fromClare College, Cambridge.[8] In September 1853 he informedNathaniel Woodard of his desire to be ordained. He taught for only ten days at one of Woodard's boys' boarding schools in Sussex,Lancing College, but then moved to another,Hurstpierpoint College, where he stayed from 1857 to 1864.[9] While there, he was responsible for several subjects, especially languages and science, and he also designed the ironwork of the bookcases in the boys' library, as well as painting the window jambs with scenes from theCanterbury Tales andThe Faerie Queene.[10]
He tookholy orders in 1864,[11] and at age 30, became thecurate atHorbury Bridge,West Riding of Yorkshire. It was while acting as a curate that he met Grace Taylor, the daughter of a mill hand, then aged fourteen. In the next few years they fell in love. His vicar, John Sharp, arranged for Grace to live for two years with relatives inYork to learn middle-class manners. Baring-Gould, meanwhile, relocated to becomeperpetual curate at Dalton, nearThirsk. He and Grace were married in 1868 atWakefield.[12][13]Their marriage lasted until her death 48 years later, and the couple had 15 children, all but one of whom lived to adulthood. When he buried his wife in 1916, he had carved on her tombstone theLatin mottoDimidium Animae Meae ('Half My Soul').
Baring-Gould became therector ofEast Mersea in Essex in 1871 and spent ten years there. In 1872, his father died and he inherited the 3,000-acre (1,200 ha) family estates ofLewtrenchard in Devon, which included the gift of the living of Lew Trenchard parish. When the living became vacant in 1881, he was able to appoint himself to it, becomingparson as well assquire. He did a great deal of work restoringSt Peter's Church, Lewtrenchard, and (from 1883 to 1914) thoroughly remodelled his home, Lew Trenchard Manor.
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Baring-Gould regarded his principal achievement to be the collection of folk songs that he made with the help of the ordinary people ofCornwall andDevon. His first book of songs,Songs and Ballads of the West (1889–91), was published in four parts between 1889 and 1891. The musical editor for this collection wasHenry Fleetwood Sheppard, though some of the songs included were noted by Baring-Gould's other collaboratorFrederick Bussell.
Baring-Gould and Sheppard produced a second collection namedA Garland of Country Songs during 1895. A new edition ofSongs of the West was proposed for publication in 1905. Sheppard had died in 1901, and so the folk song collectorCecil Sharp was invited to undertake the musical editorship for the new edition. Sharp and Baring-Gould also collaborated onEnglish Folk Songs for Schools during 1907. This collection of 53 songs was widely used in British schools for the next 60 years.
Although he had to modify the words of some songs which were too rude for the time, he left his original manuscripts for future students of folk song, thereby preserving many beautiful pieces of music and their lyrics which might otherwise have been lost.
Baring-Gould gave the fair copies of the folk songs he collected, together with the notebooks he used for gathering information in the field, to Plymouth Public Library in 1914. They were deposited with thePlymouth and West Devon Record Office in 2006. These, together with the folk-song manuscripts from Baring-Gould's library discovered atKillerton in 1998, were published as a microfiche edition in 1998. In 2011 the complete collection of his folk-song manuscripts, including two notebooks not in the microfiche edition, were digitised and published online by the Devon Tradition Project managed by Wren Music[14] in association with theEnglish Folk Dance and Song Society as part of the "Take Six" project undertaken by theVaughan Williams Memorial Library. It now forms part of the VWML's "Full English" website. Thirty boxes of additional manuscript material on other topics (the Killerton manuscripts) are kept in the Devon History Centre in Exeter.
Cecil Sharp dedicated his bookEnglish Folk Song: Some Conclusions (1907) to Baring-Gould.
Baring-Gould wrote many novels, includingThe Broom-Squire set in theDevil's Punch Bowl (1896),Mehalah: a story of the salt marshes (1880),[15]Guavas the Tinner (1897),[16] the 16-volumeThe Lives of the Saints, and the biography of the eccentric poet-vicar ofMorwenstow,Robert Stephen Hawker. He also published nearly 200 short stories in assorted magazines and periodicals.[17] Many of these short stories were collected together and republished as anthologies, such as hisBook of Ghosts (1904),Dartmoor Idyllys (1896), andIn a Quiet Village (1900). His folkloric studies resulted inThe Book of Were-Wolves (1865), one of the most frequently cited studies oflycanthropy. He habitually wrote while standing, and hisstanding desk can be seen in the manor.
One of his most enduringly popular works wasCurious Myths of the Middle Ages,[18] first published in two parts during 1866 and 1868, and republished in many other editions since then. "Each of the book's twenty-four chapters deals with a particular medieval superstition and its variants and antecedents," writes critic Steven J. Mariconda.[19]H. P. Lovecraft termed it "that curious body of medieval lore which the late Mr. Baring-Gould so effectively assembled in book form."[20]
He wrote much about theWest Country: his works of this topic include:
Baring-Gould served as president of theRoyal Institution of Cornwall for ten years from 1897.[21]
Baring-Gould, along with his friend Robert Burnard, organised the first scientific archaeological excavations of hut-circles onDartmoor atGrimspound during 1893. They then askedR. N. Worth,R. Hansford Worth, W. A. G. Gray and a Dr Prowse to assist them with further investigations. This resulted in the formation of the Committee of the Devonshire Association for the exploration ofDartmoor.[22] Baring-Gould was the secretary and author of the first ten annual reports until 1905. The Dartmoor Exploration Committee performed many archaeological digs of prehistoric settlements on Dartmoor and systematically recorded and in some cases restored prehistoric sites. The current state of many prehistoric stone rows and stone circles on Dartmoor owes much to the work of Sabine Baring-Gould and Robert Burnard and the Dartmoor Exploration Committee. Baring-Gould was president of theDevonshire Association for the year 1896.[23]
He wrote much about Dartmoor: his works of this topic include:
He married Grace Taylor on 25 May 1868 at Horbury. They had 15 children: Mary (born 1869), Margaret Daisy (born 1870, an artist who painted part of the screen in Lew Trenchard Church), Edward Sabine (born 1871), Beatrice Gracieuse (1874–1876), Veronica (born 1875), Julian (born 1877), William Drake (born 1878), Barbara (born 1880), Diana Amelia (born 1881), Felicitas (baptised 1883), Henry (born 1885), Joan (born 1887), Cecily Sophia (born 1889), John Hillary (born 1890), and Grace (born 1891).
His wife Grace died in April 1916, and he did not remarry; he died on 2 January 1924 at his home at Lew Trenchard and was buried next to his wife.
He wrote two volumes of memoirs:Early Reminiscences, 1834–1864 (1923) andFurther Reminiscences, 1864–1894 (1925).
One grandson,William Stuart Baring-Gould, was a notedSherlock Holmes scholar who wrote a fictional biography of the great detective—in which, to make up for the lack of information about Holmes's early life, he based his account on the childhood of Sabine Baring-Gould. Sabine himself is a major character ofLaurie R. King's Sherlock Holmes novelThe Moor, a Sherlockian pastiche. In this novel it is revealed that Sabine Baring-Gould is the godfather of Sherlock Holmes.
Radio actorRobert Burnard was his grandson.[24] ComedianJosh Widdicombe is a distant descendant.[citation needed]
See alsoWilliam F. Naufftus (1995)[25]
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