# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Chappell, William (1809-1888)

​CHAPPELL, WILLIAM (1809–1888), musical antiquary, was born in London on 20 Nov. 1809. His father, Samuel Chappell, soon after the son's birth, entered into partnership with Johann Baptist Cramer [q. v.] and F. T. Latour, and opened a music-publishing business at 124 New Bond Street. In 1826 he became sole partner, and in 1830 was established at 50 New Bond Street, where he died in December 1834.
William, his eldest son, then managed the business for his mother until 1843, They employed a shopman of Scottish birth, who frequently boasted of the folk-music of Scotland, and sneered at English folk-music as non-existent or unimportant; these taunts impelled Chappell to the study of English folk-tunes and ballads, and aroused the prejudice against Scottish music, so frequently perceptible in his writings. In 1838 he issued his first work, 'A Collection of National English Airs, consisting of Ancient Song, Ballad, and Dance Tunes,' in two volumes, one containing 245 tunes, the second some elucidatory remarks and an essay on English minstrelsy. The airs were harmonised by Macfarren, Dr. Crotch, and Wade; only Macfarren's were adequate. Wade's being too slight, and Crotch's too elaborate. The musical historians, Hawkins and Burney, had given little attention to folk-music. Busby, though writing with the avowed intention of atoning for Burney's injustice to the Elizabethan madrigalists, had also neglected the popular art. Chappell was the first who seriously studied traditional English tunes, and his publication was epoch-making. In 1840 Chappell became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He took an active part in the formation of the Percy Society, for which he edited Johnson's 'Crown Garland of Golden Roses.' He projected the Musical Antiquarian Society, to publish and perform early English compositions, and established madrigal-singing by a small choir at his premises in New Bond Street. Most of the leading English musicians joined the society, which began publishing in 1841; Chappell acted as trea- surer and manager of the publications for about five years. He edited the twelfth volume, Dowland's 'First Booke of Songes or Ayres,' but inexplicably omitted Dowland's accompaniments. The society's publications were in cumbersome and expensive folios, and the members soon fell away until the society dissolved in 1848. The Chappell family had in 1843 made an arrangement by virtue of which William retired from the business. In 1845 he bought a share in the publishing business of Cramer & Co., which was then called Cramer, Beale, & Chappell. He patiently continued his investigations into antiquarian music, and waited till 1855 before issuing an improved edition of his collection. It was renamed 'Popular Music of the Olden Time,' and arranged in two octavo volumes, letterpress and music interspersed. The tunes were harmonised by Macfarren. Immense learning and research are displayed throughout the work, which at once became the recognised authority upon the subject. It suffers from Chappell's prejudices against Scotland and everything Scottish; and Dr. Burney, who did not appreciate Elizabethan madrigals, is repeatedly attacked with unjustifiable exaggeration, notably in the preface. A new edition, edited by Professor H. E. Wooldridge, appeared in 1892, with the title 'Old English Popular Music,' and the tunes re-harmonised on the basis of the mediæval modes; this edition is practically a new work.
In 1861 Chappell retired from the firm of Cramer & Co. He suffered from writers' palsy for several years, but eventually recovered. He acted as honorary treasurer of the Ballad Society, for which he edited three volumes of the 'Roxburgh Ballads' (London, 1869 &c. 8vo). He was also an active member, and for a time treasurer, of the Camden Society. He gave most important assistance in the publication of Coussemaker's 'Scriptores de Musica' (4 tom. Paris, 1863-76). The celebrated double canon, 'Sumer is icumen in,' whose existence in a thirteenth-century manuscript is the most inexplicable phenomenon in the history of music, was long studied by Chappell; a facsimile in colours served as the frontispiece of his 'Popular Music of the Olden Time,' and he finally succeeded in identifying the handwriting as the work of Johannes de Fornsete, and in showing that the writer died on 19 Jan. 1239 or 1240 (Proceedings of the Musical Association, 3 March 1879 and 6 Feb. 1882).
In 1874 Chappell published the first volume of a 'History of Music,' dealing only with the tone-art of ancient Greece and Rome. A long controversy was aroused by this work. His prejudices against Dr. Burney once more found vent. A ​part of the impression was destroyed by fire. This loss seems to have dispirited Chappell, as he did not continue the work, in which Dr. Ginsburg and E. F. Rimbault were to have collaborated. To 'Archæologia' (vol. xlvii.) he contributed a paper on the Greek musical characters which are to be found, phonetically written, in several service-books of the Anglo-Saxon church. At the foundation of the Musical Association in 1874 he was appointed a vice-president, and on 6 Nov. 1877 he read a profound and original paper on 'Music a Science of Numbers.' During the latter part of his life he lived mostly at Weybridge, but died at his London residence, 53 tipper Brook Street, on 20 Aug. 1888.
Though Chappell published but few works, he exercised a deep influence on the study of musical history in England; and each one, whether small or large, contained the results of long and patient research, and remains a standard work of reference. But he never freed himself from his early prejudices against Scotch music and Dr. Barney.
[Chappell's articles in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, i. 339, 414, ii. 416; Concordia; Times, 22 and 23 Aug. 1888; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. vi. 160; Musical Times, September 1888; Banister's Life of Macfarren, pp. 135, 270; Kidson's British Music Publishers, pp. 33, 35, 224.]
H. D.