{{Short description|Scottish organist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}} {{Use British English|date=March 2017}} '''Charles Macpherson''' DMus (Dunelm) FRAM FRCO (10 May 1870 – 28 May 1927) was a Scottish organist, who served at St Paul's Cathedral.<ref>Watkins Shaw ''The Succession of Organists''</ref>
==Family== Macpherson was born in Edinburgh on 10 May 1870, to Charles Macpherson, the Burgh Architect,<ref>[http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=201019 Dictionary of Scottish Architects: Charles Macpherson]. Retrieved 19 January 2021.</ref> and Mary Charlotte d'Egville.<ref>[http://www.guarlfordparish.uk/remember_church_fancourt.htm Guarlford History Group]. Retrieved 19 January 2021.</ref> His brother, the Rev. Ranald Macpherson (1871–1951) was sometime Vicar Choral of Ripon Cathedral.<ref>Mary E. Ingram, ''A Jacobite Stronghold of the Church, Being the Story of Old St. Paul's, Edinburgh'' (1907).</ref>
He married Sophia Menella Newbolt (1883–1962), the youngest daughter of the Rev. Canon William Charles Edmund Newbolt, in 1910. Their son, Alasdair Charles Macpherson (born 1911), died in 1941 while serving with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.<ref>[https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2634805/macpherson,-alasdair-charles/ Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Pilot Officer Alasdair Charles Macpherson (service No. 63805)]. Retrieved 19 January 2021.</ref>
==Career== At the age of nine, Macpherson became a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral, later studying music at the Royal Academy of Music. He was organist at St Clement Eastcheap between 1887 and 1890, before returning to St Paul's as assistant organist between 1895 and 1916, being made organist in 1916, a position he held until his death.<ref>Percy Alfred Scholes ''The Mirror of Music, 1844-1944''</ref>
He was Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music and was elected a Fellow. He was President of the Royal College of Organists from 1920 to 1922. Two hymns by Macpherson were included in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1916 ''Exsurgat Deus'', and ''Stonypath''. He composed a ''Thanksgiving Te Deum'' for the thanksgiving service at St Paul's on 6 July 1919, which marked the end of the First World War and was attended by King George V and Queen Mary.<ref>{{cite journal |last=G. |first=G. |date=1919 |title=Dr. Macpherson's Thanksgiving Te Deum |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3701889 |journal=The Musical Times |volume=60 |issue=918 |pages=416–418 |doi=10.2307/3701889 |jstor=3701889 |access-date=21 February 2022}}</ref>
He died suddenly on 28 May 1927.<ref>''The Musical Times''; 1 July 1927, p. 655</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{Internet Archive author |search=( ("Macpherson, Charles" OR "Charles Macpherson") AND "1870-1927" )}}
{{s-start}} {{s-culture}} {{s-bef|before=George Clement Martin}} {{s-ttl|title=Organist and Master of the Choristers of St Paul's Cathedral |years=1916-1927}} {{s-aft|after=Stanley Marchant}} {{end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Macpherson, Charles}} Category:1870 births Category:1927 deaths Category:19th-century British organists Category:20th-century British organists Category:19th-century Scottish musicians Category:20th-century Scottish composers Category:Academics of the Royal Academy of Music Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Category:British cathedral organists Category:People educated at St. Paul's Cathedral School Category:Musicians from Edinburgh Category:Scottish organists Category:20th-century Scottish male musicians Category:19th-century Scottish male musicians Category:British male classical organists