# Thomas Chilcot > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Thomas_Chilcot > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Thomas_Chilcot.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Chilcot > Source revision: 1291119028 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) **Thomas Chilcot** (1707? – 1766), was an English organist and composer. ## Life Thomas Chilcot of [Bath, Somerset](/source/Bath,_Somerset) was born in the West of England (probably Bath) in or about 1707.[1] He was the son of John Chilcot and Elizabeth Powell.[2] Records of his birth, like most other records from his life, are now lost. Chilcot was educated at Bath [Charity School](/source/Charity_School), whose headmaster, Henry Dixon, had a strong interest in church music. On 6 July 1721 Chilcot (presumably aged 14) was apprenticed to Josiah Priest, the organist of [Bath Abbey](/source/Bath_Abbey) since 1714 - seemingly the only occasion on which the school allowed a pupil to be apprenticed to a musician.[3] On Priest's death, just four years later, Chilcot was made Abbey organist on a probationary basis. At what should have been the conclusion of Chilcot's apprenticeship, in 1728, the appointment was made permanent. As City musician in fashionable Bath, Chilcot rapidly established a remarkable relationship with many noble families, attracting their patronage and subscriptions to his publications. He became a member and subsequently Grand Master of the Royal Cumberland Lodge of [Freemasons](/source/Freemasons). He was also amongst the original members of the [Royal Society of Musicians](/source/Royal_Society_of_Musicians), founded in 1738/1739. As well as his work at the Abbey, Chilcot organised and directed some ambitious choral concerts (at which he played his own concertos) and appears also to have run a small instrument hire business. He married Elizabeth Mills of Bath in 1729 and had seven children, of whom four survived. Following Elizabeth's death, he married Anne Wrey, a member of a prominent West Country family (the [Wrey baronets](/source/Wrey_baronets)), in 1749. Chilcot died suddenly on 24 November 1766, after occupying a highly influential role in Bath for forty years. Almost no public notice was taken of his death and a complicated disagreement over Chilcot's estate meant that none of the elaborate arrangements that the composer had made for his own funeral procession, monument and memorial trusts, was ever carried out.[4] ## Works Chilcot's unpublished music, including at least four anthems, a *Jubilate,* an oratorio called *Elfrida* and what a posthumous auction catalogue describes as "his finest pieces of Music ... never Printed or Sold", has not survived.[5] His published music consists of: - *Six Suites of Lessons for the Harpsicord or Spinet* (London, Wm Smith, 1734). Modern edition by Le Pupitre (Paris, Heugel & cie, 1981) - *Twelve English Songs with their symphonies. The words by Shakespeare and other Celebrated Poets.* ([William Shakespeare](/source/William_Shakespeare), [Christopher Marlowe](/source/Christopher_Marlowe), [Anacreon](/source/Anacreon), and [Euripides](/source/Euripides)) (London, John Johnson, [1744]) - *Six Concertos, for the Harpsichord* (London, John Johnson, 1756) (dedicated to [Lady Elizabeth Bathurst](/source/Lady_Elizabeth_Bathurst)) - *Six Concertos, for the Harpsichord* (Bath, privately, 1765/1766) ## References 1. Biography from Tim Rishton, 'Thomas Chilcot and his concertos' except where otherwise stated 1. St. Peter's Tawstock, Effigies: [http://sites.rootsweb.com/~ukdevon/TawstockInsideMIs.htm](http://sites.rootsweb.com/~ukdevon/TawstockInsideMIs.htm) 1. Thomas Chilcot and His Concertos: The Chilcot Family in Bath, p. 12 [http://www.rishton.info/pubs/chilcotthesis.pdf](http://www.rishton.info/pubs/chilcotthesis.pdf) 1. Tim Rishton, 'The twelve harpsichord concertos of Thomas Chilcot', p.34 1. Tim Rishton, 'The twelve harpsichord concertos of Thomas Chilcot', p.34 ## Bibliography B.J. Maslen: ‘Thomas Chilcot: a Forgotten Composer’, *Musical Quarterly*, lxvi (1943), 294–5 David Falconer: *Bath Abbey: its Choirs & its Music* (Bath, 1984) [Tim Rishton](/source/Tim_Rishton): Thomas Chilcot and his Concertos (PhD thesis, U. of Wales, Bangor, 1991) Tim Rishton: ‘The Eighteenth-Century British Keyboard Concerto after Handel’, *Aspects of Keyboard Music: Essays in Honour of Susi Jeans*, ed. R. Judd (Oxford, 1992), 121–39 Tim Rishton: 'Chilcot, Thomas', article in *New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians* *Seraphic Lays': Thomas Chilcot 1707-1766*, *Hexachord: The Journal of Early Music Wales* vol II no. 2 (February 2000), 4–13 Tim Rishton: 'The twelve harpsichord concertos of Thomas Chilcot', *Early Keyboard Journal* Vol 23 (2005), 33-66 --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Thomas Chilcot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Chilcot) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Chilcot?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.