TOWN ORGANIST

Situated in the Consecrated/West Section of Jesmond Old Cemetery.

Dr. William Rea.

William Rea was born in London in 1827. From being young, he showed a remarkable aptitude for music and at an early stage was placed under Mr. Joseph Pitman, organist of Christ Church, Spitalfields, who was one of the first generation of English Bach players. Dr. Rea made such rapid progress that before he was in his teens, he was acting as Deputy Organist to his Master at Spitalfields. After studying in Leipzig and Prague, he was appointed organist to the Harmonic Union in 1851 and in 1858 he became organist at St Michaels in Stockwell, London. In 1860, he was selected as the most outstanding candidate for the newly created Council Organist post in Newcastle, earning £150 a year, and moved his entire family north, where he was to spend the rest of his life.

The inscription is somewhat faded these days, but reads as follows:

In Loving Memory of
WILLIAM REA MUS. DOC.
Who devoted more than forty years
to cultivating a love of good music
amongst the people of this City.
Born, March 25th, 1827; died, March 8th, 1903.
And his dearly beloved wife,
EMMA MARY,
Daughter of Wesley Stoker Woolhouse F.R.A.S.
Born April 7th, 1835. Died May 6th, 1893
Also of his children, who died in 1861
Eleanor Gertrude, age 6 years: Emma Beatrice, age 3 years.
The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God
wisdom, chap 3  

The monument originally stood at over 7 feet high and includes a bronze medallion, set in the upper part of the monument, by the sculptor Francis Derwent Wood, who is probably more famous for his Machine Gun Corps Memorial in Hyde Park Corner and ‘Canadas Golgotha’ for the Canadian War Memorials Exhibition. He also modelled the wreaths for Lutyen’s Cenotaph. 

Dr. Rea made an immediate impact on the musical life of the region and within a few years had transformed Newcastle from a provincial musical backwater and revitalised the city’s interest in a higher form of musical culture that attracted notice beyond the region, attracting musicians from London to perform in the city, founding a long running series of Promenade Concerts and introducing the Corporation People’s Concerts. He had amazing energy and enthusiasm, and at various times fulfilled the role of organist, concert pianist, conductor, choir master, concert promoter, arranger and composer!! He was also a Fellow of the College of Organists and found time to give a series of lectures, musical classes and piano recitals of modern music at the Lit and Phil, Newcastle.

He held the posts of organist at St Thomas’s in Gateshead, St Andrew’s in Newcastle, St Mary’s, Tyne Dock, the Elswick Road Chapel and, from 1880 until his death, St Hilda’s in South Shields.

His wider contribution to musical life on Tyneside was recognised by Durham University, who in 1886 conferred upon him an honorary degree of Doctor of Music. He also received a public testimonial in 1889 for his musical services, which received wide support, particularly from the Newcastle Amateur Vocal Society, and was presented with a silver bowl and a cheque for 100 guineas by Alderman Jonathon Barker Ellis, who had worked closely with him as Chairman of the Newcastle Council’s People’s Concerts Committee. A report of the presentation ceremony in the Newcastle Courant highlighted Dr. Rea’s many achievements, particularly focussing on the fact that from 1880 until his retirement in 1888, over 400,000 people had attended his concerts at the Town Hall, resulting in profits of nearly £700, which had been spent on providing music in the Town’s parks during the summer months. Dr. Rea responded to the praise by saying that “he had been actuated by pure love for art and for disseminating a taste for good music”.

Following a short illness, Dr. Rea died at his home in Summerhill Grove, Newcastle, on the 8th March 1903. His estate was valued at £4,121.

We were lucky to be contacted by Gavin Rea, a descendent of William, who provided us with an article in St. Hilda’s Parish Record, South Shields, dated 1903. It gives a fascinating insight into the character and personality of William; “Amongst all the memories and associations of an exceptionally busy month as regards Church life, March 1903 will always be remembered most of all as the date of our great loss through the death of Dr. Rea. It was only in January that his mother, to whom he had been a devoted son, died; and he seemed to bear the shock so well and bravely, that we all hoped he had still many years of active life before him. He was at his place in St. Hilda’s as usual down to Sunday, February 15, but in the following week he was taken ill, and was never out of the house again. He gradually became weaker and weaker, and at last sank into unconsciousness, and on Sunday morning, March 8, he passed away.

The news of his death was received by telegram just before evensong, so that the Vicar was able to announce the sad news at the beginning of the service, when all reverently stood in deep silence while the Dead March was played.

The funeral was on the following Thursday at Jesmond Old Cemetery, the first part of the service being taken in St. Matthew’s  Church, which had just been temporarily repaired after the disaster of the great gale of February 27. The St. Hilda’s Choir sang the service, both in the Church and at the graveside.

On the following Sunday at evensong, Dr. Rea’s anthem, ‘The Souls of the Righteous are in the hand of God’, was sung; the long treble solo being taken by William J. Swinbanks.

What the loss means to us at St. Hilda’s it is impossible to realise at present. Dr. Rea has been so bound up with the services for more than twenty years, and he so generously and completely identified himself with the life of the Church, that it is difficult to conceive of the musical part of the worship apart from him. He came to St. Hilda’s with all the freshness and power of a great reputation and of a great influence in the musical world of the North; and he threw himself with characteristic eagerness into his work here. Those who only knew him in recent years can scarcely understand the irresistible, and even fiery, energy with which he then conducted the Choir. His ideals were very high, and he would not rest satisfied if they were unperceived or ignored by those whom he was training. But his enthusiasm was contagious, at least in so far that those who worked under him were intensely proud to have such a master, and never resented anything he might say to them.

For many years past however he had been much more restrained, both in his conducting and in his own playing. It was only on rare occasions, as, for instance, on the Coronation Sunday last August, that he let himself go with his old, almost passionate abandon. But what might have thoughtlessly been deemed to be lost in vigour was far more than compensated for by the ever deepening devotion of his rendering of Church music, even in its apparently unimportant details. More and more it became his constant aim to develop the devotional aspect of all the services. His special desire was to make the Choral celebrations of the Holy Communion more worthy, and nothing pained him so much in his Choir work as when any of the men of the Choir were needlessly absent from these services.

When he first came to St. Hilda’s he had the invaluable assistance of Mr. J. Kirkley, who still made himself entirely responsible for the training of the boys of the Choir, as he had done with extraordinary zeal for some years previously. When Mr. Kirkley went to live at Hexham, Mr. Petree took this special work in hand, and for ten years he relieved Dr. Rea of this arduous task. After Mr. Petree left, the Churchwardens offered, for two or three years in succession, to pay the salary of a Deputy Organist, who should train the boys, but Dr. Rea always replied that he did not know of one who would suit him. And so, of his own choice, he struggled on single-handed, courageously facing a task which was never congenial, and often irksome to him. Nor could he find time for the special training of recruits. Indeed, at one time the situation became so critical that the Rev. R.E. Burlingham came to the rescue and devoted himself for three months to the teaching of a large class of probationers, of whose number there are at the present time, no fewer than ten boys in the Choir. It was a remarkable instance of Dr. Rea’s tenacity of purpose in carrying out his duties that he should have thus refused to delegate to another a work which was in a measure distasteful to himself.

Both Dr. Rea’s diplomas – the Fellowship of the College of Organists, and the Degree of Doctor of Music – were honorary recognitions of his musical pre-eminence. The latter was conferred on him by the University of Durham in 1886, being the only instance of an honorary D. Mus. Given by that University.

And of Dr. Rea in himself, what can be said to express the feelings with which we all regarded him? The picture rises before us of a consistently courteous gentleman, with a kindly manner to everyone; who would not spare himself in the discharge of his office, but who in all weathers was always at his post; who was as ready to accompany a simple children’s service as to conduct a great musical performance; who knew everybody, and forgot none of his old boys as they grew up to manhood.  

His death leaves a blank which can never be quite filled.”

In his memory, three years later his two surviving sons, Charles Herbert Edmund Rea, an Actuary, of Clements Lane, London and William Cecil Rea, an Artist, then of Landsdowne House, Holland Park, erected his fine gravestone in Jesmond Old Cemetery. As an interesting aside, William Cecil Rea moved, in 1909, with his wife, the sculptor Constance Halford, to a newly built neo-Georgian house, designed by Ernest William Marshall, behind a high brick wall in Logan Place, Kensington, called Garden Lodge…..the house that Freddie Mercury bought for £500,000 cash in 1980 and lived in until his untimely death at the age of 45 in 1991. In 2024 the house was put for sale by Mary Austin for offers over £30 million by the estate agent Knight Frank. Cecil Rea lived there until he died in 1935 and Constance until her death in 1938. With regard to the Francis Derwent Wood connection in the design of William’s gravestone, both Wood and William Cecil Rea lived near each other and were possibly part of the same artist community, so it is highly likely that William Cecil commissioned the piece of work from Wood.

In the June 5th 1903 edition of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, Dr. Rea’s residence was advertised for sale by Messrs R. and W. Mack of Pilgrim Street, Newcastle. The house was described as:

“a most substantial construction, containing a Entrance Hall, Drawing Room, Dining Room, Morning Room, five Bed and Dressing Rooms, Kitchen, Scullery and Pantry, with suitable in-door and out-door offices, and a large Garden in the rear. The gardens in front between Summerhill Grove and Ravensworth Terrace are reserved in perpetuity. Electric trams on the Westgate Road section pass within three minutes walk of the house“

Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Joe Pegg, the memorial in Jesmond Old Cemetery to Dr. Rea is now a Grade II listed monument, despite it being broken in half. Fantastic news with regard to addressing the broken monument is that Mr. Gavin Rea, William’s Great, Great Grandson has been working with the Friends of Jesmond Cemetery, Newcastle City Council Bereavement Services and Joseph Richmond and Sons Memorials, to find a viable solution. In Gavin’s words, “As it will be the bicentenary of William’s birth in 2027, we feel it would be appropriate to have the repairs made by that date as a fitting tribute to this remarkable man”. Watch this space for what happens next!!

Dr. Rea’s parents, James and Maria Rea, are also buried in Jesmond Old Cemetery.

SOURCES:

Mr. Joe Pegg