John Farmer

Born: Au­gust 16, 1835, Not­ting­ham, Eng­land.
Died: Ju­ly 17, 1901, at his home in Ox­ford, Eng­land.
Buried: St. Se­pul­chre’s Cem­e­tery, Jer­­icho, Ox­ford, Eng­land.

Eldest child of butch­er John Far­mer and mill­in­er Ma­ry Black­shaw Far­mer, John learned to play the pi­a­no, vi­o­lin, and harp when young. He was ap­pren­ticed to his un­cle Hen­ry Far­mer, an or­gan­ist, com­pos­er, and mu­sic teacher with a mu­sic and mu­sic­al in­stru­ment bus­i­ness in Not­ting­ham. At age 14, John went to st­udy at the Leip­zig Con­ser­va­to­ry, then three years lat­er un­der An­dre­as Spaeth in Co­burg for a year. He re­turned to Eng­land in 1853, and en­tered his father’s lace bus­i­ness. Af­ter his mo­ther’s death in 1856, he went to Zür­ich, Switz­er­land, where he taught mu­sic. He re­turned to Eng­land again in 1861, and be­came mu­sic master of Har­row School in 1864, staying there un­til 1885. He then ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to be­come or­gan­ist at at Bal­li­ol Coll­ege, Ox­ford, where he found­ed the Ball­i­ol Con­certs.

During his ca­reer, Farmer com­posed or­a­tor­i­os, can­ta­tas, church mu­sic, cham­ber mu­sic and nu­mer­ous school songs, es­pe­cial­ly for Harrow School. One of his best known com­po­si­tions was "For­ty Years On," which he wrote at Har­row in 1872. While at Bal­li­ol, he com­posed War­wick School’s first school song, "Here’s a Song For All", in 1892. His other works in­clude:

Cinderella
The or­a­tor­io Christ and His Sol­diers
The crick­et­ing song "Wil­low the King"

Music: FARMER

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