Lloyd, John Ambrose

Composer

b Mold, Flintshire 1815, d Liverpool 1874. Moved to Liverpool when 15, and the next year composed his first hymn tune there. A commercial traveller (representative) who had music lessons but was largely self-taught, he read avidly and bilingually, grounding himself in musical classics. In 1835 he joined Brunswick Rd Tabernacle Congregational Chapel, moving in 1841 to the new Salem Chapel to lead the music. Using Tonic Sol-Fa, he trained the choir to sing unaccompanied anthems. Helped to found the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union and adjudicated at the National Eisteddfod of Wales among others. Published collections of hymn tunes in 1843 (28 of the 229 being his own), and in 1870 (with just 2 of his), by which time he had returned to N Wales. He wrote 28 anthems and 3 cantatas including The Prayer of Habakkuk, the first work of its kind published in Wales. ‘One of those who brought a new birth to Welsh congregational music in the second half of the [19th] century’—Alan Luff. No.124.