Shaw, Martin Edward Fallas

Composer

b Kennington, Surrey/SW London 1875, d Southwold, Suffolk 1958. Elder brother of G T Shaw qv. He studied at RCM and directed music in theatres (where he belonged to a Bohemian Chelsea set of artists, actors, dancers, writers and composers) and churches. Backed by Vaughan Williams and boldly invited by Percy Dearmer, he became organist at St Mary’s Primrose Hill, N London, from 1908, working with its incumbent on church music and liturgy. In 1915 he published Additional Tunes in Use at St Mary’s Primrose Hill, which were then included (with others) in the Public School Hymn Book and in Songs of Praise (1919, 1925). From 1920 he was Organist at St Martin-in-the-Fields in central London, and at the Guildhouse from 1924. He also served as Director of music in Chelmsford Diocese from 1935; founder of the Purcell Operatic Soc, co-founder of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Soc. He composed some 100 songs, and alone or with others edited many folksong collections and hymnals including The Oxford Book of Carols, The English Carol Book and Prayers and Hymns for Little Children (1932). His hymn-tunes have proved the most influential of his works. He wrote the autobiographical Up to Now; Lambeth DMus 1932. Nos.153=588, 218, 220*.